Brown metallic sand problem in Costa Rica

[haywoody]

Need advice what PI machine to purchase. My trusted Excal could not handle these conditions no matter what settings. I borrowed an older Tesoro Piranah PI with 10.5"coil, which was much more stable, but still needed to be set below normal threshold to quiet constant falsing on every sweep. Was able to get mostly only new drop shallow finds of uncorroded coins and earings (finally one gold 18k ring) and even those targets at 6" were the faintest beep, even on a large silver bracelet. No one detects these beaches and I'm sure there are lots of goodies in the 6-12" range and beyond. The sand layer is thick and does not change much as no reals storms here. The good heavy stuff just works it's way down and waits. Does anyone have experience or input regarding which PI detector might be best for this type of sand? Not much trash to contend with in wet sand and water.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Treasure of Victoria Peak - Grab it through Amazon!

[JP]

I'm in El Salvador at this time. I have a Sea Hunter (PI unit) and an Excalibur down here. They both seem to be a little unstable in this volcanic sand. I imagine the beach sand is simmilar in Costa Rica. I have had the Sea Hunter out a few times where it would be perfectly stable and yet the next time be a little noisy.........

I got the Excalibur to run a little more stable by lowering the threshold. Also, it doesn't seem to like the dry sand down here.

Good luck.

 

[haywoody]

It does sound similar. How would you rate your max debth on say a quarter in the wet sand in low tide area?

 

[JP]

At the beach, I have found US coins at the average depth (avg 6 - 10 inches) in the wet sand, but with water covering the coil. I have better luck in the lakes. The ocean waves pound the snot out of you down here so out of every 10 signals I recover only maybe 2. In Florida I recover at least 97 out of 100 targets (smaller waves). Down here I have found live rounds (bullets for those that don't know) down at least 12 inches (5.56mm through 50 cal) in the lake. I don't use a scoop in the lakes because of my fear of finding a grenade or something of that nature, but in the ocean I use the scoop when I'm not diving. In the past some people used to go fishing with the grenades....fun

I found a gold ring 2 years ago at the beach. The waves were small (a miracle) that day. The ring was down probably about 8 inches. Before finding it the Excalibur was going nuts on the dry sand. Once I got it in the water it was more stable.

 

[ivan salis]

its a mineral type issue --sinilar to "hot rocks" but just think of it as "hot sand" instead -- the main problem is that PI machines are by nature "all metal" --- and the touchy detector "sees" these naturally occuring "background" minerals as metal thus it goes "beep" all the time falsing its butt off -- one has to "blind" the detector a bit so that is not quite so "touchy" --by lowering it sen level a bit so that it will not pick up the "background" minerals mistaking them for metal

most detectorist in hopes of getting "maximum depth" tend to run quite hot or wide open max sensitivity level wize -- having to back off a bit to stablize their machine seems to kill them since they might lose a bit of depth in the process ( but then the machine will be properly usible --its a trade off)

in areas that have these high mineral issues --VLF type machines that can sort and null out iron and "background" mineral levels are really whats needed .

 

[Richard Ray]

Haywoody:
Which beach are you searching in CR? I've never used a PI unit there, I used a detector of my own design, on the beaches at Puntarenas, Jaco, Quepos on the Osa beaches and Limon and was very sucessful. I have used an early PI unit on Cozumel and several other beaches on Quinatana Roo. I have cans full of modern CR coins, a partial can of ancient coins from early CR and one from before it was called Costa Rica it was just Central America. I even have a couple double stamped coins from CR...
Richard Ray

 

[Sandman]

Ivan answered correctly.

Your problem with unstable threshold and falsing could be caused by electrical interference. http://www.fisherlab.com/hobby/davejohnson/Electrical Interference.htm