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48 minutes ago, Jim in ma said:

The part I had the most trouble with was pinpointing a shallow target

Titling it and using the edge of the coil helps a lot with that.

2 hours ago, Joe Beechnut OBN said:

flip the lever

I saw that too. Is that an indication the shaft lock on a new one is a lever clamp type going forward and not the twist ones? To me, that would be good news.

If you look at the picture of the pieces, the ring on the original clamp is what you need to remove for it all to come off easily. This is Carolina's picture since he got his off with little damage and I mangled mine a bit. Looking at the clamp from the top, there is a very little seem between the top ring and the cone shaped piece. From the side, there are retaining pieces that fit into slots along the upper part of the cone. I tried unsuccessfully to push the retaining parts in to release the cone. I ended up using a very small flat blade screw driver to get between the top ring and the cone and pry it out. Once the ring released from the cone, it pretty much all slid apart.

1 hour ago, midalake said:

Right now this machine is a flop in moving salt! 

44 minutes ago, midalake said:

For the record it is about the same movement that makes the Equinox fall on it's face as well. 

A thought that I hope is based in logic, then I'll walk away from this particular part of the discussion. If both quoted items are true, the logical conclusion is that the Equinox is a flop in moving salt water. Might be interesting to see that discussion over on the Equinox forum. 🙂

43 minutes ago, midalake said:

Right now this machine is a flop in moving salt! 

Bull! Some areas are better than others, and I'm a little limited in where I have and have not been with it ... but your statement is bull. I understand you have not gotten one in your hands, so I'll have to say that is why you might make that statement.

On 3/2/2021 at 12:50 PM, cjc said:

Joe, in his wisdom put both connectors on his extended run time cell.  Found that Grey Ghosts really enhance the audio.

cjc

Which Grey Ghosts are you using and do they happen to be pin for pin compatible or is a connector rewire needed?

2 hours ago, King-Of-Bling said:

Great comment. In my 15 minutes of fame on the AQ , I tried 3 modes with iron , a small wire and a 14k 2 gram diamond ring. The mode I could clearly pick out all 3 targets was the AM mode. More so than in tone or mute. Maybe because I'm so used to my DF.

I will need to take a couple of the targets I dug and a couple rings and go do some more ear training on the wet sand.

As ugly as it was before the clean up I would have bet it was silver.

Good recovery on that one!

3 hours ago, Carolina said:

Sounds like the Ocean View area. It also sounds like you are learning the AQ also. I stand by my statement with the ATS at the most conservative setting, just past 8 ( broken tone ) reject 3 a 18k 15+ gram pig, in tone mode is a iron grunt or low tone. Since most of these are located on or near the rim, I dig them all. Mid slope and higher I skip. Once I’m in the water it’s All Metal and dig it all. Good luck everybody.

Yes that is where we were for the weekend get away. Wife booked the weekend and I knew I had to try the AQ around the granite and brick pieces.

Thanks for the info on the 18K pig. I don't have an 18 K bigger than I think 4 grams to test with. How I was set would have missed that pig. Most places and most of the time I'm in all metal.

Picture is of stuff less the few crab trap pieces that I thew away at the hotel. The little chain and things left of it will get picked up by a magnet, things to the right won't.

Several years ago I was calf deep detecting a little cut in front of a sand bar in Myrtle Beach with my favorite CZ6a. Got surprised by a wave that drenched the detector for a second or less. It went nuts with a very ugly continuous squealing. I turned it off, took the batteries out and let it sit. Tried it again a week later and it was fine. CZ6A is water resistant. I've had it in the rain doing tot lots and never had an issue, but the wave must have found a way to get the insides wet. Since then, it has not ventured even ankle deep near the surf.

As for the end of sweep "noise" ... I don't try to get rid of it since I can reduce it with better coil control, I know what it is and I can reposition to get that part of the bottom covered so another sweep or two of the coil ha that part in the middle of a sweep. I'm listening for a short rise and fall of the threshold that is different than the end of sweep "noise" that has a different sound profile.

2 hours ago, vive equinox said:

Can owners of the limited tell us to what extent you intervene on the settings?
 

it looks like most of it is all metal. so for example in a standard hunt do you often touch the sensitivity, the ats and delay? when? and why ?

I'm still learning things about the AQ. Most of the time, it is pretty much set it and go hunt in all metal. Some sensitivity adjustment may be called for if there is some chatter from some beach front buildings; turn down sensitivity to quiet it then turn it back up when farther away from that interference source.  If there is a lot of iron in an area, I might go to tones or mute and adjust ATS up some to exclude more of it. But it is mostly hunting all metal and set and go. I have not yet found issues that I've read some have where a maximum delay needed to be used. Much more set and go than I expected, and I like that.

4 hours ago, ALEXANDRE TARTAR said:

In ALL METAL MODE, iron example, hair pin, double bip in only one direction.

 

 

It is easy to tell them when one can walk around them and sweep from different directions. In the water where you have moving water to watch out for or holes in the bottom to be wary of, there is not the luxury to walk around and find the sweep direction that gives the double bip. Not complaining, just saying ...

That is a huge ring. Would be interesting to have one even 2/3rds of that mass to do some testing with.

As for talk of low conductors; it was an interesting day today with more learning. Was at a beach that has a lot of hot rocks that have given me fits with the Excal on other trips here. Took Carolina's suggested setting from one of his posts on cutting out some iron, ATS 8.5 and disc 3 and started from there. Found that disc setting did not make much difference on the rocks but with disc set at 3.5, got ATS to just short of 9 and no more hot rocks in tone or mute mode. Was running delay at 8.5. With these settings it hit hard on a larger brass snap swivel that came up still attached to the fishing line. Pulled the line up and a good sized lead sinker comes up. Lay the sinker on the sand and nothing in mute and it low tones in tone mode. Drop the ATS to just under 8.5 and the sinker is clear as can be in mute and high tone in tone mode. The same just under 9 ATS setting was also excluding pieces of crab traps in mute mode that I had dug a little earlier at lower ATS. Now I will need to go out with some gold samples and learn more about possible big gold excluding; although I don't have any big high K gold to test with.

No great targets today, but some interesting learning of the beast. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the AQ hunted this area when I was actually expecting it to be a difficult exercise. Now I need to do some more tests on known targets to see if any good ones are excluded hunting tone or mute. Based on the chart above, things should be good but I need to prove it to myself.

There were areas of the beach with lots of big iron that came through in mute mode. In all metal I could exclude them because they were so big and the sound on the edges had a different sharp, kind of harsh sound to them; not double blips on these big ones. I dug several to prove identification to myself. I'll be digging many fewer going forward.

Carolina might be familiar with these beaches already. Wife and I had dinner at Jessy's Taqueria, not far from where we were on the beach today. She got a lot of well tumbled glass and several shells. A good day.

Edited to add: Sensitivity was between 5 and 7 depending on interference level I believe was coming from the near by buildings.

2 minutes ago, cuniagau said:

It says MEXICAN on it. 

Wasn't able to make out it saying anything, just looked like symbols on first look. Thanks! (I need more magnification). LOL

Unique. Wonder if it is Chinese? The mother of a guy I used to work with would put part of her savings into gold jewelry for her kids. It was a Chinese tradition. Got the jewelry made in China for about what the melt price would be; and like the tradition, used 23k or 24K gold. Nice catch on the large 14K piece!

1 hour ago, rvpopeye said:

A ring always makes the rest of the haul look better...yup yup.

 I believe the fishing weights are crab traps.  (the wires attached end in long loops that the crabs get their legs snarled in) 

Look up sea striker sputnik sinkers; they are used when there is moving water as an alternative to pyramid sinkers. Supposedly you can use a smaller weight to hold the bottom than with the pyramid sinker. I've found a couple of them detecting on trips to the Outer Banks; but don't see many of them on the US east coast.

4 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Dental gold isn't pure gold.  Typically the melting point of alloys is less than those of its constituents.

True. I looked up the dental alloy melt temperatures and they are about 1,600 F and up. Many gold alloy fillings and caps will survive cremation. Thank you for encouraging me to look up a more accurate number. I try not to get sloppy like that, but it does happen.

4 hours ago, matt said:

I wonder if somebody spread cremated remains and the gold tooth was in it or if it would melt in the process?

Cremation temperature 1,400 to 1,800 degrees F. Gold melting point 1,948 degrees F. Gold crowns, fillings and the like can survive cremation.

4 hours ago, Badger-NH said:

The average Equinox buyer metal detects just for the fun of it. He wants performance but he's not going to pay $1500 for a detector. For all we know, the AQ might not cost any more to produce than the Equinox or an F-75.

There is a quantity factor in there too. Lots of Equinox bought for dirt hunting. I doubt many AQ will get used over dirt at all; it is targeted at a niche.  Remember when the F75LTD came out? It was priced pretty high and now what is essentially the same detector is several hundreds less. If they weren't selling quantities, I doubt the price would have come down like it did on the F75 ... as well, they may have had to do that to keep it competitively priced with the competition to keep sales going.

4 hours ago, nickeldNdimed said:

Ditto.  Would be curious of larger and smaller size to see if it could be adapted to other detectors I have.  Thanks 

PM sent.

11 minutes ago, Badger-NH said:

The CZ20 and CZ3D could be considered living fossils.

They still work well. And I am very much resembling the living fossil comment ... and hope to be still doing so for a while yet. When the kids were in high school they used to ask me what it was like to grow up with the dinosaurs. Now that they are in their late twenties and thirties they don't, but it is still amusing to think about.

Cheers!

5 minutes ago, GB_Amateur said:

If you're not taking it into the water, aren't the non-waterproof CZ's an option?  Or won't they adjust for wet (salt) sand?

I normally pack a CZ6a with the FZ-12 coil on it as a back up when I go to the salt water beaches. If the waterproof detector has an issue I can just do the beach with the splash resistant CZ6a. Does great over the wet salt sand. I personally don't care whether it has a display or not for beach work ... I just need to hear it well. On it's standard shaft the ergonomics are not great, but is a lot lighter than a CZ20 or CZ21. A modern water proof equivalent with great ergonomics would be a hit in my opinion.

2 hours ago, matt said:

Interesting how he said a couple times he was able to discriminate/discern with 100% accuracy the difference between ferrous and non-ferrous items, including bobby pins and at depth.

I didn't get the same opinion from the testers who post here

From 10/20/2020 Alexander Tartar said:

"The Jag never digs ferrous...

But its ratio is low. I have seen it dozens of times, if not hundreds of times in the beach with him.

I can't seem to reach his ratio. It is a matter of self-confidence."

I'm not there yet either, by any stretch of the imagination, but have had a lot of fun learning the beast.