Garrett Sea Hunter Mark II Questions

[RedAmos]

Hi folks. I'm looking for some advice/tips for operating my new Garrett Sea Hunter Mark II.

I'm using it primarily for underwater and wet sand beaches in SW Florida.

I've run into 2 issues that I'm hoping you all can help my resolve.

First, it whines when I swing one direction and stays quite when I swing the other direction. I usually walk in the water parallel to the beach and it generally whines more when I swing to the deeper water, but not always. I assume I'm not setting the threshold properly. Anyone else run into this problem and what is the fix?

Second, for a PI machine I don't seem to get much depth. Most of my targets are pretty shallow and I even turned it over and waived a quarter past the coil and I didn't get much of a signal past 5 inches. Is this a problem with my settings or a problem with the machine?

Any advice that you can provide will be very helpful.

Thanks everyone.

 

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[tony curnick]

I have the same machine and I get way better distances on coins,try running your coil wire straight up the shaft for around 12 inches and fix it to the shaft,turn off your discrimination and try the coin test again

 

[cactusman]

First make sure that your machine is setup properly, per the manual, and from testing it in a controlled setting. A test garden is great for this purpose…

Next up make sure you are in Standard mode with the discrimination set at 0. Increase it only if you have to, to smooth things out, typically 1-3 on the knob, otherwise you will start missing gold, platinum, etc. I can’t count the number of people I’ve seen knocking out foil and missing a good portion of the 10K rings out there… Plus when you use discrimination you lose depth, which is what you gain over a VLF with a PI machine. I prefer not to use any discrimination on a PI machine, and adjust my sweep to keep it running smooth.

I suspect the problem you are having is more to do with ground balance…

If you are swinging over dry sand and then over wet sand, or in deeper surf versus lighter surf (especially if the coil is coming out of the water), the ground balance on the detector is going to struggle. PI machines, such as the Garrett Sea Hunter MK2 do (largely) ignore salt water, but not completely. You want to swing over one (consistent) type of sand/surf, depth, etc. Don’t go back and forth scanning in and out of the water with half of the swing; stay as consistent as possible. By doing that your coil will be seeing a stable amount of ground with every swing, allowing your machine to maximize its potential. Also be sure that you are keeping your coil level throughout your entire swing. Keep the coil low and scan slowly, at an even speed, about 1/3 slower (or more) than your land swing; this will allow for even better detection depth.

Keep your coil wire steady on the shaft as well. I use Velcro straps to keep mine in place, so the coil doesn’t “see” the coil wire. Some users go straight up the shaft with the coil wire, while others just keep it snug around the shaft. I’ve done both, but have no problems with the coil wrapped around the shaft, but like I said, I use Velcro straps to keep it from moving around.

As for the air test, don't sweat it, most air tests are much lower than "real world" ground tests, and this is doubly so with PI machines. If you still wonder about air tests, search YouTube there is at least one air test for depth for the Sea Hunter MKII.

I hope this helps and may you find heaps of gold in your scoop!

 

[RedAmos]

Thanks for the advice.

I'll give the garden test a shot to figure out what sort of depth I'm really getting.

I'm still not sure I have an answer to the "whine" I get when I'm out in the water. I'm fully submerged, I'm swinging slowly and keeping the coil level, I have the cord tightly wrapped around the shaft and fixed in place with electrical tape. It's just strange that I get the "whine" only when I swing one direction and not the other.

I'll keep playing with it and eventually I'll get it figured out.

Thanks again