Beach Week Get Away To Learn AQ

[tvr]

Did the last few hours of daylight on the day of arrival with the Excal to check the beach, got one of the .50 cal shells a .50 cal point, a quarter, dime and penny; the rest of the week was all AQ. Did pretty well identifying iron. Spent nearly the entire time in all metal mode. On the open wet sand, it is easier to identify iron by walking around it and sweeping from all directions; something that is difficult if not impossible to do in the water. There were a few pieces of iron that fooled me. They are in the one picture towards the bottom, near center. Got a new style wedding band, no markings but probably stainless with either abalone or mother of pearl; not sure which. The ring was deep. It was a five scooper and was not in the side of the hole, was at dead center of where the first scoop was. That is what I have been hoping for with the AQ; now I just need to get the right metal. Got a couple of junk earrings that are fairly well encrusted and, unfortunately, stick to a magnet. Got a junk heart ring that looks to be copper, not extremely deep, Excal or CZ would have had no problem hitting that one.

I did dig somewhere north of 100 bottle caps, did not count them all and threw them away before coming home. The one day that was "extremely deep bottle cap day" I counted 33 bottle caps.

In front of some hotels when I'm high in the wet sand, near the dry, I would get interference that changing the frequency setting did not help. ATS at 8 or a little higher helps, dropping sensitivity down to 2 with the higher ATS quiets it down. Tried tone and mute modes and they were a little worse than all metal. As I get further from the offending interference, I can take the sensitivity up again. Some hotels gave no problems, some were chatty until adjustments were made. For the week, mostly hunting with sensitivity at 5 or 6, ATS at 5 and delay at 7.5. Interesting that near and under the pier that for years has made other detectors chirp, the AQ is quiet. Must be different kinds of interfering signals that affect the different detectors.

Now that I’ve had a chance to spend time over open wet sand areas, coil control is important to keep from sounding at swing ends, it is the up and down motion by being sloppy, not the sided to side sweep, that sounds a little on the wet sand. The ergonomics of the AQ are excellent and help in that respect, particularly when I start to get tired and coil control is not as precise as when I’m fresh. I did a bit of calf deep wave wash area (that is where the Pandora bracelet was found) and found the AQ to be pretty quite (delay 7.5, ATS 5, Sensitivity 5, all metal), The wave wash was not too bad of a drag on the big coil, although it was not fast moving waves ... the conditions were being nice to me.
Cheers,
tvr

[schoolofhardNox]

Well you definitely dug a lot of target. Bottle caps are hard to pass on for me too, especially when they are deep. I made myself a promise that the next time out I am only digging very faint signals, since the shallow stuff is probably junk. We'll see how it goes 😄 The AQ is a enjoyable machine to swing and when the conditions are right, I bet you find a lot of gold that was missed. I think the small ones or the broken band ones,are the ones I expect to find. Good luck and keep us posted on how you do again.

[Joe Beechnut OBN]

Looks like a good time out learning the "AQ". I've yet to get in a wetsand hunt with it other then all of the testing I did early on. I would like to try it up at ship wreck beach in Delaware someday.

[tvr]

13 hours ago, Joe Beechnut OBN said:

Looks like a good time out learning the "AQ". I've yet to get in a wetsand hunt with it other then all of the testing I did early on. I would like to try it up at ship wreck beach in Delaware someday.

I'm sure it will do well. I did not take a separate picture of the little copper washer that was a very faint and narrow sound but came up in the first scoop. Took me getting down on my knees to find in the sand scattered from the scoop. About 3/16 outside diameter and thin; I was hoping it would be a five scoop gold something, but it did show that the AQ can find what would be in the micro jewelry range. I'm kind of hoping I don't find stuff that little in the water!

[Mikeguard01]

Great way to get to know your machine. Thanks for posting your settings.  It should help others still waiting, including myself with the learning curve.

HH Mike

[tvr]

2 hours ago, Mikeguard01 said:

Great way to get to know your machine. Thanks for posting your settings.  It should help others still waiting, including myself with the learning curve.

HH Mike

Thank you Mike.

Wish you had one. You would probably be teaching us some tricks!