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Sovereign GT - Chatter

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tjc45

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Messages
308
I've gotten out twice with my new Sovereign GT. First hunt on a clean beach the machine was so quiet I threw some coins on the sand to test it. It chimed in on que. However, yesterday's hunt, different story! The machine wouldn't shut up! I was on a known trashy beach, in highly mineralized conditions, and Chatty Cathy was chirping and squeaking away. Adjusting the dials did little. So, how do you quiet down a GT? And, do I want to quiet it down?

It was finding Ok, as the finds were diffinately discernable from the falsing, if that is what it was. Among the finds an Indian head penny and small butterfly pendant that i've got to hit with a diamond checker. Also, a weird dollar coin - a James Monroe commemorative dollar. Only worth a dollar, but a pretty cool find.

Here are the settings from yesterday:

Disc and notch: Full anti-clockwise

Volume: Full up

Iron mask: on

Silent seach: off ( it still chirped with silent seach on)

Sensitivity: Just out of Auto

Track: Fix (track and pinpoint also chirped)

Threshold: one o'clock

THX
 
Do you have a coil cover on? Check it out if you do for sand in between.
 
THX guys. I will turn the sens down and clean the coil. I found out thru a club member that the area i was hunting has been the subjected to some sort of electrical interferance. This is a recent developement affecting only that small area and only the GT. Others hunt the beach with Excals and Explorers without any problems. That the detector was quiet on a previous hunt about 15 miles south of the beach in qustion, and that a club member guessed exactly what beach it was without asking seems to confirm that the detector isn't the problem.

On the sensitivity, it's a learning curve thing. I read one forum report that advised to run the sensitivity cranked to the max. Others that advise 10 to 2 o'clock. So, i've got to experiment and figure this out.

How do you get the cover off?

Again thanks.
 
I have been running my sens. at about 12 o'clock on the beach, especially near or on the wet sand. I haven't had any problems and I'm finding stuff pretty deep. Find what works for you. As far as the rest of your settings, mine are the same.

If you don't have a coil cover then there's nothing to take off. If you do have one (and I suspect you do since mine came with it already on), then it takes a small amount of effort as it is a pretty tight fit but it will come off. Another thing you want to make sure of is rinsing it thoroughly (only the coil/cover and lower shaft) with fresh water after beach hunting and make sure you let it dry before putting the cover back on.

Hopefully you can over come this chatter. Good luck :)
 
EMI is an issue on a beach I was hunting this past summer. I was back there recently with a smaller coil and it did help. But there is no getting around the fact that the Sovereign is vulnerable to EMI. Nice call by your friend.
 
goodmore said:
EMI is an issue on a beach I was hunting this past summer. I was back there recently with a smaller coil and it did help. But there is no getting around the fact that the Sovereign is vulnerable to EMI. Nice call by your friend.
Click to expand...

The GT is so highly recommended by so many people i never stopped to think about EMI. Hitting a beach where the locals are now telling me not to use the detector is a little disappointing. Kinda like years ago when i dropped major coin on Nikon's top of the line SLR and lenses so i could do high speed sports photography of my kids sports games. Nikon came out with a new model weeks after i purchased my camera. When the photos weren't turning out as planned i went back to the shop for advise. The manager of the shop's reaction when he saw my camera "Oh, you have one of those!" I told him he could either give me back my $3000 or I'd use him to stick that camera where the sun doesn't shine. Or, we could work together on a solution that would enable the camera i bought to do what he said it could do when he sold it to me. WE traded the lenses for some faster lenses deeply discounted. He agreed to take the camera back if that didn't help.

This time around it's on me. If this thing isn't going to work on Jersey's beaches I should have figured that out before I bought it. If that's the case i'll just ship it to Florida and let my son use it down there and be a lot more careful before making my next purchase.
 
Tj... we have a beach up here that I cannot use any detector on... I have tried the DFX, the PI, the GT because there is some kind of EMI interference present... its a very loud pulsing... if the GT is acting up then the Excal should as well because they are the same machines... you might have some black sand under the coil if its not EMI...
 
tjc45 said:
The GT is so highly recommended by so many people i never stopped to think about EMI. Hitting a beach where the locals are now telling me not to use the detector is a little disappointing. Kinda like years ago when i dropped major coin on Nikon's top of the line SLR and lenses so i could do high speed sports photography of my kids sports games. Nikon came out with a new model weeks after i purchased my camera. When the photos weren't turning out as planned i went back to the shop for advise. The manager of the shop's reaction when he saw my camera "Oh, you have one of those!" I told him he could either give me back my $3000 or I'd use him to stick that camera where the sun doesn't shine. Or, we could work together on a solution that would enable the camera i bought to do what he said it could do when he sold it to me. WE traded the lenses for some faster lenses deeply discounted. He agreed to take the camera back if that didn't help.

This time around it's on me. If this thing isn't going to work on Jersey's beaches I should have figured that out before I bought it. If that's the case i'll just ship it to Florida and let my son use it down there and be a lot more careful before making my next purchase.
Click to expand...

Tjc I picked up a sovereign gt my self and used it last week at a jersey beach,no problems at all.nice smooth threshold.Didn't get any bling .But the machine worked just fine.I was at a beach right off exit 98.

what area were you hunting? Don't need the exact location,but were north or south from me?
 
TJC I think you just have to give your self some more time with the machine.
I really like mine and can't find any fault with it.
Did you fuss with the settings? iron mask on iron mask off? I was digging quarters down to about 10" with the sensitive dial at about 1:00
 
I'll tell you I ran into the trouble at Atlantic City. But I have hunted Cape May, Wildwood, and a bit of Ocean City. No need to give up on the detector. There are miles of New Jersey beaches that you will do OK. And that place in Atlantic City was just near the one pier. But that beach is one challenging son of a gun. Beach hunters who think they are good should go to Atlantic City for a hunt. Challenging sums it up. And don't bring a PI. The Sovereign performed well there. I mentioned this on another forum. I found the casing of a 22 short at 10" in the surf. Rang in as a nickle. I just stood there for a few minutes in amazement at the Sovereign. Been using one for going on the third year and it still amazes me. I love using the Sovereign because of that feeling. No gold that day, but the detector was not at fault.
 
goodmore ,I have heard that about AC.

I haven't made it that far south yet..

I also read about all the goodies that have surfaced in that area..
For me the SOV GT. is a joy to use after the DFX.

I'M digging the SOV GT. Can't wait for it to get warmer!
 
Sensitivity "just out of auto" is pretty high. In the best conditions I never ran it much above the 10 o'clock position. Volume all the way up is pretty high too, I always found that signals had a distorted reverb sort of quality that high, so I always ran around the 3 o'clock position.
 
THX guys! I'm not about to give up on the machine. Just that I've only had it to two beaches and one gave me a problem. So a 500 batting average right out of the box. What i'm saying is, if that batting average doesn't improve, then we'll see. I expect that the batting average will go up significantly as I hunt more beaches.

In fact I was hunting AC. As a newbie I want to hunt a tough beach. My reasoning is, if I can hunt AC I can hunt anywhere. That reasoning paid off. In the course of a couple hours I had figured out that strong signals from targets not near the surface, on that beach, are junk. Weak signals could be a deep coin or jewelry. A signal over a large area, say two coil lengths, pieces of old pier. Broken fuzzy signal, pieces of old aluminum can. I also figured out, the hard way, no reason to dig to china. Lastly, strong signal, target in the scoop on first try usually something good! lot's of junk equals lots of learning.

I also learned that when digging near the boardwalk you attract a lot of attention. With group of ten or so onlookers I got a strong signal. it was in the scoop on the first try. I held the scoop up and said to the crowd "Strong signal could be something good, I'll sell it to the first bidder for $5, do i hear five, let go five, five dollars buys you a prize." Everone laughed. It was a clad Nickel. The crowd clapped. Now, that was funny!!!!!
 
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