-Mark

Now when you break this thing out of it’s box… It looks impressive! Nice green colour, big display heavy and steadily built coils.

Everything looks good and so, now taking it into the field will tell if it’s good or not.

Out in the field:

Starting with normal coin shooting it soon started to show it’s good feature of the “sizing feature” which really describes it better then any other name.

It made me skip dozens of cans! (note: exact pinpointing is critical for correct info)

However I found out quite soon that the notch system of discrimination was not to my liking, it was way to limited but also very jumpy readings.

Other wise it did ok.

Summary:

It did ok, the sizing feature was a great idea however it way badly limited by the notch system which quite frankly is better suited for America in my opinion.

I could hardly tell if I had iron or coin under the coil.

The Beach:

Moving on to do some beach hunting I soon learned the true all metall the detector offered another 4″ (approx) in depth.

Trying to use it was again a pain due to the notch system, so I went back to the disc mode and enjoyed the trip a bit more.

It soon came apparent that the depth was up to approx 6″ in the disc mode, under the beach conditions. (which is good)

Summary:

I came home with a bit more iron then usual however the all metal can offer a good extra in hunted out conditions.

Other wise it did good and found me a few coins and other weird things.

Relic Hunting:

Well I moved on and tried it in a small iron plauged area. Quite suprisingly it was quite stable as soon as the sensitivity was lowered and much small iron was ignored.

I dug everything that wasn’t iron (or so I thought wasn’t iron) and well I got a lot of trash but a few coins, I wasn’t really impressed.

I then got a tip; dig all none jumping readings… Well Ok it might be worth a shot. I soon came to realize there where hardly any such targets.

Summary:

It did ok, but well when I’m not even able to tell iron from none ferrous at least 1/3 of the targets.. It just wears you out.

If you got the physical and mental strength to endure it for 3+ hours.. I salute you!

Since then I haven’t owned one notch based detector.

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Well when you take it out of the box… It looks plain weird, not really impressive at first. After a while I did get used to the looks of it.

You’ll note it’s easy to put together. And will need adjusting to your length, otherwise it’s going to feel real heavy. (i.e. arm cup, lower rod need adjustments)

It’s not to bad when you’ve done that.

Ok when skimming through the manual you’ll note there aren’t many adjustments, just more or less weird names for them.

Just learn them. Oh and it is a bit noes heavy, if to heavy opt for another coil.

In the field:

Park:

Well I start out at the park and play around a bit and soon I noted.. “I need a smaller coil!”

The trash was to much with a 10″ DD coil. So after getting the little Joey coil the hunt could begin!

Started him up and noise cancelled. Adjusted Auto Sens to 32 and gain to 8. And then slowly creeping around with the coil.

Started pretty quick to pick out much coinage, both deep and shallow. I was surprised what the little coil could give in depth!

After a while silver started jumping up around me, pretty much everywhere I went, boy I was excited!

This was thanks to a elderly gentleman who told us where they used to play poker back in the days. ~Hint~

Summary:

Ok well I finished our day in the park with 5 silver coins most from the 1930′s, a few early 1900′s copper coins and a 1889 copper coin.

It performed very well in the park.

Relic Hunting:

Moving to a older place of the park we went relic hunting.

Remembering the manual I turned on Ferrous sounds and began to dig like crazy!

I found to lower sensitivity among the iron and lowering disc helped significantly to find none ferrous objects among the iron.

Summary:

Some modern trash came through but a few buttons, coins and other strange things where found.

It did ignore the iron just by sound, I loved it! Very easy to operate.

Beach Hunting:

The park also has a small beach and a camping site near by, there we moved next.

Well I noticed a absence of targets so it was ok to put on a bigger coil.

Ok well targets where quite few, as expected on a inland beach.

Luckily I did get deep with the 10″ DD coil and got some coins none the less, and also my first gold ring was found then. (7.9 Grams)

The only thing I really noticed was.. The semi auto sensitivity is nice if your having a lazy day and the lack of tiny targets like foil.

Summary:

It works well on the beach to but lacks sensitivity on small targets, this might be changed by increasing gain.( I used 7-8)

Or do the opposite if much small foil is plaguing you, lower gain.

So all in all it’s a great detector, with minor flaws in balance which tends to make it feel more on the heavy side.

Some scream over slow recovery speed, don’t worry learn the sounds and slowly open the disc (iron mask) and voila! the masking problem is mostly gone.

Oh and a tip, dig ALL deep iffy signals. It might hand you a surprise.Wink

Also watch their behaviour sometimes they just jump in a general area, mostly in a sort of pattern. If you remember them it can help you dig less iron sometimes.

But sound is key, also if it sounds good which you’ll learn after a while dig it none the less. It’s still just a detector that can be fooled but it’s the operators call to dig or not.

You can learn the sounds quicker by looking at the display and associate a sound with a position on the display.Laugh

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So where shall we begin with this beast?

When you take it out of the box, it doesn’t really look much. But as soon as you turn it on and want to adjust things.. Whoaa!

Lot’s of adjustments, you could ruin a whole weeks worth of detecting if you’d start out right away and try to adjust everything.

In the beginning I really suggest you keep to factory programs and the manual.

Ok out in the field:

Park:

I start out my field test in a simple good old park.

First thing I notice, the adjustments are a blessing if you have the guts to stick with it. (but a PITA if you just wanna detect)

I of course find lot’s of targets, living in Sweden most parks have never seen a metal detector.

Much trash to comes out, I soon learn the so called “DC Phase” feature can help ID some coinage. (especially small coins)

The cans soon started to turn out to be a problem, scattered around the place both whole and cut pieces they where hard to seperate from coins.

I soon noted using VCO and doing a “+” sign over the target helped to ID some of them to my relief.

I did well with 2 hours and got well over 15 coins, inluding a few silvers and early 1900′s copper coins.

Summary:

Ok well it does very well in the park to say the least. Found several coins and various bobs and ends.

I think this is where it’s at it’s best.

Relic Hunting:

Now I bring it to a older part of the park where relic hunting is possible but much small iron plagues the ground.

Because of constant silence and a few broken signals (discrimination kicking in) I decide to lower disc so I get better tones on the none ferrous stuff. (stuff that isn’t iron)

Also recalling from the manual that Correlate frequency might help I changed it and re-ground balanced.

It was better now, the none ferrous tones where more crisp and not so broken.

Still it was beeping every second or so, so I slowed down and lowered volume which made it much more tolerable.

Summary:

It found very little but it did ok, just barely though. A smaller coil would have been prefered but none was available at that time. (forgot at home)

The heavy iron was a plague and that she was constantly chattering didn’t make it more enjoyable really.

Now I moved on to the beach at the camping grounds of the park.

Beach Hunting:

Re-ground balanced, switched to Best Data freq and made a few other adjustments then I felt ready to go.

I quickly learn much foil was at the beach but it was easy to tell by using the VCO pinpoint function as they had irregular shapes.Cool

The method was the same used on the cans in the park.

Not expecting much due to it being hit with my Explorer II I slowly remembered I hadn’t searched it all!

Now after I found the unsearched spot a while I started picking up some coins, I found one tiny child’s toy ring (which often the dentist gave kids back in the days) it was very small with a small green glass piece in.

Now I went to the hunted part of the beach and didn’t really find anything there, a few small pieces of scrap metal my Explorer missed was all.

That was quite expected.

Summary:

It works very well for beach hunting especially with a larger coil.

Note! It was written to make it stand out where the DFX excells, i.e. in which hunting styles it works best.

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