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FRUSTRATED at the beach!

S

sherbear

New member
Hello! I have been hunting for a couple of months. I live at the beach and have been searching the wet sand, but haven't been able to find a darn thing. I have an MXT and am using the stock coil. I also have a 9" Eclipse that I tried, but found it missed depth readings by about four inches, (I can tell because of the sound my machine makes when something is near the surface). My husband has a Minelab GT Sovereign, and he found a ring and $5.00 worth of coins in the wet sand yesterday. I'm pretty frustrated. I get a lot of scattered, weak tones as I search in the wet sand, and I'll dig down 6-8 inches without success. In addition, on the dry sand, I get a lot of VDI readings of coins (with pretty high plus numbers), when in fact, it's foil. So, my key questions are: 1. Does the MXT actually work in wet sand? 2. Has anyone else had depth problems with the Eclipse? 3. How can I differentiate foil from coins in the dry sand?
Any pointers? Thanks in advance! Sharon
 
Sharon, last year I spent a solid 3 months at the beach using an MXT and had good luck. I seemed to have better luck in the dry sand. The wet sand searches were OK as well but I never pushed the machine to close to water as I was worried about getting the box accidentally wet.
The settings I used for the MXT were, disc set on the 3 triangle, Gain up to where it would start to chatter then back it off , the threshold up to a faint hum and the toggle switch on Coin& Jewellery.
The beaches I searched were very low in mineralisation so the machine seemed to work OK, I think the reason I did OK was I had a good scoop and dug virtually everything. The proof of this statement is I scooped a beautiful 3 diamond ring that read 3 foil, I scooped and when the sand drained there was the ring.
What I would suggest is go to the Forum index and look for the MXT group and research the history on beach detecting and there are discussions about it with the MXT. Tony helped me before I went south with info, his suggestion was swing the MXT slow and dig dig dig. I am heading South tomorrow for another three months have bought an Excalibur and taking my MXT along as well for a back up. :detecting:

Gerry
 
sherbear said:
I get a lot of scattered, weak tones as I search in the wet sand, and I'll dig down 6-8 inches without success. In addition, on the dry sand, I get a lot of VDI readings of coins (with pretty high plus numbers), when in fact, it's foil.
Click to expand...
sounds like falsing? machine not working correctly? sensitivity set to high? bad coil?.... next time you and your husband go follow him and every time he gets a good signal you check the same target and see if the mxt will detect it correctly. burry a coin at different depths in the wet sand then see if you can detect it then do the same in the dry, repeat the test with a gold ring(dont lose it). good luck and let us know what you find out.
chuck.
 
The MXT is not a wet sand machine... its noisy enough as it is, put it in the wet sand and its even worse... I know, I tried hunting with my MXT there... get yourself a GT and you will enjoy beach detecting a lot more ;)
 
Dry or wet sand the MXT will work well. I take it your using the 6x 10 coil or that's the one I would recommend for the wet sand. I think one of the things that people don't understand on the MXT is that you need to lock the track while hunting the wet sand. Make sure to ground balance the machine on the wet sand then lock it. I always hunt in lock after ground balance, each time you go from dry to wet sand you need to do this. I find this works nicely for me.
Take in account that the machine is chirpy to begin with a slight thresh-hold, which takes getting use to.
You should not be worried about the depth reading on the beach, I pay no attention to that detail. I think the scattered weak tones are falsing from the wet sand, so set the machine up as I said, run the gain at pre-set, get on the wet sand ground balance in the salt position, once balance put the switch on lock then give it a try. Let me know if that's works.
Foil should not be coming in high numbers, unless it's wadded up tin foil or something heavy. Be digging the low number foil readings, sometimes good things come from them.
Maybe this will help you a little. HH
 
I'm not going to argue with you... I come here to share my advice... the MXT is not a great wet sand machine.. the falsing is because the MXT was is not a great choice for wet sand hunting it does not handle the salt and minerals very well... I'm a Whites guy... DFX, MXT, BeachhunterID, PI -PRO, and now the Dual Field...

Its my opinion that one of the best beach machines for the wet sand is the Sovereign GT... its deeper than the VLF's I mentioned above and depth and stability is the name of the game for me...


Sher... let your hubby use the MXT and you steal his GT and you will be very happy ;)
 
Craig,
Thanks for your time. So, I understand you have two White's beach machines. Have you ever had a GT and how does it compare to the White's? If I were to replace my MXT for a beach machine, which machine would you recommend?
sherbear
 
Did I say anything about arguing with you? No. nothing was directed to you - I came here to hopefully give a little advice that may help her in some way, same as you. No it's not a great wet sand machine but set up correct it can be a killer. I own The GT, along with excal's and a CZ-20 all with I use a times. We all have our likes and dislike about machines and I will not get into that issue. No hard feelings.
 
When i used the mxt i had a bit of problems ground balancing on the wet at first, if you try to use the Ground setting to GB it wont have it so you have to use the Salt setting, this is or seems to be a more or less adjustment, so i used to GB in salt mode, that gets you somewhere close then do it again in Ground (it will now do it after using the salt mode first) and then lock, much quieter and less falsing and better depth, if it starts to get noisy again do it again as the salt density has probably changed. although there are better beach machines for the wet/damp sand this should improve things slightly
 
sherbear said:
Craig,
Thanks for your time. So, I understand you have two White's beach machines. Have you ever had a GT and how does it compare to the White's? If I were to replace my MXT for a beach machine, which machine would you recommend?
sherbear
Click to expand...

As long as you aren't going in the water the Sovereign GT... the GT blows away the DFX and MXT for depth and stability... I never thought I would be saying that ;)
 
I have to agree with Craig. The GT is the best there is as long as you aren't getting wet. It will handle any kind of salt beach from clean to heavy black sand and everything in between. And you don't have to ground balance it at all. It will go from dry to wet and even in shallow water (remember, coil only is waterproof, not the control housing) without skipping a beat. Put a really good set of headphones on it (Grey Ghost or Black Widow) and you simply cannot beat it. btw, personally I would never even wade in shallow water with mine but if you choose to there are ways to help protect it using bags and tie wraps. If you search you will find discussions on this. Best of luck. --Jerry
 
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