Muddyshoes
New member
So I took my AT Pro out for my first try at the beach and salt water. I must say, despite having a decent handle on the machine so far on dry land, I was having a very hard time in salt water.
I was hunting on Lido Key on the west coast of Florida in Sarasota. The beach was very powdery white sand, which ground balanced at around 65. Other layers on the sand were more, what I would call usual beach sand which would balance at about the same. But the actual beach itself at the water line balanced at around 15. I did it many times, but 15? I wasn't sure what to expect. I reset the detector to factor defaults several times and rebalanced, and hunted both, at the factory default setting of around 80 and the "balanced" setting which was always under 20 at the water line and in the water.
I had a helluva time with falsing, and even a worse time trying to pinpoint and get consistent hits on those very narrow belltones. In pinpoint mode, signals would indicate a very wide/broad signal and I really struggled here. As for the falsing, I was careful to move the coil at the right speed and NOT arc up at the sides. I've been detecting long enough to keep a pretty consistent height and coil angle throughout the full width of my swing. I'd get a consistent belltone, but when I tried to retrieve the target, it would just disappear.
I hadn't yet dunked the AT fully underwater so I know it wasn't a water issue, and when I moved back onto dry sand, the detector would be more manageable in terms of signals, pinpointing, etc. So it appears that the problem is... Me. Does salt water just take extra time to be comfortable with?
My settings were both in Zero and Coin mode in both Pro and Standard. I tried everything. My sensitivity was down to about 7 and even 6 at times. So I don't know if it was a problem with the ground balance settings, a particularly weird sand composition, the alignment with Saturn and Neptune or some other problem. The detector itself is about 3 weeks or so old and is a newer serial number and seems to work fine on dry land and in fresh water. I'm assuming the detector is fine and it's just my not knowing how to deal with saltwater.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Oh.. and my finds for about 7 hours of searching was about $4.00 in coins, a keychain, one of those pot pipes that looks like a metal cigarette and a full coke can buried at about 14 inches which the tourists laying prone in their nearby lounge chairs took pleasure in watching me retrieve.
- Muddyshoes.
I was hunting on Lido Key on the west coast of Florida in Sarasota. The beach was very powdery white sand, which ground balanced at around 65. Other layers on the sand were more, what I would call usual beach sand which would balance at about the same. But the actual beach itself at the water line balanced at around 15. I did it many times, but 15? I wasn't sure what to expect. I reset the detector to factor defaults several times and rebalanced, and hunted both, at the factory default setting of around 80 and the "balanced" setting which was always under 20 at the water line and in the water.
I had a helluva time with falsing, and even a worse time trying to pinpoint and get consistent hits on those very narrow belltones. In pinpoint mode, signals would indicate a very wide/broad signal and I really struggled here. As for the falsing, I was careful to move the coil at the right speed and NOT arc up at the sides. I've been detecting long enough to keep a pretty consistent height and coil angle throughout the full width of my swing. I'd get a consistent belltone, but when I tried to retrieve the target, it would just disappear.
I hadn't yet dunked the AT fully underwater so I know it wasn't a water issue, and when I moved back onto dry sand, the detector would be more manageable in terms of signals, pinpointing, etc. So it appears that the problem is... Me. Does salt water just take extra time to be comfortable with?
My settings were both in Zero and Coin mode in both Pro and Standard. I tried everything. My sensitivity was down to about 7 and even 6 at times. So I don't know if it was a problem with the ground balance settings, a particularly weird sand composition, the alignment with Saturn and Neptune or some other problem. The detector itself is about 3 weeks or so old and is a newer serial number and seems to work fine on dry land and in fresh water. I'm assuming the detector is fine and it's just my not knowing how to deal with saltwater.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Oh.. and my finds for about 7 hours of searching was about $4.00 in coins, a keychain, one of those pot pipes that looks like a metal cigarette and a full coke can buried at about 14 inches which the tourists laying prone in their nearby lounge chairs took pleasure in watching me retrieve.
- Muddyshoes.