A
Anonymous
Guest
I'm researching all the forums I can find regarding Infinium questions as I'm doing a test on one now and came across your Sea Hunter post well below in the list. There's more info posted at my website under "Chief Hahn -- Sea Hunter Questions" (note to forum owner -- I don't sell anything in the MD industry -- my website information is free to use by all, feel free to use it as needed) like Chief Hahn you didn't say if your unit is the new or old (I've been using SH for 20+ years -- they're excellent). Review from Aug on Sea Hunter II:
Garrett Seahunter Mark II Test Report
Since coming back from an abreviated trip out West I've had time to do some actual testing and hunting this year and decided to take the new Garrett for a hunt and see how it stacks up to the old unit I have.
This new Garrett runs on a set of Alkalines, a plus as far as I'm concerned, as the rechargables were always a problem at replacement time and you could never really be sure of the charge level. The old one had an indicator the new one does not (no biggie for me since I never used the meter anyway). The new one with the "Scubamate" rig is just as compact as the old one -- and that's what we want in an underwater unit.
I used the 8" coil in keeping with the compact idea of this detector, and rigged the lanyard rope with the same clip I'd had on the old one so I could simply clip it to the BC and slip over the side into the Rainbow River and the hunting grounds, 20 feet below:
I set myself up in a large deep pool just down from where the boat operators dump 250,000 tubers into the water to float down to the take-out point, some 3 miles distant, dropping a wealth of jewelry and coins throughout the entire river's length. Entirely resultant from spring headwaters, the Rainbow is virtually air clear, giving the surreal experience of rafters floating over and waiving as I worked the packed sand bottom beneath them.
Turning on the Garrett, it gave 4 beeps, denoting a full charge, and I set the control in "Standard Trash Elimination" then adjusted the threshold sound level, and put the "Eliminator" on "0" You have the "Standard" trash elimination, in which you can then use the "Eliminator" to dial out a range of trash from 1-9 in strength and still have a baseline tone but a straightline decrease in depth of all targets, or you can set the detector in "Discrete Trash Elimination" and again dial out targets from 1-9 in strenth and the detector will eliminate those targets completely and register the remaining targets with no loss in depth (theoretically), but you lose no motion sound. Since this test is how the new vs the old, I simply used the standard mode. One of the great things about a compact rig is pinpointing -- you simply cock it on it's side when over the target and pinpoint with the side of the coil -- a reason for staying in "Standard" mode.
Since the detector is rated for 200 feet, 20 feet is no concern, and is fthe same depth most treasure is found in or less. I began picking up targets immediately, as I knew I would virtually anywhere along the Rainbow, and started wafting the sands away. So close to July 4, there were still a lot of sparkler wires that hadn't rusted away to contend with, so I upped the "Eliminator" setting to "2" and zapped them from the headphones. One of the things I noticed is the old unit gave a pulsing sound over the headphones, whereas the new unit gives a steady tone. The pulse rate on the new unit is 730 pulses/second.
Wires now eliminated, I started to dig good targets, and it does appear the new unit has superior depth over the old. For some reason, this river is loaded with dimes, and this trip proved no exception to finding a load of them, from just below the sand to 16" in depth. That's excellent for an 8" coil no matter what mfg it is. With the Garrett, I have always relied on the small coil, as it seems to have increased energy over the large one for some reason, and goes extremely deep for its size. The old coil would literally hum like the sound of high tension electric wires in air.
From the small 50 ft. area I picked to test the unit, I eventually came up with 18 quarters, 43 dimes, 126 pennies, a lead scuba-belt weight, a clip-on BC weight, two rings (unfortunately both junkers), a few shell casings (including a 32-20 & 38-55), a speargun spear-tip, and some lead shot.
From what I can tell, the new Garrett is a definate improvement in depth (there's no way to improve upon the old in reliability -- they're both bulletproof designs), and with the discriminator, we now have a choice of mode to use. The old Garrett seemed to have a max depth on dimes to 12" and this one still had a little to go at 16". I didn't find any chains of any kind, but it found numerous small wires, so if there had been a chain in the area, it would have easily picked it up. The Seahunter units are usually maligned by the hobby treasue hunters, who don't understand what they are for: serious underwater work where you want depth over all else and dig everything up. For what they are designed to do and particularly in the price range, they really have no equal for ease of use, compactness, reliability, and ergonomics. Everything you need (land or sea) to use one comes in the box, there is nothing else to buy -- that's refreshing as well.
Good luck with your treasure hunting this month!
Matt Mattson
flagold@gate.net
Since doing this test I've used it more and tested it more on nuggets. It will, in fact, pick up a nugget on top of a "hot" (iron mineralized) rock 5" in diameter and ignore the rock. The smallest piece of gold I have been able to pick up with it is 3 grains skimmed on the 8" coil. It, like most other detectors of all types has trouble with very light gold chains in a line. On rings and coins it's deadly -- a serious professional underwater machine that people commonly mistake for a toy because it is so simple. The bulk of the below was found with the original Sea Hunter (nicads).
Garrett Seahunter Mark II Test Report
Since coming back from an abreviated trip out West I've had time to do some actual testing and hunting this year and decided to take the new Garrett for a hunt and see how it stacks up to the old unit I have.
This new Garrett runs on a set of Alkalines, a plus as far as I'm concerned, as the rechargables were always a problem at replacement time and you could never really be sure of the charge level. The old one had an indicator the new one does not (no biggie for me since I never used the meter anyway). The new one with the "Scubamate" rig is just as compact as the old one -- and that's what we want in an underwater unit.
I used the 8" coil in keeping with the compact idea of this detector, and rigged the lanyard rope with the same clip I'd had on the old one so I could simply clip it to the BC and slip over the side into the Rainbow River and the hunting grounds, 20 feet below:
I set myself up in a large deep pool just down from where the boat operators dump 250,000 tubers into the water to float down to the take-out point, some 3 miles distant, dropping a wealth of jewelry and coins throughout the entire river's length. Entirely resultant from spring headwaters, the Rainbow is virtually air clear, giving the surreal experience of rafters floating over and waiving as I worked the packed sand bottom beneath them.
Turning on the Garrett, it gave 4 beeps, denoting a full charge, and I set the control in "Standard Trash Elimination" then adjusted the threshold sound level, and put the "Eliminator" on "0" You have the "Standard" trash elimination, in which you can then use the "Eliminator" to dial out a range of trash from 1-9 in strength and still have a baseline tone but a straightline decrease in depth of all targets, or you can set the detector in "Discrete Trash Elimination" and again dial out targets from 1-9 in strenth and the detector will eliminate those targets completely and register the remaining targets with no loss in depth (theoretically), but you lose no motion sound. Since this test is how the new vs the old, I simply used the standard mode. One of the great things about a compact rig is pinpointing -- you simply cock it on it's side when over the target and pinpoint with the side of the coil -- a reason for staying in "Standard" mode.
Since the detector is rated for 200 feet, 20 feet is no concern, and is fthe same depth most treasure is found in or less. I began picking up targets immediately, as I knew I would virtually anywhere along the Rainbow, and started wafting the sands away. So close to July 4, there were still a lot of sparkler wires that hadn't rusted away to contend with, so I upped the "Eliminator" setting to "2" and zapped them from the headphones. One of the things I noticed is the old unit gave a pulsing sound over the headphones, whereas the new unit gives a steady tone. The pulse rate on the new unit is 730 pulses/second.
Wires now eliminated, I started to dig good targets, and it does appear the new unit has superior depth over the old. For some reason, this river is loaded with dimes, and this trip proved no exception to finding a load of them, from just below the sand to 16" in depth. That's excellent for an 8" coil no matter what mfg it is. With the Garrett, I have always relied on the small coil, as it seems to have increased energy over the large one for some reason, and goes extremely deep for its size. The old coil would literally hum like the sound of high tension electric wires in air.
From the small 50 ft. area I picked to test the unit, I eventually came up with 18 quarters, 43 dimes, 126 pennies, a lead scuba-belt weight, a clip-on BC weight, two rings (unfortunately both junkers), a few shell casings (including a 32-20 & 38-55), a speargun spear-tip, and some lead shot.
From what I can tell, the new Garrett is a definate improvement in depth (there's no way to improve upon the old in reliability -- they're both bulletproof designs), and with the discriminator, we now have a choice of mode to use. The old Garrett seemed to have a max depth on dimes to 12" and this one still had a little to go at 16". I didn't find any chains of any kind, but it found numerous small wires, so if there had been a chain in the area, it would have easily picked it up. The Seahunter units are usually maligned by the hobby treasue hunters, who don't understand what they are for: serious underwater work where you want depth over all else and dig everything up. For what they are designed to do and particularly in the price range, they really have no equal for ease of use, compactness, reliability, and ergonomics. Everything you need (land or sea) to use one comes in the box, there is nothing else to buy -- that's refreshing as well.
Good luck with your treasure hunting this month!
Matt Mattson
flagold@gate.net
Since doing this test I've used it more and tested it more on nuggets. It will, in fact, pick up a nugget on top of a "hot" (iron mineralized) rock 5" in diameter and ignore the rock. The smallest piece of gold I have been able to pick up with it is 3 grains skimmed on the 8" coil. It, like most other detectors of all types has trouble with very light gold chains in a line. On rings and coins it's deadly -- a serious professional underwater machine that people commonly mistake for a toy because it is so simple. The bulk of the below was found with the original Sea Hunter (nicads).