Axiom At The Beach

[Pyriteboy]

On 1/7/2023 at 8:21 AM, Steve Herschbach said:

The higher the speed setting the noisier the Axiom is. EMI or no EMI, that's just the way the circuit works. Set slow and go low and slow, unless wanting to just cover ground fast - but at a cost.

Bingo, Steve, I am trying to dial in the beach settings for the Axiom for max speed; that is to say, the maximum speed I would want to swing the coil to cover ground and still hear a reasonable target. I call it breezing; suppose you could call it patch hunting speed. For sure this speed would be a little faster than when in the gold fields- but how much faster seems to be a black art.

-Jerry

[Steve Herschbach]

2 hours ago, Pyriteboy said:

Bingo, Steve, I am trying to dial in the beach settings for the Axiom for max speed; that is to say, the maximum speed I would want to swing the coil to cover ground and still hear a reasonable target. I call it breezing; suppose you could call it patch hunting speed. For sure this speed would be a little faster than when in the gold fields- but how much faster seems to be a black art.

-Jerry

Hi Jerry,

You still may want to try the slow setting even if swinging faster. I have to admit I’ve never tested it so it would be worth the test. The theory is if the setting is slow and you swing fast, then a setting of fast to match is better. But is it really? How much depth is lost when the setting is for slow but you are going at a good clip, versus setting the speed for high and going at a good clip? Me, I would probably run the slow setting just to keep the machine quiet, unless there really was a significant difference to be had with the fast setting. Personally, I see it more as a reactivity control that governs how fast the machine recovers between targets, and not a “how fast am I swinging” control. If it is more a target recovery speed control, then faster settings will attenuate signals and cut depth no matter how fast you are swinging, and the faster settings would only be of benefit in dense targets. 

[abenson]

UtahRich and I went to the GSL beach yesterday for about 4 hours. He was swinging the Axiom and I was swinging the Equinox 900. Hopefully he'll add his thoughts. I think the settings he settled on were Salt mode, speed slow and sensitivity jumping between 3 and 4. Axiom ran good and we compared a lot of targets. I was very impressed with the depth it was getting. We both found some good targets it was good to see the Axiom in action at the beach.

[Steve Herschbach]

DD or mono coil? It does not get any saltier than Great Salt Lake so if it handles that most of us should have no problem. 

[abenson]

53 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

DD or mono coil? It does not get any saltier than Great Salt Lake so if it handles that most of us should have no problem. 

Sorry should have mentioned the coil. It was the DD 11x13 I believe that's the size 

[UtahRich]

On 1/8/2023 at 11:15 AM, abenson said:

UtahRich and I went to the GSL beach yesterday for about 4 hours. He was swinging the Axiom and I was swinging the Equinox 900. Hopefully he'll add his thoughts. I think the settings he settled on were Salt mode, speed slow and sensitivity jumping between 3 and 4. Axiom ran good and we compared a lot of targets. I was very impressed with the depth it was getting. We both found some good targets it was good to see the Axiom in action at the beach.

Hey Andrew,

Thanks again for the invite. Much appreciated and congrats again on your great day!

On 1/8/2023 at 11:57 AM, Steve Herschbach said:

DD or mono coil? It does not get any saltier than Great Salt Lake so if it handles that most of us should have no problem. 

Hi Steve,

I was using the 13"x11" DD coil.

SETTINGS: 

MODE = Salt (seemed like a given for the area we were hunting)

FREQUENCY SCAN - I performed this 2 times while out hunting. When I started, and after we took a break when I was having an issue with instability in a certain area. One scan settled in the 20's, one in the 50's. 

TONE = 50

AUDIO = 01

HEADPHONES = NO

GROUND TRACK = MANUAL.  15,16,17 / 13 were the results of my balancing. Fifteen was most common. I manual ground balanced several times as the afternoon progressed.

I am a long time detectorist, but a noob to PI's. When it comes to PI machines, I have wrestled with buying one ever since they started showing up in the gold prospecting magazines. The Axiom was a long time coming.

As for sharing information about this first time out, let me share a disclaimer, While I've watched hundreds (my wife might say several hundred) of hours of videos of those using PI's for gold prospecting and relic hunting, I have a grand total of 4 hrs in the field behind the controls, so with that thought, here we go.

Prior to heading out, I reviewed Steve's Key Posts regarding the Modes and Use of the Axiom and preset it for Salt Mode, Audio 01, Ground Track Manual. Sensitivity started at 3. 

Weather was cold - a snow storm had passed thru earlier in the week and as the temp increased from freezing to 40* or so there was some fresh water runoff coming from the shoreline areas out across the sand flats to the lake. We were technically teetering on shallow water hunting in spots and I did have that disaster thought in the back of my mind of accidentally dropping the Axiom into a pool of water or it tipping over in the wet sand and water getting inside.  That would be bad. 

Those not familiar with the great salt lake should know there is a sand layer sitting atop a stinky gray claylike nasty smelly layer 10" or 12" beneath the sand where most targets come to rest over time. We wanted to do some target comparisons with the Axiom and EQ900 so with that thought we got started.

Of we went.  I started working my way from close to shore. Andrew headed to some familiar areas out in the flats. I noticed right off the bat that the Axiom was very smooth and there was NO audio instability at all. I picked up a loud / wide audio signal which was a round sand ball resting on the surface a little smaller than a golf ball. It was a hardened ball of sand formed around some piece of metal. (i broke it open later at home and it ended up being a nut). Next target was a very nice tight low/high signal that while easy to pick up, sounded deep. Andrew was a couple hundred yards away so I went ahead and dug this one without him comparing signals. At about 10" i hit the yuck layer and a few inches into that was a small round ball formed around my target. I broke the sand away to find the reeded edge of a dark gray silver dime.  Wow, not a bad first dug target.

The day went on and i worked my way out to Andrews vicinity. He had marked a target along the edge of the water he wanted me to check.  It was another low/high. A little softer in tone than the one i had dug. I changed through the 4 MODES to listen for audio differences and signs of instability. There was some audio difference, but nothing drastic. The response from Large and Salt sounded best to my ear. From way down in the yuck came another coin. ( i think this one was a wheatie).  I was not using headphones so we could both listen to the audio.

Andrew was impressed with the stability and clarity of Axiom signal. He has used other PI's in this same area.

Anyway, Andrew did some video recording along the way that he may post on his YouTube channel that will give you an idea of the depth targets were being retrieved. All of the targets he recovered, that he had me check, were good solid signals with the Axiom. He found a couple silver dimes, one of which he had me check before beginning to dig.  It was another good signal. It was deep in the yuck and an easy 14". That is the deepest dime I've seen recovered ever.  

I did make some adjustments to sensitivity as i was hunting just to see if i could find the point where instability arose. It seemed to be going from 4 to 5.  At Sensitivity 4 i could hear what i assumed were lines of mineralization change in the ground where the threshold increased and i could follow along. At a setting of 5 these 'lines' were quite pronounced.

I did have a few ghost targets where i ended up with an empty hole and nothing to show for it. One of these was a high/low target that seemed solid enough. It sounded deep and i dug out the overburden down to the yuck layer. It still sounded in the hole. Remember this ground is wet and like a salt water beach in the splash zone, the sides of the hole are sluffing off into the recovery area. You have to dig quickly. And something i didn't point out earlier is that the yuck layer is frozen. Like concrete frozen.  It was taking force and persistence to penetrate. Meanwhile, the sides of the hole are caving in and the hole filling with freezing salt water.  Fun, right?  I had my gloved hand with Garrett Carrot desperately trying to find this low conductive target and it isn't there. and I'm removing more sand / frozen yuck and spreading out the sand pile to see if I had 'outed' it. And nothing.  After about 15 minutes i was stumped. Did i remove a small rusty bit that disintegrated? Was it some concentrated mineralization? Was the open hole full of very salty water and sand in the mineralized ground freaking out the Axiom making my target magically disappear? I thought the pinpointer would find it, but no.  I filled in the hole and swung over it before walking off.  Nothing. ?? 

Anyway, Andrew had me checking more of his targets, which he was finding pretty consistently and each time the Axiom was great. 

After some wandering around digging up shotgun hulls, an old matchbox car, another coin (an incredibly thin copper memorial penny) i decided to wander back to that one hole that i was sure held a good high/low target.  I swung over it and nothing. . . .  I was thinking back to Steve's advice about the Axiom and not running the sensitivity too high.  I switched from 4 back to 3.   Bing.   High/low target was right there in the hole. I took a couple shovel fulls of mixed sand and yuck out of the hole and there was a mashed lead rifle bullet that looked in the 100-120grain area. Hmmm.  Well mystery kind of solved. I talked this over with Andrew . . . and I wondered if i had been unwise for running 4 instead of 3 for about 1/2 of my hunt. 

So much to learn with the PI.  I had a really great time, found some good targets, learned a lot and got to watch Andrew have a banner day. Hoping he shares that with all of you. I have to say that I'm really pleased with my Axiom, I think it's going to be a good one for me.

Hope this is of some value to those reading it. 

Rich 

[Steve Herschbach]

Great report Rich, thank you for taking the time to write it up and post it. The one place I’ve never used an Axiom is on a salt water beach, and I’m as curious as anyone as to how they will do there. I’d love to pop over to the California coast to take advantage of the current storm cycle to find out for myself, but the prospect of dealing with weather and traffic jams in the Sierras has me staying put.

[abenson]

From what I saw it's a winner at the saltwater beaches. Not sure how it would compare to a GPX 4500 or 5000. I may have to borrow a 4500 from my friend the next time we go out and bury some nickels at different depths just to see. Might even take the 6000 along as well. Not to prove one is better than the other but just to put things in perspective for those that are interested. My gut feeling is the Axiom and 4500 would be very close. We already know a dime at about 14" is no problem for both the Axiom and the Equinox 900 with the 12x15 coil. I would guess from past experience with PI's at the GSL it will pickup a nickel at 16 or 17". I will at some point post the video we did of the Axiom and Equinox going over different targets but will start a different thread.