Out with the Safari in with the Sovereign GT

Ok just traded my Safari for a Sovereign GT. This is not because I disliked my Safari, because I did not. In fact I had thought several times about trading for an Etrac but was never convinced it would do much more for me then my Safari would. My main reason for getting the GT is I am making a trip to Florida this December and plan on getting at least knee deep hunting the beaches. I would be stupid to take my Safari more then ankle deep. So by getting the GT now I will at least have some swinging time under my belt before I hit the beach. Since it is a minelab BBS machine low and slow still applies. I have a pretty good idea how deep my Safari would go so it will be interesting to compare. Also interested to see how she does in the heavy trash of my local parks. I was always amazed now my safari would work its magic and find a needle in a haystack for me. Hopping the GT can pull off some magic tricks of her own. She is scheduled to arrive this Thursday.

Bryanna

I like hunting the dirt with a small coil. The Tornado 8" or S-8 are nice. You did not mention if you got a meter or not. Maybe you did. It's early morning here. I'm still waking up. But a 180 meter can help you pick your way through the targets. I chest mount my GT for hunting so I went with Joe Patricks Meter mod. A little expensive, but the meters seem to all be climbing in price. You know the deal. Slow and steady.

For chest mounting I use a Sovereign bag with two straps. One around my neck. The other around my back to keep it from swinging out when I bend over. I also go knee deep with mine while I have it chest mounted. On the beach a meter is not really needed. If it gives good tone dig it.

Hi Bryanna,I think you'll like the tones better,that's what kepte from going explorer,etrac . What coil do you have
? I used an old ,solid s-12 for depth/ coverage,and a s-5 for seperation in extreme trash. When you get the hang of it,you may wanna check out the coils Critter has mentioned. You may want to try this at the sight you talked of with super deep coins.....put in all metal,and listen for those super deep whispers. When you get one,switch to disc and if it nulls..iron,if not,do wiggle and if you can get the high tone,or get it to try to go high,dig it. Btw,I never add any disc,always.leave it on zero,since its all about tones. Good luck,and keep us posted.

As someone said to me " any detector is only limited by the detectorist "
Getting to know your machine and walking over items are the only way to increase your finds.
Best of luck with your new machine.

They say there is a top for every kettle and the ability to body mount just might be your cup of tea...Remember again its all about tones and learning your unit. A meter is not that important on the beach or in the water where you dig all but imperative for land use..Loads of info on the net and a lot of forum members with Sov. Savy so any questions fire away. Good luck with your new unit and be prepared for a different set of tones which may or may not be to your liking.

Yes Got the 180 Meter, The unit was purchased new in February of this year and was purchased with the meter and the hip/chest mount bag. Ok - A stupid Question - What is a Joe Patricks Meter Mod? I figured to leave the meter off when Beach Hunting like you mentioned.

Thanks

Bryanna

goodmore Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I like hunting the dirt with a small coil. The
> Tornado 8" or S-8 are nice. You did not mention if
> you got a meter or not. Maybe you did. It's early
> morning here. I'm still waking up. But a 180 meter
> can help you pick your way through the targets. I
> chest mount my GT for hunting so I went with Joe
> Patricks Meter mod. A little expensive, but the
> meters seem to all be climbing in price. You know
> the deal. Slow and steady.
>
> For chest mounting I use a Sovereign bag with two
> straps. One around my neck. The other around my
> back to keep it from swinging out when I bend
> over. I also go knee deep with mine while I have
> it chest mounted. On the beach a meter is not
> really needed. If it gives good tone dig it.

I have gone from an XLT to a DFX to a Safari and now a Sov GT. I have to say I never really cared for the Tones on my Whites machines. Just did not sing to me. When I got my Safari right off the bat the tones just made more sense and where much easier to live with then the Whites Tones. I have listened to several videos and all though different then Safari still have a sweeter and more musical tone that seems more pleasant. I have heard the Sov GT Null now i do not think it is that pleasant but neither is Digging Iron so maybe it makes sense.

Dan-Pa. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> They say there is a top for every kettle and the
> ability to body mount just might be your cup of
> tea...Remember again its all about tones and
> learning your unit. A meter is not that important
> on the beach or in the water where you dig all but
> imperative for land use..Loads of info on the net
> and a lot of forum members with Sov. Savy so any
> questions fire away. Good luck with your new unit
> and be prepared for a different set of tones which
> may or may not be to your liking.

I don't typically hawk merchandise here, but I would advise you get a copy of Gary Drayton's book on beach hunting with the Sovereign. It is excellent!

I had saw that book online before and wondered if it was a good read - now I know Thanks

smudge Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't typically hawk merchandise here, but I
> would advise you get a copy of Gary Drayton's book
> on beach hunting with the Sovereign. It is
> excellent!

[home.comcast.net]

Just a digital meter installed where the speaker is. It will void your warranty for sure. But he always does a very nice job with the install. I think this might be the fifth Sovereign I have had done.

No cables to get in the way of chest mounting. Of course headphones are a must after the install.

I'd only consider that Insight meter if you only plan to hip or chest mount forever after, because once it's done you can't use an external meter with that Sovereign anymore. Also, it does not work with SEF coils. The coils will work but the Insight Meter is the only one that won't ID targets with SEF coils for some reason. There is a possible fix Joe Patrick put on detecting equipment.com for the Insight meter but so far as I know nobody has tried this fix to see if it will ID with SEF coils, which involves putting a jumper on one of the pins if I remember right.

I prefer external meters myself, as they are obviously easier to see when the control box is mounted on the shaft, and some even hip or chest mount the control box but still have the meter on the shaft, while even others will hip or chest mount the meter ALONG with the control box. Me? I don't like hip mounting, and I only chest mount when water hunting, so I built a light weight shaft and did a few other mods to drop close to a pound and a half off the weight of the GT. Easy stuff, really, involving a Whites tall man lower carbon fiber rod, a lighter gauge upper aluminum shaft (from a extending Unger window cleaning pole), a aluminum bike end bar for a hand grip (with rubber grip over it), a Whites arm cup (the stock GT arm cup weighs HALF A POUND!), ditching the coil cover and using spray on bed liner to protect it, and running a 3 cell lipo in the battery holder. Even installed a remote PP switch inside the bike end bar hanging down like a Whites trigger, although I rarely use PP mode anymore and prefer to PP in discriminate mode. Sometimes PP mode won't hear a super deep target while discriminate of course always does.

Biggest advice is no notch or discrimination. Only time I use notch is in a park loaded with tabs and I'm ring hunting, as by raising the notch just barely high enough to kill a 165 tab it will block 12.5 digits down from there, thus killing I think (from memory) 84% of all known square and round tabs. Of course it's easy enough to just make a mental note of the start and end of where tabs are and then dig all else without a notch, but it's nice to have the quiet using a notch when a site is just a sea of tabs and the notch will give you mental clearity to hear everything else. There are days when I want that. You can also raise or lower the notch from that 165 spot as conditions dictate, say if there are just a few pesky tabs right above or below that notch range. Just adjust over one in small movements until it just hardly kills it.

Noise band 2, which matches all charts. Iron Mask ON for best ability to pull coin signals out of iron. FOR SURE run in Auto sensitivity for a while until you learn how the machine should act and it's threshold should be. Once you know that you can use manual, but remember....Threshold keeps dropping out...try slowing down your sweep....still dropping out?...scan over the same spot several times. If it keeps dropping out there then it's iron, but if it doesn't all the time then either sensitivity is too high or you are swinging too fast. Always try to slow down before lowering sensitivity. A sweet spot on sensitivity for many in bad ground seems to be about 3PM, or if not that, then pointing right at the "C" in noise cancel on the face plate. REMEMBER: The sensitivity control goes HIGHER the more COUNTERCLOCKWISE you go, until it finally clicks into Auto. That's an odd thing I've never seen on a detector. Usually the more clockwise you turn sensitivity the higher it goes. Not so on the Sovereign.

When you come across a target stop and wiggle or short sweep constantly out of it to pull the best ID and tone. Much more import at depth too. The manual says adjust to 170 on the meter. That's a misprint. Adjust to 180 on a quarter or dime. However, I never do, as I found with the Digisearch meter that when the machine resets here and there it should read -506 on the meter if it's calibrated to go 180 on a dime or quarter, so I never lay one day to adjust it. I just thump the coil on the ground (high sensitivity helps) to reset the machine and then adjust.

Of course dig all for a while to learn this machine. It's going to take time. Avoid the urge to throw it out the car window. It will get better with time, I promise. But, some people just don't like certain machines, so you may reach a point where you decide it's not for you. I know of several Sovereign guys who bought one, sold it, bought one again, and then finally clicked with the machine when they put the time into it.

What's confusing is the switches. There is a all metal fixed, tracked, and pinpoint mode. Keep it in PP mode. Now, with the other switch there is disc iron mask off, disc iron mask on, and all metal. Keep it in disc iron mask on, and when you want to PP throw it to all metal and it will turn control over to which ever mode the all metal switch is set at...In this case it's set at PP mode so that's what it goes into. That was the most confusing thing to me at first.

Great advice Critter,especially the car window. when I first got the de,it was so different from what I was used to( tesoro),that I swear I was gonna wrap it around a tree. I ended up calling Paul(ca) and asked for tips. Finally it clicked,and it was my main detector for over 10 years. I just recently sold it,going back to beep dig units,but I'm sure I'll get another and try the coils you mentioned.

.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2012 07:37AM by TerraDigger.

Hate when my phone tries to spell for me...meant xs,not de

Thanks, for the tips her first hunt is tomorrow. It will be a start of a long and I hope fruitful learning curve. I am sure I will have many questions to post tomorrow.

Just don't get p*ssed off and give up right away. This machine takes time for you to warm up to it. Biggest advice is that coins will sound big enough to be can tops at first. That really threw me off because of the long drawn out audio. Run in Auto until you know how it should act too.

Ok first hunt is over and she almost got tossed in the lake. Only kidding but I did have some issues:

1. Ergonomics - I decided to chest mount her after some fumbling I got her around my neck without hanging myself. So far so good. Now I start the hunt, the coil feels ok a little front heavy but really not bad and much less weight then my safari. Now let's see a possible target lets dig - oops where does the detector go it is strapped to me with a short leash hmmm fumble - puzzled look ok hold it and dig with one hand hmm ackward - need longer leash. Next time I may try mounting her on the rod, but I have no stand and really do not want to lay her in the fresh dewy grass - may need one of those stand things to keep her out of the dirt and the dew. The last issue is the placement of the meter, is it just me or is it very hard to see in its stock mounting location - it was hard to tell a 7 from a 1 at the sharp angle - got to figure out a better way.

2. Search Setup - had several options on how to set her up for the hunt. Noticed a lot of people on the net used pinpoint to search and the switched to Discriminate to check the target. So that is the way I started, not bad but lots of switching and no real indication of what treasure lies below until you switch back to discriminate. The next method I have seen used is silent search in discriminate mode. Tried this a little later in the hunt - it was ok but but I would get random squeaks and squawks breaking the silence with no additional feedback other then the tone it made then diligence again. So then I decided to search in the more traditional method - with a low threshold - now what I liked about this method is when ever I would get a good tone the threshold tone would raise or lower to match the tone of the target detected low grunt keep walking medium and high stop and investigate - at least that is how I approached it not really sure if that was a good plan or not. Still not sure the best way, I am sure each method has its advantages and disadvantages just not sure what they are yet.

I kind of felt like I was dropped in the middle of mainland China where no one speaks English and the signs are all in Chinese. You kind of feel lost and confused because you have nothing to guide you. I am sure with time I will start to understand more of what she is telling me and will learn to read her numbers better - patients I need patients. The Safari made way more sense out of the box.

My gut is telling me she is as deep if not deeper then my Safari. I have not confirmed that yet but with some more time I will know better.

176 was a bottle cap - go figure and 163 is a 6 inch can slaw. Can not remember the other junk I found. Did not really dig as much as I would like because the Ergonomics had me a little on the uncomfortable/ackward side.

Any comments or tips will be very much appreciated.

Bryanna


critterhunter Wrote:
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> Just don't get p*ssed off and give up right away.
> This machine takes time for you to warm up to it.
> Biggest advice is that coins will sound big enough
> to be can tops at first. That really threw me off
> because of the long drawn out audio. Run in Auto
> until you know how it should act too.

I saw you waaay over there on the other side of the lagoon today. I got there at 6:00am and lasted until 12:30. That grass was WET early on!
Interesting hunt for me today...

I did not see you darn! - would of come over. Got to get back out and learn this new machine - how did the silver count go hope your digs went well. Only had a few hours to hunt I think the silver can feel safe for awhile at least from me - I know you have those silvers trembling in their graves

Bryanna

I always found discrimination mode to be deeper. I have never hunted in all metal mode. A smaller coil helps with the learning curve.

The machine is balanced better with the box on the shaft, so it's a trade off of weight or balance based on chest mounting or not. I just built a light weight shaft and a few other mods and dropped a pound and a half off my GT, so I keep it on the shaft myself. I also didn't care for the grip so I'm using a bike end bar and a rubber grip cover on that that is much more comfortable (and lighter) than the stock grip. I think I said the arm cup is a pig at half a pound! So I use a Whites for that. The lower shaft is fiberglass and heavy, so I use a Whites tall man carbon fiber rod for that, and a lighter gauge aluminum upper rod. I only chest mount when water hunting.

For the meter...I have mine mounted on top of the hand grip. Go to a home improvement store and look for copper pipe hangers for like $2. Drill out the rivets of the V clip on the shaft for the meter. Shorten the pipe hanger's strap, screw two flat head screws into the v-clip/strap to put them together. Now you can mount the meter anywhere on the shaft, or even on the grip if you want.

Only a few hunt in PP or all metal and then check in discriminate. Actually using PP is more popular on the Xcal beach hunting as some say it gets PI depth that way. But, many of us Sovereign guys believe PP or all metal is NOT any deeper than discriminate on the Sovereign, so hardly any of us use that. I know that if I use PP mode to PP a deep target often PP can not hear it at all while discriminate can. For that reason I just PP in discriminate by wiggling at the target with the tip of the coil until I just hear it from two angles and mark it that way. Some use the center with discriminate too, but I like the tip. Also, when a coin is mixed in trash PP can sound off over a large area with no way to tell targets apart. That's why I also prefer discriminate to PP as I know I'm isolating the coin. Besides, in PP mode sometimes even without other nearby targets it will sound off over a big area, probably due to microscopic iron in the soil.

I only use silent search when hunting for long periods without any signals such as scouting the woods, but once a target is found I go back to threshold mode as the tone change is key to finding targets you just nicked or are super deep, as it holds the tone of the last target it saw. Even if I'm hunting the woods for long times without signals I rarely will use silent search. But, I think Minelab says you can pick up the speed a bit in silent search, so that might be a good mode for clad hunting swinging a bit faster, and also because you don't need a threshold for clads and it'd be easier on the battery not hearing it. Some think that perhaps flipping to silent search and then bringing the threshold just high enough to hear again it might act as a signal or audio boost because silent search has to boost the signal to overcome the silent threshold so you can hear it, so by bringing the threshold up to where you can hear it again it should maybe make deep stuff louder and such. I haven't tried that myself yet to see on a deep one.

Also, if you seem to not be getting deep stuff then try slowing way down with your sweep. On the other hand, some argue a somewhat faster sweep gives them more depth. I think it all depends on the soil myself. Probably higher minerals need slower sweep. I'm still going back and fourth on a super slow crawl hitting deeper than a somewhat medium sweep deepest. Not sure which does yet, but the old experts all seem to say crawl so I have to believe that's the way to go.

Are you talking about the silent search mod where you move the pin? I always did that to my sobs,but would still turn up the threashold to hear mulling. Seemed to run smoother and deeper that way.

Would of never thought to run in silent and then turn the threshold up until it could be heard again. On Ergonomics have noticed some use the Whites S rod vs the straight moves the TID front and center as well. Need to look in this - so far not a huge fan of the straight shaft.

Bryanna

deathray Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Are you talking about the silent search mod where
> you move the pin? I always did that to my sobs,but
> would still turn up the threashold to hear
> mulling. Seemed to run smoother and deeper that
> way.

Hi Bryana,you may want to.do the mods Critter did too loosen the load. My set up was heavy...had the sunray meter and probe,along with the big 12 inch coil. Never bothered me though,maybe because I'm a roofer.

One thing I like to do in alot of trash wiht the sovereign is use good headphones and turnthe volume back on the machine it will narrow target's up...it will misss some deepies but it condenses the drawn out sounds into shorter hit's....try it on some air test notice how narrow sound ing they get at half volume compared to wide open volume...

it removes some of the sound through the digital signal processing...

On deep isolated target you want it wide open to get the full sound of the target...


I dont do it all the time but it will have it's uses in some spot's..


Never been a fan of the silent search ....I like to keep it barely humming but in my dirt to kee it humming smooth without drops it takes a setting close to as low as it will go.....Some will say that to get the best depth you need to run it were the thresh does not drop in and out in disc but I never found any depth trying to get it to stay steady...

I run mine on manual sens clicked right out of auto which is wide open when looking for the deepies...I dont worry about the threshold null's as long as the machine is not falsing from E.M.I. or rarely if ever ground noise..

Wide open will dig .58 caliber minies at an honest 14 inches with the white 8 inch coin search coil I ahve seent he 11 inch coin search coil get them at 16+..theses depth are using reverse discrimination.. ...They will sound like little baby kittie cat's meowing off in a distance once you get the target centered up under the coil...High silver hits are like this too...Once you dig a sweet sounding high silver deep hit you will not worry about a meter I promise...The tones will tell you mor ethan the meter in my opinion...pullt tabs have unique sound...nickles have a smooth sound solid tone and high coin's above zinc have a beautiful high tone and deep silver is very unique...

Keith

Hey Keith, do you mind if I quote a few of your posts to post on another forum meant just for the Sovereign? You've got some good info I've never even heard before in all my reading over the last 3 years or so on this machine. Where you been hiding, bud? :')