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I don’t think the coil drag is bad. I really need time on wet sand to play with coil speed to see how speed changes what it is saying. We have a trip at end of December that puts me on the right beach to do that. My biggest gripe at the moment with the big coil is that, in the two little areas I’ve hunted, that I thought were pretty well cleared of trash, I’m finding the areas more target rich than expected. I have not come close to covering much of these two very small beaches and have a target to explore with nearly every step forward. An 8 inch coil would be nice just to have more space where I’m not finding a target. Pinpointing is not bad. The spoon and the thin walled brass tube both threw me off a little and turning 90 degrees to dig the side of the hole out brought both of those targets up. The coins stayed well centered until they came out. 12 inch coil with 7 inch scoop means turning coil on edge to get into the hole helps verify where the target is. Beyond knee deep in these waters is all locating by feel since the coil can’t be seen; you know how that is!

Water levels were pretty good today. I hit an older area that gave me a ring a few years back. Set knobs to presets except volume (full); threshold was at 4 and hunted all metal. A thanks again to Clive, the edges are easier to hear than previous hunt, but I don't think I'm anywhere near as tuned in yet as I got with the HHPulse. Got some old pull tabs, brass screws, other junk. I focused on faint targets; and this thing is deep. On one of the pennies, I started digging at belly deep and when I got it out, water was breaching the top of the chest waders when I stood on the scoop to sink it. The only things that a magnet sticks to are the one encrusted bottle cap and the big blob in the lower left corner that I think is an old furniture caster wheel. Right now for me, a three hour battery run is just fine. As cdv noted, this detector will get me in shape or kill me.

That is where I'm at too!

I had a very small rusty clip that I pulled from a bag found hunting all metal with the Excal. Unfortunately I pitched it last night when I pitched the bottle caps so I don't have it for a picture or to compare. I set it on wet sand in mute mode to where the clip mostly went away, but not completely, then flipped to tone mode to hunt. Did not do much more setting checking than that. I'll get the standard test piece that came with the detector and do some tests in the yard. Thanks for the setting info. Lots to learn for me.

Thank you much Clive. Sounds were interesting to say the least. About a month ago I picked up a copy of "Finding Gold at the Shore with a Pulse Induction Metal Detector". I've got a good bit more information now on settings to try out!

Yes! Water was high and I went deep enough to get water over the top of the waders, but had to try it out in the area I had already beaten to death. Still a lot of learning to do. Have a trip to Florida in just under two weeks and I don't think I will take the AQ because I don't want to have it travel in a suit case. I'll risk an Excal and either the Detector Pro underwater with the 12 inch coil or the Sand Shark for the suit case throw competition.

Neighbor does pier repair. I'm fairly confident that the chips dropped from his pontoon boat that is set up as a floating workshop. Nice thing about finding those is that they are aluminum and right in the range of conductivity I really want to find! I've got tinnitus in one ear, so I resemble the constant threshold thing too! When I first got there, there was some breeze that gave a little bit of whistle around the headphones. I will have to look around to see what might be whistling. I've taped over drain holes on some headsets to stop the whistle. Have not looked close enough at this set yet.

Hunted mostly in tone mode. Set up reject with a small paper clip. Delay 7.5, Reject 6, ATS 7, Sensitivity 7, Threshold 4, Volume max. I did not play much with ATS. I am in brackish water in a pretty well protected environment so the water was flat. Did have a boat go by and the AQ was not affected by the 6 inch or so wake that washed over with the detector fully submerged and coil on the bottom. The threshold did have a little bit of warble from the boat. Changing freq did not seem to help. When the guy shut the engine down at his dock, the little bit of warble went away. I'm thinking his ignition system is transmitting the noise. I was surprised how quiet the AQ is in the water. I could run any delay. If sensitivity was higher than 7 there was some sounding on coil movement that was reduced when sweep was slowed to a crawl, but at 7 it was pretty quiet. As for the sounding when the connector dips in and out of the water; it does, but not any where near as bad as I had imagined from watching and listening to a couple of the posted videos. Would I pay more for a stainless connector with a reduction in the effect? Sure, but after actually experiencing it, I am kind of ambivalent about it. It retunes quicker than I would need if I were in waves that were at the connector level, so if I have a little cut close to shore on an ocean trip, I could deal with a wave hit at the connector and hunt between waves. How much the higher salinity at the ocean would change how it acts? Not sure. Coil does have a little float to it. Not bad, but would be nice to have it not float. I gave up with back pain at almost exactly 3 hours of running the AQ; battery was still going. The edge of the coil does help with pinpointing. I hit a few old pull tabs that were deep and took several scoops to dig out. Also got some small sinkers that were several scoopers. Moving the scoop close to see a tone break is kind of tricky. There is a very narrow window between getting a target tone break and the scoop being a greatly overwhelming influence. It is going to take some practice and some more ear learning. Overall, I'm very happy with the AQ so far. Most of the targets are right in the range I'm looking for. Even got one small ring, although it is a junk eaten up copper one.

For electrolysis, I use a model train transformer and watch it carefully. Less power than the battery charger shown above, adjustable and yet I still need to watch to make sure I'm not loosing the silver too.

Excellent! Water levels at my location have been terrible. Ring sure cleaned up nice! Could be a very good thing. Both the Tejon and HHPulse I've used tested better on a nickle than a quarter and both were very good at finding gold.

What diamond tester are you using? Nice hunt. One hunt, one gold. Hopefully it is a start of a gold streak for you.

If there are any others out there who have an AQ and don't think it is their cup of tea, please message me and I will gladly talk about taking it off your hands!

That is quite a statement! Can hardly wait to get an AQ in my hands!

Good collection of little pieces of jewelry. Nice to see those in the mix. Thanks for the post!

Nice finds. The gold ring is a little over $30 at today's melt price. That lure would go right into the tackle box for me! I normally find lures with hooks rusted off or in bad shape.

Nice! Looks like the kinds of sinkers and a eaten up maybe 9 mm casing that I find in my local beach. What part of the country are you hunting? Thanks for the report and setting info.

Glad to hear it and thank you for the work and posting it. Sounds like an assembly instruction with "IMPORTANT" for the manual.

Appears to be two composite connectors. Watching the videos, to me, it appears to be amazingly quiet in the wash; as Carolina describes his experience with the AQ.

Thank you for posting the videos. When I see part 2 of the in the water has uploaded, I'll watch that one also. Looking forward to seeing the video planned for tomorrow. Looks like sensitivity is set to 4, and it is in all metal mode. ATS and delay as stated in the post and in part 1.

What is the tactile response on the Delay / Freq knob? Meaning: are there detents as it is moved? How hard (or easy) is it to bump off a setting? If there aren't detents, how do you know when you are set at 11uS vs 15uS (or the upcoming 20uS)? If no detents, is the adjustment a continuously variable setting based on algorithm or mapping related to knob position?

Without actual in use reports on how one made with the stainless connector vs the composite one acts when dipping across the water line in salt water, we may not know how well the shield and insulator are carried through the connection with the stainless connector. The dilemma of trade offs, testing, information flow, clarity of information and interpretation of what the information really means. Frustration. I'm still leaning to paying for the expensive connector for two reasons (unless the first one isn't true): 1) The sound off from the knee to waist deep wash across the connetor shouldn't be as bad. 2) Since it is reported that they have to use the expensive connector on the Gold version, quantity pricing may help get the connector price down. Which ever way it goes, I still anticipate having one in what ever form it is available in, when one is available.

Willy posted the following to this thread on July 9th: "The high voltage and short pulse delay of the Impulse are requiring a strict shielding of all the parts subjected to the pulses (coil, cable and connector). That effect is due to the small gap of continuity of the cable shield between the the male and female connectors and the changes of capacitance coming from the conductive water level variations. It was for that reason that the coil connector was initially made of metal in order to keep the continuity of the cable shielding up to the inside of the enclosure. (Same supplier, other item) Field tests in the sea water had shown a bad electrolysis effect on its body giving it a nasty look. A plastic connector had to be used for the AQ. The GOLD version will even require more attention to this capacitance effect as it will have a much shorter pulse delay, it will get an (expensive) stainless steel connector to keep a perfect shielding." My reading of Willy's post, tied into other parts of the discussion, is that the metal connector kept the continuity of the shield such that there wasn't the same level of capacitive effect that is realized with the composite connector. The electrolysis was deemed ugly so they went to the plastic knowing that there was a trade-off. If the original metal connector was one of the nickle or cadmium plated variety, it would not be as resistant to corrosion by electrolysis as a high quality stainless steel. I looked at the Souriau catalog and they had several options for material for the connectors; with a wide range of prices depending on material. If I am interpreting the information incorrectly, someone please correct me!

Pretty sure I could work around that too. I do like to spend time in the mom and kiddie wash area as it has been productive. That is where composite connector would sound on going from immersion to open air. With multiple detectors available, I could use one for one session and another for the next one away from the thigh to waist deep wash ... then again, it is nice to grab one detector and just cover it; and $300 could be just one ring away from being covered. Without an AQ in hand, I'm still leaning towards being willing to spend the extra for the stainless steel connector, that would limit the capacitive effect, and not place that one limit as a decider on which detector I grab for a hunt.

My gosh did that make me laugh just way too hard! Another good hunt! Enjoy the time with the grandsons!

Thank you for the report. Are you in the Florida panhandle? I am wondering if this is the second detector Deborah was talking about acting like hers? Oh ... and your posts are great. I am glad I'm not posting in a different language, that would be very ugly!