First Hunt With The AQ

[schoolofhardNox]

So here it is, my maiden voyage with the AQ. I was able to get in a 2½ hour hunt at the beach today. My goal was to dig every signal that sounded good and some that did not but piqued my interest. For the most part I stayed in tone mode, sensitivity almost full, and the rest in the preset settings. I did try all metal and mute modes as a check occasionally. I hunted the dry sand mostly since it was high tide but did venture on the saturated sand a bit. Results>>>>Humans are slobs LOL. I dug a ton of garbage just to get a feel for the machine. I like the quick, loud response it gives when you get close to a target. I also like how easy it is to pinpoint with it. Batteries lasted the hunt plus about an hour more for the land hunt I did later. The second battery lasted about the same. Way longer that I expected them to last.  About 3½ hours each. Coins sounded terrible as to be expected, aluminum screamed as did the bottle caps. No gold this hunt but a cool looking Amethyst pendant, a nice (fake) stud, a nice chain that I was hoping was silver but was stamped Italy 14K …yeah right, China special - copper showing through. The land hunt later was to hopefully find Iron canister shot for an 1812 war project I visit occasionally. It definitely found a lot of big iron at very good depth, but none of them would be round shot. My first impression of the machine? I like it and will probably do better when I have the beach for the day and the seasons change. If you are after coins and little junk, this is not the machine for you. If you are an experienced PI guy, you will probably appreciate this machine. I will use it for gold as it was intended, but still hunt for silver with the GPX. On the beach it handled the EMI well. On the land hunt and about 40 feet from the train tracks, it got a bit jumpy at times but still better that the GPX. Not sure how much depth I loose during that though. It will be about 2 weeks until I can get to another beach to hunt. Work always gets in the way!

[Joe Beechnut OBN]

Good report,  You kicked butt for 2 plus hours...WOW! Lotta targets......No doubt from the pictures drysand is Nox territory, or VLF ...I think the "AQ" will shine for you this winter when the tides are low and you can slip out into the wetsand...Those are the hunts I'm excited to see for you. ..☠️

[schoolofhardNox]

22 minutes ago, Joe Beechnut OBN said:

Good report,  You kicked butt for 2 plus hours...WOW! Lotta targets......No doubt from the pictures drysand is Nox territory, or VLF ...I think the "AQ" will shine for you this winter when the tides are low and you can slip out into the wetsand...Those are the hunts I'm excited to see for you. ..☠️

Thanks. Luckily for me those targets were all relatively shallow. Pinpointer  used before the shovel was, for most of the bottlecaps. But the AQ does pinpoint extremely well using the side of the coil. It saves a lot of time. The upper beach I hunted is grated so that it is smooth for the public. Judging from the area it seems they or the ocean has deposited a lot of sand. So targets are either shallow or the deep ones are far and few between. That's ok because it give me time to learn from reading and watching videos before my season kicks in.

[Skull diver]

Reading your post I'm happy for two reasons.

First one, I'm maybe claiming too much from my machine, continuously complaining low battery duration not far from your result.

Second one I'm almost to the point to live in peace of mind with the idea of aluminium targets at some depth.

Even using GB to hear two tones, I still dig monster holes in a place where I've done good results before and a little after lockdown times.

Fooled by little fishing sinkers but holy God! I guess the Vlf failed  dozens of times there.

[okara gold]

You sure did a lot of digging and by the looks of your finds the "AQ" isn't picking up the tiny bits of foil. I recall an earlier post saying it is designed not to pick up the bits but to concentrate on the ring size objects, and that is a good thing! Good luck with your next hunt and bring on the rings!

[schoolofhardNox]

3 minutes ago, okara gold said:

You sure did a lot of digging and by the looks of your finds the "AQ" isn't picking up the tiny bits of foil. I recall an earlier post saying it is designed not to pick up the bits but to concentrate on the ring size objects, and that is a good thing! Good luck with your next hunt and bring on the rings!

Thanks. No really small pieces of foil. Most of the foil was decent size and maybe if I played with the pulse rate or or combination of other settings I may be able to rid some more. But I would like to find that point where the smallest ring and the foil meet. I don't want to shift that range away from small rings... if that is even possible? And yes, I dig a lot 😄 always have and always will (until something on me breaks) 🤕

[Tony]

A while back. I posted a question about the AQ and bottlecaps so that has been answered for me !

Bottlecaps are a nightmare down here on my beaches but the Excal does very well on these. I have dug as many 200 in one long hunt. If anyone finds a tactic to dealing with these on the AQ then please update. We also have many $1 and $2 coins which are lost in their thousands on the beaches and in the water. These “goldies” are comprised of 92% Copper, 6% Aluminium, 2% Nickel which will be high conductivity on any detector. Are these sorts of targets ($1 and $2)  sacrificed on the AQ in the pursuit of gold? (Assuming not running in AM)
I usually average $1500 per year with these coins alone and they give a good indication of how popular a beach is and by their condition, a recent drop or not.

 

[Steve Herschbach]

On 6/15/2020 at 8:17 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

This detectors Achilles Heel should not surprise PI users - wire and bottle caps.

A lot of bottle caps will have a ferrous “edge” to the signal if using tones. But some just sound good so you have to dig them. My deepest signal so far was a quiet little tone in sand. Over ten scoops later there was the bottle cap. I started getting the ferrous edge when I got close, but by then I was determined to see it with my eyeballs.

[Badger-NH]

30 minutes ago, Tony said:

We also have many $1 and $2 coins which are lost in their thousands on the beaches and in the water. 
I usually average $1500 per year with these coins alone and they give a good indication of how popular a beach is and by their condition, a recent drop or not.

 

Wow, that's cool that coins are still popular down there. I wouldn't mind finding $1 and $2 coins. The dollar coins never caught on in the states.

People don't carry coins much in New England anymore. Money has been replaced by credit cards.

Twenty years ago we used to find $5 - $10 each hunt. Now you'd be lucky to find 5 or 10 coins.

 

[Tony]

Well I guess eventually all physical money will die out......at one stage the Aussie government was going to replace the $5 note  with a $5 coin but still waiting for that.