I don't unstand why people buy these detectors and only keep them a few weeks. That's not long enough I don't think to learn it? What do you think.
Your observation is correct John,each detector is it’s own animal(even very similar models from the same manufacturer) and it takes YEARS to realize every nuance that it might have.
We are looking for the best detector and what we will understand best, some may be easier to use than others.
All of you presented great viewpoints. I think the DP-UW is a perfect example of why someone might buy and sell a detector in a week.
The add infers it is a capable machine to use in salt water. However, since it is a single-frequency machine, the operator has a big learning curve to operate it in salt water. He has to learn to accept the machine will chatter. He has to discern the erroneous signals. He has to learn how to turn down the sensitivity. And then all of that work to realize the machine is probably going to only ping on targets less than 4" deep. In 5-minutes he can figure out the machine doesn't work in salt water.
like many folks that bought the wrong machine for salt, the guy will do more research and end up buying a competent machine like a Minelab Excallibur. When the Excal arrives, he will turn the machine to auto, start swinging, and about the only time he hears a ping is when there is a real target. Targets are deep, and yep, it works like the advertisement. In 5-minutes he knows it works and then will take time to explore tweaking the machine for optimal results.
^^^ These scenarios (at a salt water beach) can sum up a detectors performance in about 5-minutes of use.
Now go inland to a park where there are stable soils and ideal conditions for ANY machine and you'll probably need more than 5-minutes. You'll test the reaction speeds, the ability to accurately discern targets; the ability to discriminate unwanted targets; check target masking; target depth; and then get into custom settings, ergonomics, battery life, etc, etc. But again, all of those things are irrelevant to the salt water guy because in the first five minutes he learned his machine is not capable of operating smoothly in his hunting environment.
Oh, and the reason its listed for sale is because some vendors will not accept returns on opened/used equipment.