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Whites Dual Field

UK Brian

New member
Having tried the DF when it came out I found there was no way I could achieve the depths claimed on many of the forums.
I was approached by a P.I. user of more than tens years experience and he thought he must have bought a lemon. By the time a third owner turned up at my local beach thinking as it was his first pulse he must be doing something wrong (he had seen the "consistantly finding coins at 18 inches" posts) I decided to use test items pushed down into the liquid sand as the tide retreats, let the sand harden then test for depth.

I use a length of the click together plastic plumbing pipe. Cut a slot down its length to avoid having to thread wet string down the tude. The use a disc of ply with a string knotted through the centre for rings or a cats cradle of string round a small ply disc with a smear of blue tack to hold the test coin in place. Use tube to push test item into the sand, pull tube out and pull sufficient string out so that the item remains at the required depth.

Result of this...still nowhere near the depths being quoted. Running the detector hot or not seems to make little difference. Running the threshold higher than I would with other pulse machines gave a little more depth on larger items but lost depth on fine gold and those childrens silver rings that are little more than a twist of wire.

Having had the worse flu I've had in years (a month+) then following on with being trapped by snow for three weeks it gave plenty of time for thought. Most of the U.S. reports are from Florida. If I tried to use a Mac 1 Turbo or Aquasound on Welsh beaches I would not get a fraction of the performance they manage in Florida. Though they are VLF they do illustrate the lack of black sand and mineralisation in that part of the U.S. This suggests that the Whites doesn't cope to well with British conditions even with its adjustable pulse delay.

A third machine was pressed into use but this time as coin depths on U.S. forums had increased from 18 to 20 inches I decided to try seperating the lower shaft and coil from the rest of the machine and using the shaft as a handle with the coil edge down into a salt water pond on the beach. So my wife held the coil upright and I froze my hand off sweeping coins and rings underwater at set distances. A improvement in depth but still nothing compared to the U.S. figures even though by testing sideways any mineralisation effect should have been eliminated.

Anything likely to mean these tests have no value ? No metal anywhere near, all metal types tried including U.S. coins and both U.S. and U.K. rings used so all carats tried.
 
Sounds like I should stick to my Explorer 2 for the beach then Brian

How did you find the whites TDI on the beach was it any deeper than an Explorer?

I' m wondering how the TDI would perform in my pasture fields looking for small deep hammered coins.
 
Hi Brian,

Maybe you need a US yardstick or ruler. They are more commonly used by fishermen, but now coin hunters have begun to use them also.

Reg
 
Actually I avoid my Minelabs/Whites Beach Hunter ID etc if I can and stick to the three of Erics P.I.'s that I have. The Goldquest SS gives more sensitivity to small items than the D.F. and a Deepstar just beats anything that it comes up against ( including the TDI with the discrim. feature turned off for maximum depth but then the Deepstar was designed for beach use and the TDI for land but can be used to great effect on the beach ).

The TDI might suit you if your ground is very mineralised but what say Norfolk Wolf calls mineralised, most Americans wouldn't.
 
I did think that rubber tape measures must be in use. There's not really the excuse of poor pinpointing that lead to most of the half way to China reports with the Minelab BBS and FBS detectors.
 
Brian,

I have done all manner of testing over the years and have come to the same conclusion that you have.

I have done testing on some beaches down here (picture postcard white like icing sugar)...not a grain of black sand for a thousand miles.

I have tested freshly buried coins and rings (I do this as I'm after gold rings so I'm not interested in halos or coins with huge green crusts which can increase depths until disturbed).

I tested Minelab SD2200 > Goldquest SS > Aquasound > Sovereign GT with Shaun's Amp...........

drum roll........Sovereign was the deepest by about 2 inches !!

Aquasound has the deepest air-test by a huge margin but couldn't replicate this in the ground.

For these beaches, high powered PI's have no depth advantage whatsoever over the Sovereign GT !!!!!!

Mineralised beaches are a different matter as sensitivity must be reduced on the Sovereign.

Bottom line....max depths on typical wedding band or US nickel was 15" to the Sovereign with the other detectors very much the same at about 13".

I have never, never, never dug these sized targets any deeper and I would have to witness myself to believe it.
As mentioned, the pure white beach I tested on is as clean and pure as anywhere in the world...it is a town called Esperance on the southern coast of Western Australia....very remote, very clean.....no black sand or EMI at all.

Tony.
Author:
Tony
 
Tony said:
Brian,

II have never, never, never dug these sized targets any deeper and I would have to witness myself to believe it.
As mentioned, the pure white beach I tested on is as clean and pure as anywhere in the world...it is a town called Esperance on the southern coast of Western Australia....very remote, very clean.....no black sand or EMI at all.

Tony.
Author:
Tony

Hard to find whiter beaches than Cape Le Grand down your way.
 
geof_junk said:
Tony said:
Brian,

II have never, never, never dug these sized targets any deeper and I would have to witness myself to believe it.
As mentioned, the pure white beach I tested on is as clean and pure as anywhere in the world...it is a town called Esperance on the southern coast of Western Australia....very remote, very clean.....no black sand or EMI at all.

Tony.
Author:
Tony

Hard to find whiter beaches than Cape Le Grand down your way.

Exactly...you know your beaches....the problem with these beautiful, untouched beaches is you can detect for hours without a signal.....!!!
 
I'll say this: For the first six months that I used the Dual Field I was moderately impressed: A solid pulse with good fidelity and some stability--above average. It was only when I started to experiment with running the Gain high (not ridiculously so) and learning to listen for: a) when the detector was interacting thoroughly with the ground and b) the minute threshold changes that indicate a very deep response that I really woke up to what this machine can do. I see guys using it with the Gain on full blast--forget it. Tuning pulses is about understanding the signal to noise problem thoroughly and enacting that knowledge with precision. Detectors don't just punch through the ground to hear targets--they separate targets from the ground's larger signal--an interaction that takes a lot of practice to set up and hear. It's as much about turning the ground down as it is about turning the machine up.
cjc
http://clivesgoldpage.com/
 
Hi Clive,

I have come to think of those faint signal responses as whispers from deep gold to me!

Often deep, but I have never bothered to measure how deep (I'm not sure how I could do that accurately anyway in "hunting conditions".

Over the years I have paid little attention to reported depths and relied on quantity of good finds as my measure of a machine.

The Hunter is a critical factor in the equation as his hearing and how he interprets what he hears outweighs almost all other factors.

GL&HH Friends,

CJ
 
I've just had some test figures in from one of the leading beach detectorists in Florida which to simplify come in as golf ball sized items (encrusted in clag) to 20 inches, everything else at 12" to 16". The tester thought that he could detect a 1/2 oz ring at 18 inches which doesn't compare to well with the 3 and 3.3 gram rings that are supposed to be being recoved at the same depth as they are about a fifth of the weight.

Its not exactly convinced me that I need to swap from my Deepstar though the Whites is low cost for a fully waterproof detector.
 
Now THEY are depths that I can fully believe !!

If I hear depth claims of 18" to 24" for typical coin/ring sized targets again then I'm going to :puke:

My faith in humanity has been restored......thank you Brian.

Tony.
 
I'm always doubtful of reports over 12" on coins. Maybe some machines can do it, but none that I've used. Once tested a White's Surfmaster PI against a White's Classic 3 on dry white sand. Both machines would do about 8-9" on a dime. A bit more on a larger quarter. None of this 14-15 inch business.
 
Hi John

I had over forty e-mails reflecting your view and one threatening me with death if I am ever seen in Florida again because "I know you work for Minelab" which I don't though I do have Minelab machines as well as many other makes. My usual posts on wet sand hunting is that I always use pulse where I can.
 
Well I don't have a DF but I do have an older Beachscan PI that goes pretty deep. I also have an Excal and a Sovereign GT.
I have used all of them over the years and I guess I like Erics the best. All of them are great detectors. But I have never picked up any coin sized targets at over 15 inches and I really don't believe any of the stories I hear about coin sized targets at 20 plus inches... Prove me wrong... I have a test garden in my back yard and have tried every detector under the sun. NONE!!! pick up a quarter at 20 inches PERIOD...

So come on down have a beer and show me that your bad ass detector can pick this quarter up 20 inches...

Peace out
LostinFla

P.S. I don't have a rubber ruler :blink:
 
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