Impulse AQ - Digging With Tones & Disc In General

[Steve Herschbach]

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!

[Joe Beechnut OBN]

Thanks for the report and good to see ...We need more in the future from others "AQ" owners once they have had some time out.....

You know I'm not sure what kind of hunter I am...I've been out the last two days ...........not hunting for gold but trash. It's tough..I do have video of most and will post youtube links once I get all done. And to be honest I dislike the Tones mod, must be because I'm have the option of disc button on my excalibur?  I'm not sure...But brace yourself, I got some things I can't explain...like nulling on a aluminum can in the mute mode? Maybe because of it's size..? A Heineken can...in the water then in the sifter...then 5 minutes later a aluminum top to a can, that gave me a signal in mute...

And I am switching between modes to dig the muted..AM to dig..

The Zincons when I tested them (4) .......................I had two give me a signal in mute and........... 2 that did not. I may have them on video also..but those were airtest. The latest is water hunting.

I'm Going to a fresh drop beach Friday but unfortunately I know that beach very well...See how that goes...

Trying to build a Log of trash targets, with video on the one's that no one will believe..............I had one today, I was out chin deep..digging away, the winds shifted and it became a fight to get the target out..and I was in All metal. It got to the point I was not going to leave it...then I said..OOo heck I'll just switch to mute. ,,,"Null"...no clue what it was may need to go back on that one if I can find it...Very bad when you start worrying about the nulls that gave the muted signal...☠️

[Steve Herschbach]

Remember a PI knows nothing about aluminum, gold, iron... it is all time constants. An aluminum can.... yes, that is actually a high VDI/long time constant target.

Zinc pennies are borderline targets, very sensitive to the ATS setting in particular. I think the knobs move too easily... just a hair one way or the other makes a difference. The way mine is set a new penny with a clean copper surface goes low tone, ones showing much zinc at all go high tone. It should be possible to knock out the zincs completely, but that is too aggressive for me.

I prefer all metal mode for most use. But I can see a potential use for every one of the modes.... going to be very site specific. I thought Tone mode was kind of useless until this morning. In Tone mode the iron response is mostly low tone with some minor high tone mixed in. Though this varies with the target. Some ferrous will be high tone with just some ferrous hints. In Mute mode the iron response is mostly silent with some minor high tone breaking through. This may make some ferrous appear better than it would appear in tone mode. In Volcanic Sand mode the iron response should be fully silent which is necessary to reject volcanic ground. This should be the quietest mode in dense ferrous, but I have yet to experiment with it.

I got into magnetite so thick this morning I had to drop sensitivity to default and go to 11.5 uS, and there was still a little ground response. Targets were also thick though so depth was not a huge concern, and it was still there anyway. I did drop into Volcanic for just a moment, but it seemed to offer no real advantage at the time so I switched back out.

No doubt about it, tones can get real busy, and it messes with the cleaner all metal responses, so I can understand people not liking it. But I had fun with it today.

[ALEXANDRE TARTAR]

You haven't had the chance to find a gold ring, but the photo corresponds exactly to what Le_Jag finds, so it's very encouraging!  

[Steve Herschbach]

Yes, I am quite pleased with the target mix. I liked seeing all the nickels in particular. Hunting fresh water lakes is different than saltwater. You do not get the massive storm cuts that can be so productive for saltwater beach hunters, so things are more hit and miss.

Tahoe had record low water levels a couple years ago, and the dry land hunters were able to walk all over stuff that is back underwater now. There was a ring bonanza at the time. I’m new to hunting Tahoe however, so still have a lot to learn about where the better hunting locations may be. I’m mainly waiting for late July and August when the water will be much warmer and my eyes fully healed from cataract surgery, so I can get back to mask and snorkel work. I’d like to try some more secluded “secret beach” locations.

The gold will come. Sometimes I’m hot, sometimes I’m not.... but it really is just a matter of time.

The secret to being a super detectorist is only showing the good times! I’ve had some stretches where I thought I’d never find gold ever again. Then... boom! 

[Joe Beechnut OBN]

 

[ALEXANDRE TARTAR]

No regret Joe, it was not gold.

Gold does not cut, here we hear the cut, a good big ferrous or a coke can in depth.

The mute mode is not mistaken on gold, you can have a doubt only when the mute mode does not cut, (deep target) or when the mute mode rings intermittently.

 

[Dances With Doves]

27 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Yes, I am quite pleased with the target mix. I liked seeing all the nickels in particular. Hunting fresh water lakes is different than saltwater. You do not get the massive storm cuts that can be so productive for saltwater beach hunters, so things are more hit and miss.

Tahoe had record low water levels a couple years ago, and the dry land hunters were able to walk all over stuff that is back underwater now. There was a ring bonanza at the time. I’m new to hunting Tahoe however, so still have a lot to learn about where the better hunting locations may be. I’m mainly waiting for late July and August when the water will be much warmer and my eyes fully healed from cataract surgery, so I can get back to mask and snorkel work. I’d like to try some more secluded “secret beach” locations.

The gold will come. Sometimes I’m hot, sometimes I’m not.... but it really is just a matter of time.

The secret to being a super detectorist is only showing the good times! I’ve had some stretches where I thought I’d never find gold ever again. Then... boom! 

You can get some good storm cuts in the   Great  lakes.A spot  could be down to the clay then the sand shifts and same spot could have 6 feet of sand.Things always change  in The Great lakes.

[Steve Herschbach]

Well you have to admit the Great Lakes are more like inland oceans. Even Tahoe gets some decent surf at times so I’m sure washouts occur, but not like the oceans... or the Great Lakes!

[Dances With Doves]

True, We also  don't have to deal with salt water or sharks even though there is folklore about a kid getting attacked in 1955 in Lake  Michigan  at Chicago.The   Great lakes also has a   sieche where one part of the lake can be  10 feet higher then other side.These conditions can create very strong currents in    certain places. Sometimes after a  storm the coins and gold lay in plain site on the black sand where you just eyeball them.The 18k chain in my  test today was such a target.We also  don't have ocean type tides every day.