Shallow surf AT Pro

I was watching this video that Max made , and it gives a good representation of what I hear 90% of the time on certain Saltwater beaches in the wet shallow surf nearby me .......This is the kind of stuff I can't Ground Balance in and makes for a hard search .......Watch the segment where he has the coil in shallow water with the water going over the coil ......Just as soon as you move the coil , the noise begins ......You have to really drop your sensitivity down as well as Ground Balance all the way down ..... This is where I will continue to stand my ground that there are NO single frequency machines out there that can hunt certain WET SALTWATER in shallow area's of surf ....... I guess if you try hard enough you can , but what you are hearing from Max's video is what you will listen to the entire hunt !!......As you get into the dry, and RE ground balance , it quiets right down ......Jim

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/09/2011 01:38PM by synthnut.

it only makes noise when it is over a target..........WHAT U HEAR IS THE COIL OVER THE TARGET........when no target under coil........smooth.

after using the pro i can almost tell the good from the bad.............meaning........first swing over the target u get that combined ruff/bell tone and then a fairly good tone...........BUT THE SCRATCHY/BELL TONE IS THE TELL TALE ONE. and when the numbers jump around alot.......bad target.

i will say this: i run mine at max sensitivity and i do hear some lowgrade chatter..........I CALL IT MINERAL NOISE.......but i like to hear it.......it is very low tones and once a target it hit, it is lound and clear.

if i drop the sensitivity back 1 or 2 bars.........silent, but i do not like silent any longer.

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mine pro will ground balance at 13 here in va beach on the damp sand and shallow water and in the water.........i manually drop it to 10 or 11........hear or see no differecne between 10 to 13

I must have a lot more minerals to deal with here in NY ......Noise noise and more noise !!..... I'm gonna try different G. B. numbers ......I'm already down 2 settings on the Sensitivity ........I'll see if I can't get it dialed in to do better ......Thanks for the reply Max ....Jim

BTW ...I can Ground Balance in the wet sand to about 18 or 20 , but once I'm in the water , I end up with a BUNCH of noise , so I try to ground balance again to no avail !!..... I have even done a manual G.B. and have not had any luck in calming this thing down ......???????



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/09/2011 09:26PM by synthnut.

i know that the sand in nj has lots more minerals than we have.

Jim......Yes, I have yet to see a single-freq VLF detector present any formidable performance..... in wet-salt.

NJ is actually more quiet than NY by quite a stretch ............I still hear your machine acting a litle strange watching that video .......Your coil is sitting still while the water is washing over it and it starts to crackle a bit , and then when you move it , it starts making noise right away .......Mine is similar , but mine is also a LOT LOUDER than yours , but still very similar .....It's surely head and shoulders LOUDER than the dry sand , that's for sure ...... The saltwater moving over the coil does have an effect for sure ......You don't hear that with your Multi freqency units with your threshold down low ...... I'm sticking to my Multi Frequency machines in the saltwater .........As I said in earlier threads , my AT is my dry sand speedster !!..... I've never hit the pinpointer yet with this macine .....It's really too bad that the coil cable was not longer so we could chest mount these AT's ......A longer headphone cord would have been nice too ..... These things were designed for little people !!..... Jim

Hey you guys just remember as you drop the ground balance down below 12 to 10 and lower you will be dropping out the 10 k rings, crosses and other low gold content stuff. These #'s will depend on your sand mineral content, just take a few 10k stuff to the beach the next time and try it in the wet sand, remember use a good floss or mono line to hold your test target.

LiL John,
I might not even be able to drop it down below 10 and STILL be able to hunt without dropping my Sensitivity so low that it isn't even condusive to using the unit to hunt with in the water at this particular beach ...... I have an Excal for that if nessesary ..... I knew going in that there would be a good chance that the AT Pro would NOT work on certain wet salt sand beaches , more exacting, IN the water .......The AT Pro may prove a worthy machine on the silky, less mineralized sand down by Tom ..... I bought it for it's speed, weight , and good I.D. to move quickly on the dry sand to aquire recent drops, not to mention how hard it hits on Gold due to it's frequency !!..... I don't like carrying so many machines but if this is what I have to do , so be it .....I'm not done yet making a waterproof ML SE like Max's .... Once I get use to that machine , everythhing will be a moot point anyway ....Jim

I have my XLT set up so I can hunt in the wet sand and surf, it sounds just like max's does, a little mineral noise, but when I hit a good target , you know it, and I hunt some of the nastiest iron infested beaches in Maine, they ship built in these harbors for 300 years, I dig some big iron, I don't know if it set up to dig deep gold but I do pretty good each year, I usually hunt alone so I don't have anything to compare it to, I got an AT pro because I want a meter waterproof machine that hunts in all metal, and does good near iron, I have some cellar holes that are iron infested too, and I know there are very old coins there, up here goes back to the early 1600 in Maine

Curious.....what depth do you get on a dime in wet sand........and how do you set up? I have a White's Silver Eagle..........same hardware as the Spectrum/XLT, minus the advanced software programming.

Wet sand and actually being IN the saltwater are 2 different G.B.'s where I hunt ........ Wet Salt , I can hit a clad dime at between 6-8 inches getting a repeatable tone ...... Actually going INTO the water , it's just too noisy and in my area, a waste of time as I have to lower the sensitiity too much to dig any sort of depth .......I use my Excal for the IN WATER chores .....It will dig DEEP in or out of the water ..... In my area , my buddies CZ21 digs even DEEPER, and actually runs more quietly than the Excal or the AT Pro !!......but you do have to listen to the iron that it really likes ......Jim

TerraDigger, this is going to sound stupid, but I can program a XLT but once it is in I don't know how to get most of the numbers out, It is close to the beach program, but I tweaked it so it runs smooth on the wet sand, I dig dimes I would say 8 inches, but digging in wet sand you never know, it could fall back in , I have dug can bottoms over 2 feet deep but then again, I might have bad digging habits, what I have never dug was small gold with it, I have dug very small copper washers, 1/4 inch dia, and gold bracelets and rings, I would use it all the time but it ain't water proof and I have had to hair dry it many of times coming back from rain and snow storms, and it works great on the land, I mean the same program

I'll figure it out. Just that you can get it to perform that well in wet sand gives me hope. I always stayed away from wet sand beach hunting with it because I didn't think it could cut the mustard. I use a quart size clear food baggie or larger for the LCD head unit and double (2) plastic bags you get with your store groceries for the control box. I wrap the ends of the bags with electrical tape and cut off the excess bag. Works really well.
I have a bit of a electronics background. Did you know that salt can be in the air over a mile inland from the water. A non-waterproof detector should always be sealed airtight when on the beach. The microscopic airborne salt residue, which can seep in through the smallest cracks/openings on a unit, will slowly corrode the internal electronics and short-life the unit.

I change Smoke detectors annually, they have a red plastic cover on them, like a water tight hair net, I got a bag of them and use it on the display panel, my arm cover up the box

I see Yankee ingenuity is alive & well