Minelab XT17000

G'Day.
I have bought a Minelab XT17000 as my first detector & mostly use it on the beach where it is fine in dry sand, however, in wet & black sand I am finding lots of noise but no substance.
I would like to get among the lost jewellery in the wet sand but am getting frustrated because of the noise.
Am I using the wrong settings or is the machine not suitable for wet or black sand?
Where I am detecting, people seem to be able to keep hold of their jewellery & be fairly tightfisted with coins (but I am still enjoying getting out & swinging it.)
Please help. Cheers in advance, Keith.

Hi G.K
I used to detect on the beach with a friend,he bought a XT17000 and we couldn't find a way to make it usable on the beach it was just noisy.It really is designed specifically for the goldfields and I think there is little you can do but bear with it.He did however find his gold on the beach,liquid gold a bottle of VB unopened.
Steve

Gday GK

The XT 17000 will be ok for parks and goldfields areas but as deutran said you will not be able to get it stable enough on the beach, the closer to the waters edge you go and the black sand the worse it will get, you would be lucky to be able to hear a signal response above the noise it will produce.

There are many coin and relic detectors that are designed for this purpose, and most have waterproof coils as well, which is important if you want to get to the good stuff which is usually in the black sand and in the water.

Beaches are a bit like that they can be totally devoid of anything apart from trash or they will produce plenty of coins and trinkets, some beaches are subject to huge movements of sand and many targets can be well buried and out of the range of your detector anyway, but these can be a bonanza after the first winter storms and the beach gets well washed, you also need to learn to read a beach as well.

Some tips are, on some beaches there are live and dead zones, the live zones are where the majority of people sit when they go to the beach, if you visit this beach on a warm day you can easily see what I mean, a lot of people will sit far enough from the water to stop their gear from getting wet if a wave comes in, but close enough so they dont have to traverse the beach too far over the hot sand while bare footed to get in and out of the water.

Usually there will be a line of people set up along this area, so it makes sense that this is the live zone where the majority of things are lost, some really busy beaches will be reasonable all over and goodies can be found anywhere and everwhere, one thing to look for are where beach vendors set up, and pay attention to the tracks that lead to and from the car park or up to the beach shop or store, if the beach is inclined to get a bit windy at times detect in the areas where people might take refuge from the wind, or under shade sails and structures like jetties as well.

You probably already have worked some of these things out for yourself but I thought it worth mentioning for the benefit of others as well.

cheers

stayyerAU

G.K. wrote:G'Day.
I have bought a Minelab XT17000 as my first detector & mostly use it on the beach where it is fine in dry sand, however, in wet & black sand I am finding lots of noise but no substance.
I would like to get among the lost jewellery in the wet sand but am getting frustrated because of the noise.
Am I using the wrong settings or is the machine not suitable for wet or black sand?
Where I am detecting, people seem to be able to keep hold of their jewellery & be fairly tightfisted with coins (but I am still enjoying getting out & swinging it.)
Please help. Cheers in advance, Keith.

You will be pushing the friendship trying to get the 17000 to run on saltwater beaches.
Set frequency to 6.4khz
Set soil to difficult
Set Disc to All Met
Set Sound To Normal but try Boost and Enhance just for the hell of it.
Set Sens to Whatever setting will produce the quietest running as you sweep the coil over the sand.
Set Ground Track to Track and GB to your ground and then Select Fixed. You will have to Re do the ground bal as you move towards the water line.

If you run in Track over the wet sand the detector will be constantly trying to ground track the salt minerals which will cause varying ground noise signals so by selecting fixed you will at least have a chance of hearing target signals through the wet sand/ground noise.

You will have to raise the coil higher above the wet sand if the signal from the sand is to annoying.
Sweep the coil at a constant height (to reduce ground noise)

Please excuse late reply, I az bin sleepin fer a while

Cheers ASS

Thanks Adrian, will give that a try. Cheers, Keith.

Be interesting to hear if you had any success.