XLT and Wet Sand

[speedy]

I am using a White's XLT....and love it! It does very well in the dry sand, however in wet and/or black sand it goes nuts. I think this is common with all the White's except the DFX. Does anyone have any advice to successful use my XLT in the wet sand? Thanks in advance for your assistance,

[cyberdan]

I can't help you on that one, my XLT does the same thing. I guess they do not like the transition between dry and submerged. Since the XLT is not a water machine I am not going to test it and see if it quiets down when under water. I have heard other machines (water) have the same problem till the coil is in the water.

I do get hits in the wet sand but everyone is at 4.5" deep and then I can't find them. So I stay in the dry.

Dan

[Leroy]

I have a White's XLT and my friend and I tried the local river by Kaweah Lake, since the lake is at low pool. It rained most of the day and I noticed on wet sand and by the water on my custom silver program my xlt would display "overload". It have never done this before, but I have never detected in that kind of weather. I ended up changing it to a jewelry/beach or factory program and I had no more problems. My buddy, who has an XLT did not experience the overload, but he stayed with factory programs.

[goldhart]

I used an XLT successfully on the Santa Cruz salt beaches for many years. The trick when you are going into the water/wet sand is to start in the beach/jewelry program and turn OFF the transmit boost and run the preamp gain as high as you can without getting false signals-usually somewhere between 4 and 12.

Also be aware that when you are in the water to keep the coil submerged. It will give a false signal when you put it in the water and another when you take it out. If you are working in 1 to 6 inches of water and it is swirling the loop in and out it will give you a bunch of false signals.

To get more depth Accept minus 35 to 0, reject 1 to 6, accept 7 to 94, reject 95.

Good luck and HH Dan3

[MetalEd]

It's not just the XLT, the DFX and even the BeachHunter ID has problems at the local beaches... They are so mineralized that you have to turn the gain (AC DC) down so much that it is hard if not impossible to find a coin sitting on top of teh sand.. I thought I was doing good with my white's until I bought my Surfmaster PI. WOW what a difference, I found out there is a entire world below the two inch sand level!
I bought my PI from a white's dealer in Santa Monica. That is the biggest problem he sees, people wanting to buy a DFX or XLT to use at our local beaches.. It is just to mineralized to get very deep in the dry sand and almost impossible to tune it to work in the wet sand. I actually thought something was wrong with my XLT the first time I took it to the beach... the entire beach was a target and I could not adjust it to find a soda can sitting on top of dry sand!
The dealer I mentioned, wouldn't recommend a beachhunter ID to anyone that wants to hunt localley because how bad they are. Not all of them are that bad, but you do have to lower power enough that you aren't any competition to the guys with Pi detectors that live at the beaches (you guys know who you are! )

[speedy]

Thanks to you all for your advice. I may just use this as an opportunity to purchase a PI Pro......"Honey I HAVE to buy a new metal detector, my other one ONLY works in the grass." I don't think she would fall for it. ;D

Thanks again,

Speedy

[mayumi1]

Or maybe try this first, tis cheaper -

Start with preset Jewelry/Beach Program and make the following changes.

Basic Adjustments
Target Volume:_60_ Audio Threshold:_10_ Tone (Audio Freq):___ Audio Disc.:___

Silent Search:___ Mixed Mode:___ A.C. Sensitivity:_67_ D.C. Sensitivity:___

Backlight:___ Viewing Angle:___

Pro Options

Audio

Ratchet Pinpointing:_ON_ S.A.T. Speed:___ Tone I.D.:___ V.C.O.:___

Absolute Value:___ Modulation:___
G.E.B. / TRAC

Autotrac:___ Trac View:___ Autotrac Speed:___ Autotrac Offset:___

Trac Inhibit:___ Coarse G.E.B.:___ Fine G.E.B.:___

Discrimination

Disc. Edit

Accept:_(-30 to +94)_ Reject:_(-95 to -31, +95)_
Block Edit:___ Learn Accept:___ Learn Reject:___

Recovery Speed:___
Bottlecap Reject:___

Display

Visual Disc.:___ Icons:___ V.D.I. Sensitivity:___ D.C. Phase:___
Graph Averaging:___ Graph Accumulating:___ Fade Rate:___

Signal

Transmit Boost:___ Transmit Frequency:___ Preamp Gain:_4 or 5_

come hither as well - 66.51.97.78/jb/programm.html

[Trogdor]

Problems with wet sand is not just a White's problem. It affects most, if not all, VLF machines. You've got to turn your sensitivity/gain way down, and even then, you will get poor depth and lots of false signals. I've also found that some false signals are repeatable, making it that much harder to distinguish them from real targets.

I also recommend looking at PI machines. I have an older Surf PI, and I really like it on the beach. If I get a repeatable beep, I can be certain something is there. This is not the case with my VLF machine.

HH, Jeff

[RALPH]

Hey Speed............

I take what Goldie, (Dan 3) says as gospel,
if he says its so, you can bet your ass its so.

As for anyone that can't find anything on
the beach with a DFX, (wet or dry) couldn't
find water if he fell out of a boat............

R~

[OT]

I agree with Ralph, what Goldie says is correct. He hasn't been gone from California that long for folks not to remember all his "eye candy" photo's of his finds at the beach. For those that don't know Goldheart, he lived at the beach, not in the since of being there all the time....which he was, but he lived only a few blocks from the beach. He was a Whites Dealer for that area for many years and knew his detectors. So.... save alot of time by using his experience and doing what he suggested.

Dan why don't you post a few photo's of your beach "eye candy," for the new kids on the block so that they will know that you know what you are talking about.

;DT

[SoCalIra]

thats why I use Minelab at the beaches,wet or dry...sorry but
nobody does it better than Minelab Sovereign, Excalibur, Explorer at the beach, salt or fresh, black sand or not. Using a PI detector on
CA beaches means you dig everything and they love iron. They also love gold, but you still have to dig it all. Thats another reason I love Minelabs.
SoCalIra