Wet sand hunt & Dig gets a new detector

[John (west central FL)]

Met up with Dig tonight to test out his new White's Dual Field Surf PI machine. We did some comparisons between it and my Excalibur II with 10" coil. We buried some gold rings and it seems that the PI does about as well as the Excalibur in the pinpoint mode. The Excalibur would loose the really deep targets when switched to discriminate.

Here is a photo of "Dig" with his new toy. Note the evil sand dredging/pumping machine in the background. Our good detecting days are numbered! <br><br><img src=http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee499/jpfotog/dualfielddig.jpg><br><br>After we were done with the testing we headed in opposite directions and did some low tide wet sand hunting. I managed to dig up a nice 10K wedding band.<br><br><img src=http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee499/jpfotog/gold040611.jpg><br><br>As you can see we are in the thick of tourist season right now.<br><br><img src=http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee499/jpfotog/wetsandsunset.jpg>

 

[Chi Town Bruce]

n/t

 

[Dig]

I just got in now... Holy Shnikeys I'm tired. You beat me but good. I managed on small yellow stone earring and one silver ring. Not to mention enough Bobby pins to build a life size replica of th Eiffel tower. ;-p

 

[Gonehunting]

Met up with Dig tonight to test out his new White's Dual Field Surf PI machine. We did some comparisons between it and my Excalibur II with 10" coil. We buried some gold rings and it seems that the PI does about as well as the Excalibur in the pinpoint mode. The Excalibur would loose the really deep targets when switched to discriminate.

sorry to jump post...but
John, I was wondering do you normally hunt with discrimination or all metal? And does the the different tones help when(if) you do hunt in AM? Reason I ask every detector I have looses some depth when I discriminate. So I usually hunt in AM. And one more are the target tones that accurate? Trying to decide on detectors. Again sorry for hijacking ur post.

 

[John (west central FL)]

I really don't like hunting in all metal because the signal response is not as loud or noticeable. The Excalibur will detect deeper in all metal so I do sometimes use it when there are very few good shallow targets in the area. The target tones are just one more tool to help you find more good targets. Sometimes I find myself in a situation where I'm having a very hard time recovering a target. If it sounds like there is a good chance that it's a valuable target then I will persist. If it sounds iffy then I may give up on it and use my time to find another target that I can retrieve successfully. It takes some time to learn what the Excalibur is trying to tell you. It's almost like learning another language. Unless I'm really pressed for time, I don't walk away from many targets. I'm pretty good at recognizing bottle caps and other trash items containing iron but pretty much everything else gets dug up.

 

[JOHNMARKHAM]

looks like you guys are having a blast there,ill be down in a few weeks so leave me some goodies to find too.
hh
john

 

[Gonehunting]

Thanks John...

 

[OldBeechnut]

NIce Gold John....Congrads on that!!...........Love the pic's too...Great Pic of the Pirate, Dig.................................... AM/PP is the only way to go with the excalibur...........You may want to think about the Audio Amp down the road on the excal II, sure helps on the extra faint, below just audible threshold targets..thanks for the test also...we need more compares..and maybe after Dig gets sometime in on the DF you can give it another shot.................


DiG? First time out with the Df, What do you thing?..

 

[Surfdigger]

[size=large]Nice pics John.....and congrats on that new machine Rob !! Sad to see that dredge looming offshore.....I guess they'll just about be finishing up about the time that I get down on May 1st....Oh well.....Hope to see you this year John....we'll get out somewhere hopefully.....You too Rob.....I'll email both of you when I get down there.....in the mean time stay away from the dredge's outlet pipe !!.....Brian[/size]

 

[crackerjuan]

is it too early to tell which machine you like better the excal or dual field ? , what made you want to change from the excal to the dual field ? , i just got a seahunter II but want to get an excal II someday

 

[John (west central FL)]

I think he got the DF to use in special situations. Maybe Mr. "Dig" will chime in here.

 

[Dig]

is it too early to tell which machine you like better the excal or dual field ? , what made you want to change from the excal to the dual field ? , i just got a seahunter II but want to get an excal II someday

Hey CJ....To answer your questions, I will always use the Excal or the CZ as my main detectors but, I wanted to explore the PI technology for its depth. The areas that I hunt open and close like the door of a vault (a jewelry vault if you're doing it right) and I am interested in using the PI and Excal in conjunction to farm these "open door" areas. The jury is still out on what I think of the DF, as it will take quite a while to even begin to get an idea of what its capable of and how those capabilities apply in my area, but, I will tell you it's DEEP. You dig a lot of garbage though, I was out for 4 hours with it yesterday, and I found two decent targets out of maybe 40 holes. I was starting to think DF stood for "Dook Finder". But, I was only testing it in the wetsand. I think that picking your battles with that unit and using the Excal to sniff out those target rich areas first might lead to some nice, heavy, deep finds. Hope it helps!

 

[crackerjuan]

i was wondering cause i know your nick name is dig but thats excactly what your going to do with that pluse ,i got a seahunter and thats all ive been doing at least ive been cleaning the beach from all the sharp metal, someone thanked me today for doing that, i filled a publix plastic bag the other day with trash and only found that peace sign along with 60 cents i wish it would give off different tones for different metals but when you get a really faint signal be prepared to dig deep sometimes i give up cause im making such a big hole ,when your hurting or reel tired from digging you start to pass over the faint signals and only look for the screammers which are near the top, plus the beach i hunt is reel small and even though i fill in the holes the big ones still stand out from being filled back in and i dont want the place to ban me , i hunt bahia beach in ruskin fl very small beach im the center of attention their, the entire beach watch's me i feel like im a tv set, rite now i just dont have the gas $ to cross the skyway to go over to the gulf, but one thing is fer sure you wont miss a thing with that machine good luck ,,,cracker

 

[hershey1]

Dig keep using that PI machine and your arms will be as big as POP-EYES. I gave my PI's up many moons ago. I have either gotten old or sorry or just plain lazy pick one or all I'm a Excall user now as it is easier on this old frame. Congratulations on your finds. Business should be picking up from here on. HH

 

[Craig-PI]

Dig...

If you have the patience to really learn the tone and subtle "in" threshold breaks you will out hunt the VLF users everytime... you have the advantage as you can follow behind them and find what they won't even hear... this is not a anti-minelab thread as I use the GT in area's I know are not PI friendly but PI in the right hands won't be outhunted... just give it the time and patience it deserves... in the where there is less trash you should clean up... btw... I have used the Excalubur and it has its place but its just not as deep as a quality pulse machine... congrats on the new machine

 

[Dig]

I appreciate the advice Craig and the help on getting settled on a machine. I am going to spend some serious time trying to learn this machine.

Dig...

If you have the patience to really learn the tone and subtle "in" threshold breaks you will out hunt the VLF users everytime... you have the advantage as you can follow behind them and find what they won't even hear... this is not a anti-minelab thread as I use the GT in area's I know are not PI friendly but PI in the right hands won't be outhunted... just give it the time and patience it deserves... in the where there is less trash you should clean up... btw... I have used the Excalubur and it has its place but its just not as deep as a quality pulse machine... congrats on the new machine

 

[Dig]

I think it's super deep, but it's a lot more work. I can see how you night not be able to hunt as long because you are digging so much more. It's a lot harder to dig deep fast.

NIce Gold John....Congrads on that!!...........Love the pic's too...Great Pic of the Pirate, Dig.................................... AM/PP is the only way to go with the excalibur...........You may want to think about the Audio Amp down the road on the excal II, sure helps on the extra faint, below just audible threshold targets..thanks for the test also...we need more compares..and maybe after Dig gets sometime in on the DF you can give it another shot.................


DiG? First time out with the Df, What do you thing?..

 

[GONGA]

I think once you learn the DF youll find it to be very easy and more productive...It doesnt take any longer to find a target than the excal actually it is much easier to pinpoint than the excal....I own both ...sure there is no real discrimination but the excal isnt convincing either.The excal is good for blocking out hairpins thats it doesnt save me any more time than the DF it actually slows me down with the tones which arent precise.The only thing I like about the excal is the fact you dont dig the low tones ...any other mediun to higher tone is a dig and In the real world out on the beach coins gold rings bottlecaps ,pulltabs all sound the same to me.But the depth advantage and the large coil of the DF outweighs the benefit of the excals discrimination feature .And let me add this with the DF I pinpoint with the edge of the coil and it will pinpoint the smallest piece of metal like a paper staple So I dont need a pinpointer...The excal doesnt even pick up the small items and forget about pinpointing small metals like earstuds and the like with the edge of the coil.Actually I find it is very frustrating to use compared to my DF and I can keep going on... Honestly I dont know why all the hype for the excal.

 

[Craig-PI]

I agree with your post Gonga... you know what though? some people don't want to dig that extra depth you dig with a pulse... if everyone ran a pulse there would be less for us... that is the way I look at it I know that I can go to a beach hit hard by VLF machines and come away with gold they can't even hear... I also know a VLF has its place I own a GT and use it in areas that are so heavily iron infested even I wouldn't want to run my DF... I'm talking about places where every swing of the coil it sounds off multiple times... but in the water where there is less trash, nothing but the PI... I'm not a fresh drop hunter, I hunt mostly old heavily hunted beaches and I need that advantage a pulse gives me... so far its worked pretty well for me...


I have been hunting with a pulse for around 7 years now... I want to know when I get my "popeye" arms

 

[Cupajo]

Today I had a short water hunt with my DF.

It would've been longer, but my glove shoulder strap tore loose as I was putting them on and I had to use my neoprene divers gloves.

Cleared away some trash and 5 pennies otherwise nothing to brag about.

Got a broken signal, expected wire and recovered a small silver toe ring.

A little later I got a solid hit and dug up a hair-pin!

I still have a problem guessing whether a split (double signal) is junk or not and a good solid signal isn't always a good target.

I do like my DF though,

CJ