Rain: does it change the salinity of the sand and to any significant degree?

[PeteP]

I had my first outing to the beach this morning (only day 2 of this new hobby) and I experienced the frustrations of detecting below the high tide line - lots of false signals for a basic machine (EuroAce), but the change on a narrow strip, no more than 10m from low water mark to edge of dunes, was noticeable.

It got me thinking; does heavy rain help wash out the sand to any degree that makes a different at the upper edge on a receding set of tides?

Probably a noob question that’s been asked & answered but I couldn’t find it.

[Jamesey1981]

I have never found it to make much difference to be perfectly honest, it didn't affect the performance of my garrett and it doesn't affect my current detector either.

I used to use a garrett 300i so similar to your machine, try these settings to help calm it down.

Go into custom mode, then notch out the leftmost four discrimination blocks, and also notch out a single block that is fourth or fifth in from the right, try the one that's fourth in first, but if you're still getting falsing try the fifth one instead, that's where most of the false signals were on my beach but yours may be different so you might need a bit of trial and error.

Turn the sensitivity down to at least two bars off maximum, you may need to turn it down to three off maximum depending on your beach.

That should calm it down a lot, but you will still get falsing on very wet sand as you don't have adjustable ground balance, it'll get you into the damp sand though unless your local beach is very highly mineralised.

[Koala]

yes and no


take somewhere where beach meets up to a sea defence and the rain water is drained directly underneath.

The rivers running under the dryer top will send most detectors mad


but if you then go somewhere where beach has say sand dunes behind it a rain storm normally makes no difference


I can think of one beach which is nice and sandy but is only 3 or 4 inches deep over large pebbles. Its not pleasant to detect when damp


These are exceptions though


normally is good to go.

[PeteP]

I used to use a garrett 300i so similar to your machine, try these settings to help calm it down.

Go into custom mode, then notch out the leftmost four discrimination blocks, and also notch out a single block that is fourth or fifth in from the right, try the one that's fourth in first, but if you're still getting falsing try the fifth one instead, that's where most of the false signals were on my beach but yours may be different so you might need a bit of trial and error.

Turn the sensitivity down to at least two bars off maximum, you may need to turn it down to three off maximum depending on your beach.

That should calm it down a lot, but you will still get falsing on very wet sand as you don't have adjustable ground balance, it'll get you into the damp sand though unless your local beach is very highly mineralised.

Thanks for the tip. I was on my way back along the beach so in a bit of a rush and couldn’t spend time playing at the time. I’ll give that a try.

[sweepstick47]

I personally doubt that even the most severe of rainstorms would noticeably counter the electrolytic effect that the sea water has on the minerals in the sand. Regards ss47

[tigerchips]

I think the rain water has to be very dense before it can affect the detector. The sand seems to absorb most of the water and keeps it near the surface. When the water sinks down after a long downpour, that could be a different kettle of fish though.

One thing's for sure though, if you dig up a bathroom plug i guarantee the tide will go out.