schoolofhardNox

Nice. Standing Liberty Quarters are far and few between. And the gold cross is sweet.

Thanks. Not too worried about it. Summer hunting never appealed to me. I would not even be hunting them if it was not for the release date of the AQ. It will have it's place in the fall/ winter for sure. 7 hour hunts during those months. If I had 3 batteries I would be there longer. But I'm NOT buying a 3rd battery 😄 Yup, that lure was the first target dug there. Fairly deep at @ 10" Forgot to post a picture of the 2 nails I found too. I guess it was a day for finding big stuff. No doubt. 😄 But the machine was never intended to be sweeping the dry sand after huge crowds. That is VLF territory all day long. I got bored covering the wet sand with almost no hits, so to get some exercise, I figured I needed to dig more targets. Yup VLF all the way. Yes the footprint is bigger on the long targets, but probably so would a big gold chain. I could also guess they were bottle caps since the targets appeared very loud and a bit larger than a deep target, but I'm guessing so would a big man's gold ring at shallow depth. That's for sure🙄 I would not be caught dead drinking any of those beers. With small breweries everywhere now, I want to enjoy some quality beers from now on. I gave Budweiser enough of my money in my youth! That tropical storm may be heading too far inland to have a huge impact, but what I've learned you can never really tell until you get there. Thanks. Hunting for fun now. Going to try some dirt hunting with it maybe this week. Interested in trying it at some inland EMI areas. I have two spots that I know well and have been hammered. I want ti see if it can pull any non ferrous out of there. plenty of 34 caliber (and up) round ball pulled from this field. WE shall see.

So I wanted to go back to my favorite beach since this time I would hit it at low tide. Not a great low tide, but enough to expose a good stretch of wet sand where I am dying to try the Tone (and Mute) modes where there is a decent amount of iron present. Today was not that day. Completely sanded in so I will have to wait until this beach gets ripped up a bit. It does not help that they groom the beach every morning. Last time the grooming guy came out of his way to circle me, trying to intimidate me into leaving I heard almost no iron, so I knew it was deeply hidden. 2 1/2 hours flies by and I'll probably have to wait until my good season hits this fall. I guess I'll have to cough up some cash and buy that Xtreme scoop so I can maybe hit some lakes with it. I'm not strong enough to handle those rough waves at these exposed beaches like you veteran water guys are The surfing dudes will be scraping me up out of the water. I'm not disappointed in the machine, just in the beach conditions and of course the short time allowable to hunt.

I'm having similar results on my second hunt. At least you hit cobble. My beach is so sanded in, all that remains is more shallow targets(under 12") and a lot of open space and smooth threshold. If your hitting cobble you should hit gold if it's there. Pull tabs sound nice when they are deep I don't know your beach conditions, but sooner or later some sand should move and the targets will light up. Looking forward to your next hunt.

How about just getting the same size round neodymium magnet and just let it attract to the magnet on the bottom of the one you bought?

Me too. They may not make the full 99 units. On the other hand if there are major delays, they may extend the limit past 99 right?? Either way, if the machine pans out for me I may get the other one too. That way I have a spare for a friend to use, and if they out-do me with it, I just have to wait 3 hrs for their battery to run dry.

I need 10 hours battery life just in case 😄 Would be nice to not have to swap out batteries during a hunt. In my area, if you move from your spot during a good low tide, someone swoops in and is there in a heartbeat 🤨

Should we be running the sensitivity as high as we can get it for that kind of depth? I'll be doing wet slope and wading in the water for now.

Some people really need that alias to protect them and all the GOLD they find. 😄 Not mentioning any names of course 😊

Cudamark, I think you will learn to love some of the things that seem bad to you right now. The sensitivity of the edge of the coil is a huge plus for me. If you watch the early videos again, you will see the techniques on pinpointing a target, pinpointing a target in a deep open hole, and pinpointing a target that has been removed and is in the sand pile. The edge of that coil, especially when tilted, almost reacts like a knife blade. At least that is the way I envision it. With quick, short nudging of the coil, it reacts immediately and for me shows me how close I am to the target. That's how I learned to pinpoint with it, so it seems to do that job well for me right off the bat. My struggles will be different from your struggles, but all in all I think this machine will be a winner once all plays out.

Steve, Is your AQ wearing a yellow face mask?? That will not help with that Corona bottle cap virus. 😄 Glad to see I'm not the only one digging junk. OOps that is not your AQ 🙄 Just read it again

Thanks for the great write up. Picking an area to hunt is going to have a great impact on success rates it seems. Until they make a machine that actually analyzes the metal, we will always have trouble with the same targets that we have always had trouble with.... Iron and Aluminum. I'm glad the discrimination seems to react better in wet sand. That helps in the areas I want to hunt in. Looking forward to your minus tide hunt.

Thanks for the report on the AQ. Did the rings have a strong response? Any guess on how deep the Titanium ring was? I agree the AQ does have a solid, easy to swing feel to it.

Nice hit. I think this machine will not disappoint in the depth category. My two most favorite things about the AQ is how quick the coil responds when you pinpoint and how nice and smooth the threshold is.

Root canal? That sounds painful. 😧 😄 I didn't have a lot of choice but to do the dry sand since the tide was high and my time was limited. But dry sand can yield information too. That's all I'm going to do is gather info until the fall when I can do all day hunts and work the wet sand hard. I know some people are disappointed in seeing all that trash, but that is the way I gain knowledge about a new machine. I did the same with my GPX for a while, until I learned where it was best to use and where it lacked performance. The dry sand has yielded me a huge amount of silver coins from this beach, so that is where the GPX works the best (for me). The GPX handled the wet sand OK but the amount of iron killed it's performance. The wet sand and water is where I'm hoping the AQ can excel at. But in the meantime, I hope everybody gains some insight from these dry sand hunts. I hope no one is discouraged about what this machine may be capable of doing, since it hasn't been out long enough to even scrape the surface of what it may do. OBN's hunts give you some solid data on what it can do in the water, in an experienced person's hands. I'm sure it will have it's place in dry sand as well, although the trash count will be much higher.