Dont say it, you told me so!

[richm]

Don't say it, you told me so!

First nice day we've had so I took my Surfmaster PI (now nicknamed iron magnet) to the beach just to test it out. I missed low tide by a few hours but I just wanted to test it at the water line and in the surf just a bit. I didn't find much but the good news is I got about 100 rust encrusted old nails out of the way for the next guy. Will I eventually be able to determine good from bad by the sound? I haven't gotten a long handled scoop yet, I was working with a homemade hand held and I think I'm going to have to get quite a large scoop. Seemed to be pinpointing off center i bit?? Without disc. like my DFX can I cut out some of the iron with the sensitivity? I have to say it is sensitive. I was digging brad sized nail very deep. Looking forward to any input. Rich.

 

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[firstbiggestmost]

Re: Don't say it, you told me so!

You should be able to tell most nails by the double beep they make. Try circling around the target and see if it gives off a double beep. The size of the target is a clue also. You should get yourself a copy of Pulse Power by Clive Clynick. Lots of valuable info for PI users. HH.

 

[ivan salis]

Re: Don't say it, you told me so!

a PI is a find it all, dig it all type mans machine == it takes a long , long time to be able to tell A from B with one (even then your libile to goof)-- lots and lots of time and practice required. -- but folks did tell you this earlier didn't they? --see we do not lie.

now the good news --its a very deep machine and you will not miss much if anything at all --but be ready to dig , dig and dig some more.---and YOU WILL FIND JUNK --LOTS OF IT ( 0 discrimation)

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Re: Don't say it, you told me so!

the good news is I got about 100 rust encrusted old nails out of the way for the next guy.

Humm, now how many nails is it that I have dug with my Minelab Excals, and Sovereigns the last 4 years again, oh yeah I remember now, NONE.....

 

[Sandman]

Re: Don't say it, you told me so!

the good news is I got about 100 rust encrusted old nails out of the way for the next guy.

Humm, now how many nails is it that I have dug with my Minelab Excals, and Sovereigns the last 4 years again, oh yeah I remember now, NONE.....

This is why we use Excal because of the Iron mask, not discrimination which is run at ZERO. However the PI's are the deeper of the two where the sand is the deepest. Time spend digging deep holes for nails is time not spend swinging for the gold. You only get so much time on this Earth.

 

[guzz1]

Re: Don't say it, you told me so!

Not good for dry and trashy areas , I had one and sold 2 days later ,,, got a sov Gt . but some guys really them and they will find rings but you got to dig a LOT... good luck Guzz1

 

[tentpegs]

Re: Don't say it, you told me so!

Yes i have one alot of digging but you wont miss anything .You will find alot of deep gold missed by others.I am fit and will keep digging .HH

 

[arizonaames]

Re: Don't say it, you told me so!

First nice day we've had so I took my Surfmaster PI (now nicknamed iron magnet) to the beach just to test it out. I missed low tide by a few hours but I just wanted to test it at the water line and in the surf just a bit. I didn't find much but the good news is I got about 100 rust encrusted old nails out of the way for the next guy. Will I eventually be able to determine good from bad by the sound? I haven't gotten a long handled scoop yet, I was working with a homemade hand held and I think I'm going to have to get quite a large scoop. Seemed to be pinpointing off center i bit?? Without disc. like my DFX can I cut out some of the iron with the sensitivity? I have to say it is sensitive. I was digging brad sized nail very deep. Looking forward to any input. Rich.

Don't let folks, that don't know about PIs, fool you. With practice and the right settings, you will hear variations in tone and be able to tell the difference between some good targets and those that are not. Gold is almost 2xs heavier than lead and will be deeper than coins and out of reach of most VLF detectors. It will be deeper than lead sinkers. That is why a detectorist with a PI and the knowledge of how to use it will find gold and silver jewelry after you have gone over the area with a VLF. I would recommend that you buy the book, "Pulse Power". It will really help you to understand a PI detector and how to use it to your advantage. The main thing is to have fun while you are learning your detector. All are different and there is a learning curve on all.

 

[richm]

Re: Don't say it, you told me so!

Arizonaames, thanks for the encouragement, I really like my PI. Someone above mentioned iron having a double beep but most of the nails that I retrieved had a nice solid single beep. (they were quite large though). Found out that they used to build boats right here. Here is an early pic of the area I was detecting...Rich.

 

[digum smacks]

Re: Don't say it, you told me so!

iam one of the few that are here to tell ya the excal is garbage said it from the begining and i still believe it.and guess what i own one in fact owned many.i have a dual field ,even not that good either. i like it better than the excal,shoot every pi ive owned i liked it better than the excal.there isnt a good machine out there i like because none go deep enough to get gold.just my opinion and most dont agree.

 

[arizonaames]

Re: Don't say it, you told me so!

The negative side of the dual field is that the coil is positive buoyant and it does take an effort to keep it under the water. Like Sandman says, it is not neutrally buoyant. When going in the water, it is best to tie flex tubes of sand to the outer coil. This will give you negative buoyancy. As it is a 12 inch coil, you do not want one that is weighted when using it on the beach but you do want that weight in the water. Someone told me it is easier to turn the coil around 180 when using it in the surf but to save tension on the wire, it is better to have a brace on the coil to the shaft. This will save tension on the cable and will save problems with the cable in the future.

 

[homer007]

Re: Don't say it, you told me so!

IS A PI PRO A dual field ?

The negative side of the dual field is that the coil is positive buoyant and it does take an effort to keep it under the water. Like Sandman says, it is not neutrally buoyant. When going in the water, it is best to tie flex tubes of sand to the outer coil. This will give you negative buoyancy. As it is a 12 inch coil, you do not want one that is weighted when using it on the beach but you do want that weight in the water. Someone told me it is easier to turn the coil around 180 when using it in the surf but to save tension on the wire, it is better to have a brace on the coil to the shaft. This will save tension on the cable and will save problems with the cable in the future.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Re: Don't say it, you told me so!

iam one of the few that are here to tell ya the excal is garbage said it from the begining and i still believe it.and guess what i own one in fact owned many.i have a dual field ,even not that good either. i like it better than the excal,shoot every pi ive owned i liked it better than the excal.there isnt a good machine out there i like because none go deep enough to get gold.just my opinion and most dont agree.

Wife has some nice diamond rings I have found with my Excals.

I have owned 3 Excals since I started hunting and I still own 2 of them now, one has WOT coil, the other will have a SunRay S-12 coil I just bought as soon as it gets here......I had a couple hunting partners I met when I first started who had Whites PI's when I met them, they would be digging deep holes at a beach we were hunting for good signals they got when I would walk up to them, scan it with my Excal and it would null, I told them the target was iron, but they wanted to keep digging. Not once was the Excal wrong.....Both of them eventually switched from their PI's to Excals.

 

[arizonaames]

Re: Don't say it, you told me so!

The PI Pro is the detector that was prior to the Dual Field. It ran at a fixed 15us pulse delay and was a bit more stable than the Dual Field (not as sensitive...ergo not as erratic). However, the Dual Field in more sensitive for a purpose. It will find small gold better. With the PI Pro, you also had a choice of a weighted coil or a beach coil that was not weighted. Again, I would highly recommend the book, "Pulse Power". Seems that many here get hung up on the positives of a VLF detector vs/ the positives or negatives of a PI detector because they do not now much about a PI detector or how it works. They are very different technologies and until one throws out what they know about VLF detectors and learns how to use a PI detector, they are comparing apples to oranges. The advantage of a PI detector is that it will work well in bad ground or salt or mineralized conditions where a VLF detector will not work or will not work well. The VLF detector will have better discrimination but will fall short on depth where the heavier gold will go. Both have their advantages. The SAT is fixed on the Dual Field PI but one still has gain, pulse delay, and threshold controls. By adjusting the pulse delay and gain, one can discriminate pull tabs and nickles but they both fall in the gold range of VDIs. You see, even with a VLF detector one is going to be digging a lot of pull tabs and nickles if one wants to find small gold earrings. I was getting a 72 VDI # (penny) on my MXT (VLF detector) today at a beach on a nail that was 6 inches down. So yes, I dug iron with a VLF detector today. You will dig iron with a PI detector also. Rusty tin (iron), size of can or iron will give different VDI#s that will fool the best of VLF detectors. Thus, when someone tells me that they can tell what is an iron target or not has not been detecting for very long or often. I can discriminate much better with my TDI PI but you do not want to go in the water with one. Each has it's uses and sorry for being so long winded.

 

[firstbiggestmost]

Re: Don't say it, you told me so!

Arizonaames, thanks for the encouragement, I really like my PI. Someone above mentioned iron having a double beep but most of the nails that I retrieved had a nice solid single beep. (they were quite large though). Found out that they used to build boats right here. Here is an early pic of the area I was detecting...Rich.

My PI sounds off softly on old iron, kind of like a deep target, which is annoying. The good thing is that the iron is usually shallow so I recognize my mistake in target identification quickly. Nails do sound off well for whatever reason and when I hit an area that has a concentration of them, I spend more time scanning the target before I dig. As you change the angle of your swing you will hit the nail in the right way to produce a double beep. You can practice this effect with a VLF also. It looks like you have a great location to hunt, there should be lots of cool ship relics to find that discriminating machines have passed over. Good luck & HH.

 

[DaChief]

Re: Don't say it, you told me so!

I didn't read everyone's reply here but this may help some. The Surfmaster PI is about as basic a PI machine as you can get. It has very little to offer in ability to discern objects but you can try this if you will tp maybe give you some relief.

Do an air test of items at home including the following.

One of your good ole rusty nails that I am sure you kept.
A couple of coins of your choosing.
A very small and dainty gold ring. (that description was hard for me being a burly manly man)
A small gold wedding band (womans).
A medium gold wedding band (mans).
A heavy gold ring such as a class ring.

Initially, set your Pulse Delay to minumum and the threshold to where it is barely audible and test all of the targets, you should get a fairly similar sound with all at that setting.

Then turn the Pulse Delay a bit toward maximum and test again.

Then turn it more to maximum and test again and so on until you eventually reach maximum pulse delay.

You should find that at minimum, you will be able to hear all the targets and as you turn more and more to maximum, some of the smaller to medium gold targets should either begin to break up or disappear alltogether.

What this will mean for you is that you can use the Pulse Delay as a sort of discriminator. You will lose some depth but not too much the more your turn the Pulse Delay toward maximum but you will also find that if a signal starts breaking up, it is most likely not iron. Iron will read strong no matter what you have the Pulse delay set on. Smaller non ferrous items should show some degradation in signal the more you turn the Pulse Delay toward maximum. Therefore if you are over a target that you have found using a Minumum Pulse Delay and then you turn the Delay all the way to maximum and it disappears, you most likely are not over an iron target and it is more likely to be gold or at least non ferrous.

This is a similar process used on the higher end Garrett Infinium for an Iron Check although the Infinium has more ability to discriminate items.

Another thing to keep in mind. I am not sure what you paid for the Surmaster PI but I would guess in the 250 to 350 range. It is a very basic PI. If you can get into the water with it, you should be subjected to less trash since there is normally less trash in the water than on or near land. Other than that, you will work harder with it than most other machines. I love my PI in the water and will go toe to toe with any Excal owner in a hunt. I guarantee that I will find as much if not more gold with the Infinium because of a couple of things. The Infinium gives me one signal for all gold no matter the size or the karat. It allows me to ignore any item that is not gold period. I don't spend time digging lots of larger aluminum, coins or silver in the water. The Minelab, which I use on dry sand, gives you a large range of signals for gold depending on the size of the ring the karat makeup and even the type of gold (white or yellow). I know for sure that there are Excal users that pass up gold items for aluminum trash due to the ability of the trash to mimic some gold tones on the Excal. It is just the nature of the hunter. You will eventually start passing up gold if you dig enough trash that mimics gold. It works the same way with relic, coin and jewelry hunters using machines that have a digital ID. After digging humpteen pull tabs that register on a digital ID machine in the gold range that could have been a nickel or gold ring, they will tune them out using discrimination settings and there you go, no more gold rings. It is not that drastic with the Excal but the potential is there and if you have limited patience, you will have a tendency to start ignoring signals due to the vast number of possibilites that is given by the Excal. If you get a chance to test out an Excal, take several different types of gold jewelry with you to do it and air test them all. Try to get about 20 different types with varied sizes and karats etc. Then get several pieces of aluminum of varied sizes and thicknesses. Some pieces of brass etc. I can't remember exactly how many varied tones there are in a Minelab although I own the land version of the Excal, the Sovereign. But I do believe there is most likely an unlimited range of tones that you can get into, maybe the couple of hundred at least. They will ignore most iron or null out over iron so at least you solved your iron problem.

I could hunt with an Excal. I can buy one tomorrow with no problems. I have the money to do it with. My issue is that I use the PI in the water due to the low numbers of trash targets I am going to find there. My PI, the Infinium allows me to focus on possible gold targets only and ignore silver and coins including zinc pennies. This is very valuable in time savings when I am hunting in the water. I am spending time digging possible gold all of the time and never wasting time on silver or coins. I also do have the Iron Check feature which even your limited PI has a version of as discussed above.

PI machines are not for everyone and neither is the Excal. I don't know for sure but I would say that you chose the PI you got due to price and not based on your desire. I would suggest that you unload it and save up for something like the Excal that will most likely suit you but be prepared. All is not rosey on the other side of the hill either. There are draw backs to every machine. You just have to find one that best suits your personality and expectations.

 

[G.I.B.]

I didn't find much but the good news is I got about 100 rust encrusted old nails out of the way for the next guy.

Rich,

Would you please hunt Pass-A-Grille beach from the Don Cesar Resort heading south, this friday starting at 3PM? Low tide is at 5 and I'll be working about 45 minutes behind you. I would appreciate the clear path.

Thanks,
Larry

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

ROFLMBO even if the thread is over 2 years old....

 

[G.I.B.]

ROFLMBO even if the thread is over 2 years old....

I kinda figured by now he would have gained experience and not miss ANY rusty nails.

 

[search and recovery]

Hey, that is awesome info by Da Chief on how to use a pulse detector that is never devuldged. Never heard that info before. Thanks for pulling it up. I will try it out. Pulse adjustment is discriminate. Never thought of it that way. Now that is a cool line of thought .