Time stir the Pot!!!!

[Grumpy (Texas)]

This is NOT meant to step on anyones toes BUT.....

Seems to me that a lot of people "push/brag" about the Excals... sounds like a lot of ex used car salesmen to me...

My points are 1. If they are so "good" why do you see so many for sale on the fourms and E-Bay"

2. I read post after post about the "sweet sound of gold"...and low and behold they found a ring.
thats great BUT I also read post after post about "Don't use any disc and dig everything IF you want to find gold.
IF thats the case, what happened to the "SWEET" sound?

3. IF you have to dig everything, and "MOST" pull tabs sound like rings then you should be getting the "Sweet" sound a LOT.

4. I set mine up as the"PROS" suggest. 0 disc, 12:00 on sens, volume all the way up, ligkt threshold in the back ground.
Dig only all repeatable signals..MAN what a collection of trash I'm getting...pulltabs of all shapes and sizes, nails, bobby
pins; rusty iron balls, little pieces of foil, and lots of just junk.

5. I have hunted for 5 weeks with the Excal 1000, and Excal 800 have found almost 3.00 in clad, one silver ring and 1 junk class ring (ULT)
my wife hunted with me those same 5 weeks with her HHPRO Wader and found over 15.00 in clad two 14k gold rings, four silver rings
one gold chain two silver chains. This past Sunday my brother and my wife found 5 times the amount of clad as I did plus my
brother found a 18k white gold 1.13 ct tw diamond ring apraised at $3000. (he also uses a wader)

We all hunt tresh water lakes. my brother and I have been water hunting over 30 years. my wife only started this summer. I normaly
Hunt with a wader but my wife took it over (LOL).


SO WHATS THE DEAL ????? Is it mostly hipe on the EXCALS and / or are they not worth a flip in fresh water?


Grumpy (TX)
VERY GRUMPY

 

[hauk]

If it's not there the excal can't find it

 

[Gulf Hunter]

This is NOT meant to step on anyones toes BUT.....

Seems to me that a lot of people "push/brag" about the Excals... sounds like a lot of ex used car salesmen to me...

Allow me to comment Grumpy........

My points are 1. If they are so "good" why do you see so many for sale on the fourms and E-Bay"

1. Many of these are the units that someone purchased, with visions of grandeur, thinking they were going to get rich finding, "all that lost gold". I have used the BEST equipment available, INCLUDING the HH Wader. Clearly a contender in fresh, but a lame duck in salt. I have never used one, but if I were hunting fresh ONLY, I would probably be using a Tiger. My experience is somewhat limited using the Excal in fresh water, but I DID some lake hunting with mine in '06, with some EXCEPTIONAL RESULTS. My wife was using a HH Diver at the same time and doing equally as well though. It is a great fresh water unit, NO DOUBT!

2. I read post after post about the "sweet sound of gold"...and low and behold they found a ring.
thats great BUT I also read post after post about "Don't use any disc and dig everything IF you want to find gold.
IF thats the case, what happened to the "SWEET" sound?

2. The "sweet sound of gold" is a very REAL sound indeed! Just so happens, that some pull-tabs and foil sound VERY similar. The reason we say to dig any repeatable signal, is that some earrings, broken gold and chains will come in a bit nasty, savvy? It is for your own good, as you will miss something nice, if you disc out the potentially good stuff. BELIEVE me, the Excal is like a vacation, after using high performance PIs out there and digging most every target imaginable.

3. IF you have to dig everything, and "MOST" pull tabs sound like rings then you should be getting the "Sweet" sound a LOT.

3. The sweet sound comes, if it is there to find, I assure you. Continue to "dig it all", as we suggested previously, but certainly be watching for 2 MOST critical targets, in your search. In fresh water I look for high clad count and lead weights. If you are into those type of targets, then the gold/silver should not be far behind. Be sure to slow that swing too, about 1' per second. Excal does not like a fast sweep and be sure to listen to the pitch of the threshold too. If the unit goes into the high strained pitch, you must make the necessary adjustments to get it settled down, as you are losing depth. An indication that the sensitivity is too high or sweeping too fast.

4. I set mine up as the"PROS" suggest. 0 disc, 12:00 on sens, volume all the way up, ligkt threshold in the back ground.
Dig only all repeatable signals..MAN what a collection of trash I'm getting...pulltabs of all shapes and sizes, nails, bobby
pins; rusty iron balls, little pieces of foil, and lots of just junk.

4. It sounds like you are in Pinpoint, be sure to set to Disc, as you should NOT be finding nails, bobby pins, staples and rusty iron balls. That is one of the beautiful things about the Excal, is it HATES iron. Many of the other vlf type units like iron better, imo.

5. I have hunted for 5 weeks with the Excal 1000, and Excal 800 have found almost 3.00 in clad, one silver ring and 1 junk class ring (ULT)
my wife hunted with me those same 5 weeks with her HHPRO Wader and found over 15.00 in clad two 14k gold rings, four silver rings
one gold chain two silver chains. This past Sunday my brother and my wife found 5 times the amount of clad as I did plus my
brother found a 18k white gold 1.13 ct tw diamond ring apraised at $3000. (he also uses a wader)

5. Hey Grumpy, like I said before the Wader/Diver are great fresh water units and maybe that is a preferrable unit to use in your area. We had no complaints using them in that application. You try to run one around here and it is noisy and has very poor depth. The Excal however will shine, like a gold ring in a scoop. Double check the things I mentioned and don't expect to be proficient with the unit overnight. I bought my 1st one Jan. '06 and I'm STILL learning new things, everytime I go out. I have sold all the others, but I've NEVER sold an Excal yet. I have 3 of them now and that is ALL I own.

We all hunt tresh water lakes. my brother and I have been water hunting over 30 years. my wife only started this summer. I normaly
Hunt with a wader but my wife took it over (LOL).


SO WHATS THE DEAL ????? Is it mostly hipe on the EXCALS and / or are they not worth a flip in fresh water?

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it! GH

Grumpy (TX)
VERY GRUMPY

 

[Grumpy (Texas)]

I thought it might be in pinpoint mode also, but in pinpoint all the sounds are the same , in disc I do have different tones ..ie high tones on clad and the silver ring. very low broad tone on the ULT class ring. pulltabs vary between high and mid tone. most of the nails and iron balls were a mid tone as were the beer bottle caps. bobby pins were a broken high/low but repeatable signal. I dug alot of junk just to try and see what the unit was telling me. I spent a lot of time digging the signals, more than I thought needed to get them up.shallow water wasn't much of a problem but deeper water was a B___H.
as for the threshold I would set it with a low tone just where I could hear it, (deaf in one ear 50% lost, 70% lost in the other ear).as I would hunt it would change from time to time from low to a high signal, dig target stay at high till I hit something that would make it go low, then it will go back to the low threshold only louder than i set it at to start with. at times it was just quite (no threshold at all) till the next target. then threshold would return. I hunted with the 10" coil for three weeks and then switched to the 8" boy do I like it better. Finds did not improve but pinpointability did. BTW that was a 5 hour job in switching.

Grumpy (TX)

 

[Gulf Hunter]

I thought it might be in pinpoint mode also, but in pinpoint all the sounds are the same , in disc I do have different tones ..ie high tones on clad and the silver ring. very low broad tone on the ULT class ring. pulltabs vary between high and mid tone. most of the nails and iron balls were a mid tone as were the beer bottle caps. bobby pins were a broken high/low but repeatable signal. I dug alot of junk just to try and see what the unit was telling me. I spent a lot of time digging the signals, more than I thought needed to get them up.shallow water wasn't much of a problem but deeper water was a B___H.
as for the threshold I would set it with a low tone just where I could hear it, (deaf in one ear 50% lost, 70% lost in the other ear).as I would hunt it would change from time to time from low to a high signal, dig target stay at high till I hit something that would make it go low, then it will go back to the low threshold only louder than i set it at to start with. at times it was just quite (no threshold at all) till the next target. then threshold would return. I hunted with the 10" coil for three weeks and then switched to the 8" boy do I like it better. Finds did not improve but pinpointability did. BTW that was a 5 hour job in switching.

Grumpy (TX)

True, the sounds are mostly the same in Pinpoint. The non-ferrous items are usually sharper though and less drawn out or double-beepy. I am surprised you are digging the nails in Disc though, as the unit should be going quiet (null) over them and iron balls. It will try to break up over them sometimes, as will a bottle cap, but so do chains, so I dig usually, like I said before. In extremely trashy areas, try the wiggle (sweeping the coil quickly directly over the top of the target) over the top of something you suspect could be iron and see if it breaks up, or the signal is holding and dig. Many times a non-ferrous target will be in close proximity to iron and it will try to break up too, so be careful. When the unit goes over iron sometimes, it WILL blip, just to let you know it has gone over it. The 800 coil, was a VERY wise move, imo. The target separation is clearly superior to the 1000, ESPECIALLY in heavy trash, you most certainly have in fresh water. Keep in mind, the unit will tone on whatever the last item it went over. Time will certainly improve your results Grumpy, hang in there mate!

 

[Beachcomber]

If nails and other iron objects are giving you a positive audio response instead of a negative audio response and you are sure that they are iron then there is something wrong with your machine and you need to send it in and have it checked out. Beer bottle caps are not iron or steel they are a combination of alloys and even though it would be nice if they were rejected they usually aren't but they give a broken sound that over time you will get to know and be able to ignore. I still dig them just in case they are a ring that the weld has broken. But there is no way you should be getting positive responses from iron when you are in disc mode. I can't even remember the last time I dug a piece of iron other than the bottle caps. For Fresh water there are better machines for gold...like the Tesoro Tiger Shark but that machines isn't worth a vent around saltwater. JMHO

HH

Beachcomber

 

[Bling]

this is dead on...i totally agree with GH!!! iv owned over 200 detectors and find the Excal and Sovereign GT to be the best of the lot for beach hunting...i must say iv never found a gold ring that sounded like a pull tab,there is a slight diff.the only pull tab that sounds like a gold ring to me is the heavy crusted ones or bent or 1/2 tabs..when they make a better unit for the beach i will own it!

This is NOT meant to step on anyones toes BUT.....

Seems to me that a lot of people "push/brag" about the Excals... sounds like a lot of ex used car salesmen to me...

Allow me to comment Grumpy........

My points are 1. If they are so "good" why do you see so many for sale on the fourms and E-Bay"

1. Many of these are the units that someone purchased, with visions of grandeur, thinking they were going to get rich finding, "all that lost gold". I have used the BEST equipment available, INCLUDING the HH Wader. Clearly a contender in fresh, but a lame duck in salt. I have never used one, but if I were hunting fresh ONLY, I would probably be using a Tiger. My experience is somewhat limited using the Excal in fresh water, but I DID some lake hunting with mine in '06, with some EXCEPTIONAL RESULTS. My wife was using a HH Diver at the same time and doing equally as well though. It is a great fresh water unit, NO DOUBT!

2. I read post after post about the "sweet sound of gold"...and low and behold they found a ring.
thats great BUT I also read post after post about "Don't use any disc and dig everything IF you want to find gold.
IF thats the case, what happened to the "SWEET" sound?

2. The "sweet sound of gold" is a very REAL sound indeed! Just so happens, that some pull-tabs and foil sound VERY similar. The reason we say to dig any repeatable signal, is that some earrings, broken gold and chains will come in a bit nasty, savvy? It is for your own good, as you will miss something nice, if you disc out the potentially good stuff. BELIEVE me, the Excal is like a vacation, after using high performance PIs out there and digging most every target imaginable.

3. IF you have to dig everything, and "MOST" pull tabs sound like rings then you should be getting the "Sweet" sound a LOT.

3. The sweet sound comes, if it is there to find, I assure you. Continue to "dig it all", as we suggested previously, but certainly be watching for 2 MOST critical targets, in your search. In fresh water I look for high clad count and lead weights. If you are into those type of targets, then the gold/silver should not be far behind. Be sure to slow that swing too, about 1' per second. Excal does not like a fast sweep and be sure to listen to the pitch of the threshold too. If the unit goes into the high strained pitch, you must make the necessary adjustments to get it settled down, as you are losing depth. An indication that the sensitivity is too high or sweeping too fast.

4. I set mine up as the"PROS" suggest. 0 disc, 12:00 on sens, volume all the way up, ligkt threshold in the back ground.
Dig only all repeatable signals..MAN what a collection of trash I'm getting...pulltabs of all shapes and sizes, nails, bobby
pins; rusty iron balls, little pieces of foil, and lots of just junk.

4. It sounds like you are in Pinpoint, be sure to set to Disc, as you should NOT be finding nails, bobby pins, staples and rusty iron balls. That is one of the beautiful things about the Excal, is it HATES iron. Many of the other vlf type units like iron better, imo.

5. I have hunted for 5 weeks with the Excal 1000, and Excal 800 have found almost 3.00 in clad, one silver ring and 1 junk class ring (ULT)
my wife hunted with me those same 5 weeks with her HHPRO Wader and found over 15.00 in clad two 14k gold rings, four silver rings
one gold chain two silver chains. This past Sunday my brother and my wife found 5 times the amount of clad as I did plus my
brother found a 18k white gold 1.13 ct tw diamond ring apraised at $3000. (he also uses a wader)

5. Hey Grumpy, like I said before the Wader/Diver are great fresh water units and maybe that is a preferrable unit to use in your area. We had no complaints using them in that application. You try to run one around here and it is noisy and has very poor depth. The Excal however will shine, like a gold ring in a scoop. Double check the things I mentioned and don't expect to be proficient with the unit overnight. I bought my 1st one Jan. '06 and I'm STILL learning new things, everytime I go out. I have sold all the others, but I've NEVER sold an Excal yet. I have 3 of them now and that is ALL I own.

We all hunt tresh water lakes. my brother and I have been water hunting over 30 years. my wife only started this summer. I normaly
Hunt with a wader but my wife took it over (LOL).


SO WHATS THE DEAL ????? Is it mostly hipe on the EXCALS and / or are they not worth a flip in fresh water?

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it! GH

Grumpy (TX)
VERY GRUMPY

 

[Grumpy (Texas)]

But it MUST be there or my Brother and Wife would not be kicking my butt so bad....I hold my own pretty well when we are ALL using the waders.. but for five straight weeks , this takkes some explaining.

Grumpy (TX)

 

[Grumpy (Texas)]

Bling, I used the Tigershark for two years, just did not like the unit. I still have my Stingray 1 that I will not part with. IF i had a 6" coil on that unit it would be perfect for "my" type of hunting. Could not convince Jack or Vince to put one on it.

Grumpy (TX)

PS replaced the TS with a HHWader seven years ago and never looked back...

 

[Grumpy (Texas)]

Gulf Hunter,

After our long email about the Waders vs the Excal I took your advice and purchased one. IT was a EXCAL 1000. that had just came from minelab having a New 10" coil put on it and tuned up. I even called Dick at Minelab after I purchased it to make sure, it is an "06 model the coil was replaced and was gone over very well....talked to Robert (the Tech) said he would be glad to check it over again but it sounded as if it is working like it should be. He also suggested the 8" coil for my type of hunting and gave me some very good tips on replacing it.A VERY BIG PLUS for MINELAB IMO.BTW if you are NOT good with electronics I would NOT try the coil replacement at home. Am I going to keep this unit? you bet! will I get rid of my Wader, NO WAY, But I do have a new tool to play and learn on.

GH you know where I plan on hunting on vacation, hence the Excal, so be prepared by summer (I hope) I'll be ready. LOL

Grumpy(TX)

 

[BigCatDaddy]

I found out that beach hunting and lake hunting are two different animals!! Running with zero on the Disc in the Texas Hill Counrty lakes with the Excal can be exhausting due to all the junk and how hard it can be to recover targets. I run mine at 3 or 4 on the Disc and leave all that wretched junk behind. I've tested it on over 30 different gold rings and it hits 'em all. I like my Divers too, in the fresh water, they just have to be babied so as not to wreck them!! The Tiger Shark, the jury is still out on that one. My advice, for whatever it's worth, is to get your collection of gold rings and see how much Disc you can run and still hit the gold.

 

[Beachcomber]

I never cared for it either but it was an excellent machine for gold chains and bracelets. Something that the HH would have a lot of trouble with due to it's 2.4khz operating frequency. The reason the TS is so good on small gold and chains is it's high operating frequency. The 2.4khz HH would be better in an area with a lot of iron but would tend to leave a fair amount of gold behind. If you need a machine with a 6" coil you must have an awful lot of iron to deal with.

HH

Beachcomber

 

[Grumpy (Texas)]

Beachcomber,

Not so much iron but hugh amounts of beer cans in the water. Seems Texans like to stand in waist to chest deep water and drink a beer then sink it and start on another. Got used to hunting with my old TR Amphibian with 6" coil and hunt in between the cans. Find a lot of good stuff that way. Most of my gold chains I have found with the Wader and a few with the Stingray 1. The Stingray (IMO) is better on small gold but much harder to pinpoint with than the Wader... Boy if I could just combine the two what a fresh water machine it would be!!

Grumpy(TX)

 

[Gulf Hunter]

I'll try to have it all cleaned up, before you get down here Grumpy, LOL! I think you have made a wise choice keeping both units. Keep working with the unit, it will come to you(if it is working properly). I think Beachcomber is right though, if you're detecting iron in Disc, then something is wrong with the unit.

 

[NamVetLesTreasureSeeker]

Grumpy/Texas, If you feel that way, I would personally recommend that you get a Detector -Pro HH, and NOT TRY to learn the EXCAL!! I don't think it is the machine for you!! Best of luck, hh, Les Robinson

 

[Grumpy (Texas)]

Les,

I already have a HH 5 of them to be exact and love them for fresh water. BUT plan on vacation to the coast ( Gulf Hunters area and to VA Beach thus the reason for the Excal...

Grumpy (TX)

 

[NamVetLesTreasureSeeker]

GOOD LUCK, hh, Les

 

[Gary Drayton]

Me too Grumpy , I am still waiting to find something really good, it must be hype?

 

[Flyguy]

Hi Hunter,
I was talking to Clive C. the other day - your stock is pretty high with him! He says you've been a lot of help on is books. He spoke particularly of his appreciation of your "hunting ethics"... just thought you'd appreciate knowing how much he thinks of you. His books have been a big help to me as a new Excal 2 user.
Well, I'm also writing to ask a couple of questions you can answer in just a word or 2. I also really appreciate your help.
1) I have an Excal 2/800. This seems to be an ideal water machine. Do you hunt in the water and, if so, is this the combination you use?
2) I hunt on the Alabama and FL peninsular coasts. From a previous post I gather that you use an Excal with a WOT for beach hunting. Am I right about that? If not, what do you use... whatever you're using it's a target grabber according to Clive.
3) My DFX is a great machine and White's 8 x 14" DD coil looks pretty good. Do you think that combination would produce results comparable to the Excal?

Thanks for our time ... I really appreciate it, which I could do something for you someday,
Jim

 

[Gary Drayton]

Pm sent Jim so i can go into lots of rambling detail to answer to your questions , Clive is a super nice guy, he writes good books with lots of useful tips for beginners and more advanced detectorists, I think his latest book should be a great seller by the sound of it.