Salt water benefits????

[h.m.scoop]

I am strictly a water hunter and I am very familiar with the Infinium and one of the benefits of using the Infinium is the ability to cherry pick and just go for the HIGH-LOW targets... The ATX has two options of ground balancing for salt water. The ground balance method and the Traditional discrimination method. My question is, if the ground balancing method is used and all signals is going to be a low-tone then does that mean that the iron check will be useless? Also if the traditional discrimination method is used is there going to be any benefit in the sensitivity to smaller gold or deep targets over the infinium?

copied from the manual

1) Ground Balance Method: Leave Discrimination set to minimum
and Ground Balance to the saltwater as would be done for any other
ground This method will provide the best detection of fine gold, etc, but
will produce a low-tone response for all targets It is important to Ground
Balance the detector when it moves to a new region of the beach from
wet sand to dry sand at the water's edge)

2) Traditional Discrimination Method: Incrementally increase the
Discrimination setting until the saltwater response is sufficiently eliminated,
typically around 3-7 Ground Balance is not required with this method This
method will maintain normal high and low tone responses, but will have
reduced detection of fine gold, etc Reduce the Discrimination setting
toward zero when moving from wet sand to dry

 

[Night Crawler]

wrong thread, sorry.

 

[steve herschbach]

I can't really answer for sure until I get into salt water myself. The bottom line with the Infinium is that it signals on salt water. You can advance the pulse delay (so-called discrimination control) to reduce the false signals. You can do the same with the ATX, and I personally expect no difference there as a pulse delay does what it does, and it should not matter whether it be ATX or Infinium. There should be a loss of sensitivity ib both detectors, the ATX being more sensitive to start with however maybe will make a difference.

I do not know if ground balancing yo salt affects the iron check, for me I do not care if it makes the detector stable in salt water while retaining better depth and sensitivity. I dig all targets in salt water so can live without the tones.

What I wonder is what you get with a combination of ground balancing and pulse delay? A little of both. What does that do?

The main thing is you can tune it just like an Infiniun if desired so no loss there, plus have extra ability, always a plus. The resistance to EMI will solve half the problems I was having in Hawaii before the detector even hits the water. I can't wait to learn more.

 

[John-Edmonton]

I was told shortly after the first batch came off the line that it was designed to ground balance down to and including salt.

 

[nagov]

My concern/question (Salt water related) is IF you GB out the saltwater, what does that do to the machine sensitivity to small gold. This machine from what I've seen "could" be one the saltwater hunters have been waiting for, something that may get the micro gold, gold chains etc. provided tuning out the saltwater doesn't take away the sensitivity it has shown so far in the videos. Really need some saltwater tests/videos!

Cliff

 

[steve herschbach]

Using current technology. Certain small gold items, thin chains, earrings etc that you are talking about read the same as salt water. If you tune out the salt water, you tune out the small items. If you detect the small items, you detect the salt water. People waiting for such a detector are going to have to keep waiting. But the ATX will have better sensitivity to small items than the Infinium in a salt water environment.

 

[nagov]

Sadly that is what I thought about the small gold but if there is falsing without ground balancing, potentially you could work through any falsing for a repeatable signal...guess that would be up to the beach and the operator of the machine.
Thanks Steve

Cliff

 

[h.m.scoop]

That makes sense Steve... The thing that I am concerned about is that the manual says that when you ground balance in salt water then all of the signals turn into low tones... the thing is I use the infinium here in Hawaii and I have great success and at some of the beaches that I hunt that have little trash I use the Seahunter because it gives me a little more depth than the Infinium... now if I use the ATX and I ground balance and every signal gives me a low tone so I will not be able to cherry pick or use the iron check, but it may give me more depth than the Infinium, to me that is what the Seahunter is doing for me now... I would hate to invest $2200 on a machine that will do the same thing as my $600 machine does. I too wish there was some videos on saltwater hunting with the ATX!

 

[steve herschbach]

Sounds like you are pretty well covered already. The ATX makes more sense for me since I did not have any underwater PI until I got it. I had sold all my previous units.