Excal 2-Hunt in PP/AM or Disc at the beach?

Treasure_Hunter

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Staff member
Jul 27, 2006
48,462
54,905
Florida
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Minelab_Equinox_ 800 Minelab_CTX-3030 Minelab_Excal_1000 Minelab_Sovereign_GT Minelab_Safari Minelab_ETrac Whites_Beach_Hunter_ID Fisher_1235_X
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Options hunting at the beach with the Excal 2- PP/AM or Disc??

If Disc what number?

Sof, if your discriminating at all your discriminating out some gold, especially on beaches....

If your new to Excal use desc, learn the tones. When it nulls re-sweep null from a 90° different direction to see if there's another target there, if not move on.

Once you learn your tones, then you can try the reverse discrimination mod and put your desc/pp on a thumb switch on your handle.
 

cudamark

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Mar 16, 2011
13,223
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San Diego
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XP Deus 2, Equinox 800/900, Fisher Impulse AQ, E-Trac, 3 Excal 1000's, White's TM808, VibraProbe, 15" NEL Attack, Mi6, Steath 920ix and 720i scoops, TRX, etc....
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Hunt in PP/AM. You get a signal, flip it over to Disc. Dead null, pass it by. Any kind of squeak at all, dig it. You'll dig bottle caps, tabs, and lots of foil this way, but, you won't miss those odd jewelry finds or small gold/platinum rings. If you flip to Disc and get no signal at all, just the steady threshold hum, it means the target is deep and you should dig it. Probably deep iron, but you never know.......:laughing7:
 

SurgTech57

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Mar 15, 2014
220
102
South Bend
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ML Equinox 800, and Excalibur II
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Great advice from both above me. I'm in my second season using my Excal II and my finds to date this season are 13 rings only one is gold, 3 sterling silver, the rest are stainless ,10k gf, I've also found a 14K cross best find so far, and LG phone, 7 costume earings, and about $30.00 in clad. But every good find came with its share of garbage so don't get discouraged by pull tabs, bottle caps ect cause every repeatable tone will have you wondering what it is till you unearth it. Good Luck the Excal is a great machine!
 

SurgTech57

Full Member
Mar 15, 2014
220
102
South Bend
Detector(s) used
ML Equinox 800, and Excalibur II
Primary Interest:
Beach & Shallow Water Hunting
Oh and may I add. Please get a wide and deep digging scoop don't make the mistake I made purchasing a shallow 8 inch deep digging scoop cause when you dig at beaches or lakes a shallow digging scoop can cause a target to bury itself deeper if you don't get it on the first scoop the target can literally bury itself deeper with each scoop with the help of the waves and water until the target becomes out of reach. Yes I plan to get a new scoop for next year.
 

Tom_in_CA

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Mar 23, 2007
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For starting out, do as cuda-mark says: hunt in all-metal (aka pinpoint). And then check each one in disc. With the disc. dial all the way to the lowest setting, and just let your ears do the evaluating.

After awhile, you will find yourself strictly hunting in disc. mode. But occasionally, when signals are few and far between, I'd hunt in All-metal, just because it's affords an extra inch of depth.
 

Treasure_Hunter

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Get the remote pinpoint mod, then you can hunt in pp and switch to desc with a thumb switch in your hand grip...
 

streetglide

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Aug 17, 2011
82
44
Santa Barbara ca.
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Mxt, Excal. 800, 1000
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Here on the west coast I run my Excal on pp mode. Sens. at 6 0r 7 . The trick is, GO SLOW AND LOW. In pp mode you will you will get a slight threshold break on deep targets, remove some sand and check in disc. mode . Keep digging its usually some thing worth keeping or trash. Put your time in and it will pay off. Dig every thing to a point. I recently dug up a 14 k womens bracelet. It sounded like trash ,that i would not normally dig. Some times when its slow on finds I tend to dig trashy sounds more than on productive hunts. good luck Joe
 

Prairie Prowler

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May 7, 2006
537
310
Midwest ILL
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Fisher1266-/ CZ-20 / Sovereign XS/Excalibur II / Equinox 800
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Thanx for the tips ..Im learning my Excal this year and can use every bit of advice ..have to get used to the 10 in. coil ..before I used an 8 in. on the CZ20..Where do most of you run your volume?
 

dewcon4414

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Mar 22, 2006
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If you machine isnt moded with a PP switch, id recommend not a lot of PP hunting switching back and forth. Those switches are plastic and with the small knobs they break or the knob will. You get good with what you use the longest. Personally i prefer the PP mode you hear the raise and can run high sensitivity that you cant in disc with a LOT of falsing. It works better at the surf line as well you just dont notice the coil flip or normal falsing you get in disc. HOWEVER, you have to train your ears to hear weak targets because in PP you are sizing the target more and weaker targets are smaller ones. In disc the tones are a little more modulated...... targets even small ones sound off with higher volume. I also believe the Xcal IIs are tuned a little higher and are more chatty than the Blue Xcals.....so when you switch to disc at full sensitivity you can pick out the target but its not as smooth as the blues.
 

cudamark

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Mar 16, 2011
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XP Deus 2, Equinox 800/900, Fisher Impulse AQ, E-Trac, 3 Excal 1000's, White's TM808, VibraProbe, 15" NEL Attack, Mi6, Steath 920ix and 720i scoops, TRX, etc....
Primary Interest:
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Thanx for the tips ..Im learning my Excal this year and can use every bit of advice ..have to get used to the 10 in. coil ..before I used an 8 in. on the CZ20..Where do most of you run your volume?
I turn mine all the way up. In fact, one of my Excals doesn't even have a knob on that post anymore! I never change it, so, never got a replacement! :laughing7:
 

jeepGold

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Sep 7, 2014
585
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Vegas
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CTX3030, Nox800
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first tone you'll learn is the penny tone. Get used to that one!
 

Vikingblood

Full Member
Sep 25, 2013
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58
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Wow, good advice here. You guys set your threshold when on discrimination or pin point mode?
 

cudamark

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Mine doesn't change flipping between the two. Well, the pitch might, but the volume is the same.
 

MrMikeJackie

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Nov 3, 2013
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Xp Deus,
That's it, I'm done.
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Doesn't running in all metal create a tighter field? What I'm trying to say is when running my sovereign in disc I will get pulled toward a target without actually going over it. Happens all the time. While in all metal I really have to be over the target to hear it. Depth vs coverage?
 

ARC

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Aug 19, 2014
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Discrim 0-1 never fails me. heh
 

Last edited:

Treasure_Hunter

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Jul 27, 2006
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Minelab_Equinox_ 800 Minelab_CTX-3030 Minelab_Excal_1000 Minelab_Sovereign_GT Minelab_Safari Minelab_ETrac Whites_Beach_Hunter_ID Fisher_1235_X
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On my Excal many times I have a target that it doesn't see in desc mode till I remove couple scoops of sand. All metal is deeper..

I use 15" Coils, I already have coverage I want depth as gold sinks till something stops it...

Use no discrimination, if you use discrimination your discriminating out some gold.
 

bigscoop

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Jun 4, 2010
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Wherever there be treasure!
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The full potential of Excal will continue to expand as the user becomes more and more familiar with the machine and it's responses. Where you being with this machine will be nowhere near where you eventually end if you put in enough time and study. In the beginning you learn your machine and its responses, in the end these things will become so routine you can usually call your recoveries before they are ever attempted. But as with any machine, when in doubt, dig. :thumbsup:
 

treasure diver ct

Jr. Member
Mar 6, 2015
71
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I only hunt in pp mode if I'm not getting many signals, I find it does go slightly deeper with pp, I also sometimes get my machine to null / dirty hum over iron then if Im sweeping sometimes the normal threshold hold tone will come back without sounding will switch to pp and normally there is a deeper target under the coil, will dig till my disc can sound on that target then I listen if it's good or bad,
 

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