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Offline Ra1der5Topic starter
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« on: July 21, 2011, 02:13:43 pm »
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Hi.  I'm R5.  I've been detecting for about a month now.

(everyone - HI R5!)

Yup.  It's an addiction!  I'm out on the weekends at the Santa Cruz (CA) Beach and Boardwalk.  I've got the dry sand thing down.  Three hours searching yields about $3.00 in clad on a regular basis.  My best find to date is a 1927 Wheatie.

Searching the wet sand is something else!  I've learned to turn down the sensitivity on my Garrett 350 to cut out the chatter, but I think I'm getting a lot of falsing.  The machine is quiet, quiet, quiet, and then I get the signal... dig, dig, dig... Nothing.  Gotta trust the machine that keeps telling me the target is +8"... dig, dig, dig... nothing!  Give it up.  Move on.  I spent about two hours doing this at low tide after a full moon last Sunday morning.  Very frustrating knowing I'm in the right spot at the right time and... NOTHING.  Not even a bottle cap.  Not sure what I'm doing wrong here.  Is the sand/salt water causing falsing?  Am I not digging deep enough?  Do I need a PI detector?  Why do we park in a driveway and drive in a parkway?

Any help understanding is much appreciated.

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Offline Ridge Runner
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« Reply #1 on: July 21, 2011, 04:29:31 pm »
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G Day R5 and welcome to Thunting from London Via Australia,

Right if you have the machine running rough dont turn down the sensitivity yet, Check your ground balance.

Note if you ground balance on the dry sand you must then ground balance for the wet sand, and if you have the
coil in the water then you must ground balance again, if you do that and it still runs rough then thats the time
to turn down the sensitivity, try that and let us know how you get on, just call.

AU

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Offline gambol1
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« Reply #2 on: July 21, 2011, 04:58:43 pm »
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R5,  Welcome welcome from Florida. as Ridge Runner said, Ground balance is critical at the beach. Dry sand, wet sand and water all have different balances. The other thing that comes to mind is local ground variation. According to the Fisher data, Wet cow urine can cause the machine to sound off on otherwise dry ground. That is how sensitive ground balance is. The third thing is black sand and hot rocks. Some black sand contains magnatite which will set it off. Black sand is heavier than quartz sand and forms pockets on the beach.  When you dig it out you break up the concentration and the response goes away. Also remember a very tiny piece of foil will set it off. After I got my first ACE I did an experiment in the back yard to see how small a piece of foil it would pick up. The ACE would see a piece 1/4 " square. Such a small piece is hard to see and when you dig it out and cover it with a pile of sand. Another thing that can happen is you may loose a small target like a ring when you dig and the object falls to the bottom of the hole out of range of the detector. This happens very often in dry loose sand. Hot rocks are just that. Rocks that contain minerals the metal detector sees. I go over the ground with my Garrett propointer  before digging. If it is a small piece of foil laying on top the propointer  will pick it up. Nice thing about the propointer you can lay it on its side and it will see an area about 3" wide. No good underwater though. Hope this helps and welcome to the board. Good bunch of detectorist here. gambol

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Offline Ra1der5Topic starter
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« Reply #3 on: July 22, 2011, 09:37:42 am »
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Ridge Runner/Gambol 1,

Thanks for the advice.  I need to look into ground balancing.  I don't recall seeing GB in the instructions.  It may be automatic.  I certainly didn't have to do anything special after receiving the unit... it was pretty much plug and go; but then the Ace 350 is more of an entry level unit.

I'm constantly sweeping the sand that I pull from the hole, so I'm confident the target (if there is one) is still there.  I understand the mineralized sand and "hot rocks"... I'm just surprised I'm not recovering ANYTHING. 

G1 - I also have the Garrett ProPointer.  Aside from the MD, the pointer is the best tool I bought.  Once I get a hit, I pinpoint with the MD and then the pointer then goes into the sand to find the target.  Recovery is just a few seconds later as I dig under the pointer with a plastic scoop.  I know I've got recovery when the pointer is still beeping in the scoop as I pull it out of the sand.  I never thought of laying it on it's side... I need to keep that in mind when the opportunity arises.

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« Reply #4 on: July 22, 2011, 10:19:25 am »
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Quote:Posted by Ra1der5
It may be automatic.  I certainly didn't have to do anything special after receiving the unit... it was pretty much plug and go; but then the Ace 350 is more of an entry level unit


G Day Mate, that 350 is a bit more of a beast than you think, It will find the goodies, I've never used one but from all the feed
back it can hold it's own, Just have a good look through the manual and that machine will come alive,
Seldom is a Garrett Man so he would know the finer points but if you can ground balance it you will be smoking and its easy to
do so practice it at home doing the G/B, and you will be getting back ache from digging deep,

What I do is ground balance at low power in case there is something down deep then turn up the power and off ya go.

Good luck and keep at it, the goodies will come soon and then nothing will hold you back, HH

AU


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Offline Brenda
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« Reply #5 on: July 22, 2011, 05:25:09 pm »
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Welcome from Soquel! You have a good question and everyone is very kind to help. I also found difficulty in the wet sand and gave it up. Look for Rod and myself on the Santa Cruz beach. We usually go in the late afternoon. I had some luck finding a nice 14 k gold ring with a couple of emeralds! So dig everything while your new.... Smiley I am pretty new still yet myself! Grin

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Offline Ra1der5Topic starter
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« Reply #6 on: July 22, 2011, 08:14:18 pm »
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So... a Soquel kitten!  Nice to meet you B.  I'm raised, not born in SC.  Went to Harbor High.  Dad started working at UCSC in '65, now, I'm doing the same job he did when he retired... weird.  I'm looking into MD on the campus.

I'm at the Boardwalk as early as possible on the weekends... usually around 5:15-5:30am.  Crazy... but free parking until 10:00am and I can hit the low tide.

Still looking into detecting in the wet stuff.  Everything I see says turn down the sensitivity.  Tides this weekend are not good to experiment, so I'll stay in the dry stuff for a week or two.

R5

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« Reply #7 on: July 23, 2011, 06:28:09 pm »
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R5, I had a bad day detecting today. Went to Sand Key Park near here and coil on my Fisher 75 shorted out... Got nothing but a loud overload sound. Went home and got to looking at it and found it had a leak in it that let the salt water in. See photo. I took it apart and dried it out no harm done but a wasted day of good detecting weather. Not too hot and the clouds kept the sun off of me.  I smear silicone o-ring grease around the connection of detector coil to prevent water from seeping into the joint but I didn't do it today and I got caught.... The factory says the coil is waterproof but are they? you can't be too safe.

Posted on: July 23, 2011, 06:27:04 PM
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Offline Ra1der5Topic starter
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« Reply #8 on: July 23, 2011, 07:23:15 pm »
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Sorry to hear you couldn't hunt today.  Glad to hear you have the where-with-all to fix your detector and that you didn't have to buy a new one.  If you couldn't fix it, what whould you buy to replace it?

Three hours this morning yeilded $2.96 clad, a copper penny, and another wheatie.  Always glad to get the wheats, but I get my share from coin roll hunting.  Also found a screwdriver.

Raider Regards!

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« Reply #9 on: July 23, 2011, 09:10:43 pm »
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R5, To answer your question, I don't know what detector I would replace it with. The F75 has been a good machine and it will take me a year of working with it before I know how to use it to the best advantage. Aside from this water leakage problem I've had no other problems with it. The water leakage would be a biggie if the fix wasn't simple. It is still in warrenty and I don't like sending a new machine back for repair. I can see now that the discrimination is not as good as the ACE 250 and the pinpointing function is not as good also The ACE was better shielded from electrical inteference than the F75. As for the depth, I paid $1000 for about 4 more inches. the slightly larger coil and high sensitivity probably accounts for that. but the added all metal mode is a definite plus. Also the fisher is easier on the arm because of the lighter coil.  For sure any VLF machine I buy will have a all metal mode and ground balance capability. Gambol Detecting

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