Whites V3i and the beach

[seekerofstuff]

Hello. I am relatively new to the metal detecting and have limited experience with my Whites V3i on land. I'm heading to the New Jersey Shore for a few days. I've been told to just use the pre-set program for beach hunting by a few people I have asked.

My questions is, Is this the best advice or should I be thinking of making any "tweeks" along the way? As I said, I'm new and this is my first time hunting on the beach and shallow water. Thanks in advance.

 

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[RobRieman]

Hello. I am relatively new to the metal detecting and have limited experience with my Whites V3i on land. I'm heading to the New Jersey Shore for a few days. I've been told to just use the pre-set program for beach hunting by a few people I have asked.

My questions is, Is this the best advice or should I be thinking of making any "tweeks" along the way? As I said, I'm new and this is my first time hunting on the beach and shallow water. Thanks in advance.

How did your V3i do on the beach? Mine sucks, I tried Fox's Salt Beach too and it was terrible. My AT Pro works 100x better in the salt than the V. I can only imagine using a dedicated salt machine but I only get to the beach once a year so I stick with land machines. Just wondering how it worked out for you!

 

[McKinney_5900]

How did your V3i do on the beach? Mine sucks, I tried Fox's Salt Beach too and it was terrible. My AT Pro works 100x better in the salt than the V. I can only imagine using a dedicated salt machine but I only get to the beach once a year so I stick with land machines. Just wondering how it worked out for you!

What coil were you using?

 

[airscapes]

My DFX works perfectly on the beach in multi frequency mode .. you got something set wrong, bad coil or something funky going on there with emi or a defect..

 

[RobRieman]

I used the D2 and a 6x8 SEF. They both work perfect on land but I wasn't impressed at all on the wet sand. I tried quit a few different settings but still may have missed the "magic" one I needed. It just seemed like it lost most of the character I'm used to land hunting. Wasn't real chatty but it was like everything was dumbed down from normal. I don't have a concentric coil for it to try though maybe that would help. I've got hundreds of hours of time with it over the last 4 years so I have a pretty good handle on the settings and its lingo, I guess I just expected a bit more.

 

[airscapes]

well, what do you mean it was dumbed down? Just went on swinging with no signals? If so, I am afraid that is just how it is on a lot of beaches.. Replenished sand has very little of anything in it.. I assume you were on one of the East Coast Beaches where they replenish that sand every winter? I have not done a lot of beach hunting but I will say what I did do was very easy on the ears.. One thing you may want to try which I fund worked real well on the beach was Mixed Mode as you don't have to swing OVER the target, just be near it to change the threshold .. then alter course to pinpoint it. I would thing the 10 would do just as well as the 950 for depth if not better. One nice advantage of the 950 over open DD styles is it slides across the sand without getting snagged.

 

[RobRieman]

I'm at Myrtle Beach airscapes, it's not a problem with no targets but they are certainly not plentiful by any means. I found a rosary and a bracelet which were junk jewelry and the usual clad at and below the towel line. I did find a quarter at the water line that was about 4 inches deep but it was a very iffy garbage type signal. It's pretty clean with very little garbage, a few sinkers in the trough but it's like using a very cheap detector compared to what it performs like in soil at home. Maybe that's just the way the salt makes it run as I'm no way an experienced salt hunter to compare it to a dedicated machine. Just wondered if anyone had any more tips for salt with the V while I was still here to try out. Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it. There are a ton of people on the beach all day and it would seem like I could snag a few fresh drops

 

[airscapes]

What have you tried? Not having a V machine, I don't know all the settings. However, from what I have seen it is the follow on to the DFX and as such much is the same just extended with more goodies on the V.
I would have my DFX wide open -80 to +94 accepted, Mixed mode, Best Data, Non Motion cranked DC 45 or 50 and Motion as hot as I can get it and still be stable PAG=4 and AC as high as I can.
Don't think those settings are called the same on the V but I assume you have already cranked it up. You may want to adjust your filters as well, I know on the beach in DE there is no iron minerals and GB is set to default. If you are running with high filters for mineralized soil that may need to be adjusted and could be the reason for the iffy shallow signal.. just guessing here..
Hope that helps!

 

[RobRieman]

I will crank it up even further and give it a try. I don't disc, I run wide open to hear it all. I was using the 10K band pass filter, I will try the lowest 5K and see if it helps. Tried salt compensate and 3 frequency. I will also give mixed mode a go. Stereo mixed mode could be interesting too. Thanks! There's a lot of settings. I need to get a good target and see if I can tweek it in the best and then scoop it and see what I got.

 

[texjim]

The dd coil will false a lot in the wet sand. You will be better off with the 950 coil for the beach.