Excal-1000
- Thread starter guzz1
- Start date
Sandman
Gold Member
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2005
- Messages
- 13,408
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- Location
- In Michigan now.
- Detector(s) used
- Excal 1000, Excal II, Sovereign GT, CZ-20, Tiger Shark, Tejon, GTI 1500, Surfmaster Pulse, CZ6a, DFX, AT PRO, Fisher 1235, Surf PI Pro, 1280-X, many more because I enjoy learning them. New Garrett Ca
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
New owners of the Excal are better off starting out with Sens. set in Auto till they have a few hours on it. It can be daunting to hear all those sounds and not know what is happening down there. You will get almost as much depth at 11 o'clock than Auto, but Auto is smoother operating. Disc. is fine on 3. Volume at what is comfortable for you.
Find a clean spot of ground and wave the coil over various targets, including nails on top of gold rings. Later you will remember some of the tones, but now you want to notice how the sound starts out and closes down. Don't whip the grass, move it steady and keep the coil level.
Good Luck with the new toy........
Sandman
Find a clean spot of ground and wave the coil over various targets, including nails on top of gold rings. Later you will remember some of the tones, but now you want to notice how the sound starts out and closes down. Don't whip the grass, move it steady and keep the coil level.
Good Luck with the new toy........
Sandman
Attachments
My two cents worth..................
Settings can vary depending on the salt content, black sand, and if your in the water or not. I personally never set my disc above 1.5 and my sen is set between Auto to 11-1, (based on clock positions) it all depends on how stable it is. I turn my volume to max, and my thresh to as soft as possible and still hear it. If I was to describe it, it would sound like a mosquito or bee flying.
Try Auto first, if you start getting a lot of constant false signals (constant squawking), move the sen clock wise till it settles down and becomes stable. Usually anywhere between 10-1 o'clock position. Don't worry about losing depth, it will still see plenty deep enough.
When you get a signal, sweep it left to right, then turn 90 degrees of target and sweep it again left to right. If you still have a good signal then dig it. Dig all signals till you learn the sounds. You will learn what pop-tops and bottle caps sound and act like. BUT REMEMBER, sometimes gold will make the same sound so if it was me, I would not skip too many targets thinking they are poptops. There is a chance your walking away from a nice gold ring.
Iron will null out and or sometimes you get a signal sweeping to the left, but none to the right, or you get a signal sweeping left and right, but when you turn 90 degrees you null out with no signal.
This is where a nice BIG scoop comes in real handy, your recovery of the target is fairly quick.
Practice, with it, but it's not hard, it took me no time at all to learn the tones, and I am not that fast.
Please remember, always fill your holes even on the beach.
Settings can vary depending on the salt content, black sand, and if your in the water or not. I personally never set my disc above 1.5 and my sen is set between Auto to 11-1, (based on clock positions) it all depends on how stable it is. I turn my volume to max, and my thresh to as soft as possible and still hear it. If I was to describe it, it would sound like a mosquito or bee flying.
Try Auto first, if you start getting a lot of constant false signals (constant squawking), move the sen clock wise till it settles down and becomes stable. Usually anywhere between 10-1 o'clock position. Don't worry about losing depth, it will still see plenty deep enough.
When you get a signal, sweep it left to right, then turn 90 degrees of target and sweep it again left to right. If you still have a good signal then dig it. Dig all signals till you learn the sounds. You will learn what pop-tops and bottle caps sound and act like. BUT REMEMBER, sometimes gold will make the same sound so if it was me, I would not skip too many targets thinking they are poptops. There is a chance your walking away from a nice gold ring.
Iron will null out and or sometimes you get a signal sweeping to the left, but none to the right, or you get a signal sweeping left and right, but when you turn 90 degrees you null out with no signal.
This is where a nice BIG scoop comes in real handy, your recovery of the target is fairly quick.
Practice, with it, but it's not hard, it took me no time at all to learn the tones, and I am not that fast.
Please remember, always fill your holes even on the beach.
syko
Sr. Member
guzz1 said:
good price? fill us in....thought it was locked down..
good luck,,are the headphones yellow? Why couldn't they stick to blue or black..in case they fall in the water yellow is easier to spot than blue?
Not a fan of yellow..only good for bananas and cabs.
Just FYI, the extra 2 year warranty comes from Minelab when you buy an Excal, it is not something Kellyco threw in.
Dixie Digger
Hero Member
actually you get a factory 2 year warranty from Minelab...then the extended warranty you pay for.$90....Excal can be bought for $90 less if you dont want the extended warranty.but i think its a good idea to buy it.Treasure_Hunter said:
What I was referring to is that ever so often Minelab gives the extended warrenty away free with the detector purchase.
I got the 2 years additional extended warranty on my Sovereign GT for free when I bought it. (It has a 4 year warranty) It was given for free by Minelab, not the dealer. I bought my Sov from TonyinCT. On the Excal you would get 3 years total with the extended warranty. Sorry I wasn't clear.
I got the 2 years additional extended warranty on my Sovereign GT for free when I bought it. (It has a 4 year warranty) It was given for free by Minelab, not the dealer. I bought my Sov from TonyinCT. On the Excal you would get 3 years total with the extended warranty. Sorry I wasn't clear.
Murph
Full Member
When I got my sov I ran sens at ten and had no problems on the beaches here on the west coast of fl. If after you have hunted for awhile you start to get some falseing that sounds like faint coin tones especially at the ends of your sweeps pop the coil cover off and clean it and you will be back to normal.
I don't bother with any disc at the beach. The tones should do it for you. Ignore the bottle cap burps, nulls and extremely low tones of low grade foil. I probably get ten to twenty nulls bottle cap burps per item that I dig. There is a bunch of avoided digging right there that you would be most likely doing with a pi machine.
For air testing indoors or in the backyard around power lines and wireless home networks etc. Setting sens in auto or all the way to its lowest may be necessary. Don't let any of this worry you like it did me. When you hit the beach the machine will be stable and deep and a joy to use. I would dig all targets but the nulls until you get confident with the tone ID. The machine is deep to. Faint tones are often good targets at 12+ inches. You will be tempted to give up on targets like these thinking there is no way it can be anything but a can or large piece of can shred when out pops a coin or other target. If the target appears to be coin size keep digging.
Cans and larger pieces of can slaw will have what I call carry over signal (hopefully thats the correct term for it). Meaning that from a few feet away they will give some faint tones as you swing toward them and then loud tone when you get over the top of them. Toss your scoop down and start swinging toward it like your hunting to hear this effect. Good targets/coin ring size targets seldom do this only giveing nice smooth tone when you get the coil directly over them. Shallow can slaw up to around eight inches or so will usually have a "raspy" sound at the begining and end of the tone. Once agiain good targets of consistent alloy will not sound like this but be nice and smooth. Kind of like the difference between a opera singer and what you hear on amature night at the local pub, for lack of a bettter analogy.
I don't bother with any disc at the beach. The tones should do it for you. Ignore the bottle cap burps, nulls and extremely low tones of low grade foil. I probably get ten to twenty nulls bottle cap burps per item that I dig. There is a bunch of avoided digging right there that you would be most likely doing with a pi machine.
For air testing indoors or in the backyard around power lines and wireless home networks etc. Setting sens in auto or all the way to its lowest may be necessary. Don't let any of this worry you like it did me. When you hit the beach the machine will be stable and deep and a joy to use. I would dig all targets but the nulls until you get confident with the tone ID. The machine is deep to. Faint tones are often good targets at 12+ inches. You will be tempted to give up on targets like these thinking there is no way it can be anything but a can or large piece of can shred when out pops a coin or other target. If the target appears to be coin size keep digging.
Cans and larger pieces of can slaw will have what I call carry over signal (hopefully thats the correct term for it). Meaning that from a few feet away they will give some faint tones as you swing toward them and then loud tone when you get over the top of them. Toss your scoop down and start swinging toward it like your hunting to hear this effect. Good targets/coin ring size targets seldom do this only giveing nice smooth tone when you get the coil directly over them. Shallow can slaw up to around eight inches or so will usually have a "raspy" sound at the begining and end of the tone. Once agiain good targets of consistent alloy will not sound like this but be nice and smooth. Kind of like the difference between a opera singer and what you hear on amature night at the local pub, for lack of a bettter analogy.
guzz1
Bronze Member
- #18
Thread Owner
HEY MURPH , Thanks a bunch for the tips . I would love to hit beach acess 5 sunday morning to give the new MD a try. I have to work tonight , late . So I don't know if i'll be up to go early am. I'm gonna hit lido monday for sure . I might go to Siesta sunday morning if I can get up early... GUZZ1
Murph
Full Member
I will probably be at access five tell around ten Sunday morning. Not expecting much. Last weeks chilly weather and a high tide Sun morning will probably make for some meager finds. There was some wave action with this last front so there may be a decent cut somewhere to work over. There is always a variety of targets in the dry in front of the terrace condo and probably a good place to get in some practice on the tones with your new machine.
As far as lido goes I have had my best luck on the north end right after you get around ST. Armand's. Look for the cuts and hit the tops and bottoms of those. A cut is a area where the waves have stripped away some sand and looks like a step has formed as you walk toward the water. Hit anywhere the waves have pushed up a bunch of shells in one spot too.
As far as lido goes I have had my best luck on the north end right after you get around ST. Armand's. Look for the cuts and hit the tops and bottoms of those. A cut is a area where the waves have stripped away some sand and looks like a step has formed as you walk toward the water. Hit anywhere the waves have pushed up a bunch of shells in one spot too.
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