Nexus 11.5 Silver Scout Coil

NOTE - There is a limited to the size of the iron you can discriminate out for unmasking to be successful.

Having been so impressed with the 9' inch silver scout coil for my Nexus MP V2 I decided to invest in the 11.5' inch version, this was going to give me slightly more coverage and depth compared to the 9' inch. Both size coils are 24KHZ with a super fast recovery. I believe the separation and unmasking abilities of both these coils are unrivalled. Due to being high frequency the silver scouts can be a little tricky to tune and ground balance compared to the low frequency DD coils, you just have to take a bit more time dialling them in to the ground. One of my favourite fields is badly contaminated with iron and has a tendency to get severely waterlogged but even in these conditions I can get the machine paired with either of the coils to run stable and smooth.

Like with all Nexus coils it's recommended "on the V2" that you use zero sensitivity, even with it set to zero the machine and coils punch deep. I've got many hours and experience on my MP V2 so I understand its language, depending on the site I'm hunting, I'll start to push my sensitivity up a touch. I don't recommend doing this when you're just starting out, things could become confusing very quickly. When the sensitivity is increased, just like its little 9' inch brother, the 11.5' silver scout becomes acutely sensitive to the tiniest items and both amplifies and locks on to the deeper targets easily. Due to the coil being concentric you will get some falsing but with experience you can hear what the real signals sound like, the threshold resonance will lock on in a very distinct manor, after a short time it becomes very intuitive, you'll understand what the machine is telling you with continuous use.

Before hunting with either of the silver scout coils I set the desired discrimination level, the majority of time I hunt in "all metal" but on really iron contaminated ground I will run the machine in 'iron reject'. When tuning the discrimination for the DD low frequency coils you don't have to adjust the discrimination setting at all. However, for the silver scout coils you'll have to turn the discrimination quite high, I find around the number 8 digit for the 9' coil and a fraction higher for the 11.5', around 9 to 9.5. You'll have to experiment, the trick is to find the sweet spot that cancels out the size iron you don't want to dig but still enables the machine to see the smallest nonferrous targets both along side and under iron - the video below will show a few examples of what I've just explained. 

"Lets Not Forget What I Stated In My Last Blog, I do dedicate specific hunts to digging all the iron out the ground because I want to open the soil up to seek out potential deep targets - it's a long term approach. 

All the iron objects you see in the video above I keep in a bag a long with the silver 6 pence and the small button I use in the first two examples . I use these items to calibrate the discrimination setting, it varies from site to site but it's definitely worth experimenting and making notes of your adjustments prior to searching in the field. Both silver scout coils proved themselves the first time I used them, one of the most memorable finds so far with the 11.5' was an early 18th century Irish penny on its side 9' inches down in a hole contaminated with lots of small iron tacks. This coin and the button I mention below were dug from a small area that I'd done to death with my Equinox 800, the bottom line is the 800 is limited to what it can see in trashy and contaminated environments. Some will argue that it's amazing at separating and unmasking but, like most digital machines, you can only work within the parameters of the digital interface the engineers have created. All Nexus machines are a completely different animal, an animal that might be hard to initially tame but when you do, detecting becomes quite a profound experience.

The coil and machine alerted me to the coins existence with a lovely whispered signal and a solid red LED on the DDM meter, within the tone was the occasional broken "fizz" of the small iron. On the same short evening session I found the coin above, I also found a lovely paper thin button, again, on its edge at about 8' inches in a hole containing iron tacks and a few bent screws. The button 'pictured below' really is paper thin and taking into consideration it was on its side, the coil picked it up with a precise signal.

I will start to document and report my finds using both silver scout coils, some future blogs will be more detailed in regards to what I've found and the ground conditions I was hunting in. I may even start to film a few short clips out in the field so you can get an idea of how both the machine and coils respond. There's very little information out there about Nexus and both the detectors and coils they produce, I'm hoping if you're looking for an alternative to the mainstream hype machines on offer, my blogs will provide you with a few alternative answers. As mentioned before, I'm not endorsed by any company, all equipment written about has been purchased with my own hard earned money.

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 2022

A considerable amount of time has passed since I wrote the first part of this blog, I've had extensive use of the 11.5' inch silver scout out in the field. Prior to this update I was only using it with the Standard MP V2 but now the new MP V3 has been released I've been out hunting regularly with both SS coils. I've performed a few bench tests and I've come to the conclusion that the 11.5' inch SS actually unmasks better than the 9' inch. My theory behind this is, the smaller the coil, the larger the iron appears to the machine, the 9' inch SS is still fantastic at unmasking but for me the 11.5' just edges it. When using either coil with the new MP V3 the smoothness and stability is absolutely fantastic, when you swing the machine it feels like you're cutting through butter with a hot knife. Both the recovery speed and target isolation is lighting fast, it's very obvious to me that if you want to really analyse an area then either of the SS coils are the ones to use. They literally lock on to the smallest of targets, some might find having the ability to find small tiny items pointless but on a few of my sites you have a tendency to find some small interesting targets in and amongst the trash.

On one of my longterm permissions I have an area I call "The Patch", it's a long patch of grass that's uncovered a fair few Roman coins and other interesting relics. The iron contamination and the "Trash to Treasure" ratio is enough to drive a sane person mad, I regularly hunt the area with all my different coils. There was a period of time when I just used my low frequency DD coils, apart from non-ferrous trash I was struggling to pull anything good. I decided to swap over to my 11.5' inch silver scout and dedicate the next few hunts with that coil. I don't know if it was just coincidence but I managed to pull out another Roman coin and couple of bits of small jewellery fragments. All these targets were found amongst heavy iron, I believe my low frequency coils quite simply where missing them. As I've explained in a few other blog posts, the DD low frequency coils are designed for depth and general hunting, they're not designed for unmasking.

Would I recommend you use a silver scout coil exclusively? In all honesty, no I wouldn't, I would recommend them for iron contaminated areas and areas with a large number of targets that are close together. I personally like to use them in combination with my low frequency coils, for example, if I find a section of land that sounds polluted and has large ferrous items that could 'quite possibly' be masking potential treasure targets. I'll make note of the area are return later with one of the SS coils, unless I'm carrying one with me then I'll swap it over and continue hunting.