.. I have been reflecting on why I have liked certain models in the past and am going to fit them back into my personal outfit. And it's also looking like Monte just might give-in with some changes in his search coil selection now that I'll be doing more urban detecting in parks and sports fields. Add to that the shift in weather to much colder and nippier temps to deal with as well making clothing adjustments in order to go out and play.

When it is a wee bit warmer and pleasant I wear heavier, long-sleeved fleece shirts, and maybe a sweater. But I have also been getting light light-weight, medium and heavier, thicker coats set to get me through late fall and winter, and that means making sure I can comfortably work my arm and apparel in the arm-cup of the different detector models.

I already had several models in the $550 and under retail price range before I bought four or five more to do the product review I'm working on for the next few weeks, and one of the models I re-acquired is a Teknetics T2+. I got my hands on the first T2 when they came out in 2006 and through the years I have owned nine of the different versions in the series, including a T2+ almost a year ago that I sold to Del this past spring. I was thinning down my detector outfit and hadn't made the decision to shift back into more urban Coin Hunting at that time .... but I have now.

The majority of those involved in this great sport are mainly Coin Hunters and that's the market group I mainly targeted my product review to, so naturally I needed to give another one a go. Glad I did, too, because when it comes to colder weather when we start to bundle up more, I can not think of ANY detector make or model out there that was designed with the excellent physical package and wide, deep arm-cup like the Teknetics T2 .... and its cousin the Fisher F75.

After unboxing the three detectors that arrived Monday afternoon and then working with a couple of them very early yesterday helped me decide I'm likely going to hang on to the T2+ simply due to its comfortable design. And then something else happened yesterday as I was working with a few models here at home and different search coils, I discovered a new coil that ought to be in my own outfit. I'll try to get out later this morning just to hunt the open city park a bit more as I am evaluating search coil choices I might prefer. The approaching bad weather will have it nice for a while, but 20-26 mph winds should arrive this afternoon, so as soon as the sun is up and it's still pleasant the T2+ & I are going to cruise the wide-open spaces looking for any left-over old coins from the park renovation they made 35-40 years ago.

Other than the T2 I am also going to hunt a couple of areas in the next few days like many 'average' Hobbyists might and do something I never do .... use Notch Discrimination! I never use Notch Disc. but that's because I like to find good jewelry that can fall anywhere along the non-ferrous conductivity scale. But just for fun, I figured I'd work with the Notch Disc. circuitry of several of these models just to do some 'cherry-picking' of coins among all the modern trash around the picnic boweries and over by the stadium.

The models I had or have acquired that feature Notch Disc. or provide selectable Disc. segments to manually reject include the following:

Garrett Apex
Fisher F5
Makro Racer 2
Minelab Vanquish 540
Nokta / Makro Simplex +
Teknetics Omega-8500
White's MX-7

I'll try to 'pattern-them-up' similarly to knock out most trash and just accept the US 5¢ range and then modern Zinc 1¢ coins on up. It will be different for me since it's been a long, long time since I have used Discrimination above Iron Nail rejection with the exception of working my two favorite Tesoro models at the minimum ED-120 Disc. setting. Since the gettin' down and gettin' up doesn't happen as easy for me these days, it might help ease the pain and discomfort, too.

Here's a tricky part for me in this evaluation, and that is comparing all there models using their 'standard' search coil. That's because the majority of newcomers to this great hobby set out to do some Coin Hunting, but only buy and use a detector as-it-comes. Most of them take a while, if ever, to invest in an accessory coil that might help them out in different applications. Fortunately, I already had, and have now also acquired, an assortment of Accessory Search Coils for most of these models so I can also work them in trashier places with a more useful smaller-size coil. The exception to that is the Garrett Apex. At the moment it only has the one standard-size search coil available for it while we all await a good smaller-size offering.

Here are the 'accessory coils' I have on-hand for the following detectors:

Garrett Apex w/6X11 DD ... No Accessory coils available yet.

Fisher F5 w/10" elliptical Concentric ... Accessory: 4" Concentric, 5" DD, 7" Concentric, 11" BiAxial

Makro Racer 2 w/7X11 DD ... Accessory: 5" DD, 7" Concentric

Minelab Vanquish 540 Pro Pack w/5X8 DD & 9X12 DD ... No Accessory coils

Nokta / Makro Simplex + w/11" DD ... Accessory: 5X9½ DD

Teknetics Omega-8500 w/11" BiAxial ... Accessory: 4" Concentric, 5" DD, 7" Concentric, 10" elliptical Concentric

Teknetics T2+ w/11" BiAxial ... Accessory: 5" DD, New NEL 11X12 'Super Fly' DD

White's MX-7 w/950 Concentric ... Accessory: 6½" Concentric

54 Min. until sun-up and I'm ready to cruise the park, and already my limp flag an hour ago is letting me know the breeze is arriving. I hope others have an opportunity to enjoy some detecting .... in warmer, pleasant weather. For me, it looks like this might be an introduction to another notable change in my detector outfit routine for the future.

Monte

"Your EYES ... the only 100% accurate form of Discrimination!"
Stinkwater Wells Trading Post
Metal Detector Evaluations and Product ReviewsI'm now 'back home' in Farr West Utah monte@ahrps.org ... or ... monte@stinkwaterwells.com 503-481-8147Detector Outfit: A selection of my chosen makes and models, with the best coils mounted for the tasks I'll take on.F-19 * F-5 * Racer * Racer 2 * V-540 * Relic * Silver Sabre µMAX * Bandido II µMAX * XLTPinpointers: Garrett AT Pro-Pointers .. Headphones: 'Hornet' .. MS-3 Z-Lynk .. ML-80 *** All working well today to make memories for tomorrow. ***



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2020 07:50AM by Monte. (view changes)