The ID numbers are a great tool Rocketaroo, but they are just that, a tool to use in combination with other features on the Explorer. You just have to come to the realisation that ID numbers on air tests don't always equal the same in the ground, especially if you use the Explorer's learn function to ID various targets (setup via air testing various coins etc).
Everyone has personal preferences on how they setup and use their detectors, personally I find the ID numbers a very useful guide. You can take snippets of info from those numbers to give you some sort of idea of what you are looking at, sure it isn't always accurate due to various factors, but it is still useful all the same. As with most detectors with ID screens, there is a limit on how deep the ID's are effective to, and that is where you start relying more on the tones to pick out prospective deep targets.
I pretty much never use the cursor display, and run with an open screen with little or no discrimination. I find this is the most efficient way to run the Explorer where is has the best response time on targets without excessive nulling from using too much discrimination. It's just a matter of training your ears to listen for the relevant tones for whatever you are targetting. This is the sort of detector where you can either make things overly complicated as you like, with various discrimination patterns and settings, or you can have it set up as pretty much a turn on and go detector.
The issue of ID accuracy I don't think will ever have a perfect solution, at least not in the short term. There are simply too many factors to take into account that will influence the numbers, like target orientation in the ground, depth, mineralisation, other close by junk/good targets, iron halos etc etc. Yes there are faster detectors on the market that can work more effectively in iron/junk laden areas, but the ID's will ultimately still be affected, and you don't get the advantage of having two sets of ID numbers to work with.
It is also not the sort of detector you go swinging like the Ace or some of the single frequency detectors with ultra fast repsonse times. Running with an open screen in the more junky areas requires a relatively slow swing speed to cope with the sheer amount of target info feeding back through to the detector, though this can be made easier using a smaller coil for better target separation.
Like Towelly mentioned, you will always dig some junk, there is simply no avoiding it. The threshold between digging a good target and a junk target at depth somtimes is simply a too finer line, and to not dig those targets risks the possbility of leaving something good in the ground.
I can't sing the praises the Explorer without pointing out some of the negatives. Firstly is the weight, or moreso the weight distribution, especially if the shaft set up is wrong. It can lead to a lot of weight and stress onto your hand, especially the lower two fingers. Add a large coil and it is about time to think about owning a sling or harness. This was remedied on the Etrac with a different angled handle design to distribute the weight more effectively, making it lighter to handle despite actually weighing more than the explorer. A common fix for this is to run the bottom shaft shorter, and have the coil swinging closer to your feet, the longer the shaft is set, the heavier the detector becomes.
Another issue is in areas of high EMI, which sometimes leaves the explorer near unusable due to constant chattering, depsite noise cancelling or manually selecting frequency. This is reasonably rare, but I do have a couple of spots that can only be detected with a single freqency detector.
The other main beef I had was regarding the nulling when using discrimination, this can lead to masking of targets if used in very junky ground, and should avoided if searching for deeper targets, or just avoided altogether.
Out of all the detectors I have used so far, the Explorer is still my favourite as a multi purposed detector, aside from gold prospecting. I have tried quite a few detectors in the past, but prefer to grab this one everytime I go out.
It solved the issue of having a seperate park detector, and also a very accomplished beach/wet sand detector, with both rolled into one.
