Whites Surf Dual Field

[Redleg9]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am new to beach hunting here in New Jersey and thinking about purchasing the Surf Dual Field. I know its a PI machine, but having been a Soldier for 30 years digging is second nature to me. I have an ETRAC I use for the dry sand with great results. My question is how does the Dual Field stand up to other PI machines out there, IE price , performance, ease of use. Lastly can someone tell me how many pulses it puts out per minute and how this relates to its ability to detect. Thanks in advance for your help

 

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[CASPER-2]

youre going to dig it all - but being someone that started out using an all metal land machine and my first water machine
being a PI pro and machine I use now I use in all metal
I believe if you dig it all then you get it all
if hitting beaches close to home - you will find that you may go out and find 10+ pieces of junk for every good target
but if you hit these spots on a regular basis (especially off season when junk is not being replaced)
if you pull all the junk - slowly your good to bad ratio should increase - you will find good targets that
are deep below the shallower junk that were masked by the iron - guys I know with DF's
find stuff down 2 feet and re-hit places they thought cleaned out and get old gold

 

[sonnar28]

The Dual Field (DFPI) is an excellent waterproof PI machine, good value for the price, and retains value well if resold used. Adjustable pulse delay and adjustable gain are significant determinants of the ability to detect with a PI, and the DFPI has both. Clive Clynick has 2 excellent books on PI machines in general, one of which is devoted to the DFPI. I own a DFPI and am very happy with it.
Pulse rate per second does not correlate with a machine's ability to detect, and the pulse rate on the DFPI is not adjustable i any case.
The issue with using a PI machine as a general purpose machine on any given tourist beach is the amount of iron present. Small nails/tacks/wire bits are the ultimate adversary, and are very hard to overcome, as you cannot eliminate them by increasing the pulse delay without losing gold, and you cannot dig them all when you hit 2 or 3 on each swing. You can look for areas of erosion on these beaches, where the light stuff is gone, and run a PI there. Or you can go to choice locations such as the wet sand in front of an expensive hotel, and clear out a small area. The small iron issue may be less pronounced during the off season, but the gold may be less pronounced also. Some small iron will give double beeps when swept longways and thus can be ignored. With a good ear you can hear some small iron sound off as weak signals; but if you are pushing the machine for max depth, they all will sound good.
The small iron issue is usually less in the water compared to the wet sand, but then recovery time per target is increased.
My advice would be to take the Etrac to the wet sand, go to all metal, and hunt for a day and see if that is something that you would enjoy. Another idea would be to contact other beach detectorists in the New Jersey area to see if anyone uses a PI. Surfdigger (Brian Mayer) lives at the Jersey Shore, and may still belong to this forum. I know he is on Facebook.
I hope that I have not discouraged you, I enjoy the challenge of using PI's and they are my machine of choice (if the beach will allow you to use it!).
Happy Hunting.
Charles

 

[TommyB]

I use the DFPI here in socal for both dry and wet sand hunting. I dig everything and do find targets down to 18 in. or so. Listen for the wispers. These are the deep or small targets that a lot of folks miss. Like diamond stud earrings, etc.
I ziptie a magnet to the bottom of my scoop to catch the occasional nail, fish hook or bobby pin. Helps keep you sanity by not letting them fall thru.
However, I can't use it around fire pits. Too many junk targets. I use my DFX for those areas.

 

[gold fever pete]

I not only have a Dual Field but I love it. This is what I found with it in waist deep water. Yes I was getting beat around by the waves, but it was worth it. 18k and 20.6 grams

 

[Fletch88]

The Etrac is very good for wet sand too not just dry sand! The Dual Field is a great PI detector with amazing depth capability. Make sure you have a good scoop!


Ps: For Petes sake that's the biggest ring I've ever seen!

 

[Beach Papa]

I have a dual field and it performs very well. I find that the pulse is more stable in the surf than my VLF machines. However, it will easily pick up a bobby pin or fish hook at 18 inches to 24 inches and that is a lot of digging for nothing but community service of cleaning up the trash. I would probably use the dual field in the water and my CTX on the beach. Even though the CTX is waterproof and goes just as deep as the dual field, it is not as stable in the surf and is more machine to slosh through the water. I know a guy who hunts the same beaches that I hunt and he routinely outhunts me every year with his Garrett Sea Hunter PI machine. Of course he hunts 2 hours every day around low tide whereas I will hunt for maybe 5 - 6 hours only one or two days a week at the most, so maybe that is the difference. I understand the Garrett Infinium goes a little deeper than the Sea hunter, but both are excellent machines as is the dual field. Most often I use the CTX because the surf is almost always too rough to hunt effectively.

 

[Roadrunner007]

Good Choice! .... Dual Field is very affordable. I use the BHID300 in All Metal/Lights, as well as the TDI Pro on wet sand.