Minelab Safari

Just aquired a Safari for 500 AUD. Is that good or bad?
The tecta works fine.
Are they any good on the beaches?


A few hours later.
Hmmm it is a big disappointment on gold chains.
My XLT and ole Vsat crap all over it in that regard.

Aside from the gold chain issue the detector is a pretty good unit. The EMI cancel works great in my back yard which is EMI very noisy. Good repeatable TID display and readings.

Actual metal detecting capability appears to be about the same as my Sov XS 
It will be interesting to give it a run at the beach.


Sunday 14/08/16

Tried the safari at a local sandy river beach this morning and it works fine in that the detector was very stable and  detects deep but why does this machine have to play the bloody William tell Overture on every flippin target??. It makes locating the target annoyingly difficult and even though there is a pinpoint mode, the signal in this mode is very broad and if you place the detector on the ground when recovering the target the pinpoint threshold drifts to very loud.Pinpoint has to be deactivated.
      Most targets gave multiple tones in this area as the  the coil passed over the target.
I know the safari has been around for a while now and I had always wanted to try one. I will probably keep this one for a while  because it is simple to use, easy to set up and/make adjustments to the programs and it detects very deep on coin and ring size items but i do not like the melody of tones that it can produce on a single target.

Hi Adrian, I used my bro-in-law's Safari for a while, even got a second hand DD elliptical for it but was a failure on the gold. I was inexperienced at gold detecting at the time and think it might be worth another go say on rubbish heaps. I am interested in anything you have to say about it good or bad.
Sparrowfart.

Gday SF.
I have used my Sov in the gold fields around Wedderburn and it performed OK in the quiet/less mineralised areas but was noisy in iron ground.
      The safari is very similar to the Sov in operating principle and I would not expect it to be of much use on the gold fields in anything but quiet ground in the All metal mode. The disc mode is a big no no for gold nugget searching because the iron ground minerals will mess up the TID something cronic.
      I have not used the safari much yet but it is definitely performing similar to my Sov XS but with much better TID capability and is best suited to coin, relic and treasure hunting and salt beach detecting.
      Even though the Safari transmits over a wide range of frequencies up to 100khz the detectors ability to locate small gold chains 2.5g and less is not good and detectors like  my XLT, and Vsat are vastly superior in that respect as is the Gold Bug Pro. The Pro will GB down to wet salt quite well and get good depth with the 11 inch elip DD........If I ever decide to swap the safari for something else it will be for a Gold Bug Pro.
      I admit that I have only had the safari for a few days but after working my way through 58 metal detectors since 1960, it does not take me long to sum up a machine.      The safari is an excellent and deep searching metal detector but for Aussie gold field work I say no unless you are searching for relics or working very quiet ground.

Just an opinion, not gospel.

Small chain 18k 3.2g
Larger chain  14k  7.7g
The safari will only detect these chains at max sens an inch from the coil. At two notches below max there is no response
It is not often that max sens can be used.
My XLT will detect these chains at a good 7 inches in dry sand with sens at around 75%.

Hi Adrian, that is a pretty good review on the safari so far. What you say makes a lot of sense in light of my own limited experience with the unit.
thanks for taking the time to share your wisdom.
Sparrowfart.

Gave the Safari a run at Tathra  beach yesterday and it performed very very well.
Absolutely dead smooth threshold until a target was located in wet or dry sand.
      Tathra beach has been hammered by big seas not so long ago resulting in a large Cutaway and I think the locals have detected it well.
Did not find much other than a few dollars, bottle caps and bits of aluminium cans about 10  metres out from the SLSC
       The safari detects very deep when operating at near max sens which had me chasing targets to around 2 foot deep with one two dollar coin at approx 12 to 14 inches. 
       I used the relic mode which meant that only small iron is rejected and I recovered all signals. Would you believe not one false sig all day. Also this detector coil needs to be kept away from your boots if they have metal eyelets, also it was detecting my pick even when I held it behind my back.
       The safari is a pleasure to use and will suit newbies to advanced operators.
With the standard 11 inch DD the detector is insensitive to small gold chains, so do not expect to find many of those....Maybe I will try a small coil later on to find out if that would do better on the chains. A lot of gold and sil chains (bracelets and ankle chains etc) are lost on beaches and you need to know that your tecta is not missing them.

Have a read up on the patents to do with FBS and BBS operations....you'll learn lots. You'll also learn how they go about the 1.5-100khz thing.

G/Day Narrawa,

The Safari is on par with my Sov XS where gold chains are concerned although I think it is achieving better depth on coins at the beach and the Sov is real good in that respect.
My XLT is great on small chains in the dry beach sand but lacks depth in the water.

I was very impressed with the Gold Bug at the beach in wet and dry sand....Have been giving the Red racer some thoughts lately.

Have a new 5 x 8 coil on its way from the USSR to see if it is any better for gold chains but if the Safari is like my Sov the small coil may not make much difference.
A new coil, looks good but will it work??

The smaller coils will help out on low conductive targets such as chains ect....but its the way in which these models tx that make them somewhat different to normal VLF detectors. 17khz rings a bell as being the primary freq???....i could be wrong???....however...certain freq respond better to certain conductors/metals than other freq....im pretty sure iv read that is one of the reasons these makes/models work so well on deep silvers.

My Lobo ST (17khz) is good on small chains but not as good as the Whites XLT and the ole Vsat is better on light weight gold than any detector I have used to date. The only limitation is that this tecta is not real flash over wet salt beach sand and does not handle our high iron mineralisation, although with a fast SAT set in and ground balanced as best you can and with gain wound down a bit, this detector has found some very small items in the wet sand at Broulee.  .....Old can sometimes still be pretty good.

I have noticed that both the Safari and my Sov XS detect small items significantly better in ground than in air.

17khz is the freq in which the harmonic freqs are generated..(not gospel).....or the detector would have no probs on tiny stuff.
Your other machines probably use the same freq to tx and rx....more power to the one freq.

Have recently purchased a used SDC 2300 for gold detecting but will give it a run at the beach to check out the Salt Mode.
      Have only had this tecta a couple of days  but it is displaying exceptional capability on small gold jewellery items. You need to be a "Dig It All" detectorist to be happy with this tecta... I dig it all and so far I seriously like this machine. 
      Whether it is an over kill for beach work remains to be seen.

The 5 x 8 Safari coil arrived this morning and it is useless.
      The coil has excellent sensitivity to small gold chains in an Air test but when in ground testing , the coil cannot be place within 6 inches of the ground before sounding on the ground minerals. Even very low to neutral ground sets it off as does placing my hand near the coil.

       I was told that this coil is ( A Rif Smart DD )for all FBS ML detectors. I guess it is either faulty or is not designed to work with the Safari. 
The coil has Minelab Explorer printed on it. Do Explorer coils work with the Safari?? 

Received a refund for the 5 x 8. and have returned it to the seller.

Have a Cors Fortune 9.5 x 5.5 DD on the way for the safari.
Has anyone used one of these?

Cors 9.5 x 5.5 DD for the Safari arrived today.

It works, but full sensitivity cannot be used because the coil responds to mild iron ground minerals from 50% sens and higher
     The coil is no better on small chains than the stock 11 inch DD. although It does allow you detect in close to playground metal uprights. Detection depth is not so flash because the sensitivity has to be set below 50% to retain detector stability.
Overall a usable coil for the safari but the full potential of the safari cannot be achieved due to the inability of this safari/coil combination to handle fairly ordinary ground conditions.

On the other hand this combo can detect and correctly ID a 0.15 g bit of gold through 4cm of flagstone and a total distance of 7cm to the coil.......Interesting that it may just be able to find small gold in stream bedrock crevices if mineralisation is not very high.

Received a Nel Tornado 13 inch DD for the safari today.
Nice coil, works great, detects very deep on Aussie coins and very sensitive small items and about as sensitive to small chains as is the 5.5 x 9.9 DD
 This one will be a good beach coil.

Final word re the safari.
Good for beach detecting in wet and dry sand. OK in very very quiet iron mineral ground.

Not good in mild iron mineralisation and black sand. Cannot penetrate granite. Chirps its head off over ordinary river rocks and boulders and requires the sensitivity to be wound down a lot or run the detector in Auto to achieve stability.

can achieve extreme depth on coins n relics in salt beach sand when fitted with a 13 inch DD like the Nel tornado. The stock 11 inch is OK.

My Sov XS is very much better than the Safari in penetrating mineralised ground no matter which coil I fit to it....By far.