DetectingWales.com

iv been reading a lot of reviews about the ultimate coil for the safari/explorer/etrac ect.
People do seem to love them !!
I was reading that they can pick up a coin even if there is iron on or next to it.
My 11 inch procoil on safari will not pick up a hammered coin on the surface of the soil if there is iron below it (when i found my last one i wated to check the signal sound so put it on the ground in the field and nearly lost it again as i put it down on iron)
do ultimate coils really outperform procoils on iron infested sites or would i be better off buying a smaller coil and winkling between iron.

i have the ultimate coil on my safari ,i do feel it out performs the procoil but if there is a lot of iron etc because it covers a larger surface area it can be hard to seperate them out , i also have a small  coiltek joey coil which is great in high trash and Stubble and still goes quite deep,
So in all i have 3 coil size which all have there uses small medium and large and would not be without any of them, i must admit of the 3 coils i use the ultimate most of the time.

As BM has said the ultimate has a greater surface area and so in highly contaminated areas it will suffer the same as any large coil and for those areas your suspicion of needing a smaller coil is the way to go but where the Ultimate does out perform the Pro coil is it's ability to signal two targets I don't mean two individual signals but the tone you get is completely wrong for either the id number or smart screen, where these may give an iron reading the coil sort of averages out the tones :-\ I had a silver denarius a couple of years ago which according to the screen was iron all the way to the bank but the tone just didn't match, when dug the denarius gave the correct reading but deeper in the hole was a large piece of iron. ;)

I use a explorer se with the ultimate coil {well now I do ;D}, I have used the pro coil on the explorer for years and thought that it would take some beating, but I must say having used this ultimate coil twice now I can see it out performs the pro coil and I base this on several factors ,, I have only took the ultimate coil on a field that I had given up on some time ago {I have been tectin this said farm for close to 8 years} as a test and with the ground being so dry I wasn't holding out much hope but my last 2 decent finds have come from there using the ultimate and ive only done a 30 metre wide strip of the field,,, this thing is deep I aint one for measuring holes but looking at the hole once the object is retrieved I cant help thinking how the hell did I get that ?,,, with the coil being so big you would think it was heavy , its no heavier than a pro coil and the signals it picks up are clear and crisp,,,, im now looking foreward to going all over the other fields ive done in the past cause I know this thing will do the bizz ;D

Hope Ctx gets a ultimate coil  ;D

Are any particular coils better in mineralised ground ? or is all to do with the machine and ite frequancy ?

Smaller coils are better in mineralised ground

yes thanks for that, 

 ive gone down from a sef 15" to a 12"  and still a problem also ive  reduced sensitivety and going slow  i have explorer se smaller coil again maybe ?

ultimate coils kick ass especially on my etrac ;).hits rings at a ft plus

Ulitmate is good but on trashy ground I prefere the nel sharpeshooter coil.

carling,   i notice you use the explorer se same as me , how do you cope in minerialised ground if you have it with not have having a ground balance ? im finding on some fields i have to reduce sensitivity down to 20 or even 17 to get a hum !

David all the Explorers, XS, II, and SE work the same, they do ground balance but automatically I've got land that you can't detect much above a sensitivity of 9 so count yourself lucky if you can get 17 and remember your using way to big coils for mineralised land and a sens of 17 on a WOT coil could equal 27 on an 8" coil ;)

hi geoff  i tried a  wot instead of a 15" sef but found the wot not so good on our beaches when the sef would be great .

 but back to mineralised ground  as i say i've gone down to a 12 " sef from the 15" sef  as thats what i had , perhaps the 15 b" wot would be a better option the wot i have is the all terrain 2029 not sure if there are alternative wots  ? or i have the best one

I just think some people try to hard  ;D,,,ive never had me explorer sensitivity below 29 in the umpteen years I been using it and on many many varied sites ,, I dunno I must be the explorer master  ;D,,anyways enough tectin talk I been painting the house for what seems like years so the only thing ive swung lately is a paintbrush ;D

most likely you will be missing a lot of targets with the sensitivity set so high as the machine will be nulling out a lot , that would be the case on most of my ground

all machines null out to certain degree on any site and the more action a site sees or the older it is the more they null out ,,I always find having your sensitivity up high makes the tiny deep signals that much easier to pick up,,,i prefer my machine nulling out as if you know your sites you can work out where the most activity was.

on some of the highly minerllised groiund i detect on at 29 the se would be nulled out all the time,  so would only pick up  a signal on the most obvious of targets

that's crazy,, only once I had to knock me sensitivity down and that's because the field was full of coke,,as for this obvious target business ,, we must have special dirt in Herefordshire  ;D

 ???No Paul when it's nulling it's not detecting and if I remember correctly you run with far more disc on your screen than most so you'll be detecting even less, but of course there could be something wrong with yours as mine and most never have a problem with coke ;D
As I said before David detecting with an open screen is your answer, there are no easy outs either put up with the noise or lower the sens/audio gain or you could fool yourself and buy a machine that hasn't got a threshold and hasn't got the sensitivity in the first place ;)

I know,  but if i go the beach i can ramp it up to 30 - 32 no problem   to get a decent hum / thresh thold im down to 17-20 geoff was saying on some land he detects on its down to 9 !  but you need that contstant hum or you do miss stuff   you must have some great ground , i do hav esome farms where 25 - 27 if fine

I must be a rubbish tectorist then ;D,, oh well back to the painting :D,, I always thought nulling was when you was going over iron ;D

nulling is when you go over anything you have descriminated out , but when its nulling you are not detecting the good stuff

geoff what would be your coil and size of coil of choice for mineralised ground ?   and running in all metal , i usually run in cinductive , would you switch to ferrous for ease on the ears ?

Paul is right in saying that nullling is a sign of iron not normal mineralisation but if you have like iron ore or pyrites then it will null, I use the Minelab rule of thumb in that the more iron you have the less disc you can use, yes this can make your ears bleed ;D yes ferrous can be a little less painful on your ears than conductive but the machine isn't going to do it all for you and a little suffering is good for the soul :D :D :D
The Minelab 7.5", coilteck joey 5"X 10" or Detech 8"X 6" SEF would be my choice when stepping down in size.
If you have a lot of land with this problem then I would probably look at getting a second machine, probably a Tesoro or Laser as they are very good around iron and won't burn too big a hole in your wallet ;)

the ground is a red colour on the worst farms,  so as you say is proberbly  iron but anyway its nulling the machine out whatever it is   what is it that makes the tesoro etc better on ground with iron ?

I know what the screen looks like on me kit ,, but I don't bother looking at it,, all I do is run in iron mask {about 21-22} and dig everything that sounds half decent.

That's what I mean with IM 21-22 I'm surprised you find anything :D far too much discrimination for any iffy signals ;)

your kit must be faulty  ;D

I dont think so,  its fine on the beach right up to max sensitivity   , its  just in red soil a problem   i see in andy sabasch book most are reconmending sensivity around 17 - 20

I seem to have been here before.  Nulling, red soil etc.   I have the Safari and have found that the way to go is 'All Metal' which is Ferrous,  'Low Trash' for quicker recovery, Sensitivity 16/17,  Go very slow,  dig anything that so much as squeaks and use a NEL sharpshooter, or similar. Forget the big coils on this sort of ground, they pick up too much all at the same time and I think you're more likely to miss the odd good signal.

Always carry some pain killers and plasters  ::) ;D   

Geoff, where's that excellent explanation of mineralised ground that you posted. Had a quick look but couldn't find it.

Val 

ignore my previous post on how good the ultimate coil is ;D,, yes its still good but on a quiet field with the odd good signal or pasture or even rolled dirt,,but I took it out on the 1st stubble of the season today a very highly mineralised field where there were signals a plenty a did manage a hamster and roman grot with the coil but that was me for the day as I called it a day as the coil was doing my nut in ,,little tweaks and chirps and seem as I was running in iron mask at 18 I was surprised how much iron sounds really good ;D,,the good signals were few and far between {if you don't count the iron} and even the good hits were no deeper than usual ,,,back to my fbs slimline me thinks and keep the ultimate for when I know its going to be a site where you struggle to find anything... I could see this coil being good on floodplain?