At the beach you will figure it out pretty quickly. Ken is right, no disc, no notch dig everything. A 180 meter will help at the beach because squaretabs hit just above nickles. they start like one number above nickles on mine and there lots of them on the beach... you'll find that many people treat the beach as their personal landfill and throw bottlecaps (Bud Light and Corona mostly)... and squaretabs (why do they pull them off the can to begin with... I hope they cut their lip) all over the place. They tend to be in patches but, of course, this is where there may be coins and jewelry too... so that is where a meter will help you if you get in a patch of a certain kind of tab or bottle cap, after digging 5 or 6 of them you can ignore their number but I wouldn't notch them out because you may notch something else out too, somethingthat is close to that particular trash.
Sens too high can be like high beams in the fog, seeing too much ground. Don't be afraid to lower the disc. You'll be surprised at the depth you'll still get and in non-mineralized ground like a sand beach you can swing faster the only thing to be aware of is that due to the slower processor the tar get may signal a tone a little past the target but that is no real problem, just back up a few inches and find it. Slow down... really slow around nulls because they are iron and they may be masking something.
I spent two weeks at the beach in July. I didn't hunt a lot because it was just so darn hot but I did get a look at other hunters. (I always carry my binoculars to the beach...) To a person they all had horrible swing techniques. They all had a swing that never touched the sand and here's a tip... Minelabs do not like an airgap between the coil and the ground. If you're in FL sand forget the coil cover, you aren't going to hurt it IMO but if you must use it the non-mineralized nature of the sand probably wont be a problem but it will add a slight weight, not much though. If you hunt inland... just remove it because some mineralized soil between the coil and cover can be a real problem.
Go to Cabelas online and look for the pro binocular harness. It has an X strap for your back and two hook/fasteners on the front that are perfect for the waistmount cover, they will make a huge difference in beach hunting and the weight. Due to the uneven nature of the sand beach you have to put a little lift on the coil even though you ARE SKIMMING THE SAND AND KEEPING THE SWING LEVEL FROM END TO END... you will NOT have a midified "U" shaped swing that is 6" above the soil in front of you and 12" above the soil at each end on the swing... this is really important and all those floks that you see swinging along too fast with a horrible swing are leaving all the goodies for you and your Sovereign,
The SovereignGT is the BEST beach detector for dry and wet sand but you have to be careful in the surf.. I think you'll find that it is hardly worth it to swing in the water because there isn't much right in the waters edge, the current is hard to swing in, and once the coil is wet the sand sticks to it when you move back to the sand... having it chest mounted will help to keep it safe and dry when you di venture into shallow water though. If you want to water hunt get an Excal, if possible with an 8" coil to reduce the drag of the water durrents, then you can get out waist deep and maybe find something.
Sometimes I hunt with a threshold and sometimes I lower the threshold tone to barely audible then switch to "silent search" the GT will still let you know if you swing over something.
Jewelry can hit anywhere. Aluminum cans will sound like a quarter but they will usually continue to give a good signal even after you raise the coil a foot above the ground, a quarter or dime will not do that. Shallow bottlecaps are a PITA for me when I use the Sovereign because they just sound too good to pass on. Small pieces of aluminum can sometimes sound just like a coin.
The most important things to me are to chestmount that box, disc=0, notch=0, and dig it all.
You will also need a kick type sand scoop with a long handle. I see people trying to use Lesche diggers, plastic scoops, sifters, and their bare hands.... having that long handled kick scoop, (welded aluminum strong enough for wet or dry sand) will save you from bending over or kneeling and it makes a huge difference and it is a good investment. You do not need, nor should you even consider a pinointer for the beach, just use the kickscoop, shake the sand out, and get your pulltab out... J/K.
On the beach I like to use a sort of fanny pack that has two pouches and a water bottle holder on each side. I put small trash in one of the waterbottle holders, bigger trash in the bigger pouch and goodies in the smaller zippered pouch. IMO, this works better on the beach than the relic SunRay relic pouch I use inland.
If there isn't much iron you can hunt in AM mode and swing even faster, then flip the switch to check targets in disc. I use one of the smallest size bungie cords to wrap around the top of the pouch to keep the clear plastic lid out of the way so I can easily access the sqitches and knobs... which reminds me, if you don't have the rubber boots for the switches you need to get some. You can always put the lid over the controls if the wind is blowing the surf too much or if it rains. You can also wrap a little tape around the coli cable/box connection.
If you get a 180 meter David at Dixie-metal-detectors dot com sells a cheap PVC offset that sets the meter a little off to the side and tilts it up slightly so you can see it better, you can wrap it in cling wrap if you need to or I think there is a cover for it.
You'll find that the sovereignGT will have a SOLID stable TID on a good target from all directions usually where on some jusk alloys the TID tone will change as you swing especially from different directions.
Also AM mode on the GT has a little bit of disc even though it is still AM.Once you're aware of it and practice with it you'll find that somewhere around where a nickle hits, around 145 or so... the AM metal tone has a breakpoint where all lower targets will give a high to low tone while higher TID targets will give you a low to high AM tone.. (I could have that bacwards but it is there, it is subtle but with a little practice you can learn it and it comes in handy).
There is very little advantage to getting a larger coil, the 10" Tornado is a really good coil.
HH,
Julien
. As for the green light I have heard some go out, while others don't. You should be fine.