Sven
Well-known member
Our club held a members only (no entry fee) seeded beach hunt today. Of about 45 members, only 17 or so managed to show up. More or less just a fun hunt to get members together and get to know each other etc........
It was a very cold 39 degree temp and about a 20mph wind whipping across the beach. Most everyone dressed for the occasion, wearing multiple layers of clothing. At least it wasn't raining and the sun came out for a couple hours before a bank of clouds moved back in. Overall, the hunt weather was do-able.
All buried coins supplied by the club treasury. Coins that were buried were $1 and $2, quarters modern Canadian clad coins, as well as silver coins mostly dimes and quarters. Then to spice up the mix a bit, US quarters and $1 coins were buried.
There were three 15 minute hunts, think everyone did fairly well and scored some coinage. Some came away empty handed. Anyone who didn't find a coin in the first hunt, was given a chance to find one in the second before the members were all allowed to jump in and scoop for coins. The same for those who didn't come away with a coin in the second, had a first chance in the third. Anyone who needed some assistance during the hunt, members would stop and try and help.....This worked well for newbies or those with new detectors who haven't had enough experience with their detectors, those of us with knowledge were more than to help them out, before, during and after the hunts.
The thing about Port Stanley beach sand, it has mixed into it black magnetic sands. Many fixed GB detectors with all metal mode or that have only had disc modes would lose depth and sensitivity, or not even see the coins, especially those on edge. And even those with manual or auto Ground Balance can have difficulty in disc modes, from low end to high end model detectors. Because I know how the beach sand affects metal detectors, my first choice would be my Pi. But, they are not allowed in the hunt as many interfere with VLF detectors. I was planning on using a lightweight Tesoro Silver Sabre II, then decided against it. It has a true all metal threshold based mode. Problem is fixed GB, when tested over the beach sand, it lost 50-60% depth. The GB was way off from being neutral. And I didn't do a manual GB mod to it yet. Decided to use the Anfibio Multi again with the stock 9x11 search coil. I don't have a smaller 7" concentric coil yet, that I would have preferred to use. Looks like I will have to buy one from a dealer. After a lot if experimentation. I found the best combination of settings for this beach for seeded beach hunting. GEN (all metal), Gain at full 99, Threshold 35, Frequency 5khz, Frequency Shift to 1. All other settings were default GEN. The Anfibio set up this way worked great, 95% interference free from other detectors and found coins on edge and those passed over by others a few seconds before. There were 61 coins buried for each hunt, total 183 coins for three hunts. 17 members, roughly works out to about 11 coins per member. I guess I did pretty well looking at the quantity of coins others have found.
I found total of 23 coins for a total of 45 minutes (3 hunts):
6 $2.00 coins
8 $1.00 coins
4 US Quarters
2 Can. Quarters
1 Silver Quarter
2 Silver Dimes
These were not speed competition hunts, I am sure my counts could have been higher if it was and if I had a 7" concentric to swing.
At the end of all the hunts, the club was treated to a meal at Mackies, the big name beach restaurant where we held our hunt.
Think everyone had a good time and learned some tricks in using their detectors.
The Anfibio Multi again proved it can handle some tougher hunting conditions with ease. The more I use it, the more I like it.
It was a very cold 39 degree temp and about a 20mph wind whipping across the beach. Most everyone dressed for the occasion, wearing multiple layers of clothing. At least it wasn't raining and the sun came out for a couple hours before a bank of clouds moved back in. Overall, the hunt weather was do-able.
All buried coins supplied by the club treasury. Coins that were buried were $1 and $2, quarters modern Canadian clad coins, as well as silver coins mostly dimes and quarters. Then to spice up the mix a bit, US quarters and $1 coins were buried.
There were three 15 minute hunts, think everyone did fairly well and scored some coinage. Some came away empty handed. Anyone who didn't find a coin in the first hunt, was given a chance to find one in the second before the members were all allowed to jump in and scoop for coins. The same for those who didn't come away with a coin in the second, had a first chance in the third. Anyone who needed some assistance during the hunt, members would stop and try and help.....This worked well for newbies or those with new detectors who haven't had enough experience with their detectors, those of us with knowledge were more than to help them out, before, during and after the hunts.
The thing about Port Stanley beach sand, it has mixed into it black magnetic sands. Many fixed GB detectors with all metal mode or that have only had disc modes would lose depth and sensitivity, or not even see the coins, especially those on edge. And even those with manual or auto Ground Balance can have difficulty in disc modes, from low end to high end model detectors. Because I know how the beach sand affects metal detectors, my first choice would be my Pi. But, they are not allowed in the hunt as many interfere with VLF detectors. I was planning on using a lightweight Tesoro Silver Sabre II, then decided against it. It has a true all metal threshold based mode. Problem is fixed GB, when tested over the beach sand, it lost 50-60% depth. The GB was way off from being neutral. And I didn't do a manual GB mod to it yet. Decided to use the Anfibio Multi again with the stock 9x11 search coil. I don't have a smaller 7" concentric coil yet, that I would have preferred to use. Looks like I will have to buy one from a dealer. After a lot if experimentation. I found the best combination of settings for this beach for seeded beach hunting. GEN (all metal), Gain at full 99, Threshold 35, Frequency 5khz, Frequency Shift to 1. All other settings were default GEN. The Anfibio set up this way worked great, 95% interference free from other detectors and found coins on edge and those passed over by others a few seconds before. There were 61 coins buried for each hunt, total 183 coins for three hunts. 17 members, roughly works out to about 11 coins per member. I guess I did pretty well looking at the quantity of coins others have found.
I found total of 23 coins for a total of 45 minutes (3 hunts):
6 $2.00 coins
8 $1.00 coins
4 US Quarters
2 Can. Quarters
1 Silver Quarter
2 Silver Dimes
These were not speed competition hunts, I am sure my counts could have been higher if it was and if I had a 7" concentric to swing.
At the end of all the hunts, the club was treated to a meal at Mackies, the big name beach restaurant where we held our hunt.
Think everyone had a good time and learned some tricks in using their detectors.
The Anfibio Multi again proved it can handle some tougher hunting conditions with ease. The more I use it, the more I like it.
Think its my keyboard, getting older...............