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.
