Vision Beach Program Report
As a follow up question along the same lines, how does the machine perform in wet (ocean) sand? I know it has a preset for salt beach, but is that more for dry sand?
Well, it just so happens that I took my V for a test run today at one of the toughest beaches you can ever imagine...Santa Cruz, California.
I've been wanting to see how it handled the heavily mineralized (black sand) beaches since buying the V in the early spring. To give you an idea of the black sand, here are two pics I took early this morning...
This is what the black mineralization looks like on the beach. For those who may think this is some kind of oil spill, it's not. It is very clean mineralized sand that is mixed in with the tan colored sand of the beach.
Here's a shot of the "normal mix"...
Here's a concentration in a runoff...
Now for "the rest of the story"...
Initial turn-on: I activated the Beach program and balanced the machine in a "normal" spot. The recommended gain immediately afterward was 5...I set it at 7. The machine was fairly stable and I was hitting targets down to about 7". I did have some falsing as I went along and dropped the disc sens down to 80, which seemed to clear it up considerably.
Note: Falsing did occur when the coil was brushed on a peak of black sand. That is not unusual given that the 6x9 coil is prone to such things when the user chooses to run the gain a little higher than recommended.
During hunt: As you can imagine, the black sand shifts around on the beach quite a bit. I checked the probe recommendation about every five minutes, and it varied between 1 and 6...never higher.
Wet sand: The tide was very high this morning and it was not my intention to get in the water anyway (I'd have brought a waterproof machine if it were). However, I ventured onto the wet sand in front of the surf line just to check the stability. The machine was very stable with the probe recommendation remaining at 5 and my gain setting at 7. I attribute most of this to the smooth surface...no "peaks" as shown in the first picture.
Changing programs: As we headed for lunch, I switched the program to the stock Coin & Jewelry program. This removes the "subtraction method" from the balancing/tracking associated with the Beach program...as I understand it. The detector actually ran at least as well, perhaps even smoother, as it did with the Beach program installed.
I was able to run a gain of 7 with a probe recommendation remaining around 5.
Bottom Line: Given my one test, I think the machine is very "useable" in both dry and wet mineralized sand. My hunting partners were both using MXT's and the V worked at least as well as their machines.
I can't say that the Beach program is really that big of a deal. The C & J program performed equally well...maybe even a "tad" better.