schoolofhardNox

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.

All PI's and a bunch of VLF struggle with bottle caps. Once the season is over and the beach is cleaned up, it will mellow out a bit. Then that is when the deep stuff can be found. I don't usually hunt this early in the season, but will try and get out when I can. Who knows maybe someone will come up with a way to ID them before digging them. I don't mind the exercise, and this machine is going to compliment my Equinox and GPX nicely. One machine for tiny gold. one machine for Deep gold and one machine for deep silver. I think I have it covered now 😄

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) 🤕

Nice hunt. It always gets the blood pumping when you start hitting targets like that. Only a matter of time before you hit something good. Unfortunately in today's world a lot of jewelry looks good but is junk. I'm finding that for the past two years the increase of junk vs real has tipped in favor of junk. If I get a new drop, it's rarely gold. Most of my gold comes from the 70's, 80's maybe even into the 90's. After that Stainless, Titanium, and other metals took over. But there is no better feeling than to be out detecting.

It's like a soap opera, but real. Maybe there should be a tell all book written I used whites for many years exclusively from Coinmaster V Supreme until DFX. Then Minelab.... Now? Anyone who produces something I need and like. I hope White's re-invents itself. I look at things differently that I used to. I'm not really sad if a business dies, I just let it go and move on. If Whites makes a detector I like, I will invest my money with them. If they choose to rehash old designs or create new ones that don't do what I need, then I give my money to someone else. It really boils down to leadership in the end.

The reasons most businesses fail is that the person steering the boat won't take advice of the most loyal team members telling them that the boat is off course. It's that stubbornness, denial, and unwillingness to let others have a say, that crashes a business. The best thing that could happen to White's is new blood at the top.

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.

It was smaller than I expected. When I first got the unit, I went to plug in the cables and could hardly align them with my tired eyes 😄 Good that the next generation release will eliminate those issues. I'm leaning toward a very, overly cautious, attitude toward this machine which takes some of the fun away from it. I'm sure I will settle into a more normal routine soon enough. So if I break a cable? I guess I just wait for a replacement for it, that's all. The world will still continue I think. 🙄

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!

I bought 2 batteries just to get me through a hunt. Sometimes I hunt for 9 or 10 hours, so I will change machines and go to the GPX to balance out my time. One thing for sure is the AQ does not compare weight wise to the GPX . I charged both batteries and barely used one for some air tests. Then I put them back on the charger to freshen them up. Rested a couple of days and then charged them again and went for a hunt on Thursday. Each lasted me the 3 1/2 hours. Don't know if repeatedly touching up the charge did anything to get me the full amount the first time out or not, but they lasted. But when they go, they go fast! No time to delay in changing batteries, just do it right away. I'll post my first hunt in a thread today.

If I get one right across from the beach though......Hmmmm. Then I can detect all night long and sleep during the day. 🥰

Same for me. If other PI's have been hitting my favorite spots and have cleaned a lot of the iron out, I'm hoping the deeper gold will still be there and more alone of a target. Fringe targets are where I think it will be for me.

Oh No, I love those nails!! It's the other ones I hate I've only found 3 bronze spikes at the beach.

Plenty of nails everywhere in the USA The old shipwreck nails in my area are bronze I believe. Probably the 1700's and up. We can never totally get rid of nails, the best we can do is limit how many we pick up. Deep nails can be 15, 18, 24" etc deep. they sound very faint at that depth, just like a deep coin can.

As soon as I get a chance I will post my results here. My beaches are a 2 hour drive and most of them turn a blind eye to detecting before opening at 8 or 9 AM. They are starting to restrict detecting during operating hours. So that means getting up at 3 AM, driving 2 hours and detecting for 3 hours max and then home. So I'm debating if I want to do that. Now if someone wants to buy me a beach house down there, then I will definitely post for everyone 😄 But seriously, I will try and get a hunt in soon, as well as trying a land hunt for low conductors just for kicks. Disclaimer: I have zero hours on the AQ, so don't expect too much...I'm figuring 30 or so gold rings would be acceptable on a first hunt 😉

Nice, secure set up. My set up is not so neat 😄 I pile everything in the trunk. Since I bring everything I think I would ever need for 10 hunts, it packs nicely against each other. No room to move at all 🙄

Beauties. Some early ones there too.

Short answer - the cleaner the better. Anything that has paint, corrosion will be #2 copper. Fresh tubing is #1 copper, dirt filled is rejected. Trust is good, but scrap yards generally know what they are looking at.... they don't get fooled too often. Prices are per pound. You can call ahead and get the going rate. If you need more info, message me so we do not stray to far off topic

Thanks Joe. Hunting those threshold blips is what I planned to do, to see how deep it can go! Funny how for years, I liked to keep the threshold just about silent. Now I want to hear a quiet, but steady hum to hear those anomalies.

Nice hunt Joe. In addition to gold I am looking forward to finding older nickels too. Just goes to show you, old sites still have deep goods to give up.