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Budget Detector for Black Sand/Salt Water

Raspango

New Member
Joined
Nov 2, 2018
Messages
1
Hello,

Just getting into this hobby but realizing now that I need a better detector. Currently have a Bounty Hunter Discovery 3300 that I picked up for $100 at Costco, but it is no good for the wet sand/sea water. I'm located in San Diego so we have a lot of black sand here. Right now I'm looking for under $1000.

I was leaning towards either Equinox 800/600 or White's Dual Field PI. I've talked to two people in my detecting club and they both kind of advised against the PI saying I would be digging too much junk or that the lack of discrimination will lead to too many signals. I don't mind digging for junk because for me that's part of the fun. I do like that fact that the Equinox would be newer technology but I also found a good deal on a White's Dual Field (~500).

Was wondering what others would recommend. Thanks for the read. :grin:
 
It depends on your location.. how much black sand you have to deal with... I started with a PI.. it gives you the advantage in the black sand also the depth that multi-frequency detectors can't reach... I'd still have one if I didn't change my hunting style.. I switched from heavily used beaches to small beaches infested with iron...
 
On a nickel buried in black sand at Silver Sands in Coronado, my Equinox600 got 7/8 inches with an ID of 3 - the correct ID is 13.

The Nox had a hard time distinguishing steel bottle caps - giving non-iron VDI’s on them.

This is typical of VLF machines on a beach like that, even multifrequency machines which can deal with the wet salt just fine.

A PI I had with me hit the same nickel in the same spot at 17” with a solid low conductor tone.

Now any current PI is going to have a tough time with odd bits of iron and steel, sounding off on all Bobbie pins, nails, nuts, bolts, etc. Some of this junk like nails is identifiable by its “double blip”.

For low trash, black sand beaches, a PI will give you an edge on goodies, but as the amount of trash increases, the amount of wasted digging increases. I would never try a PI on beaches like Mission Bay for example.
 
Is your beach a PI friendly beach ? .....see what your fellow hunters are using

muti freq detectors can do good both in dry / wet sand where a PI is only good for wet sand

On the other side of the coin, if fellow hunters go though with TDI pro"s and you follow them with a VLF detector , it's not going to be good.
 
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