Struggling with Makro Racer 2 at Beach

[treasureman1010]

Hi

I got a new Makro Racer 2 a few weeks back, after reading that it performs well on both land and beach. I've done various table top air tests and was impressed by the results, particularly in 'Deep Mode.' It also seems to work well on pasture.

However, so far I've been struggling with it on the beach. On most beaches I have been to so far I am restricted to using the Racer in 'Beach Mode' as it won't ground balance in any of the other modes, anywhere beyond the dry sand/towel line.

Anyway, I wasn't getting particularly great depths in 'Beach Mode,' it seems to dampen the machine down quite a bit. My reaction was to crank the gain up to 90-95, to try and increase depth.

Is cranking up the gain a mistake? I read somewhere else that increasing the gain past 90 in highly mineralised ground could actually have a negative impact on depth. Is this true?

Any advice on how to get the best out of my Racer on dry and wet sand would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

How to Research for Treasure Hunting and Metal Detecting From Lead Generation to Vetting - Grab it through Amazon!

[Terry Soloman]

My advice is to ground balance in the “Two-Tone” mode, Sensitivity at 85-90 in the DRY sand. Then move into the wet sand and switch to Beach Mode. Don't worry about re-grounding at that point. If you are getting a lot of falsing and chattering at 1" above the wet sand, drop your sensitivity until it stops (70 on hot beaches).

 

[treasureman1010]

Hi Terry.

Thanks for getting back to me. I will try your technique when I get the chance to visit the beach next. What sort of results can I expect to see from your method?

Cheers.

 

[Terry Soloman]

Hi Terry.

Thanks for getting back to me. I will try your technique when I get the chance to visit the beach next. What sort of results can I expect to see from your method?

Cheers.

From my review of the machine: http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/nokta-makro/522962-review-makro-racer-2-pro-package.html

..For my next test of the Racer 2, I traveled to the southern shore of Long Island, NY, to see how it would handle the black, and wet saltwater sands of the Atlantic. All the single-frequency machines I’ve used on saltwater beaches in the past have suffered a loss of sensitivity and depth, to varying degrees, on the wet sand. They have been chatty or unstable, unable to handle highly mineralized and conductive saltwater and wet sand.

I’ve tried the Garrett AT Pro; Whites MX Sport; Fisher F75; DetectorPro Head Hunter; and several Tesoro, Bounty Hunter, and Teknetics machines, on Atlantic and Long Island Sound beaches over the last few years. I was not confident the Racer 2 would fare any better than the machines I had tried before.

After detecting the dry sand and towel line while waiting for low tide, I moved down into the wet sand and popped the Racer 2 into “Beach” mode. The machine easily ground balanced, and I was even able to increase the gain (sensitivity) which surprised me. After swinging in the wet sand for a few minutes I thought the machine was malfunctioning because I wasn’t hearing any signals at all. I ran the coil over my sand scoop and got the Racer 2’s distinctive “overload siren” signal, loud and clear in my headphones.

Continuing my grid pattern on the wet sand the machine only gave a false signal when going into, or coming out of, the water. Over the wet sand, or when the coil was fully submerged it ran smooth. I recovered modern coins, fish hooks, and some lead weights at very respectable depths.

In example, I dug a #4 lead fishing weight between 14”–15” deep in the wet sand from a strong signal. My deepest coin was a 1967 Nickel, at about 10-inches. The Racer 2 honestly outperformed every other single-frequency VLF I have tried on saltwater beaches...

 

[Minelab Matt]

Hi

I got a new Makro Racer 2 a few weeks back, after reading that it performs well on both land and beach. I've done various table top air tests and was impressed by the results, particularly in 'Deep Mode.' It also seems to work well on pasture.

However, so far I've been struggling with it on the beach. On most beaches I have been to so far I am restricted to using the Racer in 'Beach Mode' as it won't ground balance in any of the other modes, anywhere beyond the dry sand/towel line.

Anyway, I wasn't getting particularly great depths in 'Beach Mode,' it seems to dampen the machine down quite a bit. My reaction was to crank the gain up to 90-95, to try and increase depth.

Is cranking up the gain a mistake? I read somewhere else that increasing the gain past 90 in highly mineralised ground could actually have a negative impact on depth. Is this true?

Any advice on how to get the best out of my Racer on dry and wet sand would be appreciated.

Thanks.

99.9999% of the time the Racer will not ground balance via the trigger in any mode, other than Beach mode, on wet sand.

If i#m on the 100% dry soft sand....I use 2-tone and ground ba,lance in 2-tone....as it getsa LOT more depth than beach mode on dry sand.

But, when the sand even starts to get a tiny bit wet, 100% I have to go into beach mode, find a nice clean bit of ground, with nothing under the coid and I push trigger forward and I usually wait til I hear 4 bleeps from the ground balance.

Gain 85 no problem on wet highly moneralized sand...also with coil fully submerged too.

Check out the video i did a few days ago.

The Racer can be awesome one the beach.....13+ inches on highly mineralized black sand i got and did the video to prove it: