Best single frequency Khz for wet salt sand

I'm interested to know which frequency is best on wet salt sand,is it the same as on land where HF is good on low conductors and LF on high conductors or does the wet salt sand change things,I seem to get best results with my xterra with the 18.75Khz coil fitted rather than the 7.5Khz but of course it may be down to pure chance,maybe Tom can give the technical answer...?

James,

There are three single frequency that have a "reasonable" reputation in wet salt sand.

The Garrett AT Pro with its higher kHz is offset by its manual ground balance. The reviews I have heard on the Pro are definitely mixed. Some claim it works fine and others say its effectiveness is very limited.

The Fisher Gold Bug Pro / Teknetics G2 has received some high priase in wet salt sand given its manual ground balance and some other internal features that make it unexpectedly stable in wet salt sand.

The Detectorpro Wader / Pirate Pro runs at a very low 2.4 kHz and is based on the Fisher 1280X platform. It has a fixed ground balance but still runs with a reasonable degree of effectiveness in wet salt sand. I would not expect to hit on many small gold targets given the kHz, however.

I have yet to hear any positive reviews of the X-Terra 705 in beach mode on North American beaches. That is not to say they don't exist, I have jest never seen one.

In any of these cases, I would not expect depth to go much beyond 6 inches for any but the largest of targets..

And most importantly, the level of mineralization ( such as "black sand" ) that you are dealing with in addition to the salt will have a big impact on the result. For example, if you are searching the snow white beaches on Florida's panhandle, you will do much better than in the grey sand around parts of the Florida Atlantic Coast.

Hope all that helped.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2014 07:24PM by smudge.

My understand is lower freqs handle minerals better where higher freqs are less affected by EMI. I think VA Max uses a 705 .... but i dont know if hes using it in the wet salt sand.

Dew

Why must you incarcerate yourself to a single-freq unit for wet salt ops???

James, to piggy back on what Tom said, there is no single frequency unit that can compete with a multiple frequency unit for depth and sensitivity.

Tom I have had a sov GT,Explorer 2 etc on the beach and of course they are better,my question was more of a theory one to find out which frequency is better on wet salt sand.

If there were such thing as a multi-freq (71-Khz) Gold Bug-2 .......... an ENTIRE (unsuspecting/unknown) world would open up.

I know I'd want one...

You mean like a 71K / 213K machine? I guess this would be good for nugget-hunting in difficult ground.

I could imagine a HBS " high band spectrum" excalibur with boost running from 30- 100 kHz with 70 kHz the primary frequency.