Monty
Gold Member
- Jan 26, 2005
- 10,746
- 166
- Detector(s) used
- ACE 250, Garrett
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
After spending much of the summer hunting a few freshwater beaches in dry sand and down to the water line, I decided to get my feet wet. If for no other reason just to be able to cool off and stay out longer. I have found 2 rings in three outings on one beach in particular. What I desired was a Fisher CZ20 but I would never be able to justify the cost to my wife who pretty much controls the purse strings. I got wind of the Cobra Beach Magnet from a couple of guys on the forum. It is approximately 1/3 the cost of the CZ20. Since I am only able to get out to the beach about a dozen times during the summer, I didn't have much to lose at $350.00 a pop.
First off the machine is Chinese made which puts one strike against it in my book already! But since everyone knows the children in China are starving, eating bark off of trees, and etc. as my Mom use to say, I suppose I can live with that. Maybe this purchase will buy 'em some french fries or something? Anyway, when it arrived I unboxed it and was able to assemble it within about 30 seconds without looking at the instruction manuel. The power cord is about twice the length it needs to be, perhaps so the power unit can be removed and worn on the belt or on the body in some manner? However, the power unit has no fastners or slots with which to clip it to a belt or whatever. You would have to carry it in a satchel or apron of some sort unless you could rig up some type of harness. The power cord and water proof earphones are permanently attached to the power unit. They are pluged in, then secured by plastic bolts and nuts which appear to be epoxied to the power unit. There is a caution in the manual that tells you not to try to remove them. It came with a 10" coil which cannot be removed and changed out for a different size coil. The center coil winding is about 5" in diameter and I can see why pinpointing would be a little difficult as Jake Phelps reported. The control box is quite large but the face and knobs are easy to read. It has 3 controls knobs, the on/off/volume, Depth (sensitivity) and a trash elimination (discrimination) knob. There are preset factory recommendatin settings indicated with a yellow triangle on each knob.
In hefting the machine I found it to be quite heavy a little over 4 pounds. It was end heavy with the 10" coil and not very well balanced causing it to be fatigueing to swing on dry land. Jake tells me that it is fairly easy to swing in the water and that the power unit is buoyant and helps hold the detector upright with the coil down. That's desirable for underwater work. It did not come with batteries and uses 8 AA alkaline batteries. Being in the habit of picking up an 8 pack of batteries at Wally World everytime I go down there, I had plenty of batteries on hand. The battery compartment cover has two stainless steel screws holding it in place and a flat tip screwdriver is needed to open and resecure it. It employs a flat plastic gasket to make it water tight. So, I loaded the battery compartment and gathered some coins and rings and yes, even a puill tab to static test it out in the yard. The factory recommended settings seem to work OK on dry land except I had to turn up the volume a couple of clicks due to my poor hearing. The detector is a VLF unit that operates on one frequency, 12.5 mhz according to the manual. It is also a single tone unit so essentially you are operating in an all metal mode full time. The tone is more of a chirp than a buzz or at least that's how it sounds to me. It requires that the coil be moving in order to identify a target. There is no pinpoint feature and you just have to X the target and get as close as you can. It had no trouble putting out a good clear chirp on clad quarters, dimes and pennies. Like most detectors, a pull tab and a nickel sound the same to me and their signal was much weaker than the other coins. I was able to discriminate out the pull tab but it also tuned out the nickels. I next tried 4 different size and composition rings, a 10k, a couple of 14ks and one that I assume is plated as it has no karat stamp, rather has three exes like so, xxx, which means......? It picked all four up equally as well and chirped out loud and clear. I didn't try silver but I'm sure it will sound off accordingly. I plan to go out first thing in the morning and test it in the water at one of the beaches. I am use to a detector with a full display lcd screen and this is going to take some getting use to. Those of you that prefer a unit without the lcd display and the bells and whistles will get along quite well with it. Also there is nothing to indicate the depth of the submerged target. If you wish to operate the detector without sound there is a light that is easily seen when a target is identified. The operating manual has been put together by Kellyco and is lacking in detail to say the least. Depending on how it works in the water tomorrow it should suffice as an entry level shallow water detector. If I get addicted to water detecting I will of course be moving up to a more sophisticated detector next year. I will report on how we get along in the water after I get back tomorrow evening. JIMi
First off the machine is Chinese made which puts one strike against it in my book already! But since everyone knows the children in China are starving, eating bark off of trees, and etc. as my Mom use to say, I suppose I can live with that. Maybe this purchase will buy 'em some french fries or something? Anyway, when it arrived I unboxed it and was able to assemble it within about 30 seconds without looking at the instruction manuel. The power cord is about twice the length it needs to be, perhaps so the power unit can be removed and worn on the belt or on the body in some manner? However, the power unit has no fastners or slots with which to clip it to a belt or whatever. You would have to carry it in a satchel or apron of some sort unless you could rig up some type of harness. The power cord and water proof earphones are permanently attached to the power unit. They are pluged in, then secured by plastic bolts and nuts which appear to be epoxied to the power unit. There is a caution in the manual that tells you not to try to remove them. It came with a 10" coil which cannot be removed and changed out for a different size coil. The center coil winding is about 5" in diameter and I can see why pinpointing would be a little difficult as Jake Phelps reported. The control box is quite large but the face and knobs are easy to read. It has 3 controls knobs, the on/off/volume, Depth (sensitivity) and a trash elimination (discrimination) knob. There are preset factory recommendatin settings indicated with a yellow triangle on each knob.
In hefting the machine I found it to be quite heavy a little over 4 pounds. It was end heavy with the 10" coil and not very well balanced causing it to be fatigueing to swing on dry land. Jake tells me that it is fairly easy to swing in the water and that the power unit is buoyant and helps hold the detector upright with the coil down. That's desirable for underwater work. It did not come with batteries and uses 8 AA alkaline batteries. Being in the habit of picking up an 8 pack of batteries at Wally World everytime I go down there, I had plenty of batteries on hand. The battery compartment cover has two stainless steel screws holding it in place and a flat tip screwdriver is needed to open and resecure it. It employs a flat plastic gasket to make it water tight. So, I loaded the battery compartment and gathered some coins and rings and yes, even a puill tab to static test it out in the yard. The factory recommended settings seem to work OK on dry land except I had to turn up the volume a couple of clicks due to my poor hearing. The detector is a VLF unit that operates on one frequency, 12.5 mhz according to the manual. It is also a single tone unit so essentially you are operating in an all metal mode full time. The tone is more of a chirp than a buzz or at least that's how it sounds to me. It requires that the coil be moving in order to identify a target. There is no pinpoint feature and you just have to X the target and get as close as you can. It had no trouble putting out a good clear chirp on clad quarters, dimes and pennies. Like most detectors, a pull tab and a nickel sound the same to me and their signal was much weaker than the other coins. I was able to discriminate out the pull tab but it also tuned out the nickels. I next tried 4 different size and composition rings, a 10k, a couple of 14ks and one that I assume is plated as it has no karat stamp, rather has three exes like so, xxx, which means......? It picked all four up equally as well and chirped out loud and clear. I didn't try silver but I'm sure it will sound off accordingly. I plan to go out first thing in the morning and test it in the water at one of the beaches. I am use to a detector with a full display lcd screen and this is going to take some getting use to. Those of you that prefer a unit without the lcd display and the bells and whistles will get along quite well with it. Also there is nothing to indicate the depth of the submerged target. If you wish to operate the detector without sound there is a light that is easily seen when a target is identified. The operating manual has been put together by Kellyco and is lacking in detail to say the least. Depending on how it works in the water tomorrow it should suffice as an entry level shallow water detector. If I get addicted to water detecting I will of course be moving up to a more sophisticated detector next year. I will report on how we get along in the water after I get back tomorrow evening. JIMi
) ![:-\](https://www.treasurenet.com/smilies/undecided.gif "Undecided :-\")
My bosses are extremely pleased with this decision and they have even extended a thank you to you as well Jim, and they wish you the best of luck today. 
