How to use the Manticore metal detector in salt water

The first thing to remember is that everything will revolve around the amount of salt in the seawater.

That's just the alpha and omega of sea search. Salt water is far, far more conductive than our traditional fresh water, which means that in a normalthe detector sees it as a consistent target because a metal detector is actually more of a conductive material detector. (That is why it is possible to find various non-metallic targets with it, such as coke, carbons from an engine, etc...).

For this reason it is necessary to use special programs to compensate for the influence of this environment and to make it not so simple There are several programs that compensate for the influence of salt water in the Minelab Manticore detector and they differ mainly in the strength of the salt water filter.

Unlike Equinox, where it was simple and the choice was only between Beach 1 (wet sand) and Beach 2 (diving detector where there is a mass of salt water all around the coil). The difference between these 2 modes was mainly that Beach1 mode had lower salt resistance, so you could search with it e.g. after low tide on wet sand. This made it more sensitive to smaller low conductive targets (gold) than e.g. Beach2, where the mass of conductive salt water was expected to be all around the probe.

In general, the more salt the seawater contains, the more you need to choose modes with a stronger filter against salt water, which in turn results in a decrease in range, especially on the finest targets. That's why it is quite a problem to find a thin Au chain without a pendant at the sea, for example.

So probably the most important thing to remember are the following rules and dependencies:

• Stronger saltwater filter = reduced sensitivity to smaller low conductive targets = more stable detector behavior in saltwater.
• Prepare to have to go down a notch with sensitivity at most sites and go to a lower level than you are used to (around 17 I used to go).
• Put the ground in auto and try to keep a constant distance from the ground when searching, rapid movement of the probe away from or towards the ground will trigger a signal.
• You will need to reduce the sensitivity again if you want to limit this effect.
• The recovery rate I used to go 4 underwater, with a large coil it goes 3 if you want to go a bit deeper especially in places with a thick layer of silty sand this is useful.

Note: realistically, due to water resistance, you can't move the probe faster than 4 anyway...So a higher speed setting is basically counterproductive and just results in more ringing.

It's just a bit of alchemy that is quite dependent on local conditions, and this article will serve to help you figure it out :D.

In the case of the Minelab Manticore detector, there are 4 modes in total. The first 3 are basically designed to operate on dry/wet sand, i.e. salt filtration is lower than the last program, Surf & Salt. Anyway, in case of good conditions with reduced sensitivity they can be used underwater as well.

It all depends on where you are going and you want to test it directly on the site immediately upon arrival. Logically the low conductivity mode will be the sharpest, but so logically has the lowest salt filter setting, but if you can use it, you can pull a chain with it. Depth mode struck me as having a salt filtration a tiny bit higher than low conductivity and on a tiny targets it was logically worse, but for larger things like wedding rings it was deeper.

The basic cut is such a generalist and I would say basically something in between these modes. Anyway, the sure thing in the water is the saltwater mode (Surf & Salt), here the salt filtration is strongest and the rules described above apply.

Setting Fe limits

Here again, it depends hugely on where you are and how much waste there is in a given place, especially beer caps. If the infestation is unbearable you can use the preset limit of 8/4(lower)- this gets rid of the capsfor good, but as I said, it's good to be sparing with limits, deeper colour targets have a cleaner sound.

You can also go with 7/2 (lower) limits, the caps then have a combined iron/color response. They can be easily identified that way, and color targets in depth retain a nice clean tone. But personally I prefer to draw the limits myself.

Note: limits are always drawn according to local conditions and especially according to the local brothel and its concentration. In general, if you dig 1 cap per day, it is useless to draw limits for it.

About the new update: I made a lot of use of the red numbers for iron, underwater headphone amplification and the Czech was nice :D.

At the end a short video where you can admire the beauty of the underwater world of the Cote d'Azur (unfortunately I just had only one battery charged which lasts about 45 m and nothing golden fell in the shot :))

Jaccob