Minelab X-Terra Tips & Tricks

Try these settings on your X-Terra 505/705 For gold prospecting Gold Prospecting Not much metal rubbish Cleaning up patches. Crumbing, picking up the crumbs . These are areas that have been previously detected successfully with the deeper seeking SD/GP metal detectors. We are looking for the smaller nuggets missed. Prospecting mode Tracking on Iron Mask on Sensitivity : as high as ground conditions allow Tones: 22 Coils: 5x10 18.7kHz elliptical coil Checking quartz specimens for the presence of gold (high grading) This involves manually passing quartz pieces across the coil for a positive metal response. Prospecting mode Iron Mask off All metals mode Sensitivity: 30 Coils: 6" round DD coil or 5x10" DD 18.7kHz Detecting old campsites areas full of iron debris Disc mode Pattern1 (AM if the area is only mildly rubbishy) Tracking on Tones 4 Coils: 5x10 18.7kHz elliptical coil or standard M coil or for better separation try the 6" coil While the X-Terra detectors are very advanced discriminating detectors, they are not foolproof. You the user must decipher the audio and visual information presented by the speaker and the visual display. Beginners should listen to clean single tone target sounds ignoring the low ferrous tone hits. Larger ferrous objects should be removed to uncover possible good masked objects hiding amongst the ferrous rubbish. If you hear two toned objects it should be investigated. Just in case there is a piece of gold next to a rusted piece of tin. Remember that heavily infested areas where there are a multitude of targets of various conductivities will present a challenge to the detector and your ears. Nice round and ring shaped ferrous objects can give a false signal (high tone) Thin sheet like iron objects like match boxes and crown seals can also give off a high tone. It is not that the detector is lying it is a case of oxide layers on the metal surface that are very conductive. The original object was perhaps tin plated. In the rusting process all we can see is the rust and not the original plating agent below the surface that is giving off the high tone. For advanced users try using 99 tones. This will result in more precise target information giving us more sounds to tell us that we are dealing with a difficult shape or with 2 conductive targets together. Response on gold nuggets Don't expect gold to be highly conductive, it is not. Natural gold nuggets can vary greatly in composition and shape. For this reason it can give a response from low-mid tone to a high tone with corresponding changing numbers. In highly infested areas try using the smaller 5x10 elliptical coil for improved target separation. I urge you to experiment. Never be afraid of reducing the sensitivity and lifting your coil to gain more stable operation and less jumping numbers. It is up to you to learn your detectors language. The day will come when they will yell out "gold, gold" or "nail, nail" . In the meantime, if everything fails, as my grandfather used to say: " If in doubt, dig it out" Copyright © 2005 -2007 All rights reserved

Try these settings on your X-Terra 505/705

For gold prospecting

Gold Prospecting Not much metal rubbish Cleaning up patches. Crumbing, picking up the crumbs .

These are areas that have been previously detected successfully with the deeper seeking SD/GP metal detectors. We are looking for the smaller nuggets missed.

Prospecting mode Tracking on Iron Mask on Sensitivity : as high as ground conditions allow Tones: 22 Coils: 5x10 18.7kHz elliptical coil

Checking quartz specimens for the presence of gold (high grading) This involves manually passing quartz pieces across the coil for a positive metal response.

Prospecting mode Iron Mask off All metals mode Sensitivity: 30 Coils: 6" round DD coil or 5x10" DD 18.7kHz

Detecting old campsites areas full of iron debris

Disc mode Pattern1 (AM if the area is only mildly rubbishy) Tracking on Tones 4 Coils: 5x10 18.7kHz elliptical coil or standard M coil or for better separation try the 6" coil

While the X-Terra detectors are very advanced discriminating detectors, they are not foolproof. You the user must decipher the audio and visual information presented by the speaker and the visual display.

Beginners should listen to clean single tone target sounds ignoring the low ferrous tone hits. Larger ferrous objects should be removed to uncover possible good masked objects hiding amongst the ferrous rubbish. If you hear two toned objects it should be investigated. Just in case there is a piece of gold next to a rusted piece of tin.

Remember that heavily infested areas where there are a multitude of targets of various conductivities will present a challenge to the detector and your ears.

Nice round and ring shaped ferrous objects can give a false signal (high tone)

Thin sheet like iron objects like match boxes and crown seals can also give off a high tone. It is not that the detector is lying it is a case of oxide layers on the metal surface that are very conductive. The original object was perhaps tin plated. In the rusting process all we can see is the rust and not the original plating agent below the surface that is giving off the high tone.

For advanced users try using 99 tones. This will result in more precise target information giving us more sounds to tell us that we are dealing with a difficult shape or with 2 conductive targets together.

Response on gold nuggets

Don't expect gold to be highly conductive, it is not. Natural gold nuggets can vary greatly in composition and shape. For this reason it can give a response from low-mid tone to a high tone with corresponding changing numbers.

In highly infested areas try using the smaller 5x10 elliptical coil for improved target separation. I urge you to experiment. Never be afraid of reducing the sensitivity and lifting your coil to gain more stable operation and less jumping numbers. It is up to you to learn your detectors language. The day will come when they will yell out "gold, gold" or "nail, nail" . In the meantime, if everything fails, as my grandfather used to say: " If in doubt, dig it out"