I have had my MXT for more then a year and I have logged many hours.
I have a fine collection of clad coins and one mercury dime. Of course I also have a fine
collection of foil, pop tops, iron junk, keys, batteries , and a great sardine can!
My confusion lies with my club cronies ability to find rings and gold coins. I can scan an area and miss the good targets, but find all the common coins (and trash). I feel I am missing some fundamental bit of info to improve my target ID or something. What does gold sound like? I have found two silver rings that showed as a quarter.
Can someone help me become a journeyman on my MXT? I have about every coil made for this unit. I live in campbell and I will buy lunch for any willing tutor who would like to give me a primer. Thanks, Poptop

Hi Poptop,

A couple of possibilities that you need to sort out. First is, has your loop actually gone over a gold coin or jewelry? They are not all over the place you know.

The second aspect is, if your loop was to go over such a target, have you set up your detector so that it would beep at you?

Check my post on http://forums.kinzlicoils.com/index.php?showtopic=7507.
I found it at a grade school in Campbell. I dare say that gold that small is a challenge, even for an MXT.

Be aware that if you go after gold jewelry, you shouldn't run the discrimination setting at the factory preset. You'll get the larger gold rings, but miss most of the
smaller pieces. In potential gold bearing areas, I set my MXT discrimination at 2.

If you think you have plenty of aluminum foil now .... :)

Also, check the Tips & Techniques board at the White's Forum on Treasurenet. HH.

Hi Poptop,

First, welcome to the forum! :)

I've had my MXT for almost a year now, and I feel your pain. Although I usually hunt at older coin and relic sites, and therefore am not out really looking for gold rings or gold coins (clears throat)........ I'm wondering are your "club cronies" 'really' finding gold coins?? If so, we'd all like to hear about them! :D

Anyway, if I were out in parks, tot lots, and school yards with my MXT and wanted to eliminate many foil and pulltabs and go for the gold rings, here's what I'd keep in mind:

1. Unfortunately, with the MXT (and other detectors) most gold rings (and coins) read in the Foil/Pulltab range. Bottom line is you're going to dig quite a few pulltabs and foils for every gold ring or coin you find.

2. Trust your VDI numbers. The only gold ring I've found is a 14K thin, plain men's wedding band. It registered a solid +20 on the VDI. I thought it was a nickel. I'd set my discrimination (Dual Control) slightly below the "nickel/pulltab" range at 4 1/2.

3. Again, learn your VDI numbers. Pay less attention to the descriptive readout (Foil, 5c/Ring, 5c/Pulltab, Pulltab/Ring, whatever .). I've spent hours air-testing more than a dozen of my own and my wifes gold rings. Every single one reads between +14 to +24, and +42 to +67. If I were going for gold rings, I probably wouldn't dig anything under +14, or between +24 and +42.

4. Some gold coins will read up into the +30 to +35 range. Lowering the Gain Setting to around 6 or 7 will bring the VDI number readings for gold coins down into the +20 to +24 range without sacrificing much (if any) depth.

5. Location, location, location. In other words, you're probably not going to find many gold rings where there is a good potential for gold coins, nor are you going to find many gold coins where rings are to be had. On older relic sites, I dig most every target so as not to miss a gold coin (someday I'll find one :unsure: ), but in parks and tot lots, etc., I only dig signals well into the coin range (VDI +70 or above) and from +14 to +24, or above +42.

I hope my advice gets you less trash and more gold, but you're still gonna' dig quite a few pulltabs and foil for every bit of gold you find. It's the nature of the beast, but you're also helping the environment by gettin' rid of a lot of trash! :rotfl:

HH,

Rick

Riverside Mark and Gerber should jump in this topic. I know that Mark had found over dozen gold rings a braclets last year. So these guys could give you some tips too.

Thomas

Location location location!

This site might help also:

http://nevada-outback-gems.com/MXT_files/MXT_basepage.htm

Poptop, I am glad you asked the question as I am trying to master the MXT and have yet to dig up any gold jewelry. Have been lurking the various forums to learn all I can from the "masters" of this addictive hobby. Anyway, Bottleguy, why do you suggest turning the gain down to 6 or 7, I don't understand what this would do to help in finding gold? Sorry if this is a dumb question....

Nancy

Hi Nancy,

There's no such thing as a dumb question....... only stupid answers!! ;)

I hope this isn't one of them. :lol:

Anyway, think of the Gain as "sensitivity". The higher the Gain, the more sensitive the MXT is to metal objects, especially high-conductors like gold. Ever notice that when you hit a larger metal object that makes your MXT SCREAM at you and gives you a Gain Overload reading, if you raise the coil and pass over the object again it doesn't overload, and the further away from the object you pass the coil, the lower the VDI number gets? Try it and you'll see what I mean.

My comment about lowering the gain in order to bring the VDI numbers down for gold coins was based on air-testing my MXT with the only gold coins I have (given to me, not found).



As I mentioned in my earlier post, these $2 1/2 dollar gold coins give a solid VDI reading of +35 when air-tested at around 6-inches away from the coil with the Gain set at the factory preset, or a little above at +1 or +2. When I lower the Gain to around 6 or 7, the same gold coins give a VDI reading around +20 to +24 at 6-inches, thereby falling into the "diggable" range of +14 to +24 for gold rings and coins that I described in my earlier post. By lowering the Gain a bit, you are lowering the sensitivity of the MXT to high-conductive targets (like gold), which in turn will slightly lower the VDI number the MXT gives you for those targets.

But, as I mentioned in my earlier post, when I'm out in older sites where there is a higher potential for gold coins, I usually dig just about everything.

I hope this makes sense, and if I'm wrong about this, I hope someone can correct me.

Thanks,

Rick

Howdy Poptop, welcome to the forum! your asking good questions and we'll try and help ya. I have an Mxt also for about a year now, it takes alot of practice but you have to turn the gain down, when I did that I've been scooping up paper clips, nails, pulltaps, one gold ring recently, two gold braclets, gold ear rings and about a dozen silver rings. If you have a gold braclets or gold coin or what ever has gold on it take it out back test it with you detector and try all the different modes possible with it. It will help to hear the sounds weak and the strong ones, bottom line dig up everything ,the VDI is great to ID your finds but you can easly miss'em too! HH cowboy tom

Bottleguy

Thank you so much for your response ! Beautiful coins I might add :) I have played around with the gain while out hunting and was under the misconception that higher sensitivity was better and did notice that at times a penny would appear to be a "sure" quarter. I am still in the learning phase as just got the MXT in August 06 and this time of year I have found out that frozen ground is virtually undiggable (this last week was able to dig down about 3 inches max).

Will try the lower gain setting and continue on with the learning curve. I think I finally hear the difference between pull tabs and nickels even though up here the nickels can jump around alot with the VDI numbers (not always but I have been surprised at times). Again, thanks for your help.

Nancy

I have an MXT also and have been using for a couple of years now. Everyone here has given you great advicce and I can only add three things to it that may help you for now.

1.) The MXT is inherently noisy...very,very very noisy. Don't let all that noise discourage you. :bang:

2.) Set your gain at 9 and your discrimination around 1.9 / 2 and do all of this while in relic mode with your trigger forward. You will be suprised at what you missed before.

3.) When in doubt DIG<DIG<DIG

I have a link to a very good read on using the MXT around here somewhere. I'll see if I can find it for you.

Hope this helps!

DAve :D

Poptop, I've been fortunate to find quite a few pieces of gold jewelry with my MXT, and I can tell you one thing: there is no secret to this! I have dug probably hundreds of pounds of junk in the four years or so that I've owned my MXT, and I have yet to find some secret formula for finding gold. The first obstacle is that there just isn't that much of it relative to all the other targets you will dig. It's always a surprise and a treat to find! The fact is, gold can camoflage anywhere in the 12-42 VDI range, and there's really no shortcut to finding it: you will have to dig a lot of trash if you want to find gold. I've found gold rings as low as 6-8 VDI and as high as 40-42. However, pay particular attention to the 12-20 range. All I can really recommend is that you dig a lot of targets, and that you avoid targets that vary widely in VDI: these will tend to be trash, although I've heard from MXT users that even gold sometimes varies in VDI, particularly at depth. So the upshot of this is, there's no secret other than a lot of digging, but as someone has already said, you need to be passing over gold to find it. I wish it were easier, but it wouldn't be special to find it then. Just concentrate first on targets in the right range that don't vary by more than 2 points. That should put you on track. At greater depth, though, this advice will not hold. Many folks will gladly give up hunting gold to just search for silver and other older coins. I can't totally blame them. The hunt for gold is a lot more work, but I've found enough to feel it's worth it. Nothing feels more exhilarating than pulling out a piece of gold from ground.

HH,

Dan

Actually, Gold Rings are considered a LOW conductor.

Coins; Zinc Pennies and higher are HIGHERR conductors.

Your Discrimination and Sensitivity settings adjusted PROPERLY for the given conditions makes all the difference in the world.

Frequency has a lot to do with it. The MXT has an excellent frequency for Gold at 14.7 kHz, with an analog output giving you the end user the better chance for jewelry.

You might want to invest in the Book DFX Gold Methods which will open the door to increasing your Jewelry count.

I also have a manuscript that I sell for $50.00 which includes some limited telephone support, all this free of course to customers of mine that purchased their detectors from me and received the training.

One TIP I will give you is on the Gold Wedding Band, generally you'll get a LOCK on in the VDI.

Although most gold rings read in the low end of the VDI, very large rings as well as larger gold coins can read almost to penny. B)