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Salt water

S

saltwater jim

New member
Have had the atx for about a year now, , Still trying to figure out this machine. No problem in the sand deep targets however water is a different story. Ive been ground balancing it in the water and all i have found is shallow targets.So my question is how do you run it in salt water. I wish i could run in factory settings but what happens is first i get drift which is ok i can hear targets thru it but then volumne gets loud 3 yellow lights stuck at the far right and wont even detect my scoop. I watched a vid on utube by detector comparisons and was i in for a surprise. video showed the atx finding deep targets in the wet sand in factory mode then he ground balanced atx and atx couldnt pick it up. 1 target was a dime at 10 inches. So now im thinking this purchase was my biggest mistake in metal detecting, 10 inches for a pulse isnt cutting it.

I would greatly appreciate how you are running the atx in the salt. BTW in the video in factory mode by lowering sens to 10 atx lost all the targets it was hitting at sens 13. Right now my duel field is deeper and smoother running than the atx in the water Thanks in advance for any suggestions you can share with me jimmy
 
First off, each beach will have properties that you will want to change the settings of your ATX. The ATX shines in highly mineralized areas I.e. New England and not so much in the white sands of the Caribbean islands and as far north as Florida. In New England I start off with factory presets, never going above 3 on the Discrimination and usually have to crank the Sensitivity down to 7-8. This method has proven to me to me that the ATX is running the best for most of my hours spent detecting here in New England. Very seldom do I ground balance, unless I have hit an area with many hot rocks that give the ATX a fit. For my trips far south, I leave the ATX home and take a BBS detector (Excalibur) and a back up detector my DetectorPro Underwater. Having 13 detectors, it is easy to pick and choose the best detector for the environment you will be detecting. Deep? YES the ATX as I use it is the deepest "seeing" detector I have. 99% of my detecting is in the water, both fresh and salt.
 
Thanks for the response i do use a ctx just thought this would beat my duel field in depth when sanded in , im in florida pcb i would think with no mineralization the atx would have no problem running in factory preset? You find deep targets with a sens of only 7-8 ? Maybe i will try a lower sens even though the video i watched shows atx not hitting on a dime at 10 inches with sens at 10. Thanks jimmy
 
I completely understand. Sold my dual field and bought the ATX. I've been completely disappointed with it so far. Both in depth and in the water. Wish I would have kept the Whites!
 
SWJim: Sorry to hear about your troubles with the ATX. I purchased one used about a year ago and it had some issues and the 3 yellow lights stuck sounds sort of like what was happening with mine. Sent in to Garrett and it had a bad coil and some other issues. They repaired all under warranty and returned the machine promptly. Been working great ever since. We use the ATX with great success in the highly mineralized fresh water areas in the western US. I get far more depth than with the VLF's and even the multifrequency machines.

Waterwalker is right on about reducing the sensitivity and adding a little disc if you are getting erratic performance. Steve Herschbach a moderator on the prospecting forum here and Findmall has some excellent blog posts on how he runs his ATX in Hawaii. Set up is similar to Waterwalker's.

I also have run CTX, Excal, and Surf PI in FLA. Currently my go to machine is the CTX for wet and dry sand. However, I sum times prefer the simplicity of the Excal in the surf. CTX will false on me in the surf a bit and you have to reduce sens. to compensate. Gary Drayton has had a lot of success with the CTX in FLA.

One other machine that gets high marks in FLA is the Aquasound by Richard Rudy. Of course the Eric Foster designs also get high marks.

The drift issue and lack of depth tells me you should send in to Garrett while under warranty.

HH
 
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