can any one help me please

[chris(MA)]

I am in FL on va-k and have my XLT with me and I am not finding anything on the beaches can any one tell me what settings to use please I have 5days left and would like to find some thing.

thank you
Chris

 

[Floridabill]

What beach are you at and I am guessing you are hunting the dry sand?

 

[chris(MA)]

just north about 3 or 4 miles of wabasso beach at the water line

 

[gold-digger]

n/t

 

[PaPa-Joe-Fla.]

Chris I know nothing about that machine, but if you take some coins and maybe a gold ring and do your own test on the beach and see if it is the machine, setting ,or you are just not running across anything with your coil. I have hunted Wabasso before with very little luck. That area gets allot of hunters hitting it year round. Good Luck and hope you enjoy Fl. while your here. HH

 

[therick]

First, if you are not seasoned beach hunter and are used to the effects of salt water on VLF machines, here's a few things to watch out for.

Wabasso beach and the treasure coast has to be one of the most hunted places in Florida. You may not be finding anything because there is nothing to be found. You should be hunting in all metal mode as a gold ring will indicate as a pull tab would to an I.D. machine. All hunters hunt in the all metal mode so they, too, are digging every target that they encounter. The good ones keep their garbage and dispose of it properly so that may be the reason that you are not getting a lot of hits in the wet sand.

If your XLT is an automatic ground balance type of machine then the closer you get to wet sand (and especially if you are in a place where salt water is running underneath or over the coil) this will drive your machine bonkers. Salt is a mineral so as salt water runs around your coil, your machine will try to cancel out the mineral it is encountering.......... so when the waves go back out and there is no salt water, the machine then tries to balance itself once again. This will occur every time you come in contact with a wave. You can see how it may be driving your machine nuts. My suggestion to you would be to find the busiest beach in the area and hunt in the dry sand area or the towel line, where the sunbathers lay, up beach to the dunes. Stay out of the dunes as they contain Sea Oats which help hold the sand in place and reduces the affects of erosion and the Rangers will not want you digging amongst them. You may not have a great shot at finding a Reale or Escudo but you will stand a better chance at finding lost jewelry or a ring of some sort. Don't get discouraged and don't think that you won't find jewelry in the dry sand areas, they are there.

Good luck and let us know how you do.

therick

 

[kpeterk]

Chris,

Here are a few tips that have helped me as far as technique goes. Sorry, I don't have any tips for your detector though.


1. Start at least two hours before low tide
2. Work dry sand during high tide

 

[jody]

call my i am local 772 589 5132 sebastian fl. chuck

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

Here is my advice.

The first thing you need to understand is that at the beach, you want to HEAR (and usually DIG) everything. To discriminate trash at the beach is to lose ALL of the good stuff...the GOLD. Because gold and aluminum are one and the same to a metal detector.

I HAVE used (but not owned) an XLT. I have OWNED (and mastered) a DFX. The XLT is at a disadvantage at the beach in that it is a single frequency machine. Single-freq machines are usually dead-meat in the wet sand or the water...they are just too unstable and "chatty". If you "dumb it down" a little, or stay in the dry sand, you can do OK with it. If you want to beach hunt, you need a better machine than the XLT.

That said, to help you out NOW, I will offer the following:

Set your TONE to about in the middle.

Set your AUDIO DISC to off.

Set SILENT SEARCH to off and the threshold tone to a slight hum.

Set MIXED MODE to off.

Set A.C. Sensitivity to about 60...maybe even 50 if it's unstable, or lower if need be.

Set the D.C. to about 25 or 30.

Set RATCHET PINPOINTING to off.

Set TONE ID to on.

Set MODULATION to on.

Now scan SLOWLY and adjust the A.C sens as needed to make the machine fairly stable. Dig everything that moves but pay special attention to the LOWER tones, as these will be likely to be gold rings. Or pull tabs. Take a gold ring, a nickel, a pull-tab, and a balled up piece of tin foil and scan over them in a clean area with these settings. What you will hear is what you are looking for. That's what gold sounds like. If you use these settings and you pass the coil over some gold, you WILL get it.

As for WHERE to hunt, I like the water's edge at low tide. Down there in the area that is waist-deep at high tide and wet sand at low tide...that's where the bulk of the goodies are being lost and will be found. If your XLT is still too unstable in the wet sand, go to the higher wet sand and the lower dry sand (the blanket line) and you can still make some nice finds.

And above ALL ELSE...get out there and HUNT!

Hope that helps...