I am a long time Excal Hunter and I have noticed that some of the beaches I hunted with the Excalibur varied in salinity from day to day. In one case the Excal seemed to be falsing when I had used it the day prior with the same settings. It was not until I overheard two surfers complaining about how salty the water tasted that I realized the salt matrix can vary from day to day. I think one of the things we do intuitively in hunting with an Excal is what I call "Wave Balancing". When I go in the wash or deeper water I ride down the sensitivity until the falsing goes away. It varies from day to day and from beach to beach. I like the fact that the Excal and the CTX allow us to ride the settings so we can adjust to the conditions. Having said this I believe that the CTX is a more sensitive beast than the Excal. Some days I beach hunt with the CTX and it barely utters a false chirp. And yet other days I have to back down the sensitivity to back off the salt matrix. I am thinking this is normal but that I did not notice it as much with the Excal. I still did it with the Excal but I did not notice it as much because it is a simple twist or two of the sensitivity knob. Hunting with the CTX offers a step forward in sensitivity. As of late I have been more conscious of riding the settings...the salt water (and wash) can present more falsing. I think in the past I have been guilty of running the machine a bit overpowered for the conditions at hand. As I have logged more experience with the detector I have noticed I am able to "wave balance" the detector more intuitively/quickly as with my Excal.
One thing I am going to start doing is looking for those 11 and 12 inch signals. Instead of digging them right away I am going to keep sweeping and riding down the sensitivity signal to see where the signal starts diminishing. So far I have not noticed a difference in depth in riding my sensitivity as low as 13 to 14. But in general I am greedy about sensitivity and like to have it set for occasional falsing if only to have the machine running at the best depth for the conditions at hand.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts/feedback on this subject!
Tony
One thing I am going to start doing is looking for those 11 and 12 inch signals. Instead of digging them right away I am going to keep sweeping and riding down the sensitivity signal to see where the signal starts diminishing. So far I have not noticed a difference in depth in riding my sensitivity as low as 13 to 14. But in general I am greedy about sensitivity and like to have it set for occasional falsing if only to have the machine running at the best depth for the conditions at hand.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts/feedback on this subject!
Tony