tvr

Now that I saw the video: Also working multi-freq and a new single freq. That was good info. His ears must be a little better than mine when he says he can 100% tell iron with the AQ. I can tell most; but not all. In the water is just a little tougher than on the wet sand where I can walk around the target. Then again his ears are younger than mine.

Didn't watch it but some interesting comments in this thread. My thought on price is that if the price talk is MSRP, then there will be some discount on that for street price. Would have been nice to have better battery info. If it is that last version of batteries that were being discussed with drop in rechargeable cells and a 5 hour run time, then there is still an issue with having to carry a second set of batteries and keeping them dry when in the water or trekking back to fetch the second set. As was mentioned by Cabo Chris in the other thread, it may not take long in shallow water hunting to pay for it, even if priced a little on the high side. For me the question is do you enjoy detecting with it? I am having a lot of fun with it and thoroughly enjoying it.

Maybe take it to a couple of jewelers to see if they recognize the piece is?

The places I know I've bought components from are Mouser, Allied Electric, Digikey and Newark. Have not tried the one you provided the link for. Have had good response from every electronics parts place I've bought from. You have to trade off part price with their shipping and handling costs. Too often the shipping and handling cost in small quantity buys is more than the parts ordered.

New shaft lock is now on my AQ. Will need to go get it wet ... but so far very happy with it.

A few have not had the AQ limited work to their expectations in their conditions; others have had excellent results and love the detector. I'm not going to speak for or name others; I'm one in the latter category and do not see giving it up anytime soon. There are a number of posts here about the AQ. Please read through them and draw your own conclusions. I am finding it very deep on the mid range conductors and normally hunt it in all metal, but have on occasion found the discrimination modes (mostly mute mode) useful.

Vague wording. Does that mean second revision of the Limited? Or does it mean the full production release version? I know you are only the messenger, thanks for posting the e-mail you got.

For me, if I couldn't take it in the water, I would not want it. The occasional noise issue I have is interference, but it is limited to certain areas near certain beach front hotels and resorts. Many beach front buildings give it no problem. Where there is some interference the solution for me was to reduce gain and get further away. Sometimes further away means in the water.

My opinion is a spring detent type of mechanism is likely to pull past the ball with a deep heavy load in the scoop and the suction around the scoop from the surrounding wet sand, unless all the pull on the handle is from lower than the spring detent level. If you are over waist deep in the water, getting a pull from that low on the handle is not likely.

I saw that. Would like to hear more feedback from users, but looking at it, it just had the look of one that would bend when stepped on to sink it deep into a clay or wet shell filled sand environment. I'm sure it would do OK in the soft dry sand if there aren't rocks or shell layers to deal with. Also seems like a short nose before you get to the top rim and shaft holding stuff that would hinder burying the scoop deep. Here is a picture:

You could call them and ask about the thickness and their thoughts on durability. I had the chance to stop in their shop about 5 years ago. Friendly and helpful, even though I had bought their scoops years before. They said they could make the 6 inch round with smaller holes, just let them know. I have put a couple of dings in the 6 inch travel scoop at the bottom of the tip from prying on rocks. A very little light hammer work straightens it up. Try contacting or calling them.

My opinions are: The very coarse thread of the sheet metal type screw they use works well. My concern with a fine thread, is that with salt water, silt and dissimilar metals, you might have a bind where you could break a machine screw and then need to drill it out to be back in business. When traveling I don't want to carry a drill too. If you drilled a thru hole and then used a nut and bolt, that could work. Edited to add: I used a spray truck bed liner to spray the handle. The bare aluminum did two things I did not like, when wet, it left grey stains over my hands and what ever I was wearing that it rubbed. and it heated up in the sun. The spay on truck bed liner took care of those issues and gave more grip when pulling up a full load of heavy sand, clay and shell.

In standard tune, nickels are high tone, as are other US coins. The CZ 6, 6a and 5 were three tones as were the CZ7 versions. The CZ 70 is 4 tone and the CZ3d is four tone. Oh, and the CZ20 and 21 are 3 tone.

My current most used scoop is a Stealth 720 scoop with carbon fiber handle and what they called the hybrid back with smaller holes; bought it before Chuck sold the company. Years ago I picked up RTG #733trv travel scoop and it is just too small of a bucket; so I got the #RTGBBtv6 travel scoop. It gets used for trips when I fly, about twice a year for a week per trip. In that usage, it has held up well for over ten years. The single screw works well. The scoop fits into a large (29 inch) suitcase with two detectors, chargers, pouch, water boots, a couple of tools and cloths to pad things and I can keep it all under 50 lbs. (just) The scoop is well balanced and sifts well. A sometimes issue is that the tubes can bind and not slide easily apart after a day in the salt water. To fix, I take the screw out, lay the scoop down on it’s side and step on the joint to flex it a little. Turn it over, repeat. Do that a few times and then I can pick the scoop up, put a foot in the scoop and stand on it while twisting the handle with both hands and get it apart. Rinse, dry and put it back together. The only thing I would really change is that I’d go with a slightly smaller hole size than the 5/8”. The 5/8” holes allow some pop tops from cans to fall through. It is not fun to chase a pop top around in the water and have to scoop it up more than once. RTG’s new #blade TVL looks nice and goes slightly smaller with the hole size, though I have not tried one. Tools I take include a short handled screw driver that properly fits the scoop screw, and a pair of 6 inch slip joint pliers. The pliers let me grab the screw head from the side to break it loose when the screw driver is saying its stuck. Overall the #RTGBBtv6 travel scoop has served me well for how I use it.

That and the gold from a little cut are excellent! And not too much trash either. The coating (cadmium?) on the tent stakes doesn't help. In the water I have not been able to walk away from the tent stakes with the AQ, but on the wet sand, where I can walk around them and sweep from different directions, I can. Low tide keeps me off them (mostly) in the water. Congrats on a good outing!

The 14K rings kind of look like a set. Wonder if they were set on a towel, then the towel was picked up or shaken before they remembered where the rings were set down? Probably will never know. Nice finds!

Looks like what I am getting now out of my nearest local beach ... and I hear you about the smell of the clay and silt bottom stuff. Thanks for the scoop report. I'll keep that in mind when I look for another back up.

That piece of information makes an excellent case for keeping a log of some sort; either on paper or in memory like you did with the CTX. I have not been doing so, just keeping mental notes. I may have to start an actual log.

I read about that Wednesday morning. Was concerned about where it was and the lack of posts. Tell him prayers were and are still with him. Looking forward to hearing his observations. When I go out in the waders and gauntlets this time of year, I go alone; tell the wife where and about how long, but that is about it. Some times don't see another soul out there. To see that happen to someone with so much experience gives pause.

When I saw the pictures was thinking bird band ... except most of them are aluminum and have more digits than 2K19. Would be about the right size for a goose leg band ... but not sure. Nice find what ever it really is.

Thank you Mike. Wish you had one. You would probably be teaching us some tricks!

I'm sure it will do well. I did not take a separate picture of the little copper washer that was a very faint and narrow sound but came up in the first scoop. Took me getting down on my knees to find in the sand scattered from the scoop. About 3/16 outside diameter and thin; I was hoping it would be a five scoop gold something, but it did show that the AQ can find what would be in the micro jewelry range. I'm kind of hoping I don't find stuff that little in the water!

Boy do I hear that! The knuckles on my scoop hand are still sore from last week's digging, even with a Motus T-grip to help, although the muscles have recovered well.

Did the last few hours of daylight on the day of arrival with the Excal to check the beach, got one of the .50 cal shells a .50 cal point, a quarter, dime and penny; the rest of the week was all AQ. Did pretty well identifying iron. Spent nearly the entire time in all metal mode. On the open wet sand, it is easier to identify iron by walking around it and sweeping from all directions; something that is difficult if not impossible to do in the water. There were a few pieces of iron that fooled me. They are in the one picture towards the bottom, near center. Got a new style wedding band, no markings but probably stainless with either abalone or mother of pearl; not sure which. The ring was deep. It was a five scooper and was not in the side of the hole, was at dead center of where the first scoop was. That is what I have been hoping for with the AQ; now I just need to get the right metal. Got a couple of junk earrings that are fairly well encrusted and, unfortunately, stick to a magnet. Got a junk heart ring that looks to be copper, not extremely deep, Excal or CZ would have had no problem hitting that one. I did dig somewhere north of 100 bottle caps, did not count them all and threw them away before coming home. The one day that was "extremely deep bottle cap day" I counted 33 bottle caps. In front of some hotels when I'm high in the wet sand, near the dry, I would get interference that changing the frequency setting did not help. ATS at 8 or a little higher helps, dropping sensitivity down to 2 with the higher ATS quiets it down. Tried tone and mute modes and they were a little worse than all metal. As I get further from the offending interference, I can take the sensitivity up again. Some hotels gave no problems, some were chatty until adjustments were made. For the week, mostly hunting with sensitivity at 5 or 6, ATS at 5 and delay at 7.5. Interesting that near and under the pier that for years has made other detectors chirp, the AQ is quiet. Must be different kinds of interfering signals that affect the different detectors. Now that I’ve had a chance to spend time over open wet sand areas, coil control is important to keep from sounding at swing ends, it is the up and down motion by being sloppy, not the sided to side sweep, that sounds a little on the wet sand. The ergonomics of the AQ are excellent and help in that respect, particularly when I start to get tired and coil control is not as precise as when I’m fresh. I did a bit of calf deep wave wash area (that is where the Pandora bracelet was found) and found the AQ to be pretty quite (delay 7.5, ATS 5, Sensitivity 5, all metal), The wave wash was not too bad of a drag on the big coil, although it was not fast moving waves ... the conditions were being nice to me. Cheers, tvr

The two stock batteries I have do not perform quite the same. One is consistent at about 3 hours 10 or 15 minutes the other one at about 2 hours 50 minutes to three hours. Not real far off, but consistently one battery is longer than the other.