HF2 On The Beach Today

[F350Platinum]

Got a chance to take the D2 with the HF2 to my small test beach this morning.

Beautiful day here in VA, 68 degrees in August is pretty rare. Not supposed to go over 80 either. 

Got out there an hour before low tide, there was just a light wind so the Potomac was pretty flat. I was able to wade out knee deep without much from the waves. 

Apparently Erin trashed things a bit here too, sanded out the beach and sanded in the water. I'm hoping for that when I go to another beach around here very soon.

I was using my beach program, Beach Sensitive with sensitivity at 95, full tones, no silencer, disc at 0, bottle caps 5, salt sensitivity at 4, and switched between 29kHz and 53kHz. I didn't bother with 89.

I've found small stud earrings here before with the other coils, even the 13" elliptical. Even got a couple of gold rings a few years ago. This year it's been so hot that my expectations were low today, I haven't found much lately.

At 53kHz the detector goes off a lot, switch back to 29 and it's quiet. I had the coil submerged to more than the middle cam lock, and had no issues with the battery. 

Here's what I got, mostly trash:

The bottle caps sounded more like a good target at 53 than 29kHz. Oddly enough the tiny bits of aluminum shred sound like iron! 🤯 The fish hooks have a unique sound all their own. 

Got a lot of false positives on large iron, apparently the storm wrecked some of the jetties and tore some bolts out. I didn't bring those home with me.

The thing I disliked the most was moving the coil through the water, it's as bad as another detectors' coil I use, like swinging a brick. Too much turbulence and silt stirred up.

The next thing I didn't like was that 53kHz goes off on all kinds of stuff, even carbonized wood from beach fires. 29kHz is stable and usable. 

I did get two coins so it wasn't a total skunk:

.26, a quarter in the dry and a crusty Zincoln in the water. 

Overall, after a week at another big beach, I'd say I would not want to use this coil for beach hunting until something major happens with V3. I'm glad my other D2 is on V2. I figured I'd submerge it, the worst that could happen is I'd have to return it under warranty. 

I wish XP could get the excellent EMI handling and stability of V3 into V2. Shame they didn't do that in the first place. I'll try using the black coils with V3 eventually. 

🍀

[ColonelDan]

Good report.  I agree….XP has more work to do.  I’ll stay with the black coils running V2.

👍🏻😊

[D&P-OR]

2 hours ago, ColonelDan said:

Good report.  I agree….XP has more work to do.  I’ll stay with the black coils running V2.

👍🏻😊

I'll stay with the black coils running 0.71

[Lokator]

“I wish XP could get the excellent EMI handling and stability of V3 into V2. Shame they didn't do that in the first place. I'll try using the black coils with V3 eventually. ”

Along with the new ground/iron breakpoint function and negative silencer option would have been ace in the hole (spot on) imo ✅

Incidentally I did an experiment by returning to v1.1 and then re installed v3.1 again a few days ago and voila! Somethings changed……hmmmm

I’ve had no issues with TID numbers on 14 or 24 KHz (wet salt beach)  I'm still not sure about 40Khz tho but it seems much much better now than before.

My testing has mostly been with the 2 lower frequencies and I’m ok with them right now.

Maybe something wasn’t erased from the other beta programs when installing the final non beta version ( I did note that custom programs from beta versions remained when installing v3.1) I don’t really know…..

I would defiantly still not use the pitch 2 feature and stay with standard pitch tones.

 

 

 

[F350Platinum]

2 minutes ago, Lokator said:

Incidentally I did an experiment by returning to v1.1 and then re installed v3.1 again a few days ago and voila! Somethings changed……hmmmm

Thanks for your input, lokator. 👍

This is something I thought about yesterday, we haven't heard anything from XP, but I verified a "quiet" change to one of the versions long ago. A short time after one release an updated one popped up under the radar with only the dates of modification changed. There was no notice. 🤔 

The only way to verify this is to photograph the version change step by step with screen grabs or photos, I am going to try this today, at least to install V3.1 over V3.1. I'll post that if I find anything.

We have to be careful about posting "voodoo" processes here. 🤔

Pitch 2 is using the Relic concept in the water, personally I don't always want to dig every target on land or water, I prefer full tones at the beach. 🙂

4 hours ago, D&P-OR said:

I'll stay with the black coils running 0.71

I think it's a good idea for anyone to stay with what they feel most comfortable with. 🙂 However, by staying at 0.71, you do leave out quite a few enhancements that really made the D2 far more accurate and versatile. Relic was vastly improved without documentation, and one of the audio filters gave aluminum a different tone than other metal in some cases, to name two. I only use Relic and Beach sensitive, modified to my taste. I haven't had to do much on the fly but adjust salt sensitivity and audio response for quite some time now.

Since I do both relic and beach hunting  on nearly an equal basis, V2 made the Deus 2 an absolute killer machine everywhere for me. I have all my (sadly short but very frequent - 5 years) detecting history here, and the proof is in the posts. I've since found another popular machine to be equally good, but still come back with more trash than when using the Deus. The D2 has also proven to be bulletproof regarding water intrusion and overall ruggedness. I cannot say that for the other one, although I've never had a problem.

🍀

[F350Platinum]

7 hours ago, ColonelDan said:

Good report.  I agree….XP has more work to do.  I’ll stay with the black coils running V2.

👍🏻😊

As I've said above, it's no crime to stay with what you are comfortable with. 🙂 I try not to bash new changes without some live testing, but this whole HF2 thing has both my wallet and patience stretched a bit. 🤪 It's beginning to look like the HF2 coil is mostly for small gold, great for some, but about a third of the customer base. 🫤 The iron falsing and ID changes are quite noticeable and trifling for me.

I'll keep trying things for quite some time and keep folks in the know about any improvement. We have a few others doing the same diligence. 🍀

[Lokator]

“I would defiantly still not use the pitch 2 feature and stay with standard pitch tones.”

I have just finished a short field trip and have now changed my mind on the Pitch2 feature (cause we can can’t we😂)

Seriously tho I have now been testing it with the audio response @ 0 and it’s really really sweet now, the harshness is gone, seems more stable and the deepest targets sound so nice! Getting great feedback on depth perception too!

Audio Reponse will only stay @ 0 for me from now on when using Pitch2.

Pick your poison as to which audio type (PWM,Square, or Hi Square) I’m preferring Hi Square  right now.

Im gonna bite the bullet with V3.1 and carry on with lots of testing beach/Inland ancient sites and report anything interesting if and when they arrive.

Note: I only use the FMF 9,11, and 13” coils only.

 

 

 

[F350Platinum]

19 minutes ago, Lokator said:

Seriously tho I have now been testing it with the audio response @ 0 and it’s really really sweet now, the harshness is gone, seems more stable and the deepest targets sound so nice! Getting great feedback on depth perception too!

I'm curious, are you writing "Audio Response" or do you mean "Reactivity"? Reactivity is pretty correlated to depth, the speed of reporting a target, and audio response is the amount of volume to report a target with. 🤔 I run reactivity from 0 to 2 depending on the ground and amount of targets, and audio response to hear deeper stuff easier or mitigate EMI. For me audio response is always at 4 to 7.

[Lokator]

9 minutes ago, F350Platinum said:

I'm curious, are you writing "Audio Response" or do you mean "Reactivity"? Reactivity is pretty correlated to depth, the speed of reporting a target, and audio response is the amount of volume to report a target with. 🤔 I run reactivity from 0 to 2 depending on the ground and amount of targets, and audio response to hear deeper stuff easier or mitigate EMI. For me audio response is always at 4 to 7.

No,no Audio Reponse pitch2 only as posted.

My Main Reactivity settings can normally vary between 2-4 

I always normally use audio response @4 with pitch 1 /tones/full tones.