Badger-NH

I loved my T-2 SE even with all it's drawbacks. It might have done well had they fixed its problems and modernized it now and then. Pros- Great depth and processing. The EMI sensitivity was actually a good thing that gave it superior performance. Cons - The coil sucked and was basically throwaway. The settings needed to be re-set every time you turned it on. The volume knob was in a bad location and would turn if you brushed against it. It was a little heavy by today's standards.

Is this anyone you know? Detectorist at the Wedge at 1:45 and again at 2:50.

I think you mean silicone, not silica gel. Silicone can be very messy and wouldn't really guarantee a good seal. You might be better off putting a clear plastic bag over the pod and trying to seal it around the handle by wrapping it with tape and/or many tight rubber bands but I'm not sure if that would work either. Maybe one of the other guys here can suggest a better solution.

Try shining a flashlight on it from the side. You may be able to see some faint outlines enough to confirm an ID. Coppers are fun to find and are a good indication you are detecting the right area. I've found hundreds over the years. Rarely will you get one in good condition but they look pretty impressive when you have a pile of them.

I would think that every known CW site down that way has been hunted to death. I would be looking for places that may have been overlooked or ignored. CW activity and dropped artifacts could have taken place anywhere. It's the same here in NE looking for colonial sites. These days it's usually a waste of time going to cellar holes and most farm fields because they have all been hunted for decades by generations of detectorists. In recent years we have been doing well detecting any woods we can find. Places that in the past no one would even consider detecting.

I generally take the summer off from detecting and don't start again until the fall after the crops are cut and the beaches become less crowded. Summer hay fields are often too dry to dig. Cooler weather is preferable as well. The disc isn't interesting enough for me to keep. I would have set it somewhere for others to see. Obviously the person who had them made didn't intend for them to be buried or thrown away, but I understand about respecting the bereft. If they were to see it, it might remind them of the tragedy.

The test target needs to be non-ferrous. I think if you had accepted -5 in disc mode, it would have picked up the nail just as well in disc mode as it did in all metal.

I said in my post that I dig everything above 0. That often means digging a lot of tiny trash which can be tiring. When I've had enough of that, I relax and dig everything 12 and above. There are lots of conditions that can make gold sound unstable. A nearby tiny piece of iron or mineralized rock, or gold held within a conglomerate of sand and rust for example. There is no point in trying to tell gold from other ferrous metals by sound. Iron is the only metal worth avoiding.

Thanks, I'm glad we cleared that up. I've been hunting in all metal since day one and have never tried using discrimination on the beach. I like knowing how much iron or mineralization might be around. Plus, I prefer to hear the whole signal over just a partial one. Turning the low tone volume all the way down makes them just a quiet background sound. Saying horseshoe mode is confusing because that could mean all metal on or off to different people. To me, horseshoe mode is all metal off. I question the idea that all metal would have any affect on depth simply because it's not a true all metal mode. All it does is turn the low tones on and off. Yes, some targets near the edge of detection can sometimes give off low tones so in that respect you could imagine it as more depth but normal non-ferrous tones and actual depth performance should be unchanged whether all metal is on or off. Maybe in black sand. I wouldn't know about that because we have no black sand on our beaches. The thought of an Equinox equaling a DEUS II simply by turning on all metal seems a little far fetched.

Going by the title of this thread, I assumed it was understood that we are running in all metal (no discrimination). I normally run in all metal with 2 or 5 tones. You seem to be saying that all metal single tone has more depth. To test your theory of increased depth, shouldn't we compare targets in both single tone and 5 tones to see if single tone goes deeper?

The only way to confirm an increase in depth is by burying some targets at precise depths and checking them using single tone and 5 tone.

The horseshoe button shouldn't have any affect on depth. All it does is turn the low tones on or off.

midalake said: "It is OK to have have a half fast regular swing but when you get a hit [slow down] It is real easy to know where the center of the target is in horseshoe mode, and you will never need to use pinpoint again!" People have told me that my swing is half fast, but I never knew what they meant by it. 😄

The idea sounds plausible. I can't wait to try some tests. I wonder if it increases depth on land as well.

I've given up all hope of ever seeing anything new from First Texas. All they have done from the start has been to milk what they could from the Fisher name. The real Fisher company went out of business long ago. Everyone hoped FT might continue the Fisher tradition of quality and innovation but that has proven to not be their intention. The AQ was a feeble attempt to create something new but that appears to have been a failure. Personally, I think that the decision makers at FT are not into metal detecting. Their motives are purely profit. It's unlikely they will ever get beyond the Bounty Hunter market niche and will never compete with Minelab, Nokta, or Garrett in quality, value, and performance. They did succeed in improving the Bounty Hunter brand but in so doing, lowered or at the very least stagnated Fisher and Teknetics.

I use 5 tones most of the time and occasionally 2. It's just a personal choice and doesn't affect depth. I only use 50 tones on land in high iron trash situations and occasionally single tone with horseshoe on but most of the time I'm in 5 for relic hunting.

I've seen fine gold chains that ID between 1 and 3. Generally, gold in the single numbers will be very small to micro in size and will usually be a lot less common than the heavier gold targets that ID in the teens. You should be using Beach 1. Sensitivity as high as possible as long as it remains quiet. There's no substitute for experience. We all learned by digging.

No, I would not buy one. I was on the original list to get one and dropped out as I started hearing about all the problems and that the ability of being able to identify iron was exaggerated and had no practical use. Long before the limited came out I was suggesting a non-waterproof model to keep the price down. I think they would have sold a lot more machines that way and avoided the leaking/corrosion problems. I think they need to go back to the drawing board and start over with a more streamlined model. Lower the price and just make it the high performance PI detector that it really is. Call it the AQ Beach for wet sand and water up to knee deep. No speaker, no headphones, under $1000. If that shows promise, then go ahead and design a submersible version.

At the beach I generally dig everything 13 and up regardless of how it sounds and only ignore 12 and below when I get tired of digging non-ferrous trash. Steel Lobster trap pieces will often ID as non-ferrous but can usually be identified by mixed low/high signals although some do sneak through and I have to dig them. Deep gold that is right on the edge of detection can also have occasional low tones but will still have that nice gold sound. Any time you pass up a small target with non-ferrous VDI, you take the risk of missing the precious metal.

What numbers would you not dig based on VDI?

If another company were to take over the AQ design, I think Nokta would be my choice.

If Alexandre is released from the contract, he should first take his design to the other companies and see if they are interested.

That's kind of what was saying since the beginning, but it didn't need to be a gold detector. A simple non-waterproof beach machine would have lowered the cost dramatically, avoiding a lot of problems while selling more units. Aiming the first prototype at water hunters was a mistake.

Saying you are able to tell the difference between gold and aluminum by ear is a little like believing you are psychic. The ability can easily be proved or disproved using tests similar to the tests used for testing psychic ability.

I can tell the difference between a gold ring and a pull tab just by looking at them.