Versatile underwater detector

[Spinner55]

Been out of the hobby ever since a "friend" borrowed my Tesoro a few years back. Looking to replace it, but would like something I could take with me when I scuba. The Minelab Excalibur 2 looks like it may fill my needs on land and underwater, anyone with any experience with it? I've seen several threads get nasty as it seems people love it or hate it. I'm very open to other units (I've never even held an Excalibur 2), I just don't want this to turn into an emotional brand bashing. I'm in Tenaha, Texas if anyone is close by holler.
-Mark

 

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[cudamark]

The Excalibur is great in the water and on the beach, not so great in a park. It's still about the best there is if you need to go deeper than 10' and you want discrimination. If you're hunting an area with little or no junk, than there are many PI and multifrequency VLF detector choices too.

 

[Spinner55]

The Excalibur is great in the water and on the beach, not so great in a park. It's still about the best there is if you need to go deeper than 10' and you want discrimination. If you're hunting an area with little or no junk, than there are many PI and multifrequency VLF detector choices too.

Is there a good choice for underwater and the park, or would it require 2 detectors?

 

[Terry Soloman]

I advocate two machines (for less than one Excalibur). You can get a quality single frequency vlf for land and dry sand, and a saltwater Pulse Induction machine for SCUBA, and saltwater wet sand hunting. Good Luck!

 

[Spinner55]

Sounds great, which would you choose?

 

[Terry Soloman]

I use the Tesoro Sand Shark, and the Tesoro Vaquero - both with great success.

 

[ThTx]

I don't want to start a big fuss over who has the best detector for what. So, I'll just say that when I was a SCUBA instructor I used either a Garrett Sea Hunter Mk II or an Infinium LS. Both worked great and both worked on land for some things (caches). But the Infinium is definitely not a machine for parks!

 

[cudamark]

Is there a good choice for underwater and the park, or would it require 2 detectors?

If you plan on going deeper than 10' in the water, yes, two machines would be a better choice. There are lots of choices in PI and VLF machines for that. For the water you can add the Garrett Infinium, Fisher CZ21, and the Whites dual field to the recommended list. For land, I like the E-trac but there are many others that are good machines too, like the White's V3i, Fisher F75, Garrett AT Pro, XP Deus, Minelab Explorer, Quattro and Safari, and probably more that I'm less familiar with. If you're only going into shallow water (under 10' deep) I'd go with the Minelab CTX 3030, hands down. If you're hunting fresh water only and your budget can't stand the CTX, the Garrett AT Pro is a good affordable substitute in an all-around water/land machine. You'll have to decide which is best for your area (sometimes a difficult task without an existing detector to compare), which features you like in a machine, (one programmable for changing conditions or custom settings, a VID screen, multiple coil options, for instance) and what your budget can stand. You might also want to consider where they're made (USA, overseas?) reliability, and customer service/repair history/guarantee. I know, it can be overwhelming trying to weigh all the possible combinations but just sit down and make a list of what you're most likely going to search for, features you want/like, and your budget. Then pick one from one of the major players, and choose a dealer to buy from. Hopefully one of our supporting members here, or a local detector shop you know that can give you hands-on training or at least some good advice. Good Luck!