29
Relic MODE
The Relic MODE also provides good general
purpose searching for a wide variety of targets and
environments although it will require greater pa-
tience to use in populated areas compared to Coin
& Jewelry as the Relic MODE is designed to locate
a wider variety of metal alloys.
As the name and target labels imply, the Relic
MODE is designed with late century war artifacts in
mind as the primary goals, however, these settings
and features will also respond to any better alloy
including common coins and any other item made
of a valued metal alloy.
In the primary Trigger (on the hand grip) center
position, any target accepted by the discrimination
setting produces a higher pitch beep and any metal
target rejected by the discrimination setting pro-
duces a lower pitched beep. Uncertain targets may
respond in-between with the Threshold pitch.
The 1st choice a user should consider is the selec-
tion of an appropriate TRAC toggle setting for the
area. The Ground setting and Salt settings should
be almost self explanatory. If you are searching in
typical ground, use the TRAC Ground setting. If
you are in a salt water or desert alkali ground
condition, use the TRAC Salt setting. When to use
the Lock setting can be less obvious. If it seems
like something is wrong with the detector, wildly
fluctuating Threshold hum (only during sweeping
the search coil), try the Lock setting. If the detector
smooths out and starts operating more predictably,
you made the correct choice. If there isn't any
change, you may need to return to the Ground or
Salt setting and either reduce the Gain control
counterclockwise and/or increase the Dual control
(Discrimination) clockwise and try again. An area
littered with man made iron would dictate the Lock
setting. On the other hand an area littered with
small aluminum foil would not, such an area would
dictate Reduced Gain and/or higher Disc settings.
The 2nd choice is Gain. Some areas require, and
some operators just prefer, the more predictable
operation reduced Gain settings provide, where as
others prefer to push Gain to the limits of their
patience to find the deepest targets.
There is a point of diminishing returns either indi-
cated by the display telling you to lift the loop due
to a Gain setting too high for the ground, or a user
missing targets because they can not sort them from
sporadic noise experienced at high Gain.
The 3rd and 4th choices are the traditional discrimi-
nator accessed by pushing the Trigger (on the hand
grip) forward and using a typical discrimination
level. Or reducing discrimination to "0" and utiliz-
ing a high tone for nonferrous (not of iron) and low
tone for ferrous (iron). The traditional discriminator
produces fewer noises suppressing any metal target
signal below the discrimination setting. Reducing
the discrimination to 0 for two tone requires greater
patience as all metals respond with either a high
tone (not iron) or low tone (iron). The advantage is
in sorting multiple targets, and locating iron.
The 4th choice is the level of audio Discrimination
(DUAL CONTROL). The "P" setting provides a
popular setting rejecting most iron and small foil
and accepting nickels and most jewelry. Remember
you have the display to further sort out accepted
metals. However, if the common trash of the area
consistently produces an audio to the point of
distracting from finding anything at all, an operator
can increase discrimination (clockwise) and "cherry
pick" the area for silver and copper. If a hot spot of
multiple coins is located an operator may then want
to search isolated spots within that area at lower
discrimination settings. Even with modern discrimi-
nating metal detectors, it takes a good deal of
patience to search high trash areas.
The 5th choice is Threshold level. It is best to
search with a continuous hum or threshold (edge of
sound). You can hear rejected targets (threshold
fades) and be made aware when and where concen-
trations of trash items lay, indicating traffic areas
more likely to produce good targets. It, however,
also requires more patience and concentration.
Finding the Threshold, and then setting the Thresh-
old just counterclockwise of it, provides good
performance for those who can not tolerate the
continuous Threshold hum.
Chapter 6 MXT Searching
