First hunt with the ORX

[VA relicman]

Went out for an hour to an old homesite loaded with nails and iron. I picked up my machine from a local dealer and he put two of his programs in the 2 user slots for me, so I was eager to try the machine. I went for about an hour and found mostly large iron. The iron rang in between 85-90 and gave CONSISTENT tones from three angles and showed “zero” iron probability. What is going on? I’m sure it’s something I’m doing, but for it to ring in like that consistently has me worried.
The program is coin fast, disc. At 8, sensitivity at 90, 15.6 kHz, iron volume off, reactivity was at 3 but I tried it at 2.5 as well. What did I do wrong?


One ok find today was this piece of metal with the number 7 on it. No idea what it is, but at least it’s not iron.

 

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[VA relicman]

I was also using the HF elliptical coil.

 

[Irishgoldhound]

Uh oh that’s not good to hear. I just ordered my Orx a few days ago. I hope it’s just a setting that needs to be used.

 

[vferrari]

Went out for an hour to an old homesite loaded with nails and iron. I picked up my machine from a local dealer and he put two of his programs in the 2 user slots for me, so I was eager to try the machine. I went for about an hour and found mostly large iron. The iron rang in between 85-90 and gave CONSISTENT tones from three angles and showed “zero” iron probability. What is going on? I’m sure it’s something I’m doing, but for it to ring in like that consistently has me worried.
The program is coin fast, disc. At 8, sensitivity at 90, 15.6 kHz, iron volume off, reactivity was at 3 but I tried it at 2.5 as well. What did I do wrong?

All big flat iron is going to ring up high due to iron wraparound, that's just the nature of the beast. If you turn iron volume on then you can also likely hear the iron grunts that were accompanying the falsing iron high tones. A dead giveaway. This would be similar to running the Equinox with the horseshoe button on (turning disc off). The thing is, that you want to still run discrimination because it helps to mitigate ferrous down averaging of target IDs and will help you better recognize iron falsing.

The settings seemed to be OK, but I think your mistake was taking a brand new, unfamiliar detector with strange audio and response vs. what you are used to and challenging both yourself and the detector to the some bad conditions right off the bat. I would instead take some time doing a milk run type trip to a local ball field or park and look for some clad, copper, and of course, pull tabs. Dig everything you can and get used to the audio. Or bury some silver, copper, and brass in a test garden and get used to the audio language of the detector before you jump back into a bed of nails situation. If you choose to visit your high iron site again in the near future, you can try lowering sensitivity and try to pick out the shallow keepers that are otherwise masked by the big iron signals. Lowering sensitivity will limit your depth but it will keep the big iron from overloading the detector. Give it a try. Also vary frequency. I like to use a higher frequency (28 khz) for relics because they are typically lower conductors (brass, lead, even gold) than coins (copper and silver) which favor lower frequencies. Plus you might eek out a tad more separation from the iron at the higher frequency. Good luck.

 

[VA relicman]

Thanks VF. I’ll keep trying and I guess I’ll have to turn the iron tone on to check each signal before I dig. Seems like a headache though.

 

[vferrari]

Thanks VF. I’ll keep trying and I guess I’ll have to turn the iron tone on to check each signal before I dig. Seems like a headache though.

I keep it on continuously.

 

[Calabash Digger]

Your ears will get into it after you dig 400 or 500 targets.

 

[Timecop67]

I keep it on continuously.

Hard to do as the iron volume is fairly high. XP needs to have iron volume on the remote, one of my largest complaints with this machine. Maybe they will issue a patch some day? Also if you have the X35 coil you can program in a low frequency preset at 7khz and check targets for iron grunts as they come through better at the lower freq.

 

[vferrari]

Hard to do as the iron volume is fairly high. XP needs to have iron volume on the remote, one of my largest complaints with this machine. Maybe they will issue a patch some day? Also if you have the X35 coil you can program in a low frequency preset at 7khz and check targets for iron grunts as they come through better at the lower freq.

Welp, yes that's why there is a Deus but it doesn't cost $750. You can tweak all that stuff (3 levels of iron volume) and a lot more on Deus and pay for it too. Regarding a low frequency preset, that eats one of your two preset slots on ORX. If you opt for ORX, you are stuck with some compromises and have to adapt accordingly.

 

[vferrari]

Hard to do as the iron volume is fairly high. XP needs to have iron volume on the remote, one of my largest complaints with this machine. Maybe they will issue a patch some day? Also if you have the X35 coil you can program in a low frequency preset at 7khz and check targets for iron grunts as they come through better at the lower freq.

Welp, yes that's why there is a Deus but it doesn't cost $750. You can tweak all that stuff (3 levels of iron volume, 8 custom preset slots, Tx power, easily navigate programs on the fly, set iron silencer settings) and a lot more on Deus and pay for it too. Regarding a low frequency preset, that eats one of your two preset slots on ORX. If you opt for ORX, you are stuck with some compromises and have to adapt accordingly.

 

[Timecop67]

Welp, yes that's why there is a Deus but it doesn't cost $750. You can tweak all that stuff (3 levels of iron volume, 8 custom preset slots, Tx power, easily navigate programs on the fly, set iron silencer settings) and a lot more on Deus and pay for it too. Regarding a low frequency preset, that eats one of your two preset slots on ORX. If you opt for ORX, you are stuck with some compromises and have to adapt accordingly.

Actually the difference is the $329 Orx controller vs 559$ for the Deus. Which isn't that much really..... XP should have added iron volume ....as most all the other parts are the same except for their overpriced WS4 puck. Wish their standard audio WSA puck on the Orx would work on the Deus controller.... there are other wireless options but wouldn't fit as well on my Quest Headphones that are made for the WS4. There are a couple of things on the Orx I would probably miss....... one being the well designed larger readout so haven't decided at this point if I will upgrade.

 

[vferrari]

Actually the difference is the $329 Orx controller vs 559$ for the Deus. Which isn't that much really..... XP should have added iron volume ....as most all the other parts are the same except for their overpriced WS4 puck. Wish their standard audio WSA puck on the Orx would work on the Deus controller.... there are other wireless options but wouldn't fit as well on my Quest Headphones that are made for the WS4. There are a couple of things on the Orx I would probably miss....... one being the well designed larger readout so haven't decided at this point if I will upgrade.

Yes, there are a lot of things that they "could have done" with ORX to make it Deus like, but then you would have a Deus. The thing about the WS4's (which you did not include in your cost comparison) is that they allow you to run the Deus without the need for the control box (something you can't do with the WS phones and the ORX). This is attractive to water hunters and is a big hit in the UK for relic hunters, so there is very little incentive for XP go with the WS setup though I agree it would be a nice mid-range option vs. having to just go with wired phones or a the full up WS4'S or WS5's.

 

[signal_line]

If you haven't watched all the youtube videos you can learn a lot. As specific to your problem,but there are many others. Deus and ORX are close enough to watch both.

 

[relicmeister]

I also dug a heap of iron junk in the beginning but as Calabash Digger said after enough digs you start to hear the audio nuances and clues, which are discerned without thinking about it but are automatically evaluated and cause you to pass on more of the junk and go for more of the goods.

 

[signal_line]

I never used an ORX but it has an Iron Probability bar graph.

 

[vferrari]

I never used an ORX but it has an Iron Probability bar graph.

Yes. It is an ok assist, but your ears are more reliable. Iron volume is key. The iron probability graph on Orx is really just another implementation of the Horseshoe indicator on the Deus.

 

[signal_line]

Here's more info. Much is also relevant to the ORX. Also note on right hand column "Decipher quesionable signals". Many say do not use other people's programs until you learn all the features.

https://www.metaldetectingworld.com/xp_deus_settings_explained.shtml

 

[Tom Slick]

I've found the iron bar on the ORX to only work occasionally. Large iron won't show any bars on mine.

 

[Timecop67]

Round old bottle rusty caps will sometimes ring up as silver coins on the Orx. I've learned to not get excited as I did with my Teknetics 8500 as it didn't happen with that machine.

 

[eman1000]

First I agree with everything VFerrari already said. I too prefer to use the higher freq (if I don't start at 50khz I will usually hit the area again with it)

Second - If the site is really loaded with nails and iron your going to have to tighten your swing (maybe only 12" each way or a 2-3' swing) and use iron audio when you do get that "90's" vdi that makes you think you have a silver slowly wiggle off it and if you hear any iron it is likely not a silver - It is usually a rusty iron or rusty bottle cap

*** I'm not saying its not possible to have an iron grunt and a silver next to each other it can happen at a trashy site - so you have to decide if you want to investigate the target. ***

A few weeks ago I was hunting an old 1800's location and dug half a five gallon bucket full of iron - I would say 90% of the time I new I was digging some iron junk and some of the round pieces were in the 90's

The only time I think you could get by without iron audio on is hunting a soccer field or something similar for example where your not likely to be fooled by as much deep iron -

I have also been running the simplex and the iron audio to me is not as distinguish and you get a lot of good choppy signals that aren't really good at all. Almost like the machine is confused between ferrous and non-ferrous and trying to average the signal and responding with a choppy good audio signal. This too isn't necessarily a bad think as you can learn to read it with time but for me personally I find it more tiring on the ears than listening to iron grunts. In fairness the Simplex might perform better with a 9" coil ( which is what I would have put on it to begin with..IMO)

I pretty biased though as I have used the V3i, Nox (killer with 6" coil in iron), Tesoro, Simplex, and the ORX and I just prefer my ORX.

I've had so many moments where I was left shaking my head because I couldn't believe the ORX sniffed out a target that I am still baffled at whatever tech Deus is using to unmask targets. The Tesoro has a knack for doing this as well but you had no iron audio and no vdi - You really did dig a lot of iron with a Tesoro

Also we almost never mention it but the pinpointer is worth its weight in gold as well.
Best of luck you got yourself a really good machine -