New White's MXT - Newbie's First Impressions

[Electronic 49er]

I thought that somebody might find it interesting to hear the first impresions of a guy that doesn't know doodley-squat about this stuff other than what he has read, so here goes.

The MXT came via UPS yesterday and I took it out of the box and assembled it with no problem whatsoever, in a matter of minutes. Everything went together precisely, just as I expected from a White's product. I was really impressed that the mXT even came with new batteries in it!

I installed the optional "Tall Man Rod", as I am 6' 2 1/2" tall. I determined that I required only 3" of additional length over and above the length of the standard lower rod, so I removed 7" from the TMR and re-drilled the holes for the push-button fastener and re-installed the rod...perfect.

This machine came with a big owner's manual, but I wanted to play with it a bit before reading all of that. I thought I'd throw some items down on the floor of my basement and see how things worked. A bit of a trial run without the aid of all of those instructions (being a guy) couldn't hurt, right?

My basement has a concrete slab floor with pad and carpet over it, so there are no nails or other objects between the carpet surface and the bottom of the 4" of concrete. I placed my 14k white gold wedding band, a washer that is exactly the diameter of a quarter, but half the thickness, a clad quarter and a paper clip onto the floor about 3' apart. I set the controls as follows:

Threshold: slightly audible
Gain: to preset mark
Dual control: to preset mark
Mode: to coin and jewelry
Trac: to lock
Trigger to primary (center)

My initial impression was that the speaker (without headphones) is quite loud. Also, I felt the weight of the unit in my bicep soon after beginning to swing it. I switched arms every few minutes to lessen the strain. Now, this is not a heavy unit by any stretch of the imagination, so this perplexed me. More on this later.

I began moving the coil around in the areas that had no objects intentionally placed, and I got quite a bit of clatter and noise here and there. I wonder if the unit is sensing metal objects through the concrete? Hmmm...well maybe that's in the manual I'm going to read later, I thought.

So I go over to the items I placed and I get varied hits on the them. The display shows this and that, but I am clueless about what I am looking at. I know that this is all described in that manual so, darn it, I figure I'd better read the manual and and quit messing around. Neat machine though!

I scanned over the pages in the owner's manual and wow, was I confused. I figured out by the 5th chapter that, being a very visual, hands-on learner, I was accomplishing very little by reading this right now. Perhaps I should watch the video first.

So today I popped in the video. Now, this is pretty cool. I mean, here is a guy holding the same machine I have, he's talking only to me, and he is going through each and every control and scenario for using them. This is sinking in with no problem. Great video, professionally done and they don't miss a beat.

Now, press rewind and go get the MXT!

So, back to those settings. Same as before, right? No. I need to ground balance" the unit before getting started. I set the "Trac" switch to GROUND and pump the coil up and down 2 or 3 times to track out the ground. Wow, that works nicely. Pretty quiet now!

Off we go, swinging side to side with about a 2-second interval from right to left and back again. Hmmm... switch arms and reduce the burn...carry on until I reach the gold ring and then bam, a strong hit and a VDI and label that is indicating a ring...nice! Over to the quarter and bam, a strong hit and a VDI, full block and an indication that there is 25 cents under the coil...nice! The washer indicates iron, just like it should!

Over to the paper clip now...nothing much happens...must be discriminated out, so I turn down the disc to none and the paper clip shows as iron. That makes sense.

Dang, my arm is burning! What's up with that. Hmmm...I wonder if I am holding the coil too far out in front of me...you know, kind of stretching my arm out too much. I shorten the lower rod length a bit, adjust the coil angle and hold the MD in a bit more natural manner. Oh look, the arm cup is adjustable too! Move it down a notch and retry. Now this is comfortable and really well-balanced! No more burn.

So, I am now back to reading the manual, and boy, does it make a lot more sense now! I'm sure glad I watched that video first! Now I see that this truly is a turn on and go machine...provided you understand how to "turn it on"!

Melt snow, melt!!!!

[JoAnne]

Great Explanation and great story. Thanks for filling us in. Always good to get a newbees perspective. Enjoy your machine and looking forward to seeing your finds soon. JoAnne

......some subtle humor in there as well!

You are going to like the MXT alot. I use it when I go Indian Wars relic hunting out on the eastern plains, with my bud's. I hunt almost exclusively with the 6"x10" DD, Sniper when relic hunting. Goes plenty deep enough for Colorado, Wyoming and Kansas relics.

Don't hold your breath on the snow melt though.....although it looks like it's almost gone from the 3 weeks in a row of blizzards, we're supposed to get more over the weekend. On top off that, underneath all of that snow is some pretty hard ice pack, and frozen ground as well. It will be a little while until the detectos come out again around here, but "time flys" when your dream'in about detecting!

[crock]

One thing that you may want to keep in mind with the MXT is a lot of people think that once you ground balance your done...... NOT . I have found that when I am in a area and everything is going great suddenly the machine will get chattery on you re -ground balance as soon as your signal starts going south, when I first got my MXT I did not undrstand this and it is frustrating especially around houses, hope this saves some time and happy hunting!!!!!

[Joe(TX)]

Hi! Just in case the burns(to your biceps) comes back you may want to invest in a hipmount kit! Although your detector is liteweight the toll of many hours of detecting will take its effect! Switching arms helps but the hipmount or chest adapter would be better! I have arthrisis in my hands and arms and sometimes my fingers and hand will go numb. With putting most of the weight on my chest or hip realy alleviates this problem!!! Also in some cases you may need to take a momentary break. When one is all pumped up and is out detecting ..................sometimes many hours will pass without notice to the excited hunter.......except for the stomach growls and backaches........... the body's way of telling you to take care of it too!! JOE

[Electronic 49er]

We have been having some fun with the MXT. My 11 year old is really diggin' it. We have a huge array of sample targets to "look for" hidden under a king-size sheet on the basement floor. We practiced with the different items before making them "invisible", and we have seen a very clear difference between some similarly sized and shaped items.

A quarter and a quarter-sized washer:

The quarter is very clearly identified as such, while the washer jumps from this to that and is never a "stable" I.D.

A zinc penny is clearly identified as such, while a bronze 1952 wheatie is identified without hesitation as 1 cent or 10 cents. Full bar and stable VDI.

A bobby pin, a small allen wrench and a paper clip are discriminated out under the presets.

A clad dime is id'd as 1 cent or 10 cents without ambiguity, while a dime-sized washer bounces around like a Mexican jumping bean.

Here is where the confusion starts however:

A clad nickel...VDI 22, full block and labeled as 5 cents or a ring.
An aluminum pull-tab...VDI 24, full block and labeled as 5 cents or a ring.
A 14K white gold men's ring...VDI 24, full block and labeled 5 cent or ring.

Hmmm...I guess I'd have to dig them all or lose some rings and nickels, huh? Or, is there another way to decide?????

Now, one odd thing is this: The manual says that while in Coin/Jewelry mode, all preset positions, trigger forward will notch out pull tabs but accept nickels. Mine does precisely the opposite. If I have the trigger in the middle or "primary" position, I get the same audible and visual feedback with the nickel and the pull-tab. With the trigger forward and everything else the same as before, the nickel "disappears", or is silent and the pull-tab remains unchanged. That seems a bit backwards to me.

Am I doing something wrong?

Anyway, we hide all of this stuff under the sheet, and we are all getting pretty consistent at determining what we would and would not dig. This is very, very cool, and I envy those of you that have had the opportunity to do this outdoors when the weather is more agreeable.

I am very excited about my MXT! My only concern now is that I may wind up with 4 of them by mid-summer!!!! Thanks for "listening"!

[JoAnne]

What little devils you have but how adorable.

[Electronic 49er]

Joanne,

This was in my funny file, but they're not my boys, thankfully! Come to think of it, I am not even sure it is funny!

[JoAnne]

Electronic - I am sorry that I assumed that. Actually I was thinking if they were my kids I would not think that was funny either. Sorry for the assumption. But you know what they say about assuming..........