Well, still green as I've been hunting for 2 months now, and about 60 hours beach hunting time logged with CTX-3030. (Still no gold rings, etc. except one that doesn't count).
Here is some info from last weekends trip to Virginia Beach.
Mostly searched using the standard Beach mode with Hi Trash/Recovery Fast/ Seawater selected. Sometimes, I'd flip to Pattern #2 to check things. 11" coil.
Finds:
-Found a BMW..................ok.... BMW keys. (Harris Teeter and Auto Zone (cards on key chain) called the owner and left a message with my contact info. I checked the local hotels to no avail. The cops said nothing they could do. Hope owner calls back.)
-Also found a ring that really got the goose bumps going. The ring, rang in at 12-07. A very well defined tone. I thought finally, after a million aluminum flip tops I got a hit. It felt rather light but I brushed that off...until I had a look back at the hotel and saw S. Steel from China written inside.
-The tide was very low so I tried shallow water hunting for a change. In water about 1'6" deep and rough surf, there was a very persistent tone 01-46. I have a T-Rex 9" that I tried and tried (about 20 minutes) but could not reach the target that indicated from 3" to 9" deep. the sand kept filling in the hole. The tide was coming in but I was determined, so I put down the shovel and started digging with my hands, breathing every now and then between waves. I finally found it.....a chunk of engine block about 6" x 6" x 6". No Picture. other than that, there were NO signals in over 4 hours solid hunting in the shallow water.
-Another shallow water hunt (water about waist deep), found the watch about 4" deep: rang in at 14-36. Not working and full of water. Have to take it apart.
-Coins:
--One coin drop had a quarter, 2 dimes, 1 nickel, and a penny within a 8" diameter. It looked and sounded like a bottle top with indications all over the screen. I don't know why I checked this one ; I usually ignore these as over 90% are actually bottle tops. As I pulled each coin out, it was interesting to see the indications become more stable with target trace.
--I "reject" pennies with a 3 x 3 block but still find many pennies.
-I'm now starting to be able to tell pennies, quarters, and dimes, bottle tops, and aluminum pieces. Al pieces are always 12-01/13-01 . Flip tops in my opinion are mostly very defined sound and 12-15ish. I think this would be hard to distinguish from gold jewelry.
Note: To carry the 3030 while riding a bike, I used the strap that comes with the carry case to connect directly to the detector. This works pretty well.
Lots of people out this weekend. Possibly seeing many of us metal detectorist out makes them more careful with their things
There were other detectorist out during the normal crowded hours so I thought I'd give it a try. Feels weird walking around with detector but oh well. One thing that made me rethink what I was doing was the possibility of a kid landing into my T-Rex and hurting theirself in the waves so I quit until dark. So I wound up digging holes for kids to play in when the water rushes in, and showed other kids how the detector works/what it sounds like. Guess i'm not the hard-core type when kids are around.......but at night easier to get down to business.
Here is some info from last weekends trip to Virginia Beach.
Mostly searched using the standard Beach mode with Hi Trash/Recovery Fast/ Seawater selected. Sometimes, I'd flip to Pattern #2 to check things. 11" coil.
Finds:
-Found a BMW..................ok.... BMW keys. (Harris Teeter and Auto Zone (cards on key chain) called the owner and left a message with my contact info. I checked the local hotels to no avail. The cops said nothing they could do. Hope owner calls back.)
-Also found a ring that really got the goose bumps going. The ring, rang in at 12-07. A very well defined tone. I thought finally, after a million aluminum flip tops I got a hit. It felt rather light but I brushed that off...until I had a look back at the hotel and saw S. Steel from China written inside.
-The tide was very low so I tried shallow water hunting for a change. In water about 1'6" deep and rough surf, there was a very persistent tone 01-46. I have a T-Rex 9" that I tried and tried (about 20 minutes) but could not reach the target that indicated from 3" to 9" deep. the sand kept filling in the hole. The tide was coming in but I was determined, so I put down the shovel and started digging with my hands, breathing every now and then between waves. I finally found it.....a chunk of engine block about 6" x 6" x 6". No Picture. other than that, there were NO signals in over 4 hours solid hunting in the shallow water.
-Another shallow water hunt (water about waist deep), found the watch about 4" deep: rang in at 14-36. Not working and full of water. Have to take it apart.
-Coins:
--One coin drop had a quarter, 2 dimes, 1 nickel, and a penny within a 8" diameter. It looked and sounded like a bottle top with indications all over the screen. I don't know why I checked this one ; I usually ignore these as over 90% are actually bottle tops. As I pulled each coin out, it was interesting to see the indications become more stable with target trace.
--I "reject" pennies with a 3 x 3 block but still find many pennies.
-I'm now starting to be able to tell pennies, quarters, and dimes, bottle tops, and aluminum pieces. Al pieces are always 12-01/13-01 . Flip tops in my opinion are mostly very defined sound and 12-15ish. I think this would be hard to distinguish from gold jewelry.
Note: To carry the 3030 while riding a bike, I used the strap that comes with the carry case to connect directly to the detector. This works pretty well.
Lots of people out this weekend. Possibly seeing many of us metal detectorist out makes them more careful with their things
There were other detectorist out during the normal crowded hours so I thought I'd give it a try. Feels weird walking around with detector but oh well. One thing that made me rethink what I was doing was the possibility of a kid landing into my T-Rex and hurting theirself in the waves so I quit until dark. So I wound up digging holes for kids to play in when the water rushes in, and showed other kids how the detector works/what it sounds like. Guess i'm not the hard-core type when kids are around.......but at night easier to get down to business.
