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So I wanted to go back to my favorite beach since this time I would hit it at low tide. Not a great low tide, but enough to expose a good stretch of wet sand where I am dying to try the Tone (and Mute) modes where there is a decent amount of iron present. Today was not that day. Completely sanded in so I will have to wait until this beach gets ripped up a bit. It does not help that they groom the beach every morning. Last time the grooming guy came out of his way to circle me, trying to intimidate me into leaving I heard almost no iron, so I knew it was deeply hidden. 2 1/2 hours flies by and I'll probably have to wait until my good season hits this fall. I guess I'll have to cough up some cash and buy that Xtreme scoop so I can maybe hit some lakes with it. I'm not strong enough to handle those rough waves at these exposed beaches like you veteran water guys are The surfing dudes will be scraping me up out of the water. I'm not disappointed in the machine, just in the beach conditions and of course the short time allowable to hunt.

First off, I want to point out that what I am about to describe is not uncommon with high power detectors that have a coil that can be disconnected. The only way to really eliminate the problem is to hard wire the coil, which is another reason for why this option is chosen by so many manufacturers of underwater metal detectors. The White's TDI Beachhunter is a good example. The problem has its root in coil capacitance and the high voltages involved, and the difficulty of getting good shielding using a removable connector. If the Impulse AQ is submerged halfway, so that the water level is anywhere in roughly the area indicated in the photo below, you will get continuous false signals. Just holding the unit stationary in the water at this level will cause signals as the water moves around the connection area. If you are not aware of what is happening it is every easy to mistake this for electromagnetic interference (EMI). The problem is worst in the Tones mode, which I just happen to be using a lot. It is accentuated by a short pulse delay, high sensitivity settings, and low ATS settings. If you want to reduce the false signals, here are some solutions: Use the All Metal or Volcanic modes instead of Tones Increase the Pulse Delay to 9 or higher Reduce the Sensitivity to 4 or lower Increase the ATS to 8 or above Or some combination of the above. In practice this only occurs when wading, and only at a certain depth. My solution was simply to stay either deeper or shallower. This does leave a strip or area unhunted. You can either switch the settings as suggested above, or do something to change the height. Like hunt that strip with mask and snorkel, for instance. Anyway, hopefully this is put in the manual as it is something inherent in the operation of the detector, and can drive you nuts if you run into it and do not know what is going on. It took me several hours of detecting to put two and two together, and it was then confirmed that yes, that is the way it is.

So based on the above, sort of like this, but the upper rod probably a little thicker.

Early on I see the Halo of targets in the threshold of the "AQ" doing airtest..... so I've been playing with the settings to see if I can pull up more of the audio of them when out hunting in the water. Jim and I have hunted together before, a very good "old beach" hunter. Video of those changes in the threshold Jim speaks of.... d

Here are my latest digs in the water at Tahoe. Things were going great until the handle on my old scoop finally gave up the ghost. Can't complain, it served me well, but not like you just run to the store and get another. I'll have to make one. Anyway, I have to admit at this point I am wondering where my first gold ring with the Impulse is at. Popular beach, tons of people in the water for many years, plenty of targets... no ring. Maybe somebody is running a magic detector here that finds gold rings while leaving all the aluminum tabs and nickels behind? I'm actually very pleased with this mix of trash. Exactly what I expect to be finding, but getting it pretty focused, good ratio of ferrous to non-ferrous. I’m digging tight signals that have a little depth to them. Generally ignoring boomer targets and surface double-blips, though a few surface targets got dug just because they were so easy. It's mostly bottle caps and large ferrous faking me out, but not so much as to bother me. I expect a certain amount. Anyway, I need to get a new handle made up so I can get back in the water tomorrow. Best find - a Buffalo nickel, can't read the date so far. The item in lower left is a corroded zinc penny. I’m in thick magnetite sands with lots of rock. Hunting tones exclusively, 7uS, sensitivity to max, ATS and reject at preset. Fisher Impulse - the non-ferrous Fisher Impulse - the ferrous Broken scoop handle

I have no idea where to start since most of the things I saw have been said already. I have done only two hunts so far. My first hunt was 2.5 hrs and my second one (today) was about 3.5hrs. Every new detector I get I start from scratch like a new detectorist and just learn it as I go. My first hunt was not good at all since I dug a lot of iron and less than a dollar in coinage. My settings were all metal, ats 0 , sensitivity 8-9, volume/threshold 4. With these settings I was digging anything I heard in the wet and the holes I was making were just too deep so when the 1st battery died I followed suit and called it quits. While swinging I noticed I was getting quite a bit of noise/falsing and I don’t know if it was because I was running it hot. My hunt today was a little better and I managed to pull some decent targets. Setting this time were all metal, ats 2, sensitivity 7, volume/threshold 4. The AQ ran way better, no falsing unless I was running parallel to the water on a slope. Even with the falsing running parallel I managed to hear the small yellow ring and the big gray tungsten. The yellow ring was quite deep too. Today’s hunt I wasn’t 100% into it due to the beach closures going on in Socal. I read online that the beach I went to was supposed to be open today but when I got there it said it was closed. I drove a long way to get there so I wasn’t going to drive back without giving it a try. Luckily during my time there nobody came by to kick me out. There were a handful of people at the beach so that helped some I guess. I am very pleased with the performance/outcome and I’m sure with a little practice things will only get better. The pictures below are from all the targets I recovered today. The fishing lure was an eyeball find. HH

We know you have an AQ Clive... you posted that you did on Facebook. Any early thoughts or observations? Likes or dislikes? Inquiring minds want to know! And yes, we are hoping for a book ASAP. Pulsepower Book

I received my AQ 1-1/2 weeks ago and have been out with it twice so far, my first hunt was last week Sunday for a combined 5.5 hours between 2 batteries (I purchased an extra battery). I hunted at a beach where I detected the previous weekend with my TDI BH so didn't expect much as far as finds but just wanted to get a feel for the new detector, I hunted in the water from shoreline to chest deep with the AQ in all metal mode and presets on the rest of the knobs except for the pulse delay which I tried out from 7 - 11.5. Running with the pulse delay at 7 was a bit noisy especially when swinging the coil away from the shoreline into deeper water but was actually quite stable with minimal falsing on the return swing toward shore, increasing the pulse delay resulted in as expected less falsing/chatter, I ended up at 10 microseconds. I was able to find a bit of change, fishing lead, tent spikes and a stainless steel ring I estimate was dug in the 10" range. My second hunt was yesterday in Waikiki in the bigger of the 2 ponds for those familiar with Waikiki, again strictly in the water and in all metal mode but was able to run the pulse delay at the marked preset 8 with minimal falsing, found some change, pull tabs and a titanium ring. My battery lasted 2 hours 40 minutes which was 10 minutes longer than its first run last weekend, I opted not to swap batteries to hunt longer as the tide was really coming up and ended up calling it a day. As mentioned I also detect with a TDI BH and find the AQ to be very similar so far in performance and audio but again have only 8 hours of detecting time with the AQ water hunting, I have yet to try any dry/wet sand hunting and modes other than all metal. In the pic are the SS and titanium rings, hopefully some precious metals are right around the corner.:) Physical observations - The AQ seems well built quality wise and feels well balanced, I find it easy to swing in the water even with its 12" coil. I'm 6'1" tall and am okay so far with the stock rod length fully extended - I can see where hunting the wet/dry sand a longer rod would give a wider swath while hunting. Others have mentioned the arm strap being short, the strap that came with my AQ seems fine too me. I also secured the headphone cable to the top of the detector shaft with a small Velcro strap as a strain relief as suggested by OBN and others.

Tried a dry sand hunt today with the Impulse AQ. Being the 4th of July, the beaches were PACKED! Started with plan A, went to plan B, but, ultimately ended up with plan F. Ended up on a bay beach where in the past, I've found a little jewelry, a few older (40's up) coins, and LOTS of trash. This is definitely one of the trashiest beaches in my area. I'm not sure the name of this beach, or it it even has one, but, I call it "Nail and Nugget Beach" for the slew of nails and melted aluminum can "nuggets" that are all over the place. Probably not a great place to try out a new PI machine, but, one of the few places I could get to today and actually find parking. I tried hunting in all metal, but, that lasted maybe two minutes when the realization of the site hit my ears. In all metal, I wouldn't leave a 10 foot square area. Ok, tone then. Not much better, but, a little. Time for some testing. I brought with me some of the iron junk I had found on my first adventure with the AQ. On the surface, I could actually get the discrimination to work pretty good on rusty nails if I put the reject control to at least 8. It would sometimes work at 7, but, 8 seemed pretty consistent. That was with the ATS at the preset. I also tried the ATS at both ends of it's range, but, it didn't seem to make any difference, so, I kept it at 8 for the first hour or so. Well, it did I.D. some iron, but, not all for sure. It seemed the wetter the sand, the better the discriminator worked, but, it wasn't anywhere near 100% accurate. 50% at best, and that was just real rusty nails. No way could I find a setting that would keep me from digging bottle caps or hair pins. I ran ATS and Reject from one extreme to the other and everywhere in between and couldn't find anywhere it would give any hint of a low tone. Both those items rang loud and clear with a high tone regardless of depth.....and some were very deep. I then settled on putting the reject knob on 10 to maybe help with them and the iron. Hunting around the fire rings was impossible. Just too many targets ringing in your ears. I dug a lot of low tone and mixed tone targets just to get a feel for what the machine was telling me. Most of the time it was telling me there was a good target there, but, alas, most of the time, it lied. Lots of false positives, but, I didn't get any false negatives. If it said it was bad, (or at least had a low tone in there somewhere), nothing good came out of the sand. Good targets, if you can call them that, sounded good, with no iron low tone mixed in. These were the 4 nickels I found, along with the butter knife and other "normal" items in that range. This includes the foil, slaw, and pull tabs too, unfortunately. Too many times the iron sounded just as good though. I also ran the sensitivity up and down in my testing, and found it affected the depth quite a bit, but, not the discrimination, which I expected. So far, this machine IMO is a great beep and dig machine if you need depth. If you're looking for good discrimination, forget it. It's not nearly reliable enough in my book, at least, not yet. I'll give it many more outings at various beaches before I come to any firm conclusions. I plan on hitting another beach at a minus tide early tomorrow morning at a beach that's a whole lot cleaner, so, we'll see. This outing lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes before the battery died. At least that's headed in the right direction from the 2 1/2 hour episode the first time out. Here's the take for the day.

I will be using my Impulse with the battery end well out of the water while shallow wading or on the beach, etc. I wanted to get away from wired phones and save the waterproof phones for when I actually need to submerge the machine. No sense putting any more wear and tear on the cable than I need to. So I found a source of relatively inexpensive M8 pigtails and cables, AutomationDirect. Never ordered from them before, but it was easy and cables arrived in two days. I got two pigtails for the headphone 5-pin connector, one straight, and one 90 degree. And I ordered a couple longer 4-pin cables for the power connection, to work with a high capacity power pack I have on order. More on that later when it arrives. I decided to use the 90 degree cable to make an adapter for my new TaoTronics transmitter/receiver box so I can use my Minelab phones, which I like, with all my detectors. There is also a less expensive transmitter only version. M8 5 pin 90 degree pigtail I dug through my pile of adapters and found a spare mono 1/8" extension cable and cut it off, saving the female end for this project. The TaoTronics comes with a RCA to 1/8” female cable that would also probably work for this. I hooked up the 90 degree cable and powered up the Impulse. I randomly hooked up the two wires from the 1/8" socket to the five while having some stereo earbuds plugged in, and found that the brown and gray wires gave me audio in both ears. According to the chart below brown is #1 and gray is #5. I wanted to make very sure there was audio in both ears using the mono socket but with stereo phones plugged in, so good to go there. I cut the cable down short, spliced and covered with shrink tube, and wrapped a little electrical tape on to add some beef. Not pretty but it will work - a typical Herschbach job. I bent the cable under the armrest, and added a stick on square of Velcro to back of the TaoTronics transmitter and the leg stand. I'll add more squares to my other detectors so I can move this transmitter around to whatever I am using. A little tie wrap secures things. Fired it up, paired easily with my Equinox 800 headphones, better audio than the Fisher phones, and frankly the Equinox phones are not the best in that regard. Cheap, super easy... I'm quite pleased with this. I can of course use 1/8" type wired phones or ear buds if I want. I'll make another adapter with the straight connector but go to 1/4" with it, so I can use my Sun Ray Pro Gold headphones without an extra adapter. I'll probably make that cable a little longer than this one, which I wanted as short as possible. If you got the TaoTronics transmitter only box for $20 and this cable for $8.50... well, this is pretty cheap and easy, and will work with a huge number of headphone options. Ironically my new Tarsacci MDT 8000 comes with am M8 to 1/8" adapter with one little problem. Fisher uses a 4-pin connector for the power/headphone combo cable, but then for some reason they use a 5-pin M8 for the headphone only connector. The MDT 8000 headphone adapter is of course 4-pin. I swear they must all have secret meetings to make sure nothing from one detector ever works with another. Click or double click photo for high res version. AutomationDirect M8 Cable Specs pdf

Out with the AQ Thursday 3 hours....... Skipping shallows and digging faints only at this location seems to be the best way to control the amount of trash. The one big piece of iron I did dig was shallow... The Buffalo, (191?) was as deep as I've dug in the place for anything, I would say in the 20 inch range.... It sure likes Nickels...And remember I hunt in All metal only..never switched over to mute this time..straight PI hunt only........... Gold ring is small, just under 2 grams 14k , 3 scoops deep..maybe in the 13 /14 inch range.. Ring never really gave a good solid hit so maybe it was on it's side? 10 gold with the AQ, 9 rings and 1 misc..Can't wait till fall hits and the NW winds kick in...☠️ Side note, This is the beach I'm so confident about the AQ being the best I had invited anyone that want to meet, over on the other forum. So far no local takers but did get a few from a distant that wanted to give it a go. Anyone is welcome.......... A very tough spot, Been hammered for years by just about ever machine made. Been dredged, mined, and Has High Power lines about 100 yards away. And if you noticed in the video I'm wearing a drysuit with dry gloves, during the summer. Water quality is not the best either so playing it safe..Still waiting for the Cygnus invite challenge also...nothing yet. Let me know, the door is open.. ' Second set of pictures are from the batteries I'm working on..should have something working mid July, still waiting on a few detail things. The main thing is battery life and fix the connector issues. I really could do a much better battery setup if I were to change the shaft to a carbon fiber then mold a carbon fiber battery pack into the rear like the MDT...

So here it is, my maiden voyage with the AQ. I was able to get in a 2½ hour hunt at the beach today. My goal was to dig every signal that sounded good and some that did not but piqued my interest. For the most part I stayed in tone mode, sensitivity almost full, and the rest in the preset settings. I did try all metal and mute modes as a check occasionally. I hunted the dry sand mostly since it was high tide but did venture on the saturated sand a bit. Results>>>>Humans are slobs LOL. I dug a ton of garbage just to get a feel for the machine. I like the quick, loud response it gives when you get close to a target. I also like how easy it is to pinpoint with it. Batteries lasted the hunt plus about an hour more for the land hunt I did later. The second battery lasted about the same. Way longer that I expected them to last. About 3½ hours each. Coins sounded terrible as to be expected, aluminum screamed as did the bottle caps. No gold this hunt but a cool looking Amethyst pendant, a nice (fake) stud, a nice chain that I was hoping was silver but was stamped Italy 14K …yeah right, China special - copper showing through. The land hunt later was to hopefully find Iron canister shot for an 1812 war project I visit occasionally. It definitely found a lot of big iron at very good depth, but none of them would be round shot. My first impression of the machine? I like it and will probably do better when I have the beach for the day and the seasons change. If you are after coins and little junk, this is not the machine for you. If you are an experienced PI guy, you will probably appreciate this machine. I will use it for gold as it was intended, but still hunt for silver with the GPX. On the beach it handled the EMI well. On the land hunt and about 40 feet from the train tracks, it got a bit jumpy at times but still better that the GPX. Not sure how much depth I loose during that though. It will be about 2 weeks until I can get to another beach to hunt. Work always gets in the way!

I know this has been asked before and I'm sorry if one of the current Impulse AQ owners has already done the test and reported..........But we've all seen the nails stacked on top of the ring and the ring on top of a pile of rings. What I want to know is will the Impulse AQ pick out the ring in a 3D scenario? What if a ring is buried 2 or 4 or 6 inches deep and nails are placed above and off to the side of the ring. Can the Impulse AQ still get the ring.

First let me say new to this website. And thanks for having me. Hello to all. My AQ question is can I tell the depth of the Target by the strength of the tone. Does the strength of the get weaker as the target gets deeper. On equal sized targets Thanks Gman

I would guess that there are more than a few of us here that are already on the list for the new Fisher detector. So where do you plan on using/testing the detector? Here is my list: - Back bays that don't get major sand movement and have a ton of iron and other trash. However, there are plenty of deep targets and old gold if you know where to look. - Low on the slope during extreme low tides (especially negative tides). The gold is always there but the depth depends on sand movement and which detector you are using. - Some fresh water lakes where I have found many gold rings but know that there are a lot more that are deep because of the soft sand bottom and agitation from wind waves and boat wakes. Because there is no salt there I should be able to tune the detector for optimum performance. - Sand dunes where we have found old coins and jewelry over the years. Deep deep targets. - Possibly the eastern deserts of California where we have found a few locations with old coins that get buried by drifting sands and washed into black sand gullies from flash floods. - Oh, and, of course, the jet black sand beaches.

I know many have been waiting to see just how much depth is lost in the reject mods. I ran short on time this morning but was able to get in one good video test...I figured what better then a 22k gold ring for my buddy Dew... And let me say I'm still not the best at the settings, sweep speed, the machine itself.....and all of the other details that go into getting the best results with the machine that is going to take months for me to learn...... (Just a Disclaimer for those who feel different about (my testing) on the "AQ" ........over on the other forums-😁) Also I had some interesting Messages from a few that felt I did not clean out the area of the PVC pipe before doing the testing..well this video is for those..on the other forums again.. Everyone here on Steves forum have been very thankful and kind..So thank You!

Last week I was in the middle of shooting a video and the detector did the wobble worbal audio a few times. So I stopped and started the video again. Not thinking... This week it did the same and I put 2 plus 2 together..Something that may come up later once there are more "AQ"s out there..Had the "AQ" for about 5 weeks now, and the only thing I've seen give it a reason to act crazy.

Ok, I hit the beach at low tide this morning with the AQ in an area where I've had great luck in the past with gold jewelry and old coins. When this place loses sand down to the rocks, it's amazing. It's sanded in right now, and has been for the last 3 years or so. I was hoping I could get some deep signals that would be in the "treasure" range amongst and under the cobble. Well, even though I had a few deep targets, nothing good or old showed up. I ran the machine mostly at the presets except for sensitivity, which I ran at max, and the delay which I ran at 7us since it was fairly stable at those settings. I tend to run all my machine hot, to the point where they usually "talk" to me a bit. Something I've gotten used to and doesn't bother me. This machine is going to take some getting used to though. It's been a while since I've hunted much with a PI machine, and this is definitely one. I was quite underwhelmed with it's "discrimination" abilities. I ran it in all metal and dug everything just to get a feel for it and see what things sounded like. I did change from all metal to tone and mute just to see what those changes did to the target sound. Well, in most cases, it didn't change at all. Iron still sounded good. After recovering a couple of bobby pins, I could test them on top of the ground and get that double hit I've seen posted, but, when that same bobby pin is 8 inches down, it doesn't do that . It sounds steady and solid. Same with bottle caps, it LOVES those things! On the rare occasion where the tone and mute would change, it was rare I got the "bad" target grunt. Most of the time, the targets sound would just disappear altogether. Not one to give up, I dug those too. So far, they've just been deep junk. I had brought a batch of test targets with me to the beach to scan and analyze. All seemed to react the way I thought they would, but, the junk I was finding didn't sound any different than the good targets. Now, this is just one 2 1/2 hour hunt (the battery went dead at that point), but, I would have expected to have found a lot more coins (I found 1 Hong Kong 10 cent piece, that's it) and in this area, a ring or two. I found 3 at that area a few days ago with my Equinox, and a friend that was there today found 2 more also with the Equinox. I find the AQ very well balanced with the stock coil. At 5' 10", I had the lower shaft extended as far as it would go and find that barely enough to feel comfortable. Taller people are probably not going to like that and will need a longer shaft or extension. The armrest strap is completely useless. It's at least 6 inches too short. I don't usually use one anyway, so, not a biggie to me. I plan on using a sling. Not because it's too heavy, but, because it's a pain to lay down. The headphone cable isn't long enough to just lower the detector down without removing the headphones or putting a big pull on the connector. Removing the headphones every time you set the detector down is just not something I'm willing to do. Usually, I just prop the detector against my hip, but, with those cables and connectors sticking out the back (and very vulnerable by the way) that just isn't happening. Maybe make a guard for that area? I knew this machine wouldn't have a display, but, did they really have to make the writing around the knobs that small a font? Almost need a magnifying glass to read the stupid things. I know, I'll get to used to them eventually, but, at 0 dark thirty and trying to use my headlamp, it was a real challenge. A backlight showing those readings would be cool, but, I realize it would add tons to the cost. I haven't experimented yet with adjusting the arm rest. Not sure it's possible. It doesn't hit my arm exactly where I would like it. To me the handle it nice, and it's angle is good too. I like the coil and wishbone shaft connection design. I've been advocating a similar design for years, where the tension and failure point was on the shaft and not the coil. Well done. I'll come up with more nits and kudos as the hunts continue. I started to video this maiden voyage, but, alas, the camera went dead shortly after i started. I'll try to put something together, but, I'm out of town for the next week, so, anyone hold their breath!

I am not worried about depth with the Impulse AQ. Rest assured it delivers the goods there, and in some sandy areas it goes deeper than you really want to dig. I hate that stuff where the hole ends up wider than it is deep. Anyway, for my initial runs I wanted to use the AQ as intended - to hunt ring type targets. The AQ has two basic types of discrimination. First, the all metal "shaping" discrimination familiar to PI hunters and some VLF all metal hunters. You use various audio "tells" to pick and choose targets. The classic being the elongated target "double blip" often used to identify nails and hair pins. Alexandre was kind enough to provide this sketch on this thread you should read: This works pretty well, but not as well as we could wish. It is great for items positioned well and at the right depth. But what about nails or hair pins at a 45 degree angles and at max depth? Plenty of deeper items sound good near the edge of detection depth where the signal gets smaller and softer. Bottle caps can have you digging to the center of the earth. What about two targets close together? I was nugget detecting after a guy who passed up a nail and sure enough it was a classic nail double blip signal. Funny thing when I dug it there were two gold nuggets weighing about 1/4 ounce total sitting next to each other! Flat items on edge, like a quarter on edge, can double blip. So these ideas are good but do not think they are perfect. The main problem is we all pat ourselves on the back for those items that sound bad and we pass them up... but were they really? You honestly do not know. But the assumption they all were bad skews the thinking about this type of audio discrimination. The reality is some good stuff gets passed up, but we are accepting that as a trade for not digging everything. It all seems fine until somebody does like I did and finds something great right after you passed it up. I'm 90% sure I did not dig a 25 ounce gold nugget that a newbie found instead. Why? He was too stupid to know it was a coffee can! Anyone that thinks they have this stuff 100% figured out is kidding themselves. A very good trick is to know that a hot PI mono coil will signal small stuff on each edge. So small shallow targets will signal under each edge of the coil. Also a double blip deal, but different than the elongated item double blip. You have to be paying attention, but with a little practice it becomes second nature to pass these up if that is what you wish to do. This is going to be the majority of the wire ties, hair pins, foil... just all manner of surface stuff, mostly very small bits and very often lighter stuff that does not want to sink. It could also be any recent drops, like an ear ring, chains, small pendants... just anything small and near surface. Now, that seems crazy and maybe it is. Again, remember the idea here is to hunt rings, and so the focus is on nice, defined signals as in the diagram above. And here is the real kicker. These really are VLF targets and if that is what you are after, the shallow stuff, break out a VLF! The second part of that is an assumption the area has already been hunted, maybe a lot, with VLF detectors. They have already found the good, shallow finds, and really skewed the numbers for the shallow stuff into being trash. So, let's skip all the shallow stuff using the coil edge sensitivity trick, and elongated items that double blip. Now let's give up a little depth, and use the AQ tones mode with default ATS and Reject settings. I prefer tones because a lot of ferrous will make both high and low tones, and mute lets the high tone through, and fakes me out. Tones will be better on at least some bottle caps at giving a high tone with a low tone edge to it. Lots of ferrous will give solid low tones. If you hate digging coins in the surf, dimes and quarters and clean zinc pennies will give a clean low tone. So will silver rings unfortunately. Some ferrous will not low tone. Hair pins and wire in particular. But if we use the audio tricks above, you can get rid of nearly all the wire by eliminating double blips and shallow stuff. That leaves bottle caps as a main offender, some you get a ferrous edge, some you do not. And then there is a weird selection of deeply rusted or mixed content items, like plated steel. Which is the problem with many bottle caps by the way. Round rusted lids from old steel cans. Some ferrous has corroded so much the metal is near gone, and it reads more in the ring range. And ferrous stuff with holes can be a problem. That may all sound horrible, but I used all the tricks together for eight hours of detecting at two very different fresh water lake locations. One much like a Hawaii style beach with people to match. Hair pins and bottle caps are the offenders. The other more a locals beach, with tons more trash, especially big ferrous stuff. I hate to admit it, but I often detect without finding great stuff. But I always know if I am doing well by looking at my trash. For nugget detecting, if you are not finding gold nuggets but finding bullets, you are doing everything right. And for rings, I want to see nickels, pull tabs, and unfortunately, corroded zinc pennies. If I am digging them, I am confident I will find the rings. In fact, when looking for gold nuggets if I can't find bullets.... somebody has cleaned the place out. And if I can't find pull tabs and nickels when looking for rings.... hmmmm. I don't mind finding trash per se, because the worst thing of all for me is a place where nothing goes beep. The first area I hunted about five hours and finds were few and far between. Remember, I'm cherry picking what sounds like a good item based on the above. There were tons of shallow surface targets, but I left them looking for those deeper defined signals. The other location I hunted this morning for about three hours, but I found more than half the targets there. I liked it better, so will be going back. Very heavy magnetite concentrations, so lots of VLF type signals that the VLF crowd is missing entirely. So here is the haul after 8 hours digging. Not a ton of digs, just what I thought sounded good using all the tricks above. In my opinion, no worse than a VLF... but a VLF would not have found most of this stuff. Click or double click for larger version of the picture at bottom. 14 nickels 6 corroded zinc penny bunch of tabs bracelet, two ear rings, and a cap with insignia couple shell casings (pray you do not get into a lot of .22 casings) and 3 shotgun ends A few hairpins that sounded good. A few bottle caps that sounded good. Some odd ferrous that sounded good, including four fist sized things I discarded at the beach. And the way that spoon is bent - cooking drugs I'd say! The Hawaii style beach frankly all metal and just using audio tricks would have been good. No big ferrous to speak of. The low tones were probably mostly dimes and quarters. The other beach? Land of ferrous. Huge number of low tone responses. The Tone Mode paid off there in spades as far as I am concerned, and allowed me to pick the nickels and tabs remarkably well. My bottom line on all this folks is I am only getting started, but this machine is an easy read for me. But I am very, very used to this kind of stuff. That's good though because I can tell you that compared to prior machines, if you are a PI type person who thrives on this type of detecting, I think you are going to like the AQ. There is a lot of audio to work with. You VLF guys... I don't know what to tell you. It's not VLF, and it requires a whole different skill set. Some of you will just hate it. Others may be pleasantly surprised. All I can say is the picture below is a no BS look at the target mix, and to my eyes at least... lack of gold excepting... I am really happy with what I am seeing. In general I will probably revert back to all metal hunting in most places, but if I get into the junk, Tone Mode will be a genuine aid. More tools for the PI tool kit, and frankly I'm still a newbie with the machine. It is only going to get better!

Heck, by then I hope we are seeing the digital version. Alexandre pulled out the stops on this one for what can be done with analog, and the only way to take it to the next level is some serious digital signal processing. What I can separate with my ears, a microprocessor and the right software should be able to do as well or better.

Fisher Impulse AQ stock, fully extended, 48.5" to elbow bolt, 38.5" from grip to coil Standard Fisher middle rod added, 52" to elbow from coil, 42" from grip to coil As mentioned in this thread detailing the Impulse AQ rod measurements, I find the two piece rod assembly too short for my liking. I added a standard Fisher middle rod section. However, adding the middle section made the AQ longer than I prefer. Actually it is fine, but there is zero ability to make it shorter as I am set comfortable at the shortest extension. There are times I might want it shorter. It also cannot adjust out full length anyway due to the cable not being that long. So I ran it out as far as the cable would go, and determined that cutting 2.5" off the lower rod would give me maximum extension, while also allowing me to shorten the rod up to a perfect position for me. I left the detector assembled and used the middle section rod holes as a guide/template to drill a new hole for the rod detent pin. Then I cut the rod off by 2.5" so the lower rod is now 26" in length, and re-positioned the pin. This allowed me to set the lower rod three holes from the shortest middle rod setting, in theory leaving six more longer adjustments if the cable would go that long. You can see the pin positioning in the middle rod in the photo below. Long story short, at that setting the AQ is exactly the same length as my Equinox at maximum length, with 42" from coil to hand grip, which is where I normally run the Equinox. I can adjust the AQ a couple settings both longer and shorter with no problem. Somebody shorter than I am would want to cut the lower rod down even more. If you wanted it to stow better, cutting it down to more like 20" would allow it to go to the full length adjustment and then also to the shortest setting. I figure I can always cut more off later if need be but I can't put any back so will leave it here for now. Even so, I am committed as without the middle section it really is too short for me now. If any of that is confusing, let me know your specific question, and I will try and make it clearer. That middle rod is not easy to find for something used on so many First Texas (Fisher, Bounty Hunter, Teknetics) detectors. Black, gold, and gray versions are made. I got my spare at Kellyco for $9.99 and I had a $5 off coupon so half off, but with shipping ended up being $12 delivered. https://www.kellycodetectors.com/catalog/middle-rod-only-current-models

Here is a very short video, I don't have much time right now. But I would make you more videos with all the targets in the wet sand and on the wet sand for see the differences. I start with the hair pin in ALL METAL. All ferrous targets are recognizable in ALL METAL mode

I know it’s early days and dealing with bottlecaps in general can be problematic....different alloys, different states of decay but is there or could there be a way of dealing with these with the AQ. The Excalibur does a very good job overall and only sometimes am I fooled into digging one or two. My best beaches for gold are “Bottlecap Beaches”...... my use of PI detectors in these areas is a painful one and use of a VLF is mandatory. I once hunted for 8 hours with my old Garrett Seahunter and retrieved 118 bottlecaps amongst the goodies......🤬 There is deep gold beneath these bottlecaps......👍

Photo's from hunting with the "AQ".......... Got 7 hunts in with it so far..been slacking on the pictures since the Depot closed. Has anyone hunted these spots before, Yes ..Hammered over, and over..by just about every water machine made...UP to the "AQ" This machine loves "Deep" small gold rings, only "one" was found in the discrimination mod (mute)..along with one Earring. Total so far is 6 gold rings and 1 gold Earring. ........................And from 3 spots that ............ I would say two are hunted out..until the "AQ"" I have used the Excalibur 3 times now during that period, 2 different beach's..looking for spots I can take the "AQ" too. One gold with the Excalibur, not in Pictures. One of the beach's look good for the AQ, just have to have the right tides. AQ" gold for the year pictured.. Then the trash..or junk..minus two bobby pins..Very selective hunting... less trash, knowing what your walking into and having a plan.. All metal hunting, digging deep targets only..90% in AM, 10% mute mode which I like the best of the reject mods.

Good morning and Happy Father's Day to all... I've participated in lots of extensive field testing over the years: from being one of the first of 3 Deus owners in the USA and testing it privately (specifically for Minelab against the E-Trac), or for field testing the Blisstool V3 and then the Deeptech brands of metal detectors - before I became their initial USA importer for both of these products. Burying known objects and observing the depth/discrimination capabilities of a new machine (while standing there and swinging over and over) is a great way to learn how to operate and understand its feedback from the different settings - but the ultimate test is in the real live hunting conditions..."How is this machine going to give me an edge over what I already have?"..."Is it stable enough to use at the tuned in for the buried object settings for under normal detecting conditions or do I have to dial it back?"..."Will it outperform what is the current standard machine known for all around best performance in these conditions?" I think the best testing methodology will be to have 2 people administer the live hunt tests...one using the subject new machine (AQ) and the other using the current "machine du jour" for that type of detecting. I think, right now, for salt water beach detecting both wet sand and wading - it should be tested against either/both the Nox or Excalibur. The method I would use is that both people go about their detecting business as usual and then call the other over when a target is detected - both a good target or trash...make the call what you think it is...then dig it up - all while filming the comparison of either machine "approaching the vicinity" of the target..did the other machine get any signal and is it a dig/no dig signal. I think this is what everyone is waiting/looking to see. This takes time and effort. I'd be more than happy to do this at the NY ocean and bay beaches versus the Nox/Excalibur when I can eventually get a hold of the AQ Ltd...