Metal Detecting beats Prozac!

I like many of you guys have owned many metal detectors. The latest and greatest always catches my attention. Up until the last 2 or 3 years I had 25-30 detectors leaning against the walls in several rooms and I have whittled it down to 8. I love the old Compass detectors and still own several. The Compass AU-52 52khz is mindblowing in the iron, the Gold Scanner Pro is no slouch. With the old Compass detectors once I find the break point of small/medium sized nails on the disc for a particullar site, they are very pleasing with no iron grunts just silence until you hit a good target or big iron or tin which is easy to ID with experience. I like the Compass machines for those days that I just want to enjoy a leisurely hunt. I have been using the XP Goldmaxx (Mark 1 and Power) for a combined 4-5 years and love everything about them, believe what you want but I have actually dug many targets that my detecting partners F75 with boost just could not see no way no how in Disc mode or All Metal. I think it's the minerals in the soil here that XP metal detectors just seem to thrive in. I also have the Deus and love it in the iron patches, in many ways it reminds me of the old Compass AU52 in the iron with its razor-edge seperation. I find that the stock Deus programs seem to be pretty well optimized for the ground here. When I start playing with the settings it seems to become much more difficult to operate without much gain in performance. I have found with the Deus I really like Deus Fast with Pitch tone and Iron volume set at 4 a good ground balance and everything else at factory setting. It literally makes pulling tiny conductives and highly masked targets out of thick iron like taking candy from a baby. I have held on to my Etrac because I enjoy digging old coins as well as relics and nothing seems to get the old coins like the Etrac. It is especially good in peoples lawns that your not comfortable digging many holes. The Etrac makes cherry picking these places easy because the ID is so good. I like the Goldbug SE Version 29 it is very good in the iron but IMO is no match for the Deus, Goldmaxx or AU52. The Goldbug will beat the before mentioned on coin-hunting as I can run the disc up and dig the deep sounding high reading targets. I have dug many coins with it in the 8"-10" range, big silver will make a hard to describe "inverted blanked out sound" that is a dead give away. It is a very capable detector in iron patches but will get on my nerves quickly and I have gone behind it with the Deus, Goldmaxx or AU52 and found many small conductives it missed. Like Keith, Kevin and many others here, I do spend too much time thinking about detectors and different approaches on old hammered sites. I am in a very rural area in TN that has limited access to limited detecting sites so I have to make the most of each and I have found some very good pieces here.
I have been self employed for over 20 years and even though the business pretty much runs itself these days, it still can be pretty stressful at times. So I have come to the conclusion that Metal Detecting beats Prozac. LOL
Merry Christmas to all and keep Christ on your mind and in your heart.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2012 02:49PM by john37115.

Very well articulated John!

Amen as sure kept me busy for the last 20 years of retirement even though I got to know the UPS driver personally, evaded the white coat guys my wife sent and spent some bucks in the longrun....time well spent....unfortunately they have centers for all addictions but never heard of one for the hobby..Thanks for the smile my friend and like yourself enjoyed the ride...

John great to see you posting. You are correct as I often find that I think of nothing but what I am doing when detecting. It is not unlike golf where your senses have to be in tune with your tools, the site and
nature.
Merry Xmas to you and all the other members here also.

Tom in SC

John, my Deus has been keeping my right pocket (that's where the goodies go when/if I find them) from going home empty. And I have been hunting some sites SO THICK with nails, that when you set an Etrac with 5 inch coil down upon the ground in coin mode.....it nulls. And it never comes out of null. 5 inch coil! When i open the screen totally up and swing moderately slow, it sounds like a far off burst of a fast cycling machine gun. I doubt that I will ever get to dig pits at this locale. It's wgere I dug the Union Staff Officer button face two days ago. (with the Deus). I have found the same as you that the factory settings are fine. I usually set the Sens up to 98 or 99.
I really need to find at what disc level the majority of the iron will start breaking up ( I think Tom and Keith said around 2.6) and set it there and dig all hi tones. That bit of tweaking (lowering the preset disc level in Deus Fast), along with upping the sens. But other than that, as long as I can properly ground balance, and let that coil ride JUST over the ground without scrubbing (and causing excessive hi pitch whine), I will successfully pull some more historical stuff out. Maybe a coin or two. Found an Indian head there with the Deus on the day that I found the Staff Officer button. It had a 80 something number in the ground. But in the air......75 or something like that. But I dig by tones with the Deus. I am in an area where a gold dollar is a possibility.

How true!

I keep a Deus for the dirt and a Dual Field PI for the wet sand ... and I am in heaven. Nothing beats my 2 hour hunts for relaxing me and getting my thoughts geared to the good in life.

HH Joe

I love detecting beacause of the ability to clear the mind and get rid of some stress. My wife knows when I say I'm going detecting she will see me later in a much better mood. Finding targets is secondary to getting out. I hate to think how I would handle the crap of life with out this wonderful hobby. Plus I have met some really great people because of detecting.

Funny you mention the AU 52 John...I had one of those for awhile...great machine....I also like the Compass Goldscanner pro.....thats one I regret letting go.....

I would like to find a good running Auto Legend....I like the 77B auto but would like to have the Auto legend in the ergo package and I like the 100kHz that the 77's have for working though the few area that have surface nail's...which is rare for my area's....most my areas the nails are burried...

Those 77's had to work well in the western ghost towns where the nais are on the surface...


Good post...

My sentiment's exactly...

especially the CHRISTmas part...

Keith

According to my wife if I don't get out detecting in my off time I can be hard to live with......also said it probably keeps me off a fourth blood pressure med. Now if one of you would like to put a Deus out on long term loan why I might even get healthier!!!

Keith I have a Compass Auto Legend I might consider letting go if your interested.

John



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2012 10:52PM by john37115.

Getting back to therapy...
I have been a bit OCD in terms of emersion into MDing. My wife has been very understanding (often). As she is the most affordable therapist in our area I did some quick math and if I had seen her once a week for the time I have been MDing it would have cost twice what I spent on MD stuff. This covers a dozen detectors, three shovels, three diggers, five pin pointers, and too many 9v batteries to count (HHPI costs nearly $1 an hour to run!). Seeing her would have cost more than a GPX 5000! Of course her seeing this may cost more than that... Merry Christmas!
In case the world ends tomorrow I am going MDing today. HH!

Past(or)Tom
Using a Legend, a Deus 2, an Equinox 800, a Tarsacci MDT 8000, & a few others...
with my beloved, fading Corgi, Sadie



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2012 11:03PM by Pasttom.

I thought you guys could relate. I enjoy reading all your post on here.

Boy thats tempting John....

I might get with you after christmas and talk more about it...

Keith

Schematics ..photo of circuit for compass au52 etc ... thanks . ionatanterra@yahoo.com

Wow - Academy Award - Category - best “Blast from the Past”

I had one, the famous guy in Texas couldn’t fix it, but it took him six months to tell me so.

It was a great machine.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold