ATX Day one Saltwater wet sand

[nagov]

Got the ATX yesterday and couldn't wait to get it out and give it a try on some of the sanded in beaches here in western Florida. I spent 5 hours out swinging and learning and digging it all except a few LARGE signals that would sound off with the coil held a few inches above the sand. I have included a photo showing all the typical PI trash that is on a beach....bottle caps, bobbie pins, sparkler wires etc. I did manage to pull silver and gold with a Tiffany & Co 925 750 bow ring.

I have lots to learn but can say that the ATX is a dream to swing with the sling that is included with the package. I wouldn't think of trying to hunt without it.

Took awhile to finally get the machine adjusted for me and I found that running it a bit on the hot side and swinging it fast over the wet sand you wouldn't have a steady threshold tone due to the starting and stopping of the swing. IF I slowed down the swing to ease into the change of direction, the machine threshold was smooth and steady.... IF swinging near a target but not quite over it with the coil, you could pick up on the threshold tone change and stop/slow down and find the target...

Pinpointing with the stock coil is really good the only problem I had was with deeper targets.
I didn't get into how deep the machine would go, figuring that learning how to adjust it properly should come first. Next time out, I'll plant some gold and silver rings to test the depth.

Only had one particular spot on the beach where I had EMI problems and it is localized and causes problems with most of my detectors. Not sure how it would affect the overall performance of the machine but I could still tell when I was over a target.

I did go into the wash just to see how the ATX would handle the waves and without another ground balance, it work smoothly but you did hear a rise and fall of the threshold. I believe I could work even in those conditions and tell the difference between a wave and target.

Overall, I'm quite happy with the ATX and the first time taking it out, I do have PI experience (Sand Shark) but the ATX is a bit different than the Sand Shark.

I also owe Bart @ Big Boys Hobbies a big thanks for getting the machine to me so fast... he is great to deal with! Thanks Bart!!

Cliff

 

[John-Edmonton]

The unit set up slightly hot as you described, should do fine on micro jewelry and chains. You can set it up slightly hot by manually ground balancing it, but not completely to the point of silence.

While on the topic of salt water hunting, I recently had some discussions with some people at Garrett. Ground balancing to saltwater will reduce sensitivity to low-conductivity items since their conductivity is very similar to saltwater. This effect occurs with all detectors (VLF or PI) that truly ground balance to saltwater. However, the loss of depth/sensitivity using the ground balance method is far less than the loss of depth using the traditional Discrimination/Pulse-Delay method. Hence the purpose for creating this saltwater ground balancing method for the ATX PI.

 

[John-Edmonton]

Ground balancing to saltwater, or any other type of environment, does not affect Iron Check operation. They are independent functions/circuits. The iron check does not utilize the time delay ie faster/shorter decay time circuitry to ID iron like the iron check on the Infinium.

 

[lytle78]

Any info about how the iron check actually does work. As far as I know, the only significant variables for PI are pulse delay, ground balance and pulse width - unless you go into MPS the way ML does on their GPX's.

 

[John-Edmonton]

I can't tell you exactly how it does work, however, it is completely different from the Infinium, where you rotate the discrimination knob 360 degrees - The theory being that most iron has a long decay time-constant, whereas most non-ferrous things have a faster/shorter decay time-constant. Therefore, increasing delay to the max will eliminate most short time-constant stuff (i.e. non-iron) while still preserving some detection of the long decay stuff (i.e. iron). Of course, the major limitation is that some iron has a short decay (i.e. look like good stuff) and some larger non-ferrous items have a long decay (i.e. looks like iron).

As previous;y mentioned, the ATX, on the other hand, does not use this delay method at all. Rather, it uses a completely different/independent circuit to determine if the target is ferrous or not.

 

[Night Crawler]

Great information here guys, thanks.

 

[GoldChaser]

My guess - and it is purely a guess - is that there are some unique characteristics that an iron target will put on the receive signal. And Garrett is using software to find them.

 

[bearkat4160]

Yes and you can do the hot balance (not quite 100% balanced) and incorporate a little discrimination to help with salt to retain some sensitivity to tiny stuff. No more than 2-3 on disc for this.
Good stuff here in this forum...

Bearkat

 

[bearkat4160]

"As previous;y mentioned, the ATX, on the other hand, does not use this delay method at all. Rather, it uses a completely different/independent circuit to determine if the target is ferrous or not. " -- for iron check he means.

The discrimination on max works like John desrcibed here "The theory being that most iron has a long decay time-constant, whereas most non-ferrous things have a faster/shorter decay time-constant. Therefore, increasing delay to the max will eliminate most short time-constant stuff (i.e. non-iron) while still preserving some detection of the long decay stuff (i.e. iron). Of course, the major limitation is that some iron has a short decay (i.e. look like good stuff) and some larger non-ferrous items have a long decay (i.e. looks like iron)."

Two different functions the ATX will do to help with target ID...

Bearkat

 

[John-Edmonton]

Sometimes learning little things that aren't in the manual and discovered by different users can really help.

 

[Goldholio]

Chillin at Arnold's in Waikiki , it's 6:45 and the sun is settin. I forgot my pinpointer on the ship, so I'll be diggin everything the hard way! I did bring a non-co du tive scooper so at least I have that going for me! I'm plan in on hitting the wet sand first, then knee deep, then the dri stuff. I'm on the recharge ables with 1 hour on em, ( aww just realized I only brought 4 extras not eight! Dohhh).
Ok , here we go! I'll post later with my results, the weather is fine, and I just met a hot waitress at the chart house

 

[Goldholio]

Well, it was super hard with no pinpointer or scoop , but I did find a bottle cap and a. " I love boobies " snap bracelet ! I met a fellow detector ist on the beach who was super cool , he was using an infinium and enjoying the evening as well.

I'll be back in two weeks to have a better go at it

 

[Tye]

Just one question....Goldholio.

Was it you or the ATX that found the waitress???
Could be a new form of treasure hunting!

Cheers,

Tye