I just had to tell someone.

[Oak]

I was fishing at the beach today and saw this man what looked like a new Minelab Excalibur. He looked like he had a sling blade and was using it cut tall grass and weeds .
It is a shame for someone to spend that much money on a detector and not get some training.
OK .. i feel better now.

HH to all

Oak -- sweet home Vero Beach

 

[boxofchocolates]

hahaha.......he was wanting to strike it rich fast with no enjoyment sounds like to me hahaha......hh.......Dan

 

[Jason in Enid]

There are lots of people with more money than brains! If he had even read his owners manual, he would know the proper swing speed.

 

[Elton]

n/t

 

[Larry (IL)]

I bet he would have been forever grateful if someone would have spent 30 minutes with him to show him a few of the basics.........

 

[tomtomnc]

I was at Myrtle beach last winter and seen a guy doing the same thing. I was using an Ace 250 and though his technique was a bit strange. But when i bought my Gt the thing was so powerful i wanted to cover as much ground as possible so i started swinging in that grass cutting sickle style and it seems to work. The motion of the swing seems to allow you to reach a little further out. Plus that swing style help with the heavier type detectors like the Gt and EX. To some it looks a bit strange but it kind of works for others. HH P.s. no it wasn't me

 

[Oak]

If you were swinging like he was, I don't care what detector and how powerful, you aren't going to find much.

HH

Oak

 

[Johnny Cache]

I was watching a documentary type TV show about Civil War battle sites last week. One of the 'experts' on the show was searching for bullets with a metal detector so they could map and chart the course of a particular battle...I believe it was "Custer's last stand". Anyway the guy was swinging his detector like a lunatic, a huge arc that came 2 feet off the ground, and was going SO fast...it's amazing he found anything.

 

[edjcox]

He didn't as he was searching a post civil war site. Custer served in the Civil war and was posted out west after it. He went on to career as an arrow target at which he was successful. A co-worker a Major Miles Reno was sent off to seek out the enemy encampment and didn't find it. Upon returning he and his men discovered the new career's his commanding General and troops had embarked upon. Reno was slow to react and slow to ride to Custers aid. Custer lay at the Little Big Horn for a short while and was the moved to NY to the US Military Academy on the Hudson.

Swinging fast all depends on the reaction time of a detector. It would make little difference if it is up to high and actually air scanning as opposed to ground scanning. When one detects one should imagine an invisible inverted cone emanating from your coil. This cone can penetrate only so deep in soil and air so when one raise the coil away from the ground one is actually lessening the depth of the detectors effectiveness. Swinging it to fast does not allow the detectors circuitry time to process any anomaly induced in the field (cone) by sought metallic objects. So the detector is effectively blind when swung to quickly. Another way to over come this is to return the detector back over an area at least twice. I find that working an area the second time with the path of progression at right angle to the original path through the area increases ones efficiency and effectiveness. Slow it down and give it time to process through it's circuits otherwise your entire search is a wasted effort.

 

[gilfordberry]

One of our MD club members swings her PI Pro like that. If you were watching her from a distance, you'd swear she was using a weed whacker. It's not as if she doesn't know how, she just prefers to do it that way (!!??). Anway, you can't argue with results, and hers are some of the best in the club. I think she still holds the record for the single most expensive diamond ring ever found by a club member (reported, anyway) - a nearly flawless 3 carat clunker. If that were her only find, you could say it's just a case of one lucky swing - but she does as well as the rest of us that keep our coils flat, level, and close to the ground (at least it seems that way). I think that maybe - just maybe - that arc in her swing causes the search field to extend a bit farther side to side at the end of her swing. Since it is a pulse machine, the varying distance between her coil and the ground doesn't seem to hurt the ground balance. One very nice thing about the PI machines is that they are VERY fast. Swinging one like you're cutting hay still picks up some pretty deep targets. That just isn't the case with VLF machines - your sweep speed is critical to your success there. Anyway, if the guy with the new Minelab buys a nice WOT coil he'll stop mowing grass with it - those things force ya to keep it slow and level or you'll be calling 911 for oxygen pretty quickly. lol