Jump to content

Saltwater Settings For ATX


Recommended Posts

Firstly, thanks for sharing your stories and knowledge here. I can't tell you how grateful I am for the lessons that you have saved me from having to experience for myself. 

I would be very grateful if some of the ATX users would share some of their Saltwater / Beach set-up preferences and experiences. I am pretty new to the Hobby and I am having a little difficulty trying to work out the best way to set up my ATX for use in saltwater. I live in T&C and the water here is VERY saline as we don't have any rivers.

While Steve H has some good info from his ATX in Hawaii, our beaches are more Parrot fish by-product than volcanic sand.

Any feedback would be very helpful and much appreciated.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Whenever I turn on first thing each day I usually do a full reset by holding the pinpoint button down while turning the detector on. The main thing this does is return to a neutral ground balance setting. I will always do this if moving to a new location.

ATX FACTORY/DEFAULT SETTINGS
Mode: Motion
Discrimination: 1 (Lowest Setting)
Sensitivity: 10
Threshold: 7
Volume: 10
Ground Balance: Neutral
Ground Track: Off
 
Ground balance is a filter that can rob performance if applied more aggressively than is warranted. If you have no magnetic content in the sand you may want to try and run the ATX without employing any ground balance at all. Doing the factory reset insures you start clean with nothing retained from the last session.
 
If you employ no ground balance you are in the more powerful "straight PI" mode. Expect there to be some response to wet sand but it is normally manageable, especially higher on the beach. Running without ground balance usually means moving the coil slower than normal to let the threshold autotune keep up with the audio variations. Play with the sensitivity setting to see how high it can be set and still have a stable detector.
 
If the wet salt sand still signals too much, you need to add ground balance, discrimination, or both. I have not experimented enough to know which has less impact on performance - using the disc control exclusively or just the ground balance. I have usually used a combination of both. My settings for in water use in Hawaii were Disc 3, Sensitivity 7, and fully ground balanced underwater to salt range. These would be worst case type settings.
 
Time invested in on site experimentation is time well spent.
 
 
kauai2.jpg
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Vaun, I think I know the perfect setting for your ATX.  I think it should be happily sitting next to me on a towel on my beach at sunset.  Just sayin'. :rolleyes:

Good luck and let us know what you find!

Ammie

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Steve, thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge with me, it is greatly appreciated. While I did read about leaving the GB neutral, I have never actually tried it before as the ATX tends to go crazy once the coil gets in or near the water. I will certainly try your suggestions and update you on my results.

One thing I should also ask about is the Frequency Scan (FS) function. I normally do my set-up steps as per the GARRETT manual (similar to what you outlined in your reply), but how and when do you think is best to perform the FS?

I've seen ATX user's holding the coil elevated, some rest it on the ground and some even do the FS with the coil in the water. 

Also I turn my Pin-pointer on when I'm doing the FS as I found that the carrot creates a lot of unwanted feedback in the headphones when I use it if I don't do this first, which can be very annoying to say the least.   

Fortunately, we have no black sand here ... just an unbelievable amount of pure white parrot fish deposits, beach-rock and probably the most saline water in the Western hemisphere.

Once again, thank you for your feedback.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've started most of my beach trips with the setting Steve listed above, except for the factory reset prior to beginning, I may give that a go this coming week, got a short work trip stopping through Guam and I'm hoping to hit a beach I havent been to since I was a kid. Found a 6-diamond ring snorkeling last time I was there, and proposed to my wife with it! Maybe the ATX will show me what else is in store out there...

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/27/2017 at 7:23 PM, MontAmmie said:

Vaun, I think I know the perfect setting for your ATX.  I think it should be happily sitting next to me on a towel on my beach at sunset.  Just sayin'. :rolleyes:

Good luck and let us know what you find!

Ammie

Thanks for the warm welcome Ammie ... fortunately this ATX (like me) is always up to some form of mischief :ph34r: 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/27/2017 at 7:33 PM, Vaun_c said:

how and when do you think is best to perform the FS?

I get my settings done first, then scan. Right now I am prospecting. That means a factory reset when turning on. Sensitivity to 13, threshold to 7.5 (with headphones; 7 is silent, 7 a bare buzz), and volume to 4. Frequency scan while pointing coil towards nearest obvious source of interference, like cell tower or another detector nearby. Having the pinpointer on is imperative - good call. Then finally ground balance if required.

If you have real saline water you will need to deal with it via either the disc setting or by ground balancing.

I did some checking to remind myself of something I knew but had forgot. The disc function is a "bottom up" control in that wherever it is set, everything at or below the setting is rejected. The ground balance is more like a notch discrimination setting however, only rejecting in a specific range. That being the case you always want to use ground balance to eliminate salt signals BEFORE applying any discrimination. If the ground balance does it alone, then use no discrimination. If you need to use it, use the lowest setting possible. From the ATX Owners Manual page 28:

Saltwater Operation

When mixed with water, salt and other electrolytes become conductive and may therefore cause any detector to respond as if the saltwater were a metal target. In fact, to a detector, saltwater has an electrical conductivity very similar to foil, fine gold and other poor conductors.

Traditionally with pulse detectors, to address the saltwater response the Delay/Discrimination setting was increased until the saltwater response was sufficiently eliminated. This method, although effective, can significantly reduce the detection of fine gold, jewelry, and other poor conductors due to the increased Discrimination setting.

Therefore, to help reduce this undesirable loss of detection, the ATX has an alternative method to address saltwater. Specifically, the ATX can automatically ground balance out the saltwater response without the need to increase Discrimination; thereby maintaining a better response to fine gold, jewelry, and other poor conductors. (emphasis added).

The two methods to address saltwater are:

1) Ground Balance Method: Leave Discrimination set to minimum and Ground Balance to the saltwater as would be done for any other ground. This method will provide the best detection of fine gold, etc., but will produce a low-tone response for all targets. It is important to Ground Balance the detector when it moves to a new region of the beach (i.e. from wet sand to dry sand at the water's edge).

2) Traditional Discrimination Method: Incrementally increase the Discrimination setting until the saltwater response is sufficiently eliminated, typically around 3–7. Ground Balance is not required with this method. This method will maintain normal high and low tone responses, but will have reduced detection of fine gold, etc. Reduce the Discrimination setting toward zero when moving from wet sand to dry.

For either method, the following basic techniques will help to achieve the best performance.

1. Swing the searchcoil flat and at a constant height. Do not bounce the coil or lift the coil at the end of swings.

2. Hunt the three different regions of the beach (dry sand, wet sand, submerged) one at a time rather than going back and forth between regions. This will allow the detector to be set optimally for each region.

3. Swing the searchcoil parallel to the water's edge to minimize changes in moisture levels within a given swing.

The detector may become less stable in shallow, breaking surf where the searchcoil is in and out of the saltwater. In this area the detector is encountering a constantly changing environment produced by the surf, making it more difficult for the detector to stabilize. Experiment with the two methods above to determine which you prefer, and if necessary, reduce Sensitivity to obtain stable operation.

 

On that last statement, note that when nugget detecting I am running sensitivity 13 and while detecting in Hawaii sensitivity at 7. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/29/2017 at 0:46 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

The two methods to address saltwater are:1) Ground Balance Method: Leave Discrimination set to minimum and Ground Balance to the saltwater as would be done for any other ground. This method will provide the best detection of fine gold, etc., but will produce a low-tone response for all targets. It is important to Ground Balance the detector when it moves to a new region of the beach (i.e. from wet sand to dry sand at the water's edge).2) Traditional Discrimination Method: Incrementally increase the Discrimination setting until the saltwater response is sufficiently eliminated, typically around 3–7. Ground Balance is not required with this method. This method will maintain normal high and low tone responses, but will have reduced detection of fine gold, etc. Reduce the Discrimination setting toward zero when moving from wet sand to dry.

Experiment with the two methods above to determine which you prefer, and if necessary, reduce Sensitivity to obtain stable operation.

Hi Steve, Well I finally managed to get a couple of hours in the water yesterday and the difference your suggestions made to the ATX performance was nothing short of amazing. Don't get me wrong, I can see that I still have a fair bit of tweaking to learn yet, but the initial set-up you shared has saved me many many frustrating hours ... I can't thank you and the other forum members enough.

The ATX was so stable that at one point I really wondered if it was working at all. I figure that I will have to learn to tune much closer to the proverbial 'edge' in order to get the best performance out of it ... baby steps.

  I didn't try it in non-motion mode, as I was battling some rather energetic swells and I didn't have enough dive-weights on my belt (apparently my 'beer belly' moonlights as a flotation device). 

 On the weekend I'll take my 'test-targets' with me and do a bit more 'dialing-in' ... I'll keep posting my results.

 Thanks again and hope that the prospecting is going well for you.

V.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Excellent - it's posts like yours that really make my day, so thanks back to you. Only thing I want to point out is that non-motion mode is more for hunting small specific areas as it usually requires constant manual retuning and careful, very careful, coil control. Almost impossible to do in the water. It can add depth however.

I look forward to seeing some great finds!

image.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Appreciate the positive vibes Steve.

I noticed from your pictures that you don't appear to use a coil cover? 

I currently use one however I do suspect that it is causing a bit of interference as the sand gets packed in between the coil and the cover after a while. Some folks like to run a bead of silicone to seal the edges, but I personally feel that sand would 'cake' on the silicone which will defeat the purpose. 

Well I'm off to the beach for a late afternoon hunt ... this is a popular spot with the Cruise ship crowd, so finger's crossed I find more than just bottle caps :biggrin:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...