PokerShark
Member
I have had my CT for about 8 months. I have used it exclusively on land and have gotten VERY comfortable with it, and yes, I get great results. One of my goals when I purchased it was to start using it to wade in the water here on the Pacific coast and also when I visit my former home in Virginia every year. Last night was the second time I have taken it on the beach in the DRY sand. The last time it was just fine at the same beach, but this time something is for sure wrong. Every time my coil touched the sand the detector went nuts! If I sat the coil down in the sand with the detector on the machine would go ballistic and start dishing out random tones and readings like mad. As long as I kept it out of the sand it seemed to work, but I did not have many signals on what is normally (with other detectors I have used) a very trashy high traffic beach. I found a little clad in a couple hours, all at 3 inches or less, and yes the detector was more or less quiet unless I accidentally touched some sand while sweeping and it would momentarily flip-out and throw a random signal. Very odd behavior compared to my last visit there which was normal.
I tried Beach, with and without a ground balance, with the salt check box turned on and off. It made no difference, the detector was still wild.
I tried Coin, with and without a ground balance. And it again made no difference, same behavior.
I cleaned the coil off, removed the coil cover, checked all the connections, and performed several full resets. Nothing would calm it down. And when the coil was in the air, it was stable as a rock so I doubt it was any form of RF. I also tapped the coil while it was in the air to see if the coil had gotten shaky but it was fine! Does anyone have any idea what it could be?
I am taking my detector on a two week trip to Maryland and Virginia in 3 weeks and I hope it will not come down to a visit to the shop or I may have to wait another year to use it on the East Coast. That would not be good at all. I'm afraid my love affair with the detector would be over if that was the case because I already have permission to hunt some great built in 1780 to 1860 properties back home.
Thanks again,
The Shark
I tried Beach, with and without a ground balance, with the salt check box turned on and off. It made no difference, the detector was still wild.
I tried Coin, with and without a ground balance. And it again made no difference, same behavior.
I cleaned the coil off, removed the coil cover, checked all the connections, and performed several full resets. Nothing would calm it down. And when the coil was in the air, it was stable as a rock so I doubt it was any form of RF. I also tapped the coil while it was in the air to see if the coil had gotten shaky but it was fine! Does anyone have any idea what it could be?
I am taking my detector on a two week trip to Maryland and Virginia in 3 weeks and I hope it will not come down to a visit to the shop or I may have to wait another year to use it on the East Coast. That would not be good at all. I'm afraid my love affair with the detector would be over if that was the case because I already have permission to hunt some great built in 1780 to 1860 properties back home.
Thanks again,
The Shark