"Rookie" Needs Help With Some Advice......

[duffy101]

"Rookie" Needs Help With Some Advice......

I have just started this past week and went along with some relatives detecting and now I am hooked. I wanted to know if someone could spare some advice on what type of detector I should get for starting out ? I will mostly be just here in the State of NH looking....beach, mountains, woods etc.....
Thx
Don

 

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[SteveP (NH)]

Re: "Rookie" Needs Help With Some Advice......

Hey Don,

It hard for anyone to answer your question because choosing a metal detector is kind of like choosing a car - we all have our own personal likes and dislikes so all we can do is to tell you which machine suits us the best.

Also your list of what you want to do with your detector is kind of like saying I am going to be doing every kind of hunting with it so we don't really have a lot to go on. For instance salt water beach detecting is a very demanding task for a metal detector and the ones that do it the best are not the one that are best suited to looking for coins or relics at inland locations (for the most part). The machines that can do both fairly well are pretty expensive (think something around $1000 or more).

A lot of experienced detectorists who like to hunt in different spots have different machines for each type of hunting they do, as they buy the one the think is best suited for each type of hunting they do.

Unless you live near the sea coast you are probably going to spending more of time doing inland hunting and so a general purpose coin and relic machine would likely be a good machine to start with. This type of machine will do ok in the dry sand at the ocean beaches but will false quite a bit in salt water wetted sand. The decent units start at around $200 and the top of line is about $1500. The expensive machines will have more bells and whistles and will be better able to handle difficult hunting conditions but you can still find a lot with the latest entry level machines.

Like I said I can't really pick a machine for you as each one has its advantages and disadvantages and you will need to look at each one to decide for yourself. The first big choice you need to make is do you want a machine that has a target ID meter or is one that only has different audio tones to tell you the difference between targets. Some nice entry level target ID machines are the Garrett ACE 250, the Fisher F2, the Teknetics Alpha, White's Prism 3 or the Minelab Xterra 305. If a non metered machine sounds like it is more to your liking then a Tesoro Compadre or Umax might be a good choice.

If you have a bit more money to spend then you can look at Fisher F5, the Teknetics Delta or Gamma, Whites Prism 5 or the Minelab Xterra 505 or 705.

If you are fairly well off and can afford it some models to look at are the Fisher F70 or F75, Teknetics T2, White's MXT, DFX, or V3, or the Minelab Explorer or Etrac though each of these high end machines will be a bit trickier to learn to use effectively so if you are easily frustrated then starting off with more of an entry level model might be best.

If you really are going to do a lot of beach hunting than a Minelab Excal 2, a White's beachhunter ID, are some other machines to consider.

There are more machines than these too, these are the ones I think are all good quality machine with manufacturers who all have excellent reputations for standing behind their products.

Hope this helps and happy hunting or HH as we say!

 

[duffy101]

Re: "Rookie" Needs Help With Some Advice......

Thank you so much for your help ! Look forward to seeing you all out in the bush..........
Don