Post your updated thoughts on the ATX :poke:

[SoCalBeachScanner]

Personally, at least here in SoCal, I would not want to use the 20" coil at the beach with the ATX, for the following reasons:

I have found with using the stock DD coil, items the coil sounds on that are deeper than 16" are denser or larger than a Ring or Coin which is my target size.

After many months scooping deeper than 16" (up to 24" deep) the target is always something like a 3-4 oz. sinker, aluminum can top or bottom, or some other metal object that is larger than my target size of a ring or coin.

And trying to scoop deeper than 16" in the wet sand, the sand tends to cave in faster than you can scoop it out. Before I quit scooping deeper than 16", some of my deep holes were up to 3-feet in diameter from the sand caving in. And when you do finally chase down the item in that 3-foot wide hole, it's trash or a heavy sinker.

I believe if you heard a faint whisper using the 20" coil on the ATX, you will get very frustrated scooping for a beer can that is three feet deep.

Anyway, those are my thoughts about using the 20" coil at there beach.

I agree with the quote below that I found about large coils.

"Large coils are very useful for finding coin caches and deeply buried, large relics. Large coils provide a considerable ground coverage. Detecting with a large coil enables a detectorist to cover a vast territory, such as a large farm field, more quicker than with a medium search coil. The large search coil's drawbacks are its lack of sensitivity to small targets, poor pinpointing, simultaneous rejection and masking of more targets, and its weight.

The "rule of thumb" governing larger search coil use is as follows: "as the size and depth of the target you seek increases, and the concentration of junk targets in the search area decreases, the size of your search coil should increase."

 

[steve herschbach]

Very happy with the large mono. It is actually smaller in real life than I had imagined.

The new stock coil that came with the package has the new pivot mechanism which is about 1" taller than that on my old ATX. The redesign was in response to the "floppy coil" issue so hopefully will not be any more of that for me. I have the accessory coil brace/lock just in case though.

Since my old ATX is getting tore down and rebuilt as a light weight dry land model I now have an extra armrest, battery doors, etc. for this new ATX which may or may not come in handy. I hope to have my new light weight ATX done by the end of the week. Google "ATX strip down rebuild".

ATX did great for me in 2014 with several ounces of gold, silver, and platinum to its credit. Easily paid for itself. Looking forward to getting out with it even more in 2015. It is one of my favorite detectors.

 

[Kent Wilkens]

Steve. Put the DD back on, a little more care with the connection, and tight on the shaft cams, you can still get it to chirp if bumped but more like what other people described, episodic, not usually repeatable, much better overall. Had to tighten the floppy screw again, its a bit better now but I think I have one of the older DD coils.

I have not tested for smaller targets, but general air test by waving my ring finger over it they are about the same distance. Maybe tomorrow I will do a test of a few targets at different depths in beach sand.

My first impression of the 20" vs the dd on the beach, is I prefer the 20". The DD still gets deep stuff but covers way less territory, doesnt really feel any lighter, and doesnt hold its floppy position as well as the 20". The sand here is wet below the surface and digs pretty easily.

 

[WaterWalker]

Steve:

I would say the mounts are higher on in the picture of the 20" coil! The way the original pictures look, larger and higher than the standard coil.

Are the mounts on the new standard coil the same height as the 20" coil? How about a side by side photo?

Do you think they have done anything to help out the camlocks.

I just sent for a support bracket. I wonder if it would fit over the new mounts...

[size=x-large]After a year of use, over 300 hours in water:[/size]

As 90% of those that purchased the ATX, I am loving it. It has more than paid for itself this year.
I do 99% of my detecting IN the water, but on the wet bay sand I had an arm problem. I fixed it
with the purchase of the Minelab ProSwing 45, Garretts just helped a bit, not enough for me.

As for the "falsing" --in the water-- I do get false signals at time from a bump, lifting the coil at a sweeps
end and YES off of clams. It is there, but not as much as the Infinium I swung for 8 years. My take is the
quick change in density and / or direction could be the culprit that causes the false signal. My Excalibur
will false under the same conditions, plus just quickly reversing the coil's direction of rotation in air -- like
winding a watch can produce a false signal.

 

[Kent Wilkens]

A Few more thoughts on the 20" coil. At the beach it is nice to use and swing. I am not so sure about using the big metal sand scoop with it. It would work if you could rig a sheath for it and hung it between your shoulder blades like the broadswords of old, but hanging off the hip it is just too close to the coil. Same with my hiking boots, they were fine with the Whites TDI and with the ATX dd coil, but not with the 20" (they have small metal lace rings). I had not trouble with the weight of the 20" at the beach, but detecting up in the mountains where you are manuevering it much more, the weight is much more noticable.

I did a quick depth test with the 20" at the beach, used my slim 22k wedding band, about 2 grams in weight. Nice target down to about 8" deep, no target at 12". Salt water, wet sand. Discrimination at 5, Sensitivity at 13, threshold at 8.

Kent

 

[Booty Hunter]

Kent,

Thanks for the review of the 20". Especially the testing with the ring. Really appreciate it. On the beach, I wear hard sole booties with no metal. I often drag the scoop behing me holding the handle tip with the non-detector hand. It will be well out of range for the coil. It will also show you where you have been for your return trip.