Excalibur 2 Auto Sensitivity in Hawaii?

[KapHI808]

Aloha,

A long time lurker and new Charter member here. I have found a few gold rings and some other silver jewelry for 2013 but would like to be able to get the most out of my Excalibur 2 with 10" coil. Although I prefer to search in Pinpoint and Reverse Discriminate, some of the beaches doesn't allow me to do so due to the mineral content. Even with my sensitivity turned all the way down (full clock-wise), my threshold chirps and crackles a lot where I have a hard time telling deep targets from the snap, crackle, and pop of the threshold. I actually find that the threshold is steadier in discriminate mode, even turned up to 6. I am wondering if I should use the Auto Sensitivity feature instead of going the manual route? I have also tried a hunt or 2 without the coil cover to see if the trapped sand had anything to do with it, but no luck. Some may say that I should just hunt in Discriminate mode, which I may very well have to, but their are times that I want to dig everything just to practice my pinpointing and target recovery with my Stealth 720i. Having that option would be nice. I guess another option might be to change to an 8" coil after the warranty ends. Any tips would be appreciated.

Mahalo

btw. I have 6 of CJC's books on order

 

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[Ringdigger]

I live in Hawaii and always use discriminate, I think it is more sensitive than all metal, and always use factory settings, I don't think I miss much. aloha

 

[KapHI808]

Thank you for the suggestion Ringdigger. I'll do some tests. I like the one by Treasure_Hunter where you tie a gold ring on a string with a knot 12" up and a cork on the end. One of my "eye opening" moments was arriving early one morning at a small beach (approx. 150 yards wide and 25 yards deep including the dry sand) and finding 5 metal detector toting beach hunters there. Since I had to detect over the areas they did, I started to think that I needed every edge I could get. Another reason I like to hunt in PP mode is that I worry that some deep targets could be discriminated out (my discrimination is set to 1) but I may be just paranoid. Happy Hunting.

 

[OBN]

I know the excalibur inside and out, and I have only seen that issue between PP and Disc on land. But always a first, and beach's can be so different. I do think your going about this the best way possible, only other thing I could think of, Besides getting a PI, would be to get another excalibur hunter and see if they have the same issues. I have tested several excaliburs over the last year and found, from one machine to the next there can be variances in the sensitivity. So it would be interesting to see if the problem is shared by another VLF detector, being the excal. I can say this, no one machine does it all, and that includes the 3030. So if the Gold is good there you may want to think about another machine, maybe a PI.......when competetion is tuff, and the best you have ain't cutting it, and you know the gold is there, then it's time to start "Singlizing" the problem....have one special detector for those beach's only...........joe

 

[KapHI808]

Thank you Joe. I like the idea of getting another detector, but the problem is getting my wife to agree. lol. Also, I love all your videos on youtube. I have learned a lot.

Mahalo

 

[bigscoop]

One thing I've noticed is that the older Excals seem to run a bit more stable at the higher sensitivity settings. This is just from own experience with a few different machines. The older Excal I have now runs extremely stable compared to some other Excals I have used. Most of the Excals I have used will false in the breakwater flush, the one I'm using now doesn't even suffer a chirp. Maybe Joe can explain this as I certainly can't.

 

[bigscoop]

And....it has also been my experience that the threshold will run more stable in disc then in PP mode on just about all of the Excals I have used, but if you stop and think about it, it makes sense. When you switch to PP you are also increasing the size of the blade search area a bit, thus you are introducing a bit more material/mineralization into the process. (Basically it has the same effect as if you increased the coil size.) I am a big advocate of the smaller coil for this very reason, the smaller coil allowing you to apply the highest amount of sensitivity with the greatest amount of control/stability. You also have much better target separation capabilities. The more materiel/mineralization you introduce into the search field that more difficult it becomes for the machine to separate potential good targets from the surrounding matrix. i.e., since going back to the smaller coil my chain count and "fine" gold recoveries has increased exponentially.

 

[KapHI808]

@bigscoop, that was a great explanation of why my PP is running more noisy than while in Disc. It makes sense. Thank you. All kinds of options going through my head: 1. send in my excal to minelab and have them change my coil to an 8" and wait 8+ weeks and spend approx $400, 2. get a dual field PI (not sure how the 12" coil would do vs a small coil), 3. get a CZ-21 with an 8" coil although it is another VLF machine (good or bad, I'm not sure).

 

[OBN]

KapHI808
Even with my sensitivity turned all the way down (full clock-wise), my threshold chirps and crackles a lot where I have a hard time telling deep targets from the snap, crackle, and pop of the threshold. I actually find that the threshold is steadier in discriminate mode

I had to think about this because what big scoop said made alot of sense to a point but..

This is just my Opinion,

Field size of AM/PP has nothing to do with your issue, for you said at any senstivity it was still having issues, big field or little field. The detector in AM/PP is reading the high minerial content of the sand as a metal no matter what size the field was or senstivity. The excaliburs circuits work harder in discriminate to seperate the good from the bad, there for the detector is dealing with these minerals better, in discriminate. Another VLf detector would give you the same results, A Pi in this area is the only way to deal with the competetion. But I would walk slowly on that question because a Pi can punch thur some minerials and others it will see.
　
See the excaibur works harder in discriminate even when the field of AM/PP is bigger, AM/PP you can swing faster with higher senstivity, why..because there is no discrimination, less to process...In the discriminate mode you have to go slow, why..because the machines circuits are processing more information and balancing things out..........

All of us here are still learning and by voicing different opinions...we can learn. What really throws things off, every beach is different and with the internet....The world is a big place.

 

[bigscoop]

A very interesting test:

The next time you encounter a target on the beach that is just at detection limit, offering only faint/intermittent responses, do the following:

A) Mark the target by putting a simple "x" over the target area.
b) Turn your machine off allowing it to completely reset.
c) Holding the coil in the air turn your machine back on.
d) Now impart a very flat & swift swing over the target.

The end result is that you will get an immediate target response, and most likely you will get a response each and every time the coil passes over the target at this much swifter speed. However, slow the coil back down and the responses will become intermittent again. It doesn't matter if you are testing this in disc or in PP, the end result will nearly always be the same. Why? Why does the machine isolate the target much better under this swifter swing speed? It took me a long time to figure this out but it is the key to hunting deeper with more sensitivity and with greater stability. Try this test for yourself a few times and then ask why? The answer: The machine can only process what it can see. The same results can be found in an air test, the foster test, etc.

 

[bigscoop]

Another example: (Using the 800)
A 2gram 14k gold chain tossed onto the wet sand, in a slightly congested setting, but not balled up. Sensitivity cranked all the way up. At slow to moderate sweeps in both PP & Disc, heck, I can't read that chain. In PP the threshold is simply too unstable. However, in Disc and in PP using a very swift sweep speed I can get intermittent chirps. Why?

I'll be the first to admit that my personal testing and findings are outside the scope of traditional/practical logic, however, these very test and findings have helped to improve my personal hunting results a great deal. I have a great deal of faith in these results, so perhaps it's just a matter of having a great deal of confidence in my own hunting style/techniques/machine.

 

[dewcon4414]

You have far more experience than i do BS, but my machine can run a pretty high sensitivity..... somewhere around 8 pretty stable. As far as PP..... mine is deeper than disc., just is. I agree you get a lot of highs from PP because of mineralization .... be it salt flowing over the coil or mineral lines. It functions very much like a PI and disc threshold is a factory stable threshold.... except for the PITCH HOLD changes, which i still dont like. We are in trouble if we have to sweep that coil faster out there. Mines seems to handle the slower sweep speep the close i run it on the sensitivity edge. I watched a video the other day showing someone running a DD straight down the center of a bean field row hitting targets. That i had to test ..... what i found was disc and PP both hit a target on the outside edge of the coil and the receive coil didnt have to be swung over it. Also.... there was very little coil HALO difference. A 10" coil naturally has to process more than an 8" and will be affected more by mineralization and EMI and the more targets you introduce the more masking will occur to a larger coil. Get a larger coil into a more open area thou the 8" cant compete depth wise. I dont get that much noise in the wash.... now on the slope it hits those mineral lines and its like raising your coil at the end of your swing.


Dew

 

[bigscoop]

Dew, all I can tell you is that it's worth your time to setup a lot of situations on the beach and in the water to test the notion. I'm certain you'll walk away a few times asking yourself, "How can that be?" Bottom lime, the machine processor can only process what it can see. The slower the coil the more mineralization it can see, move the coil to swiftly and it can't process this tiny mineralization because it can't see it, but rather it can only see the larger masses that remain. This is why it can process the chain under a swifter swing speed and why it can't process it under a slower swing speed. The slower swing speed allows these minute particles to remain under the coil long enough to be processed and the tiny chain gets lost, or filtered out in this process.

Ask yourself why a swifter swing speed brings up faint signals? It's certainly not because the processor has more time to isolate and evaluate the target, this is proven when we reset the machine and start anew. So why do these swifter swing speeds have the ability to bring up these faint and intermittent targets? This was the nagging question that kept me at the beach all summer and fall creating an arsenal of different hunting situations. Bottom line, our vlf machines have the ability to hunt much deeper and with more sensitivity then we realize. I've not got it all worked out yet but imagine the possibilities if we could eliminate the effects of mineralization on our vlf machines. Logic and technical science says it can't be done, and yet......why do those swifter swing speeds turn up the results they do? If prior technical science is accurate, it shouldn't workout this way, and yet it does. Why?

 

[Sir Gala Clad]

I suspect that when you encounter a target at the detection limit, you get a faint response followed by a null as the discriminator is not able to identify that target and defaults to iron. Once nulled, the detector needs a finite period of time for it to recover before it can tone on the next target.

When you reset the metal detector it recalibrates itself to what is under the coil, which in your proceedure is air. By going over the target with a very fast sweep you will get a tone/noise spike each time that you pass over the target but as the discriminator circuit does not have sufficient time to lock on ( process the target return) it will not null. In essence, you have defeated the discriminator circuitry from working and the detector is able to detect deeper.

When in AM/Pin Point mode, the discriminator circuitry is switched out so you should be able to detect deeper. As you are going over the target faster and more often, it should sound more often at one tone like one very excited duck (quack, quack) on each time the coil passes and returns over the target which would be easier to hear, not to be confused with AFLAC, AFLAC.

A very interesting test:

The next time you encounter a target on the beach that is just at detection limit, offering only faint/intermittent responses, do the following:

A) Mark the target by putting a simple "x" over the target area.
b) Turn your machine off allowing it to completely reset.
c) Holding the coil in the air turn your machine back on.
d) Now impart a very flat & swift swing over the target.

The end result is that you will get an immediate target response, and most likely you will get a response each and every time the coil passes over the target at this much swifter speed. However, slow the coil back down and the responses will become intermittent again. It doesn't matter if you are testing this in disc or in PP, the end result will nearly always be the same. Why? Why does the machine isolate the target much better under this swifter swing speed? It took me a long time to figure this out but it is the key to hunting deeper with more sensitivity and with greater stability. Try this test for yourself a few times and then ask why? The answer: The machine can only process what it can see. The same results can be found in an air test, the foster test, etc.

 

[bigscoop]

I suspect that when you encounter a target at the detection limit, you get a faint response followed by a null as the discriminator is not able to identify that target and defaults to iron. Once nulled, the detector needs a finite period of time for it to recover before it can tone on the next target.

When you reset the metal detector it recalibrates itself to what is under the coil, which in your proceedure is air. By going over the target with a very fast sweep you will get a tone/noise spike each time that you pass over the target but as the discriminator circuit does not have sufficient time to lock on ( process the target return) it will not null. In essence, you have defeated the discriminator circuitry from working and the detector is able to detect deeper.

When in AM/Pin Point mode, the discriminator circuitry is switched out so you should be able to detect deeper. As you are going over the target faster and more often, it should sound more often at one tone like one very excited duck (quack, quack) on each time the coil passes and returns over the target which would be easier to hear, not to be confused with AFLAC, AFLAC.

Sounds perfectly logical, which is why I mentioned the chain scenario. In this later case depth isn't an issue, but rather sensitivity becomes the issue. The chain is right on top of the wet sand, at a slow to moderate speed I can't get a response at all, but at a swifter swing speed I can get intermittent responses? If this were all just a discriminator issue then.....applying the same explanation to this scenario then we would be suggesting that the discriminator circuitry is discriminating the chain out at the lower speed, but not at the swifter speed. Is this correct? And if so, why/how?

And....in your earlier explanation, if I am indeed outrunning the discriminator circuitry, then why does the machine still maintain the ability to respond to the different metal types, i.e., high, mid, low tones?

 

[OBN]

Learned a few things today, Grills Double beep in PP and the fast sweep speed in discriminate can pick up smaller objects close to the surface. Thanks cdv1 and BigScoop...I keep forgetting that my setup is different then all and this can affect the outcomes. With The remote Disc switch on the excalibur I spend less then a few seconds in disc but able to run full senstivity in PP and this can affect the depth in both Disc n PP. Then with Doc's amp on the Headphones the disruption/faint are now barks. Here is a video from several years ago on PP hunting, (before I changed out the excal) crude by todays standards but listen close you can hear the disruptions of the threshold on deep targets ...at 22 seconds in the video then 3 mins, funny, my settings have change a lot. And this is a different location then everyone, so what works for me, maynot for others.

 

[bigscoop]

Joe,
Here is an interesting test for you to try on your test center. It won't matter what object you use, a dime, nickel, quarter, gold ring, whatever, as the results will nearly always be the same.

In Disc and in PP, and imparting a slow to moderate swing speed, slowly move the item away from the coil until you arrive at a distance where you start to lose your target responses and mark that distance. Now, impart and much faster swing speed and you will get repeatable, accurate, tones again. Now continue to slowly move the target away from the coil until you start to lose the responses again and mark that distance. The difference on most items won't be great, say 1/2 to an inch, but you will definitely get deeper tone responses using the swifter swing speeds.

Now comes the real test, using a very fine piece of 14k white gold jewelry, say something around 2 grams. (And if you really want a shocker, do this experiment with both the CZ and the Excal and compare the results.) And heck, if you want even more shock effect, change coil sizes. Believe me, this test is well worth the time spent.

 

[Sir Gala Clad]

Big Scooop: Are you able to distinguish the attack sustain and release of the tone or are you hearing a beap or chirp each time you pass over the target?

 

[bigscoop]

Big Scooop: Are you able to distinguish the attack sustain and release of the tone or are you hearing a beap or chirp each time you pass over the target?

In disc I have a full pitch range, low, medium, high, etc., but they are often much smaller and tighter/quicker, so you really have to pay attention sometimes in order to distinguish the difference, which is why I'm really anticipating the opportunity to use Joe's headphones. In PP I can "usually" bring up threshold breaks & changes into chirps if a target is present, and often chirps into beeps. Not always, but usually.

Understand, I don't always hunt with a swift swing speed, but rather only when conditions call for it. Just spoke to a friend of mine this morning who recently purchased an Excal with 8" coil and he is extremely pleased by the performance and depth of the smaller coil. In his own words, "I couldn't believe how deep some of those targets were. I'll definitely be using it for most of my water hunting from now on." Up to this point he had been using the 10" coil for all of his water hunting. "Now that I have confidence in it....." and that is the key, you just have to use it enough and experiment with it enough to learn it's advantages and gain the confidence. But, we are also hunters who have to deal with strong currents, turbulence, and rough surf just about all the time and the 8" coil provides us a lot of advantages in dealing with these issues. I've already warned this friend that he may as well get use to chasing ghost because soon he'll be chasing very tiny particles that hardly equate to much more then a grain, those very faint, tiny, repeatable tics that are hard to distinguish from really deep targets. Can't just fan them away because they may just be very fine gold chains trapped in the surface of the sand, fan them and they are often gone with the current. Increase the swing speed and see what happens first.

 

[OBN]

Big Scooop: Are you able to distinguish the attack sustain and release of the tone or are you hearing a beap or chirp each time you pass over the target?

Read this, it is with a sovereign, but applies to the excalibur also. It is about the attack and decay you speak of, the purity of the signal. These guys were the oldmasters I learned from, and even more amazing Govner was the first to notice the PP depth and speed of the sov/excal many years ago, 1998. Hats of to CJC, BB Sailor, Walter LI , and the best Govner.

Re: Sovereign / Excal All Metal Article

Read all the way to the bottom, A few years ago One of the older hunters who disagreed with me on the PP hunting contacted the big guy at minelabs america, and read what was sent back...some never learn even the Big Guys...

FROM MINELAB:


Ive heard this very same thing and it seems to be more perception than reality. Now in theory this might technically be true as when running in discrimination the detector is using a portion of its power to perform the discrimination which takes that away from putting it in the ground but in reality that difference is so minimal no one would see a difference outside of a lab with high end instruments. Plus, Ive never been able to duplicate it through testing It never found a target in Pin Point that I havent found in Discriminate.
Also, from a personal level, as An excel user I dont understand why someone would want to hunt in pin point as thats all metal and I for one dont want to waste my time digging junk when I could be finding good targets.

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