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the latest from Alexander tartar on Aqua. The truth, I expected more

Geotech, I hope it's ok to copy you post and put it over here...Rick Geotech [ PM ] Re: CHECKING IN New January 10, 2022 02:45AM Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 322 Sorry, just saw your post. On the AQ I have no idea. We have just fixed a circuit failure mode but based on other problems I've seen in forums I would not recommend resuming production. It needs a mechanical redesign.

the truth, I do not like much this test

I have been following this machine for a couple of years now and seem to be getting some good information on the "Limited" machines from the current owners, however some of the information is somewhat vague. Joe Beachnut has given good info and videos of his hunting and I'm grateful for those videos, however he is in the bay. I have seen one owner's post that has had problems with stability with the machine in saltwater. There was also one reply saying there were two machines elsewhere with the same stability issues in the water. So, how many users/owners are using the AQ in the saltwater and have stability issues OR is this an issue with only those few machines? Is it a salinity problem? I know this machine will be great on the wet sand but in the summer, I'm in the water nearly 100% due to the heat....I need a machine I can use in the water! Cliff

I had contacted Fisher regarding a battery that would not hold a charge for the AQ. Within a day the supplied a RMA and a label to return the battery. But best of all, they had sent a new battery almost immediately. Their support for this issue was quick and responsive. Go Fisher!

Alexander's new video on the Aqua. more of the same. although in the image of the electronics it seems that something has changed

This is an update on the lower shaft that snapped into two pieces on a Sunday morning wet sand hunt on April 25. I list events in a timeline. Sunday April 25 about 10:00 AM the lower shaft broken into two pieces after 30-45 minutes of detecting in the wet beach surf. Monday April 26 in the morning I emailed First Texas with pictures of the broken shaft and received a RA from FT and shipped it back to FT Monday afternoon April 26. I posted a message on the Impulse AQ Facebook page pictures of the broken shaft an received a reply from Russ Balbriona that said “Hello Joe- Russ from Fisher here. Email me russ@frsttx.com. I'll get you taken care of.” I also posted on here at DetectorProspector a post with pictures and received a response from Alexandre that said “Thank you for you feedback. We are ready with the Mechanical Team to understand and solve the problem. A lower rod will be sent to you in exchange, and we are studying the phenomenon. Tests are already carried out internally with high lateral pressure, we will continue in this direction to understand. I contacted the whole team when I san the message today. Thursday April 29 at 10:23 First Texas received the broken shaft which was signed for by someone named Mocosta. Friday April 30 at 3:47 (on the beach detecting with my Equinox) I received a call from First Texas. At 4:05 I received an email from Felix at First Texas that said “We just received your lower tube and is being analyzed by our engineers/quality and will call you on Monday to follow up with you – stay tuned.” And that my voice mail was full. (it did have one 22 second message about my car warranty in it) Monday May 3 I called Felix early as I had an appointment later that day and he said Engineers/quality would decide IF they would replace the shaft under warranty. Today Monday May 10, 16 days after the shaft broke, 15 days after First Texas was made aware of the break with pictures and responded to me, and 12 days after First Texas had the broken shaft in their possession. So the update is “there is no update”.

Well,gents this is suppose to be a very deep pulse beach & surf detector.Not much information on this beast.So here's some pictures. William

Received my catalog from Kellyco today and they proudly announced that they are looking forward to offering the Fisher Impulse AQ in 2022. The write up that Kellyco gave made it sound like there was substantial discrimination with minimal loss of detection depth with the AQ. We shall see.

We have been told on several occasions that it was impossible to export the Aqua limited outside of the United States and now on the official page of Fisher I find this publication. How is this possible?

Hi guys! I watched the treasuretalk on youtube for couple of days ago and Myer's metal detecting confirmed he is going to bring in AQ final edition in the shop next month in july! just wanted to ask others if it is true and anybody heared anything about it,Thanks!

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.

Sorry, I can't seem to find my previous thread on this subject. To recap, my AQ wouldn't power up, so, it was sent in to Fisher for repair. They claimed that it was the battery. I had my doubts, as I had tried a second battery with the same results. Anyway, they claimed it was only the battery and sent it back to me with a new one. On a side note, I had just sent the electronics back to them, and kept all the rods, cuff, and charger to save on shipping costs. Well, it seems they want EVERYTHING sent back when they do a repair. That's a first for me. They even told me that you shouldn't remove the arm cuff at all! It's something that they have to do, and not something the customer is capable of as it might damage the cable inside the rod. Good grief, what a design. Anyway, when I got it back, I noticed that the cable from the battery to the pod had been changed. Hmmm, I wonder if that was really the problem and not the battery. Otherwise, why change it? Oh, you think they might have sent a new and improved one? Think again. I didn't think they could make that design any worse, but, they managed. It's even longer that the original, and wimpier IMO. And what is the problem with using 90 degree connectors to reduce the risk of cable damage? Well, it works now, so, I guess I can't complain too much, in fact, the new battery is a lot better than the original. The last hunt, I got over 3 1/2 hours on it and still had a green light! That's definitely an improvement. Now, if I can just find something good that my other detectors couldn't find!

Nice week of beach vacation swinging the AQ. Saw one other person detecting. He had an older Garret Ace and was using a garden hoe to dig. When I walked towards him to say hello, he pulled a mask over his face and turned away, so I turned and went on my own way. Had one resort where I got interference when detecting in front of it. Found one frequency setting that was a little better. Turned sensitivity down to 3 and could hunt the wet sand. Delay and ATS settings did not appear to make any difference. On our last day of the vacation there was a nice cut in the water that ran half a block long and part was in front of this resort. At low tide the cut ran from knee deep to belly deep. It was protected by a sand bar that cut the waves coming into the cut to about 6 inches. I was surprised when I got in the water that the interference actually got worse. Tone, mute, volcanic were all noisy, all metal was best and if I had my back to the building, standing between the detector and the building, it got quieter. Dropping sensitivity to 2 quieted things pretty well. While increased delay did not seem to help over the wet sand, it did in the water. The little bit of wave wash did not make a sound at these settings. Settings were Sensitivity 2, ATS 6, Delay 11, volume 7, threshold 4. I found the sterling hoop earring in this cut, bent it digging it up. Also found a blob that I dug a small trench to get it out. Almost gave up on it, flipped to mute turned ATS to 8.5 with reject on 6 and it did not go away so I went back to all metal and kept digging. Encrusted piece with some pretty gold color showing. It cleaned up nice after a few hours soaking in a salt and vinegar bath and is a sloth pendant that the loop broke off of; unfortunately, plated. The ring that was an 18 inch deep wet sand find where I was hunting with ATS around 4.5, sensitivity at 4 and delay at 7.5 is also plated. I still have not played with the 8 inch coil except in my yard. I need to get it in the water soon.

he is in production // finally .. I find it amazing that your dealer does not speak a French seller already takes pre-orders without delivery date .... price announce France / Europe 2490 euros 2020 Edit: The Impulse AQ has been revealed - see details here

Walked down to the local watering hole; brackish water bay tributary, pretty well cleared out over the years but a bit trashy with bits of iron. Ran delay 7, sensitivity 7, threshold 4, volume 8, ATS 6.5, reject 6; mostly all metal but some tones and mute to check targets. Initial reaction is that it is a little easier to hear the edge modulation with the 8 inch than with the big coil. I walked away from several targets that were very pronounced double tones then had a more subtle edge that I told myself to walk away … but dig to verify. That was the little fish hook. The odd shaped washer, to the right of the fish hook, fooled me; it sounded pretty good in all metal and in tones. The rest of it is all non-ferrous. Some of the small targets fell through the scoop several times before I finally capture them and got them in the pouch. This set up finds fairly small targets well. Tones seem to be more pronounced to me with this coil than with the big coil with some similar settings, yet I think I still hear iron better in all metal than in tones ... maybe some setting tweeks would change that around but I'm pretty happy in all metal. I did have an interference issue. A boat about 100 feet from me fired up and the AQ talked and talked. Stepped through the frequencies and no help there. I was shallow enough the detector head was above water so I went deep where the detector electronics were well under water and, surprise to me, that did not help either. Dropping the sensitivity down to 2 made it usable. Once he lowered the boat lift, backed off and motored away I could turn the sensitivity back up and hunt with a very quiet AQ. Did have a great blue heron land on the beach and walk into the water. Got about 30 feet away from me so I stayed still and watched it turn its head looking for minnows, catch and eat them. After a few minutes it walked around the beach corner towards the boat lift then flew about 2 hundred yards down the water. A good afternoon in the water.

Didn't get out this past week since I was under the weather. Started out with the detector being really unstable. Water got into the coil connector. Blew the water out of the connector and tightened the back-shell and everything was good to go. I also have noticed when I'm in shallow water she's a little noisy and a lot of falsing (water way below the connector). She's pretty stable when completely covered. I do run my machine hot in all metal. One old beach I hunt always has sand piled in to the one side. No sand movement in this area other than more accumulation. For years I said there has to be targets just out of detection range. Well not for the AQ. I did find a few targets in this area. I had to work slow since these targets were pretty close to the depth limit and I was running hot. A few pieces of crusty Silver and a nice 10K ring dated 1946. HH Mike

I've been using the 8 inch coil exclusively in the salt water for about 18 hours now. It is definitely quieter than the 12.5 inch. I am running with a delay around 8 or 8.5 and today 9 because of some bigger swells coming in right up against the shore. Played around with some higher delay settings and things quiet down even more. If walking parallel to shore in the water, there is still some "noise" when sweeping from the shallows to deeper water as can be expected. Coming back from deeper to shallow...all is quiet. Coil sweep speed and height control still play a key part in keeping the threshold smooth. It seems more sensitive to smaller objects and some iron will still give a double blip in all metal. Sensitivity was set at 6 and ATS around 5. I'm wondering... Say you run the big coil with a delay around 11 and the small coil with a delay around 8... which one would have better punching power on ring size objects?

Really liking the audio information of this detector. If anyone wants to look around there's a great video on the reactivity that shows what it will do. Seeing this showed me how differently the machine is responding well to elongated targets if you change your sweep direction, "feel" around and listen for the double tone or anything that is not centered. For a pulse I dig very little with this detector. While there are certainly hoop earrings, crosses and other targets that would probably sound similar, overall the potential is there to really develop some accuracy. I also like how it "discriminates" between non ferrous and anything that's blending into the ground--including caps (wide / narrow). My beach is very sanded in now but the potential for getting 20" gold with this machine is very exciting. The video shows that its a detector that learning and using your basics with will pay off. cjc

Hunted a few hours with a good friend today. Half of the hunt was in All Metal and the other half in Tones Mode. I dug everything today trying to learn the machine. Those Corona caps became predictable in Tones Mode. All Metal seems to run a bit more stable and punches really deep. I originally thought the piece of a bracelet I recovered was junk until the 10K stamp was pointed out. No sign of the rest of it in the area, but Ill take it. HH Mike

I have sent an e-mail to Felix at FT with these pictures. Hopefully they just send me a new rod ASAP. This is what happens when you hunt wet sand and California surf. Or it could just have been a poor quality made rod. Hoping for that latter as the wet sand California surf is the only place I have to use the Impulse AQ and don't want to have to worry about this again.

Just received my AQ last week. First two hunts at a worked out beach scored some really deep silver and some old coins. Most hunters can't find a target at this beach, just ask OBN everybody hates this place. Then I tried another heavily hunted beach today for the third hunt. Scored two 14K rings and a crusty 10K pendant. I thought the pendant was a mini sinker at first. Today's Gold was very deep and the AQ hit solid on them. I'd still be there if the battery didn't die. I don't believe my Excal would have found them today. I love my AQ HH Mike

Had an awesome month using the Fisher AQ on the low tide wet sand slopes. Ran the AQ mostly in "tone" mode but did spend some time in "all metal" when trash targets were not too bad..All I can say is that I love this machine! My trusty Sov. GT is starting to collect dust now and the AQ has become my go to detector and the GT my "just in case" back up. I started out April with a very crusty 10k class ring. Soaked it in CLR over night and removed all the crust, here's the kicker though, as I was sitting on my couch looking through my loop at the ring trying to figure out the date on the class ring and other details, I fumbled the ring in my fingers and it dropped directly onto my tile floor and shattered into pieces! I spent about 15 mins carefully gathering the pieces along with the Ruby stone that was in the center. I was going to scrap the ring anyway but I did want to get a picture of it after clean up before I did. There is a date under the eagle, its very hard to see but it looks like "1955". The rest of the rings are 14k, with one having CZ stones and the one on the right with real diamonds. Also found what look like two gold tooth caps, acid tested good for 18k. The last gold item of the month was a 22.1 gram 18k (750) gold Rosary found way out in the negative low tide wet sand plateau. I searched around the area thoroughly for the cross and the rest of the beads but had no luck. Also an honorable mention on the silvers I found, The silver heart bracelet is Tiffany & Co and goes for $275 new https://www.tiffany.com/jewelry/bracelets/return-to-tiffany-love-tiffany-blue-heart-tag-bead-bracelet-GRP09904/ Also found a silver Gucci stud ear ring, a pair goes for $245 https://www.gucci.com/us/en/pr/jewelry-watches/silver-jewelry/silver-earrings/silver-interlocking-g-earrings-p-356289J84000702?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1_Ofj-qu8AIVcz6tBh3eJwziEAQYAiABEgKm0vD_BwE So gold totals for the month are: 10k- 5.8 grams 14k- 20.3 grams 18k-22.1 grams Tooth Caps (18k) - 3.5 grams Now onto May! Thanks for looking & Happy Hunting!

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!

It appears Fisher has shipped at least one AQ Limited off to Australia.