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I'm in agreement with Carolina and Joe. I've been pretty happy with the two I have (once I got Joe's batteries on them and the shaft locks swapped out). I might be a lucky one with out having to send one back yet. Deep is what they are. Couple of resorts have stuff going on that interferes some and I've been able to tune to handle most of it and other places they run dead quiet. In the water there is a bit of toning on wave motion; about what I had with the DetectorPro HH Pulse ... meaning very usable. Pause when the crest goes over then detect between waves. I can get rid of much of it with highest delay setting and higher ATS setting but tend to not do that.

My opinion is that eye spotting a nice piece of metal is still "detecting" it. Nice find!

I hope the First Texas post is correct and not an error. The 8 inch is OK ... yet I'd like a ten inch. Any idea if the production model coil connector is the same as or compatible with the LTD?

The 8 inch AQ coil has not seemed to be any quieter than the big coil for me. I do have a variable that could be the reason; big coil is on one AQ LTD and little coil is on the other AQ LTD, so I could be seeing a difference between the two detectors rather than a good indication of how the coils behave. I don't think I will be doing much to examine that more; this being between two houses in two different states puts a cramp on detecting ... should have that all settled by early next year.

I got my Headhunter Pulse from Bill when he was closing down his shop. I got the 11 inch coil. I think the form factor of that coil makes it a great coil in the water. It has less drag than the 10 inch Excal coil. Agree that the 9-10 inch range is kind of a sweet spot size for water hunting.

Agree! I thought I'd be OK with two of the stock batteries until I was consistently running out of both. I thought five hours would be enough, until I actually ran one of Joe's big batteries out from a full charge. Completely lost track of time; wife was ready to call in a search party and I was sore as heck from the digging the old body did. Love the AQ LTD but it does need a lot of battery to keep it going. Joe has made it very usable where it was not entirely what was needed as it came from the factory.

I like that old gold! The AQ is really quiet in the bay and tributaries. Settings that I can run in the ocean waters are not near as hot as in the bay. I like that black coil! Now wouldn't it be nice if First Texas made one that size? Around 10 inches or so.

It appears the coils are still available; at least for now.

I remember when you posted the side by side depth tests several years back and a CZ21 was the deepest on a gold ring ... but it low toned, very solid low tone, with the ring at depth. That taught me that I needed to dig it all with the CZ in all metal, or use it like a PI and only exclude the sweeps that double blipped. After a few years on an Excal and going between it and the CZ it became apparent the the minimum discrimination setting nulling on the Excal excludes less gold than what the low tone indication on the CZ does. Both seem to find more and better stuff running all metal and digging the deep ones. It is an ongoing learning experience ... never ending learning! Thank you for all the lessons you share!!!

LOL ... winter can be the best time to hunt the bay and tributaries. Have broken up the surface freeze with the scoop many times to get to more of a beach. OBN has a full dry suit; I go with chest waders and layers with full length trapper's gauntlets. I have an auto / manual inflate life vest that I feel is just a little cumbersome when in the water so normally don't take it ... but after OBN's experience ... I take it more often. This fall and winter might be my last in the bay ... bought a house near the beach in South Carolina. I pray OBN has some more good bay years in him!

Amazing number of class rings!

My thoughts are that if there is not a significant improvement in real in the ground detecting capability, then what is currently available, even if designed in the 1990's suits me well. The market for detectors is minuscule compared to phones and TVs where development costs are covered with a very small part of the costs. I'm not a big feature driven guy, I don't notch targets ... just like a little info on conductive range of target. Beep and dig detectors do that. Would be nice to see the Impulse Gold come out and see what you think of that going after nuggets.

Sunray 12.5 inch coil that was made several years ago for the CZ. It is thin in cross section.

Have you ever tried the FZ-12 in the surf? I nearly drowned my CZ6A a couple times, but that FZ-12 handled the surf very well.

Would be nice if that new coil form factor comes out for the CZ's ... a big, low water drag coil on the CZ-21 would make it more attractive for working the water. As it is now, I think the best compromise for working the water with the CZ is the 8 inch coil. The 10.5 inch coil has too much water drag and for wet sand work (or dry) is just too heavy.

In all metal it finds silver just fine! If you go to disc mode and turn disc and ATS up, you can exclude silver, lead sinkers and even big pieces of gold. I like it in all metal ... most of the time.

some of the old stuff has found it's way back onto the revised live forum and can be found in searches; but still a lot has been lost.

The cleaner I've used with good results is CRC 5101 QD Electronic Cleaner ... that and Joe's recommended one are good choices for electronics cleaners.

Having worked a burned down old home site that had a metal roof ... a small coil helps a lot; but you still need to remove a bit of trash to uncover some of the goodies. I worked that burned old home site with a friend. It was shortly after the original F75LTD and the Whites V3 came out. He had the V3 and I had the F75LTD. We were both just starting to learn those detectors. He had the standard coil with no other option. I had a small coil (5 inch). He laughed at the tiny coil until it was finding lead, brass and a few coins and he was hitting nothing but iron ... then he started cursing ... a lot. It wasn't a miracle of finds, but the small coil helped take a few goodies home.

Was in Myrtle Beach for most of a week. Got the AQ well into the chop on this trip. I stayed in cuts between sand bars and the beach so the waves were not terrible and I was able to stay on my feet. Ran all metal all the time. It ran mostly quiet with ATS on 7, Sensitivity on 4, delay on 10. If I ran delay less than 10, each step lower got a good bit more noisy. ATS lower than 7 did not make for good hunting either. Still left lots of adjustment should I venture beyond the sand bar. Had the big coil on, did not take the 8 inch on this trip. The waves did make for an effort controlling the coil, but made it through without mishap. Did not go out detecting on Thursday when Elsa went through. Elsa seemed to mostly push some sand up on the beach in the area we were staying; that made the bottoms of the cuts softer than they were early in the week. That said, On Friday in a soft bottomed cut, had a fairly faint but repeatable signal that after four scoops became very loud and I got it on the fifth scoop. Nice little 2.3 gram 14K gold pendant.

Possible. I really have no idea though. Not much wear on it, not much discoloration, and that has me baffled. I saw it in the scoop and said "WOW", then got it directly to the pouch before looking around.

LOL ... If I recall correctly, the arm cuff has three positions that it can be set in. From the factory it is in the middle position. On both my AQ LTD's I moved the cuff to the highest position because that works best for me in preventing a recurrence of elbow issues I've had in the past. To move it, the screw needs to come out and the wiring is very apparent. A tiny bit of care in lining things up so the wire isn't nicked putting the screw back in is all that is needed. Glad you got a "better" battery! Edited to add: On the newer of the two AQs I have, the battery cable is thinner but stiffer, and the connector has a little flared plastic piece on the end of the connector ... and it did not have the little red O rings that the first one had. It looks like the newer connector is made to seal without the O ring. I added an O ring just in case and it looks like the connector snugs up with the same gap between the connectors with and with out the added O ring.

Found many pictures and the ones of silver recovered from ship wrecks or the ocean floor look grey to black or generally badly tarnished and many encrusted. Here are two pictures that said they did not need releases or royalties to use.

I could understand that with worn coins. I've found four or five mercury dimes in Atlantic City that were half the thickness of what they would be normally ... they were also kind of black. You very well could be right, yet I'm a little skeptical on that theory for old silver in very nice shape and not badly worn from a lot of tumbling in abrasives. I wonder what recovered sunken silver looks like after a century or more in the ocean from a ship wreck? ... I'll have to do some searches. Maybe if the coins were somewhat protected and then pushed up to shore by storm activity ... or sand pumping replenishment operations ... hmmm ... ???

In 2016 I found a 1899 dime, high up in the dry sand just before turning the detector off as I was leaving the beach, about a block south of where this dollar was found. Both coins are in good condition, not black and crusty like I normally find with silver that has been in salt water for a while. I don't know if the club down there does seeded beach hunts and left some in the sand or not ... not sure why old silver in good condition would be there ... but not complaining!