Every time I get this thing in the water I learn something new! I've been trying to decipher the messages it gives me since I've had it. Well over 20 Hrs. of water time, some of it prime time with tide perfect and little or no wave action. The 2 lessons I learned in the past couple of days are that it will ground balance at our local beach to a rock solid threshold with 4+ inches of sand over the stony cobbles that are the base under the sand. I was able to locate and retrieve all sorts of small targets. In a word....perfect!!! (NOT ONE UNSTABLE SIGNAL)!!!
When I drifted over to a part of the water without the sand cushion and an irregular surface of small boulders/ cobble stones to deal with I was unable to get the unit tame enough to use comfortably. It would not ground balance and if I was able to quiet it down so that I could use it with a little suffering, struggling to make sense of the hash in my earphones, it wore me out!!! (Even then Igot good signals, when I could separate them from the background hash)
The other thing was that when I ground balanced on a sandy bottom I got a stable threshold tone at about 3-4 discrimination. When I moved to deeper sand 2-3Ft. and deeper water I lost some of that stability and suffered some odd signals even after ground balancing. My conclusion is that I will reserve my old PIs for the rough bottom until the shifting sands smooth things out. I will use the LS for smooth sandy bottoms and dry land!!
Did I ground balance properly?? All I can say is that I've read and tried every tip I can find at every forum on "The Net" and from those fine folks at Garrett as per personal conversations!!!
I've been working the same area over and over to keep as constant a trial as possible. About the only variables have been water depth and wave action.
I hope I'm not the only one with these experiences. I feel the LS is a fine machine within it's useful range, and I better know now what that range is.
HH Friends,
Cupajo
When I drifted over to a part of the water without the sand cushion and an irregular surface of small boulders/ cobble stones to deal with I was unable to get the unit tame enough to use comfortably. It would not ground balance and if I was able to quiet it down so that I could use it with a little suffering, struggling to make sense of the hash in my earphones, it wore me out!!! (Even then Igot good signals, when I could separate them from the background hash)
The other thing was that when I ground balanced on a sandy bottom I got a stable threshold tone at about 3-4 discrimination. When I moved to deeper sand 2-3Ft. and deeper water I lost some of that stability and suffered some odd signals even after ground balancing. My conclusion is that I will reserve my old PIs for the rough bottom until the shifting sands smooth things out. I will use the LS for smooth sandy bottoms and dry land!!
Did I ground balance properly?? All I can say is that I've read and tried every tip I can find at every forum on "The Net" and from those fine folks at Garrett as per personal conversations!!!
I've been working the same area over and over to keep as constant a trial as possible. About the only variables have been water depth and wave action.
I hope I'm not the only one with these experiences. I feel the LS is a fine machine within it's useful range, and I better know now what that range is.
HH Friends,
Cupajo