White's Spectra V3 Field Reports

How can I tell if I have a defective coil?
What are some of the symptoms.

Thanks for your help Cypersage.

First ring using the V3

The ground around here is dry and very hard and I'm wearing myself out digging everything the V3 finds in an effort to learn the machine. Sooo, I decided to take it to the beaches (fresh water) in Erie, PA where I could scoop instead of dig.

Targets were very sparse. Bear in mind that the sand on our beaches was replenished (trucked in) this spring and is being groomed by those rake type groomers. Also, the water temperature at Presque Isle State Park is 59 degrees so the crowds haven't been very large yet and won't be until around July 4th so the good stuff hasn't been replenished yet.

The V3 performed well and seemed to be going pretty deep. The V3 loves bottle caps and they register like a quarter. Also, tiny bits of aluminum foil and other scraps ring out very loud even in Correlate mode.

No real special finds but the ring was a nice surprise after about 4 hours of hunting. It has a small stone.

Hello Jack

With my v3 set for sens.on 1 and tx boost off - , While holdig the loop in mid air , I tap the bottom ( middlle ) of the dD2 and it reg. with a target / beep every time .

Is this sound conclusive as a defect?

Hotrocks said:

Hello Jack

With my v3 set for sens.on 1 and tx boost off - , While holdig the loop in mid air , I tap the bottom ( middlle ) of the dD2 and it reg. with a target / beep every time .

Is this sound conclusive as a defect?

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That does not sound right Hotrocks. I would definitely give Whites a call. I drag my coil on the ground as I hunt (scrubbing). I don't have any falsing issues.

I had a lot of hunt time this weekend. Spent a good 7-8 hours Saturday and about 4 hours Sunday. the first 5 hours was on a group hunt and did not find anything. This was at a park that has produced a Barber dime and several Wheats in the past. There were several good finds by other members. I got home that evening and went back out to my local park. I buried a deep Wheat penny there (8 inches) that I will use for testing in an EMI free environment. I know it will take another 50 or 60 years for it to respond like an old coin but there is still a lot to learn from it. I was surprised that I could not see the coin clearly with the V3 and Super12 coil. I had the DFX and old Super12 coil and could see it just fine. I swapped coils between the V3 and DFX and the DFX could still see it ok. The V3 produced a diggable but broken signal. This was using the Correlate modes on both detectors. If I switched to single frequency the V3 just blew the DFX out of the water. (2.5kHz) on the V3 and (3kHz) on the DFX. This is a noisy mode but deadly at deep silver. I worked with the V3 and the new coil for about 45 minutes and finally got it responding nicely to the Wheat in Correlate mode. I remembered Lowjibers post on the deep quarter at low gain settings. I dropped the RX Gain to 6 and lowered the recovery time from 100 to 115 and bingo. The Wheat now gave off a great response. I went for a hunt Sunday with the new settings and did much better. I don't think it was entirely the settings that contributed to having a better hunt Sunday. I had a better area that I have had really good luck with in the past, so I expected to pull more keepers. I found a couple of Wheats at around 6 to 7 inches and was surprised to find a beautiful shinny War Nickel at about 6 inches. The coolest dig was an old gold plated brass watch fob. The decorative chain was about 4 inches long with clasp and large sinker shaped end. I thought I had a deep dime. For the life of me I can not figure out why it sounded so good. It was about 7 inches down. Usually chains sound like trash. Go figure. I was happy to be getting down this far on good targets. Just thought I would share.

Keep Swing'in
Jack

Schrecky said:

Jack, Is there a way on the V3 to manually ratchet down the pin pointer like there was on the DFX (be pulling an releasing the trigger). I see that you can set the V3 for automatic ratchet but I always like the manual method.

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I talked to Jimmy Sierra a couple of weeks ago. One thing he recommended was NEVER putting the V in auto ratchet mode if there are small gold targets in the area.

I am able to manually de-tune a target just like on the DFX.

I've tried the manual de-tune and didn't think I could see it happening?

Jeff Foster is expecting to have a book out on the V3 near the end of the year.

It could be that I am using concentric coils on the V3. Little bit larger field to work with. Not sure. I will try with the Eclipse 6x9. I am looking forward to Jeff's book.

Keep Swing'in
Jack

The grass is getting thick and a lot of my hunting areas I am loosing a couple of inches of depth to the the grass. So in preparation for slow old coin hunts I am starting to work with the Bigfoot coil on the V3. I have done enough preliminary testing to know that the "Best Data" mode functions well with this coil. May be using the analyze feature of the V3 I can root out a few gold rings from the overgrown grass. I will update you on the program progress and hopefully I will be doing a dance or two. The Bigfoot coil is currently unavailable for purchase and is commanding a whopping $400 on ebay. I am going to try and interview Jimmy Sierra and have questions about the future of this coil answered. Mr. Sierra is a very busy man, but I will do my best. I will also be working with the Eclipse 6x9 coil. This is a great coil for sand volleyball courts, which is a very good spot for rings. I have found many Silver rings in this setting. If anyone has input on these coils please feel free to jump in. Thanks

Keep Swing'in
Jack

http://forums.kinzlicoils.com/topic/7157986/1/#new

Above is a thread from a California dedicated detecting forum that concerns using a Bigfoot on the V3. Hope there is some useful information there.

Thank you Ron! Good information as always Bob. This going to be fun.

The man who made that coil died in a fall that's why the bigfoot is not made

deathwind1 said:

The man who made that coil died in a fall that's why the bigfoot is not made

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Yes, that is correct deathwind1. His name was Jim Karbowski. He passed suddenly in June of 2007. He possessed the the sole knowledge of how the coil was made. His notes where largely undecipherable by those who first attempted to reverse engineer this coil for Mr. Sierra. Progress was made and the coil was close to being ready for production when I believe there was another illness with with the new engineer which once again hindered progress. The current status of the Bigfoot coil as far as I know is unknown.

Keep Swing'in
Jack

Hot Rock Reject

Here is some info I posted on another forum and the response I got. This will be helpful for me.

It is raining here today so I am spending some time looking at the V3 Complete Owner's Guide.

As you know, hot rock signal responses are assigned to VDI +95. One feature I like on my DFX is that when you set the Hot Rock Reject control to 10 the hot rock response is simply ignored. Settings of 0 - 9 increase weak "accept" responses and settings of 11 - 20 increase weak "reject" responses. (the adjustment range is 0 to 20 so 10 is mid range)

I've notice that on my V3 that all the programs have the Hot Rock Reject setting defaulted to OFF which allows hot rocks to respond at their natural strength and intensity (no attenuation). I have a feeling this has been causing me some of the noise I've been dealing with. The possible settings on the V3 for hot rocks are -10 to +10. The manual says (on page 22) that a setting of -10 will exclude +95 responses. Settings between -9 and +10 artificially reduce the strength and intensity compared to other VDI numbers. I wonder why they just didn't make the possible range of settings to be 0 to 20 like on the DFX? The manual doesn't make any comment on the use of setting 0 (mid range) as ignoring hot rocks.

Has anyone played with the Hot Rock Reject setting??

Response: Yep, I have and the manual is right. Why, I don't know. During Beta testing, the name was Hot Rock Reject and I had a terrible time with +95 responses. There was no manual to read and it took another field tester to figure out the HRR was not the same as the DFX and more like the XLT. The name was later changed to just Hot Rock and the -10 setting took care of my +95 problem. Some don't like +95 audio being turned off because some good targets fall into that VDI, especially when the V3 or DFX comes to a target that it can not make a good guess at what it is, it uses the +95 as a place to put "I don't know what that is" targets. But for me and the amount of iron I have in my ground -10 works for me.

Schrecky said:

the -10 setting took care of my +95 problem.

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So, just to be clear, is -10 on the V3 exactly the same as +10 on the DFX for HRR? This is very important to me, and could be the deciding factor between the V3 and the Minelab.

Were I hunt with the DFX, for whatever reason, alot of EMI (or something) lives at +95 (I figure this because +95 is pegged with a solid bar when holding the machine waist high at three of my favorite sites). Setting HRR to +10 cleaned the problem up nicely. I really need the same exact feature on the V3, if available.

Thanks
Randy

randy said:

I figure this because +95 is pegged with a solid bar when holding the machine waist high at three of my favorite sites

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That sounds like an EMI problem and not hot rocks. With the coil held 3 feet above the ground there is no way it could be an issue with anything in the ground. Your best bet is to adjust AC Sensitivity and Preamp Gain to quiet the detector down and get it stable.

I just noticed you are in Chester County. I am just south of you in Conowingo, MD. Small world.

Dave

If you set the "Hot Rock Reject" setting on the V3 to -10 it will ignore all responses in the +95 range. It sounds unusual for EMI to cause such a solid response at +95. EMI has a tendency to be much more random than that. Dropping your filters down to "5.0 Hz Band Pass" and using the correlate mode while adjusting your span down a little will do a much better job at dealing with EMI issues. If you are using 2.5 kHz mode then you do not want to silence the +95 responses, but adjusting down the filters will still help quiet the EMI. Good deep targets can be broken up by using a -10 setting on the hot rock reject. Using a concentric coil in noisy areas is another great way to help with EMI.

Keep Swing'in
Jack

Question - I dont know how to use Hotrock reject.


On my xlt ,I rejected +95 to eliminate hotrocks.

On the V3 "hot rock reject" , I am confused . is - 10 the strongest rejection , however I may break up on some good signals in the +84 to + 94 range? vdi range?