Vaun_c

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 

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.

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'. 

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  

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.

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.