dewcon4414

Daniel....... ive been testing those two machines as well. One thing i can tell you on a salt water beach ........ maybe running the trough N to S isnt the best way to get the deeper gold. It might net you a ring on its side thats been pushed up against the rise because you get more of the ring. But it tends to see more of the black sand veins........ thus reducing a bit of depth and giving just enough chatter on the slop to miss a deep one. It does much better going WITH the grain....... E to W in a grid. I buried a 21 gram 10k ring in the very wet sand at 16 inches the Nox didnt see the ring going N to S. But might get it E to W. IF the Nox gets a target it does give a bit better TID. What i noticed about the MDT....... i hunt in AM i dont like all the ping pongs of disc. The Nox has better TID IF the target is in depth range...... BUT the MDT will tell you there is a target there better. I noticed something today when i pulled a cross and was just digging GOLD targets...... 13 and below digits....... in AM i got a BANG over that cross.... a HARD bang with a solid 4 just want i expected for a cross. BUT i got thinking...... it was just a really hard BANG just like you get off a bottle cap...... which got me thinking........ its just saying TARGET TARGET not giving me a crappy signal that another machine might on a cross with a lot of tones does. Some of those tiny aluminum rivits that fall thru the scoop....... read high with the MDT so i dont go chasing them. So ..... im looking for DEEPER targets with the MDT ...... and in a pretty narrow window. You have to make more decisions than me working in fresh water with the Nox. BUT..... i like both machines for what they do.

I see where you are coming from and you make some good points. Im more of one of those guys who do chase those smaller targets in the salt water. Most of the foil or really light stuff moves more toward the high tide line....... but those pesty chair aluminum punch outs or rivits can be a pain. Fresh water i can see even more just because stuff dont move as much nor does it desolve a quickly. Ive always said the CTX is a more refine machine and the smart screen has so much more info. If you want to do a pattern and have the time in on the CTX....... clearly id use it. You WONT dig a bottle cap thats for sure. No chatter in the salt water...... just a little falsing in the surf with black sand swinging up the slope. More of a coil flip thing. BUT.... the CTX can be like swinging a dead horse out there. Once the box is submerged it feels a little floatie. I hear more complaints about getting headphones with enough volume for the CTX over the Nox as well. There is some advantage to just wanting to chase the heavy gold ...... you can move along a little faster and like you said NOT have to chase the small targets...... or mybe gold. The Nox does have an advantage on the small gold. Weight didnt really bother me either.... since the Nox isnt balanced very well it can be just as tiring to swing. You are right about that screen and the sun too....... Nox clearly is easier to see. Lot of its preference i guess......... i still see a lot of people who swing the Xcal and prefer it over any other water machine.

I think some just don’t want others getting interest in a good machine if they are digging in their area. 2 weeks.....I didn’t even have waterproof phones for a few months..... but it sure made me take the time needed to have a better handle on what it was doing. I was starting the worlds largest foil ball I think ?. Success on your book Andy

Tom D mentioned this as well. It happened to him on a nickel. I’ve just not noticed it I guess. Thou targets do disappear in the hole even in the water. I can understand the frustration as well....tuff enough digging in the oat meal without having targets disappear OR worse missing one you just didn’t even see.

Clive...... im hoping ML takes a good look at giving us a salt water balance. Things change the deeper you go. A lot has to do with whats settling out there in the low areas...... obviously black sand and smaller trash. Thats why we get more surface noise off the hard pan and those areas. IF we could adjust the salt balance like GB things change. The AquaSound and my current machine can adjust the salt balance AND... are single freqs giving better depth in the salt water than multi currently does. The hard pan seems to be reacting much like hot rocks do .... salt water really lights up small minerals and iron so we are picking up surface noise. With a SET salt balance......it cant change from shallow to neck deep water. The only option at this point is to do adjustments....... which normally means sensitivity just like we do with hot rocks.

Seems you really want to hunt for targets in the 3 to 5 even thou you have one turned down. It can depend on how you set your bins up. I dont think you could go wrong adjusting your bins a bit then just using a high volume SINGLE tone. .... unless you are passing on some of those targets in your range. If so go to more of a single digit disc. As shallow as they seem the TID may not change much making it easier to make a good pattern. But from what you have set up it seems you are looking for these.......BUT are still wanting to check other targets in a pretty broad range.

As far as those cross over..... i mentioned cutting the off and everyone came unglued lol. The Xcal dont need um and this coil is as solid at that one. Once the warranty is gone so are those babies. I really think the coil will hold less sand and move better in the water. Im using another machine currently .... it has the tightest coil cover ever....... but still fills with sand. Id say it affects those with a lot of mineralization doing a GB than me...... using 0 GB in light mineral sand. The Explorers used to be really bad about the least little bit of sand under the cover too. Would a coil wear faster with all those holes.......and would it move away from the coil when moved in the water making it harder to swing out there? Anyone whose used a CTX in the water knows those cross fins act almost like a rutter as they come away from the coil. You can tell the difference with the coil cover off. At least these on the Nox seem to stay attached.

I don’t know that the Nox IS as affected like older model machines. Here in Fl of course we don’t have nearly the minerals. Like I said that accusation of sand in the cross arms doesn’t really affect the detector unless it moves separate from the detector.

I use loctite marine epoxy on my coil COVER..... but not the coil. I was going thru a cover every 4 or 5 months. As pricy as the ML coils are ......id rather replace a cover. At least we arent dealing with what we used to in water machines........that being they aint hard wired. I assume the shoe goo surves two purposes..... fill the gap and make it float just a bit. Thou anything moving with the coil normally dont get picked up by the machine...... we used to use SS bolts.

Cutting a small portion ...1” long off the back bottom without cutting the side works for water hunting. You can dunk the coil up and down in the water and it will drain out the back.

The salt setting is really needed. You may like the way the Xcal sounds and handles the wet sand..... but the Nox is a clear winner depth and sensitivity wise. In beach 1..... using RS 3 gives you that sound you may get from other detectors when swinging slightly up hill on patches of accumulate black sand where there is water movement in the sand nearer the water. Reducing the RS to 4 helps and allows you to run good sensitivity. Beach 2 works best....... but you have to remember .... its using reduced power and a salt setting. BUT i hear you about wanting a machine that can run like the Xcal in PP modes....... love it. Because in the water ...... the Xcal is very good even over the Nox except on the really small gold.

I dont do videos........ but editing a whole days digs must be time consuming? That was a bucket lister for sure....... nice.

Beach 2... might work as well with it’s salt setting and reduced power.

The EQ can be a chatty machine in the water near hardpan..... better in fluffy sand out there. If the Box and coil is under water its not EMI as much as the salt/minerals. The deeper you go the more effect the salt has on the machine. I also find it a bit irritating that the machine wraps around in the lower gold digits.... rather than the higher digits out of my way. That means you have to play with 5 tones or 2 tones.... 50 tones seems to work better for me to ID targets from that wrap around falsing. You can always turn down the GB...... but in hard pan your will really notice a depth difference since the machine is already working with reduced power. You can also turn up the RS.... but that kind of chops signals... and you still have to reduce sensitivity with to much chatter. IMO they need to play with the salt balance a bit more. I agree Clive its not CTX or Xcal in PP mode...... they seem a little more refined out there and can be deeper if you have to do a lot of adjusting to the Nox....... BUT the smaller shallower gold the Nox seems to pick up.

Well said Steve. I’ve been pretty happy with what the machine has put in my treasure chest. The machine isn’t perfect....but most water machines there are things I’d love to improve. I’ve never used PPing... I like AM....though I wished it was like the Xcal. Conditions can make the difference with any machine....I’m in the Gulf and she works good

Ha....... that wasnt a ring..... it was a loop to a 150 gram chain and cross you missed by 2 inches.

It might also depend on how its tracking. If its just tracking the minerals in the sand ....... OR if it also tracking the salt water. Shallow water for the most part isnt an issue..... its a pretty forgiving GB. But things change more for me the closer i get to the hard pan..... out chest deep. But that areas can make most machines want to false a bit more..... the trick is getting it to smooth down a bit to catch weak targets..... with out over balancing loosing them.

Its a good possibility it PARACHUTED..... meaning the heavy part was on the bottom..... depending on which direction you swung may have given different results based on the amount of band it was seeing first. One direction would have more surface than the other.

The Explorers had a tendency to down scale big silver or that containing a lot of silver....... say like a silver dollar.... it may just be densitiy.

I normally try to manually GB mid wet sand before getting in the water. A lot depends on IF your beaches allow a GB .... sometimes mine wont and the machine will just grab a digit.... move a foot and it will change. A few ways ive tried...... tracking can give you some sore of idea as to the digit you are working with. There can be a pretty good swing of digits from DRY .... to WET to near the surf. Near the surf i dont GB...... most of the black sand accumulates there... and there is water movement in the sand as the surf comes in.... which can really swing the GB and eliminate smaller gold. Some just use default GB of 0..... and deal with the chatter from minerals. There may be some advantage to this....... you cant tell when you are working in fluffy sand or near the hard pan out there just by the mineral chatter. Some like to work with a really quiet machine too. Tracking, higher recovery, lower sensitivity can do this....... but are you loosing deeper targets.... there is always a trade off.

For travel....... this is pretty cool. BUT..... when at home just like that travel shaft, i wouldnt use it constantly. For water hunting ..... not sure it would stand up to the torque thou.

I think what you are noticing is MODULATION (targets deep sound deep... shallow sound shallow). Mine seems to size the target well .. .. in 50 tones especially... but, compared to say and Explorer.. which used GAIN (modulation) with the max being 10 this machine is about 10. Headphones can make a difference..... piezos over speakers.... with piezos providing a bit better modulation. Having little modulation..... meaning most targets have the same louder volume works extremely well especially in trashy sites where you might just miss a weak signal if you had a lot of modulation. What i found was in 5 tones if i got say the 5 bin set at say 25....... beer cans and a quarter might sound very much the same and i couldnt tell size until i started digging.

I use recovery speed to quiet the machine in the salt water....I run 4 most of the time. The less false signals I have to re trace the better. In the water I was finding 6 to was a bit fast....filtering with to quick of a response. I’m not working in a lot of junk....but trying to tame the minerals. I don’t really swing the coil out there...I glide with the current. Less effort and I don’t seem to miss as many near targets

No..... but yesterday...... 9 hours with 2 hours of having the back light on low .... just lost one bar.

If its an RNB produce...... it will be top notch....... and LONG lasting. Thou....... honestly ..... i hunt a good 7 hours..... with a few of those hours with the back light on....... and have rarely seen the battery gauge drop a notch. USBs to me are just available everywhere for a recharge over night. I mean we cant live without our cell phones now can we?