Any tips for Tesaro Compadre on wet sand?

[Marin County CA]

I love this detector. I just started 4 months ago and it is the only one I have used. On wet sand, everything beeps! Any tips?
Katharine

 

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[Terry Soloman]

It is not going to work well on wet saltwater sand because it is a single-frequency VLF detector. Single frequency VLF machines (Very Low Frequency), have limitations in the harsh saltwater environment. Take for example the Tesoro Lobo Super Traq. This VLF single frequency machine (17.9Khz) is one of the finest and deepest gold nugget finders on the market today. The Lobo Super Traq, is capable of finding BB-sized gold nuggets six-inches deep in heavily mineralized ground, or a nickel in dry beach sand at 12-inches. Put that same nugget – or even the nickel, seven-inches deep in wet saltwater sand and the Lobo could walk right over it while chattering, or maybe without seeing it at all. Why?

The magnetic iron sands (“Black Sands”), salt, and high concentrations of other minerals in the water and sand conspire to bounce the radio waves away from the target. Conductivity and mineralization act like a shield around the target and create white noise that must be filtered electronically. Think of it as turning on your bright headlights in a heavy fog at night. All that powerful light is diffused and causes a complete white out – you can’t see anything three-feet past the hood of your car! You can't ground balance the Compadre as it is pre-set at the factory.

Concentrate on the "Towel Line." The beach is divided into two-sections - The "Dry Sand" or blanket area, and the "Wet Sand" or swimming area. When detecting the dry sand areas, successful beach hunters "grid" individual sections of the beach. Start by choosing an area 50-feet long, by 50-feet wide. First detect from the North to South. When you have detected the entire grid, turn 90-degrees and detect it again East to West. Moving slowly and methodically, you will be able to pass your coil over every inch of the 50' x 50' area. Coins, watches, rings, bracelets, Ipods, cell phones, car keys - you'll find it all! The phrase to remember is "low and slow." Keeping your coil as low and flat to the sand as you can, while moving slowly enough to assure your sweeps overlap each other is the real key to success.

 

[luvsdux]

Terry's thread points out one of the examples of the lack of a sensitivity control and manual ground contrtol on the Compadre - often on difficult ground reducing the sensitivity can help although you'll get a loss of depth. You might also consider trying to turn up the discrimination to eliminate the salt affect with a corresponding loss of some targets. I'm a Compadre fan so don't get me wrong, but it does have it's limitations and this is one area that it shows up, but what should we expect for the price? For most uses it's a great bang for the buck. Save the coins and jewelry you'll find in parks and tot lots etc. and put that towards an upgrade. (but keep the Compadre)
luvsdux