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New Fisher Impulse AQ pulse induction metal detector Ive listened to a lot of hunters scoff at the simple basic skills I promote in my books. However as these machines become more powerful—with more telling audio and more heavily processed signal—the more important these basics become. The Fisher Impulse AQ is a good example of this. The only way to describe this detector is to say that it’s “a beast” very deep and powerful—on a par with any not-gold -specific pulse out there (SD / GPX/Z Series). I also own a waterproof TDI Pro and the AQ’s performance characteristics resembles this machine quite closely. For one thing with each—as you turn them up—it’s harder to hear any detail in the response. The lower Sensitivity settings go almost as deep but let you hear the weak responses of junk or the elongated tone of a hairpin better. The “maxed out” settings can come later. As well, with both, when a target has some steel in it as do many bottlecaps, this shows up at the ends of the tone. This is especially true of the Impulse AQ in “Tone” mode. A good way to demo this is to get a clean non- ferrous signal then move your scoop in closer to hear the tone change. This sound is one of your primary weapons in trash. As well—the simple basic of listening for a narrow peaked tone will help you to zero in on the non-ferrous targets. With any detector—a peaked sound means something that’s distinct from the ground. There’s a lot to becoming accurate with a pulse and it takes time. What helps is to have a “language” of signal characteristics to pair with your digs: -wide / narrow. -overall size. -consistency on the cross-sweep. -peaked / drawn out. -single or double tone. -how does it respond when you raise the coil? (Faint or dropping out altogether)? -overall correlation (size / strength / depth make sense). -smooth or sharp tone ends. -signal tone itself as relates to an optimized pulse such as the Anchor Electronics Barracuda or the Pulsepower Developments Aquasearch. (With this type of a PI--the "cleanest" sound you hear will be gold). These are some of the target characteristics that--if you pay attention to them will make you a more accurate pulse hunter. I’ve been hesitant to get out with the Impulse AQ because the sites near me are so full of trash. The hunt I did today in this type of conditions showed me that it is possible to use a pulse in dense trash but to dig random targets is a recipe for frustration. When you begin to use the above basics it’s possible to become more accurate—just as you can using a VLF in All Metal mode. I also found the Impulse AQ’s iron rejection modes to be interesting and effective tools although I’ve a lot to learn about how to best use them. From observing Alexandre’s tuning video the sense I get is that setting the AQ is about working with combinations of Sensitivity, ATS (re-tuning speed) and Rejection. The amount of Delay used also plays a role here too in that longer Delay settings will reduce the machine’s response to weak targets such as foils and hairpins. What I’ve seen so far makes me think of a comment of Eric Foster’s in describing the effects of the Aquasearch’s adjustments (Delay, SAT and Threshold) as being “nonlinear.” I think this will be an important part of understanding the Impulse AQ. I also noticed that the adjustments Alexandre made were small but produced dramatic changes. This points to a detector with a lot of fidelity--a versatile machine. With the TDI Pro, the challenge for me has been learning to turn it down enough to have a stable threshold in fast salt and stay off the “micro conductors”--but to still get more performance than say--a Dual Field. This was important in that the Dual Field is more stable in fast salt--so why have an erratic machine with the same usable performance range? What I found was that the TDI needed to be run up at 12 uSc—same as the Dual Field. While I’ve yet to run the AQ in salt—the overall performance in fresh water and black sand seems to indicate that it will be more stable than the TDI Pro. This would be a huge gain in and of itself--TDI Pro depth—with more stability at the lower Delay ranges. Can’t wait! cjc

Same here! I was pleasantly surprised to see this thread, Jim Pugh's thread and Clive's first gold thread and wondering why I had not seen them before.

Figuratively speaking that is. Gold for sure, but, if I had actually struck it, it would probably split in two. Only 1.6 grams of 14K, but, I'll take it. Still not in love with this machine. Pin pointing is still vague, bottle caps sound great and seem like they're the size of a hubcap, and hairpins are driving me crazy! I just can't coax a double blip out of them, and can only get a reject tone with a max setting. I'm actually having a much easier time finding coins with it. The most disappointing thing so far is the lack of deep good targets. The main reason I got it was to find deep gold in difficult ground. I've been digging all targets and have yet to find anything good that my other machines wouldn't have found. This mornings gold ring is an example. In the 6-8" range, any of my other machines would have found it. Since I'm digging any repeatable target, I would have thought that I would have found some deep coins too. Nope, not a one. Nothing over a foot deep except iron targets that I just as soon not find. Oh, and this last hunt only lasted about 2 hours and 15 minutes before the battery died. Pitiful...... It had been a few days since it had been fully charged. Maybe I should have topped it off? Hard to believe it would lose that much life just sitting for a few days. If I don't start to click with this thing soon, it's going to be a closet queen, or E-bay fodder!

The Impulse AQ will come with an external NiMH battery good for 3.5 hours. Spare waterproof extras may be costly. I am certain one of the first thing some of us will do will be to make cheap non-submersible versions, and probably extra life hip mounted versions. This would be really great if we ever got an 8” coil. Battery on hip... super light swing! The battery cable that comes with the AQ is way too short to use for a hip mount, so the other job is sourcing the connectors and making longer cables. Lithium Ion will be an obvious home brew alternative to the NiMH, which was a late change by Fisher. The connectors are not proprietary and so will be easy to source. Making a dry land cable with a 12 hour hip mount battery should not be too hard, or a Li-Ion under elbow version with more capacity but not much more weight. Too bad it’s 15V or we could just hook up a GPX battery. Since the Impulse is derived from Eric Foster designs perhaps higher capacity batteries made for the TDI will work? Another side project would be a headphone dongle to employ alternative headphones including wireless boxes.

As the recent days have past, I have noticed some of the notable detectorist have received their machines. Steve & Joe (obviously), Clive just posted on Facebook. Has anyone else had a chance to lay hands on this beast?

With thanks to PPP, here is the new official Fisher Impulse AQ Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/FisherLabs-Impulse-AQ-Metal-detector-101853481468095/ And phrunt found this: https://fisher-impulse.com/ Registrant: Organization: FIRST TEXAS PRODUCT Presumably we will see the first full announcement information on the Facebook page since that is how things seem to be done these days. Interesting there has been no mention on the main Fisher company Facebook page or the regular Fisher Labs website.

Click or double click any photos in this article for high resolution versions. I bought this 4 x 26650 battery holder on eBay after quite a bit of Google work. They are a surprisingly rare item. It comes with sleeves that can use 4 x 18650 batteries also. It ran me $29.65 delivered including shipping and tax. I ordered it on June 25th and it arrived from China on July 14th. The holder delivers 16.8V via a DC adapter plug or 5V via a USB outlet. It has a thin oring on the lid for an IP67 seal. I also ordered an IP67 M8 4 pole 16.4 foot female to pigtail cable from Automation Direct for $10.50 plus shipping and tax. I ordered several different cables so lets add $5.00 for s&h for this one cable. They delivered next day! And finally 4ea EBL 26650 batteries from Walmart for $20.99 free shipping, delivered in a few days. Total parts cost about $70. I have a 26650 charger already that came with my Tarsacci so you'd have to figure that. Some sets of the batteries come with a charger. By the way, the EBL seem in short supply lately. I shortened the power cable to 5 feet, more than enough to set the detector on ground if need be. The DC adapter that comes with this battery box is great. Blue wire to negative post and brown wire to positive. Warning - I am not vouching for the polarity. I used a multimeter to check my AQ battery and matched that. You should do the same. I take no responsibility for anyone doing this mod and blowing their AQ! The black and white are headphone wires. I hooked up a 1/4" female jack to those. I am using the AQ mostly as a wader unit employing some true chest high waders that have a big pocket on the inside front. I'll drop this battery in that pocket and plug my Sun Ray Pro Gold headphones in. I could use my TaoTronics to go wireless, but that seems pointless the way the battery is mounted near my head. I need to determine run time with four 26650 batteries - should be way better than the current 3 (all metal) to 3.5 (tones/mute) hours running time I get with the Fisher battery. Enough that I probably will not need to do a battery change at all and perhaps enough for a long day. I also need to determine how the detector handles without a battery under the elbow. Lighter of course, but too nose heavy? Should be fine in the water as the coil is neutral. Maybe too nose heavy for some people for dry beach use. We will see. This would be a great belt hip mount battery for dry beach use. I suppose it could also be mounted under the elbow, perhaps with the included strap, so I'll consider that also. It would balance well like that. It is IP67 rated and with proper headphone / power cables might be good enough to use under arm for wading / shallow dunking use at least. Operating sequence. Power up battery pack (it has its own power switch) then power up detector. Power off detector, power off battery pack. Doing otherwise may trip the circuit protector on the battery pack, necessitating removing and reinstalling the lid to reset. The pack has its own built in battery level indicator. And it may be used to charge a phone or other USB device! I was warned this USB capability might create interference in the AQ, but that has not proved to be an issue so far. The two circuits, 16.8V and 5V, appear to be isolated. Powered up - and no smoke! I really like this. Very easy for a not super skilled person like me to do, less than third the cost of a spare AQ battery, and should get well over twice the run time. If I had another complete set of batteries ready, it would be an easy swap for even more running time. It leaves only one cable to the rear end of the detector, and that is my only concern at all - I will try and beef that up and protect it better. I'm thinking a rubber boot that clamps completely over the end of the detector rod. I ordered a couple like like the one pictured below to see if it will stretch enough to work. Long story short is there is a very good chance this will replace my Fisher batteries for most of my use. This is why I had no problem getting the Limited "wader version" of the AQ as I find chest waders to be a good option at Tahoe and it's cold water for all but a couple months of the season when the water gets reasonably warm for mask and snorkel work. I used to do a lot of ice diving with drysuits while gold dredging, but am not looking to get quite that serious any more. Joe’s Fully Waterproof 26650 Alternative Description: Features: 100% brand new and high quality. Without 18650 battery. You need to prepare 4x 18650 or 26650 batteries yourself to use. DC 5.5x2.1mm interface has input and output functions, with DC adapter, easy to use. DC 5.5x2.1mm port for 16.8V devices USB 5V Port for Charging Smart phone GPS Tablet PC or 5V LED Light and more. Improve replacement battery pack fixes inconvenient shortcomings, greatly facilitates the users of the battery pack DIY requirements, without spot welding battery, thereby greatly reducing the battery internal resistance, improve the battery discharge performance, so as to effectively improve battery life Power supply: you can use 18650 rechargeable lithium battery as a power source The output side: USB and DC dual output power supply function,DC output voltage is 16.8V(can power the 16.8V device, such as the bike light), USB output voltage is 5V(can power the cellphone and other 5V device), to meet a wider usage scenarios, the product comes with overcharge and over discharge protection, protection of the battery is more safe and sustainable Specification: Material: Plastic+metal Color: Black or Red Input Voltage:DC 16.8V Output Voltage: DC Port 16.8V Standby current Under 80μA USB Output Voltage: DC 5V USB Output Current: 2000mA Overcharge Protection Voltage: 16.8V Over Dischage Protection Voltage: 10V Over Current Protection Voltage: 7.2A Size: 9x6.5 x 6.5cm Cable length: 29cm 18650 and 26650 Batteries are not Included Note Please put in battery in a right way. Charge it when power indicator light flashes. Don't use the device in the water. Waterproof standard is IP67 Packing list: 1x Waterproof 4x 18650 /26650 battery box case.(without battery ) 1x 5.5x2.1mm adapter 4x 18650 to 26650 battery converter

I am curious as what response it would give a different depths and if the chain is laid out straight.

Hoping I got on the list for an AQ Limited as I inquired with Rick. If not I can wait for the final production. Perhaps some of you PI guys can chime in. Obviously the Impulse depths on gold rings is fantastic and like many here can envision the potential. I do not know how the FCC regulates detectors, but was wondering about the early Whites TDI Pro. I'm told by someone very knowledgeable the TDI Pro hits gold rings 20 inches easy. Whatever the depth it's impressive. I do not know why Whites stopped TDI Pro production- perhaps design Rights? Then Whites produced the SL and later the TDI BeachHunter, neither of which have the power of the TDI Pro. My friend says not even close. I currently have a TDI BH. So why did the raw power of the TDI Pro go away? Did FCC regulation require watering down? Or again to do with design Rights? I'm asking because does the AQ Limited being so powerful meet FCC regulations? Might actual production units be a bit less powerful? I suppose not, but perhaps I should cross my fingers I make the Limited list? There was a time I wanted a TDI Pro for deep gold rings and couldn't get one and ended up with the less powerful/still fun TDI BH.

Joe, are you using a bms module inside the 4s1p tube?I hope not because.... I actually don't know if I'm correct but seems to be the easier combination for a self balanced recharge without the need of multiple solder and little cables around cells, not to mention the module itself presence inside the pod... I'm developing a similar pack for the Tdi and can be the base for the future of my dreamed AQ...

My Impulse came with a very detailed calibration certification test list, along with a little nail in a capsule, which I assume was part of the test. A couple key figures jump out for people to know: US Nickel Depth min. = 16 inches (air test) Gold Ring 18K, 2.7 grs, size 8, Depth min. = 17 inches (air test) Compare to these QED and GPX 5000 figures here Note that the AQ has a 12.5" coil and these detectors are using 8" mono coils. I thought it was interesting the first circuit board test was on 3/13/2020 and final headphone test on 6/4/2020. No wonder these things are slow in getting out the door! click or double-click for larger version Fisher Impulse AQ Calibration & Compliance Certification In-Process Circuit Measurement 1. Interval Terminal Pull Test @ 2.2 lbs./inch per Q4071 2. Interval Connector Pull Test @ 1.1 lbs./Inch per Q4071 3. 20x Inspection per IPC-A-610-G 4. Dino-Cite Edge Optical to 220x per IPC-A-610-G V Final Circuit Measurements 1. Target Sensitivity Level 2. Threshold Adjustment 3. US Nickel Depth min. = 15.5 inches (in factory) 4. Gold Ring Depth min. = 16.5 inches (in factory) 5. Tone-Mode Test 6. Mute-Mode Test 7. Volcanic Sand-Mode Test Coil Measurements 1. 1st In-process Self Resonant Freq. 2. 2nd In-process Self Resonant Freq. 3. Complete Assembly Self Resonant Freq. 4. Coil Function Test Detector Level Measurements 1. Submersion Test: Coil Connector 2. Submersion Test: Power Cable to Battery Connector 3. Submersion Test: Power Cable to Detector Connector 4. Submersion Test: Headphone Connector 5. Submersion Test: Detector (1 meter, 4 hours) 6. Submersion Test: Headphone (1 meter, 4 hours) 7. US Nickel Depth min. = 16 inches (air test) 8. Gold Ring 18K, 2.7 grs, size 8, Depth min. = 17 inches (air test) 9. Power Cable Function Test 10. Headphone Function Test

This was my 3rd and last hunt. I went out for a low tide hunt and I was the only one at the beach. I think it’s mostly because people are going at night and leaving when the sun goes up. Things were looking good, I was pulling the correct targets that should lead to some gold. Within 1.5 hrs I had pulled the 5 rings and ear ring. I continued hunting but the next half hour I wasn’t getting any targets anymore so I decided to throw a nickel on the ground. I was running all metal and max sensitivity. I ran the coil about an inch from the nickel and I could hear it but not that strong. I decided to start raising the coil and kept swinging until I couldn’t hear it anymore. At about 8-9 inches I couldn’t hear the nickel anymore. The battery was still good but I decided to try my backup that was fully charged. I got the same results on the wet and dry with the fully charged battery. I have no idea what happened with the AQ after only 3 hunts but I did noticed the back of the control pod was rather warm. I don’t know if it was warm because this is a high powered detector or some other reason. P I shot an email to Rick which he forwarded to Fisher and I got a call back within two hours. I spoke to Felix and he sent me a shipping label so the detector is heading back to FT. I am bummed that this happened specially when I was on a roll but sh*t happens. I hope they are able to figured out what happened quickly so that I can get back to swinging and learning it some more. Good luck out there, HH. The 3 rings and ear ring are silver. The other two rings, one is tungsten and the other is junk. When I was about to dig the junk ring in my head I was like this is a big ring, pulled it out and I’m like 🤯 The pictures show all the targets I dug this hunt.

Above being said.................. the one problem I have with the "AQ" it's audio blasts when I move the detector to the side to dig and there is another shallow target under/near the coil........ I mean it is loud, and since I use the head phones I make (skullies) which the DB rating (sound level) is 15 plus over anything out there..............I get blasted if the "AQ" comes near the scoop, moving it a side to dig.... hitting another target..Or the AQ going back into the water......Not complaining, just one of my things that I've not seen anyone else talk of.... that I can fix..while I am making a battery for it. IP68, Bulgin On/Off...

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

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.

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.

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

Is it? https://www.minelab.com/__files/f/254709/KBA 23-1 The SDC 2300 and MPF Technology Explained.pdf

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

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 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.

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

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 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