Garrett ATX - Saltwater settings

[vaun_c]

I'm new to detecting and recently bought a Garrett ATX after several months of reviewing the Forums and mining the knowledge and experience of the members. My late grand-dad always said that the 'wiser man' learns from those who have gone before him ... no need to re-invent the wheel.
With that said, the salt water where I live in the Caribbean is highly saline (no rivers) and I am finding it very challenging to get and or keep the ATX 'stable' enough to use when submerged. Typically it goes nuts with the led's and audio 'bouncing' continuously between low and peak readings.
I can see that several members use / have used the ATX for beach and salt water hunting and I was wondering if you would like to share some of your experiences and basic settings in the various water and beach environments that you have hunted?
Looking forward to learning from your experiences.
Regards, Vaun

 

[WaterWalker]

I have not used my ATX in the Caribbean, but I will post set my ATX here in New England. Some of the falsing may be eliminated by changing the frequency - set this first. Then I set the Ground Track OFF, followed by a Ground Balance in the wet sand area. Discrimination is not set at more than 3. Decreasing Threshold to an acceptable level, usually about 7 and Sensitivity to a point of acceptable falsing usually lets my ATX run smooth enough for me.

Each beach can have a different set of settings. There is no one set of settings best for all beaches or locations. I found my Excalibur to be best in the Caribbean surf and the my PIs best here in New England salt waters.

The "bouncing" can be lowered by lowering the sensitivity if other adjustments have been made correctly.

 

[vaun_c]

Hello WaterWalker. Thank you for your insight on 'Frequency' setting. I normally set up the ATX as follows: MODE, DISCRIMINATION, SENSITIVITY, THRESHOLD, FREQUENCY, GROUND-BALANCE which is the order GARRETT has in the ATX manual.
I have noticed however that several different 'reviewers' don't follow the factory sequence when doing their setup, and a couple of them do some steps differently as well. Example: FREQUENCY SCAN - I have seen this step done with the ATX coil resting on the ground, immersed in water and held elevated off the ground. GARRETT 'seems' to recommend the latter in the manual "... hold search coil stationary away from any metal".
In what order do you do your 'set-up' steps? If do them different from the Manual what is the reason why? Finally, I get a lot of feedback when using the pin pointer as well. Is it a good idea to do the Frequency scan with the pin pointer turned on?
Greatly appreciate your feedback.
VC