Oldie Newby Here

[Haoleman]

Howzit everyone? My name is Terry. I have owned several detectors over the last 25 years with the last one being a Fisher 1280X. I bought that one while I was living in Hawaii on the Big Island in Kona. The first time I put on my mask and fins and turned on the detector, it beeped immediately and I found my first ring! Only a silver one but I was hooked! For the next five years, I only found enough change to pay for the batteries. I did, however find a whole school of green sea turtles that were attracted by the beeping and they actually started digging around the search coil. Not much help though. It was like moving logs out of the way. Probably the best find was a 5 carat diamond ring on the hand of some European supermodel who saw me bubbling around at the surf line and waved her ring under the coil. I stood up dumbfounded to find her with no top!!! Much to the chagrin of my wife and son! She was later arrested for indecent exposure as it is illegal in Hawaii to not be covered. Detecting was boring after that incident. We were not allowed to hunt the hotel beaches and some huge Samoan hotel cop would usually come up to you like Odd Job and demonstrate how to crush your detector and then your head! (Just kidding) I eventually sold the detector as I was getting little time to go hunting. The Fisher was ok but depth was just so so.

I live in Minnesota now and we own a B&B in Lanesboro. We close for 6months from November through April and head toward Florida for a few months. I would like to get a detector that works well on a beach as I don't plan to dive but surfline might be a possibility. A salesman at Kellyco suggested a Minelab Soverign GT as I told him I was looking for one around $700.00. I am willing to spend slightly more it it will make a difference. I would also like to be able to use it on dry land but this isn't as important. I am not opposed to gently used either. I plan to get one for my wife eventually as she enjoys it too.

I have read many posts here and I know everyone has their opinion. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Terry

 

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[Cynangyl]

Welcome to the family Terry!! So glad you came and joined us! I am certain someone will hook you up with just the detector for your needs but do remember it is a requirement to post finds for the rest of us to drool over! You could post some pics of your B&B in daily snapshot as well!

 

[Murph]

If you think you can keep it dry and this should not be a problem on the west coast of Florida find a detector with either a beach mode or salt elimination mode. Should be able to find one in your price range but don't get the control box wet.

Also in this price range is whites beach hunter ID which will be water proof. No LCD screen with water machines but Beach hunter ID does have some discrimination abilities and three LEDs to ID target. IMO fancy LCD screens with target ID are over rated. Most people end up relying on the sound of the machine more than what pops up on the LCD.

I would get the BH ID and have no worries as far as the water goes. You will probably end up wanting to get in the hip deep water anyways. Bad idea with a non water proof machine.

I am in the market for a water/beach machine myself and after much research am leaning toward this detector for now due to price mostly. If you want to go a tad over a grand minelab Excalibur has some pretty avid backers. The hardcore beach guys seem to swear by this detector.

I suspect the learning curve is much greater with the Excalibur and may not come to you in just the two months you have so I think the logical compromise would be the Whites.

There is als the Tesoro tiger shark in this price range that is water proof. The deal killer for me with this machine is that there are some internal controls that can not be changed without opening the box so cant be changed on the fly. From what I have read it also has to be changed to salt mode just before you hit any wet stuff and likely ground balanced at this point also. Sounds to me like this would make moveing from dry to wet a bit time consumeing which is something that will have to be done often.