Getting started with Detector Dynasty

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Detector Dynasty is for iPhone, iPad and Android.

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Your first look

You don't need an account. There is nothing to sign up for. Open the app and start writing things down.

The first time you open the app, a few short cards tell you what it does. Tap Next to read them, or Skip to go straight in.

Your journal holds three kinds of entries:

Hunt

One time out with your detector: a morning in the park, a day on the beach, an afternoon on a permission.

Find

Something you dug: a coin, a relic, a ring, a button. Trash counts too, if you want to keep track of it.

Site

A place you go back to: a park, a beach, a farm field, an old homesite.

The buttons along the bottom take you everywhere:

Home

Start a new entry and see your latest ones.

Logs

Every hunt, find and site, with a search box.

Calendar

Your entries by day, week, month or year, and your totals.

Map

Your entries as pins on a map.

More

Your profile and Settings.

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Log a hunt

1. On Home, tap New Hunt.
2. Type a Name. It's the only box you have to fill in.
3. Choose the Type: Park Hunt, Beach Hunt, Field Hunt, Woods Hunt, Water Hunt, Homesite Hunt, Club Hunt, Scouting or Other.
4. Under Description, write where you went and how it went.
5. Under When, set the Date and Time. Any date works, past or future. Today and Yesterday are shortcuts.
6. If the hunt ran several days, turn on More than one day and pick the last day.
7. Tap Create Hunt.

Add stops to a hunt

A hunt's stops are the finds and sites you link to it. You link them from the other side: when you log a find or add a site, choose the hunt in the Hunt box. The hunt's page then lists each one.

What else is on a hunt's page

• Start Hunt records your route while the app is open and your phone's location is on. It pauses if you leave the app and picks up when you come back. Tap End Hunt to see a recap.
• Add Photos adds pictures to the hunt.
• Private Notes is at the bottom of the page.

To open a hunt later, tap it under Recent Entries on Home, or go to Logs > Hunts.

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Log a find

1. On Home, tap Log Find.
2. Choose the Type: Coin, Relic, Jewelry, Token or Medal, Button, Bullet or Military, Tool or Hardware, Artifact, Gold or Nugget, Trash or Other.
3. Type a Name if you want one, and add the material or other details.
4. To make it part of a hunt, choose the hunt under Hunt.
5. Under When, set the date and time.
6. Add what the detector told you and what you measured: Target ID, Depth and Weight. All of them are optional.
7. Under Location, tap Use My Location, or tap the map to move the pin, or tap Type Coordinates.
8. Tap Add Photo or Video to add pictures.
9. Tap Log Find.

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Add a site and log a visit

Add a site

1. On Home, tap Add Site.
2. Type a Name, such as Riverside Park.
3. Choose the Type, such as Park, Beach, Farm Field, Old Homesite or Private Permission.
4. To make it part of a hunt, choose the hunt under Hunt.
5. Under Location, tap Use My Location or tap the map. A site has to have a place on the map.
6. Tap Add Site.

A site can also hold its permission details: the status, the landowner's name and contact details, and the dates permission was given and runs out. They are your own private notes.

Log a visit

A visit is one time you went back to a site.

1. Go to Logs > Sites and tap the site.
2. Find Log a Visit on the site's page.
3. Choose the Activity: Detected, Scouted, Got Permission or Other.
4. Set the date and time, and add a short note if you like.
5. Tap Log Visit. It shows in the Visits list below.

Fix or delete a visit

On the site's page, tap the visit in the Visits list. Change what's wrong and save it, or delete it. A deleted visit comes off the site and your Calendar, and you can't undo that.

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Save your detector setup

An Equipment Profile holds one detector and the settings you run it with. Make one for each machine, or one for each way you set a machine up.

1. Open Equipment and add a profile.
2. Give the profile a name, such as Park Coins.
3. Pick your detector by make and model. If it isn't listed, type it in.
4. Save the settings that matter to you, such as search mode, sensitivity, frequency, ground balance and recovery speed.

Attach a setup to a hunt or a find

When you create a hunt or log a find, choose a profile as its setup. A find linked to a hunt can use the hunt's setup. The entry keeps its own copy of the setup, so you always know what the machine was doing that day, even if you change the profile later.

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Look back with the Calendar and Totals

The Calendar

Tap Calendar at the bottom of the screen.

• Choose Day, Week, Month, Year or Totals at the top.
• In Month, colored dots under a date show that something happened that day. Tap the day to see what.
• To add something on a certain day, tap the day, then the Add to button below it. You can choose New Hunt, Log Find, Log a Visit or Add Site.

Totals

Tap Totals at the top of the Calendar. Or on Home, tap See All next to This Year. Totals adds up each year: finds by type, hunts, site visits and total weight.

To switch between inches and ounces and centimeters and grams, go to More > Settings > Units.

Find one entry

Tap Logs, then Hunts, Finds or Sites. Type in the search box to find an entry by name. If nothing shows, tap Clear Filters.

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Find it on the Map

Tap Map at the bottom of the screen. Each entry with a location is a pin.

• Tap a pin to see what it is, then tap Open to see the whole entry. On a site, you can also tap Log Visit.
• Tap an empty place on the map to log a find or add a site right there.
• Choose which pins show, and switch the map between Hybrid, Street and Satellite.
• From the map's menu you can get Directions, or the Weather forecast (United States only).

To find your way back to a site, open the site and tap Guide Me There. You get an arrow and the distance.

See a hunt's route

Open the hunt and tap the map on its page. The Map opens with the hunt's route and its stops.

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Works with no signal

You can use the app in the field with no cell service at all.

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Back up and use a second phone

This part is optional. Signing in does two things: it backs up your journal, and it keeps your phones and tablets in step. Without it, your entries stay only on the phone where you made them.

1. Go to More > Settings. Under Account, tap Sign In.
2. Choose Sign in with Apple (iPhone and iPad only) or Sign in with Google.
3. Give it a moment to send your entries. More > Sync Queue lists anything still waiting.
4. On your other phone or tablet, install the app and sign in the same way, with the same account. Your entries come along.

Apple and Google sign-ins keep separate journals, so use the same one every time. If you might go between iPhone and Android, use Google.

To stop backing up, tap Sign Out in the same place. Your entries stay on the phone.

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Keep your entries private

This is a journal, not a social network. There are no ads and no trackers, and no one else can see your entries or your sites.

• Your entries stay on your phone unless you choose to sign in. If you do, they're stored privately for your account.
• Share on an entry sends a short line of text with the entry's name and a link to the app. It does not send the location or your notes.
• Export My Sites (GPX) and Export Route (GPX) make a file that does include locations. Send it only to people you trust.
• To delete your account and everything in it from our servers, get online, go to More > Settings > Account and tap Delete Account. You can't undo this. To stop backing up and keep your entries, tap Sign Out instead.

Read the whole privacy policy.

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Getting help

• Email [email protected]. Tell us which phone you use and what you were trying to do.
• In the app, go to More > Settings > Help & Legal and tap Contact Support.
• Read more answers on the support page.

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