Donsell
Forum Supporter
I received my Rutus Alter 71 last week and took a long weekend to put it through its paces and I thought I’d write down and share my thoughts. I purchased the Alter, it was not provided to me for review or testing and I intend to use it as my main machine.
I ordered the Alter from Detecnicks in the UK as there is no US distributor. It arrived 8 days after I placed my order which I thought was very good. Cost was right at $800 delivered.
I wanted a detector that was both easy to run for short excursions but allows the user to adjust settings for specific situations. The Alter offers this. It has 7 programs: Ultra Deep, Deep, Big Silver, Basic, Coins, Fast and Ultra Fast. However, the user has the ability to individually adjust the following settings:
Frequency from 4.4 kHz to 18.4 kHz in .2 kHz steps
Hot Rock mitigation from -30 to 30
Reaction Time from 1 to 8
Masking Level from 0 to 6
Threshold Level from 0 to 100
Threshold Tone from 60 to 500
Threshold Sens from 0 to 30
Threshold SAT from 0 to 20
Audio Gain from 0 to 60
VCO on or off
Volume from 1 to 30
There are 9 Tone profiles including 3 user customizable. Tones range is 60 to 999 Hz and individual tones can be set to any of the 120 identification points.
Unfortunately, there are no user definable programs. Changes are made to one of the existing programs and are saved from session to session but can easily be reset back to defaults.
Sensitivity from 0 to 90, Discrimination 0 to 120 and Notch Discrimination of any of the 120 identification points can be set across all of the programs.
So you can see that the Alter 71 is highly customizable.
Ground balance is obtained through pumping the detector and the Alter does not offer ground balance tracking.
Along with the VDI of up to 120 and the tones, the Alter provides a hodograph plotting what the coil read during its sweep. The more horizontal or parabolic the graph, the more likely the target is mixed metal. The more vertical the more likely the target is of a single metal. I dug almost every target to learn how well this works and the hodograph doesn’t lie. Old, rusty bottle caps that gave a high tone always had a bad looking plot. Unfortunately, aluminum is a single metal and I fell victim to aluminum cans that gave a high tone, especially when they were crushed vertically. But combining the hodograph with the VDI and the tone an object gives will arm the user with a lot of information to help to sort good targets from the bad. It will take some experience to be good at it, though.
The Alter works in two channels, a motion channel with object identification and discrimination and an all metal channel with adjustable operation speed. Channels can be used individually, or active at the same time when settings put the detector in dual mode. The Ultra Deep is an all metal program, Deep and Big Silver are dual channel programs, Basic, Coin, Fast and Ultra Fast are motion with discrimination programs by default.
Coming from an AT-Pro, I had never used a detector with an all metal channel and it will take some getting used to.
This past weekend, I had the Alter in 3 different locations. The first was a permission at a home built in the late 1800s. I’ve searched this permission many times. It has yielded some silver coins, but not for a while. I played with different programs and did find a 1964 Rosie at about 4 inches deep. I was using the Deep Silver program at the time. I can’t say that my AT-Pro missed this coin. It’s more likely that it was never under the AT-Pro’s coil.
I searched a newer park using the Coins program. This program is set up like the AT-Pro. Frequency of 15 kHz, although I felt the reaction time was better using the Alter. It is only using the motion channel. It hit quarters like the AT-Pro, giving a consistent VDI of 109 with a great tone and vertical hodograph, just below where a silver coin would be. I couldn’t tell if it was deeper than the AT-Pro.
I also searched an older park using the Deep program. It uses a frequency of 7 kHz and is dual mode. I liked it a lot. It did hit a 1917 Wheatie at about 8 inches with the correct VDI and a good hodograh which I thought was impressive. However, it also hit a rusty horse tack ring at 10 inches with a high tone and VDI. The hodograph was skewed horizontal, so I knew it wasn’t a coin. But I wasn’t expecting iron either.
After 3 days of heavy use, the batteries were half depleted. These were Duracells provided by Rutus.
At this point, I can’t tell you if the Alter is faster or deeper than other brands. I’ve never used an Impact, Deus, E-Trac or V3i which are the other machines I considered but would love to put it head to head with them. Considering how customizable the Alter is, I think it will compete very well if used by an experienced user, which I’m not. Yet.
But I look forward to learning what it’s capable of which is part of the fun for me. It looks to be a great machine, especially considering the price.
I’ll do my best to answer any questions you all have.
I ordered the Alter from Detecnicks in the UK as there is no US distributor. It arrived 8 days after I placed my order which I thought was very good. Cost was right at $800 delivered.
I wanted a detector that was both easy to run for short excursions but allows the user to adjust settings for specific situations. The Alter offers this. It has 7 programs: Ultra Deep, Deep, Big Silver, Basic, Coins, Fast and Ultra Fast. However, the user has the ability to individually adjust the following settings:
Frequency from 4.4 kHz to 18.4 kHz in .2 kHz steps
Hot Rock mitigation from -30 to 30
Reaction Time from 1 to 8
Masking Level from 0 to 6
Threshold Level from 0 to 100
Threshold Tone from 60 to 500
Threshold Sens from 0 to 30
Threshold SAT from 0 to 20
Audio Gain from 0 to 60
VCO on or off
Volume from 1 to 30
There are 9 Tone profiles including 3 user customizable. Tones range is 60 to 999 Hz and individual tones can be set to any of the 120 identification points.
Unfortunately, there are no user definable programs. Changes are made to one of the existing programs and are saved from session to session but can easily be reset back to defaults.
Sensitivity from 0 to 90, Discrimination 0 to 120 and Notch Discrimination of any of the 120 identification points can be set across all of the programs.
So you can see that the Alter 71 is highly customizable.
Ground balance is obtained through pumping the detector and the Alter does not offer ground balance tracking.
Along with the VDI of up to 120 and the tones, the Alter provides a hodograph plotting what the coil read during its sweep. The more horizontal or parabolic the graph, the more likely the target is mixed metal. The more vertical the more likely the target is of a single metal. I dug almost every target to learn how well this works and the hodograph doesn’t lie. Old, rusty bottle caps that gave a high tone always had a bad looking plot. Unfortunately, aluminum is a single metal and I fell victim to aluminum cans that gave a high tone, especially when they were crushed vertically. But combining the hodograph with the VDI and the tone an object gives will arm the user with a lot of information to help to sort good targets from the bad. It will take some experience to be good at it, though.
The Alter works in two channels, a motion channel with object identification and discrimination and an all metal channel with adjustable operation speed. Channels can be used individually, or active at the same time when settings put the detector in dual mode. The Ultra Deep is an all metal program, Deep and Big Silver are dual channel programs, Basic, Coin, Fast and Ultra Fast are motion with discrimination programs by default.
Coming from an AT-Pro, I had never used a detector with an all metal channel and it will take some getting used to.
This past weekend, I had the Alter in 3 different locations. The first was a permission at a home built in the late 1800s. I’ve searched this permission many times. It has yielded some silver coins, but not for a while. I played with different programs and did find a 1964 Rosie at about 4 inches deep. I was using the Deep Silver program at the time. I can’t say that my AT-Pro missed this coin. It’s more likely that it was never under the AT-Pro’s coil.
I searched a newer park using the Coins program. This program is set up like the AT-Pro. Frequency of 15 kHz, although I felt the reaction time was better using the Alter. It is only using the motion channel. It hit quarters like the AT-Pro, giving a consistent VDI of 109 with a great tone and vertical hodograph, just below where a silver coin would be. I couldn’t tell if it was deeper than the AT-Pro.
I also searched an older park using the Deep program. It uses a frequency of 7 kHz and is dual mode. I liked it a lot. It did hit a 1917 Wheatie at about 8 inches with the correct VDI and a good hodograh which I thought was impressive. However, it also hit a rusty horse tack ring at 10 inches with a high tone and VDI. The hodograph was skewed horizontal, so I knew it wasn’t a coin. But I wasn’t expecting iron either.
After 3 days of heavy use, the batteries were half depleted. These were Duracells provided by Rutus.
At this point, I can’t tell you if the Alter is faster or deeper than other brands. I’ve never used an Impact, Deus, E-Trac or V3i which are the other machines I considered but would love to put it head to head with them. Considering how customizable the Alter is, I think it will compete very well if used by an experienced user, which I’m not. Yet.
But I look forward to learning what it’s capable of which is part of the fun for me. It looks to be a great machine, especially considering the price.
I’ll do my best to answer any questions you all have.
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