Spectra V3. NEED HELP ON THE BEACH!!

[moramoina]

Went out again with the spectra V3 today for just a couple of hours. I do still have trouble with ground balancing the detector in wet sand as the signal seems not to stabilise after pumping to the coil up and down several times. I do not think I'm doing anything wrong, but i also think the detector shouldn't take so long to ground balance wet sand. Can anybody help? The wet sand i was trying to ground balance on had water flowing 2 or 3 inches underneath. Would that be the reason. I read a lot on the spectra V3 before buying it. I concluded it does a good job on the beach too and that's why i purchased it. No i'm having some double toughest.

Today there was a beautiful low tide and i was looking forward to good finds.....i have found loads of coins but no precious metals. Cant be that lucky in just two hours. The problem repeat itself as i try to detect the wettest sand. Signal start to go made as well as the VDI number. I dug a hole and 2-3 inches underneath still i found water. Would that be the reason why the detector go nuts? I had to return to drier sand, but by doing so i haven't detected the part of the beach which is usually underwater and hides the best finds. Needless to say i was using the salt beach factory program with the salt compensation. A bit frustrating. Can anybody help? Thanks M

 

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[jcCALIF]

Hello Moramoina,

Ok.....in the briefest nutshell:
1) Wet sand tends to be very mineralized. When I have options, I prefer PULSE machines on the wet surf. Stuck with a VLF machine (V3),? Then continue:
2) Your V3 machine (VLF) works best with the smallest coil that you can get your hands on, 4x6 preferred. This will allow the discrimination
abilities of the machine to slice through the trash to your targets. If you use to bigger coils, then you tend to pick up multiple targets at the same time. This makes it very
difficult to pin-point targets on the V3 machine.
3) Don't neglect the rim of the dry sand before the wet sand. This is where I find most of my rings (when not in the wet).
4) The beach tends to be highly mineralized, hence run your ground filter at 12.5 hz.
5) As you have obviously have found out, you have to decrease the GAIN when dealing with highly mineralized terrain so as to not overload your machine.
6) In reference to 5) here is a neat trick I figured out working in the desert (highly mineralized), while you wish to run your V3 at the highest GAIN
possible so as to make your machine as sensitive as possible, your level of GAIN is hindered by the overload caused by the mineralization. If you run the V3 on 1 frequency
you can ramp up the GAIN higher than if you are running on 3 frequencies. Hence, if you want to look for gold run the machine at 22.5 khz or if you hunting deep for silver run the
machine at 2.5 khz/and then simultaneously run the GAIN as high as possible before the machine overloads.
7) Trouble grounds balancing? Perhaps that is a philosophical question....By ground balancing are you balancing out targets? Maybe....I would rather run my machine as hot as possible (GAIN) and focus
in on specific targets.
8) Don't forget... be happy when you find pull-tabs and nickels as they are your friends. They are hanging out with-in the jewelry range.

Happy Hunting!!

 

[cudamark]

As you found out, the V3 is not the best beach machine. If you have very few junk targets, get a PI machine. If you need discrimination, get an Excalibur or if you're not going into the water, an E-trac, Explorer, or Sovereign.