Excal II on dry land, give up?

[dr_pangloss]

I have been doing a lot of local hunting with my excal. In trashy areas with a lot of aluminum, it's just very hard to know whether or not to dig. I often get good sounding tones on nails, kinda like good sounding then cut off, which at times has meant iron and something interesting. It's also very hard to pin point, and I have to dig a large hole. It's difficult going from pinpoint mode and back to disc, the knobs are hard to turn and the more you mess with it, the more I worry it could flood later. Add to that the super slow recovery...

There's no way I can all-metal in these construction sites and stuff. I'd like to know if beach hunting excal owners buy an AT pro for inland or is there something I am missing? It's very hard to differentiate foil and aluminum trash from other objects with the excal II.

I haven't really used an AT Pro.. with the excal, a deep can sounds like a shallower decent target. Sometimes this thing makes a massive object deep like the tooth from a backho sound like a shallow good target. Don't other detectors tell you depth and useful information and not just a tone only when you're swinging? Don't they make iron noises instead of nullifying all your audio? Also better recovery?

Thanks, I have maybe 40-50 hours use on my excal, but still pretty noobish.

 

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[ARC]

Try setting your discrim to 2.. sens at 6ish... and see if that helps a bit.

I have a saying when it comes to spots like what you are describing... "a trashy site is a trashy site".

You are gonna have to just dig it all in order to find anything other than trash.

There are detectors that are better for these type of areas that allows you to "notch" out certain signals... but the X2 is obviously not one.

Hope you work it out. best of luck.

 

[OBN]

I have a few thousand hours on the Excalibur and have to say I would be lost using it on land. I would suggest unless it is a Relic site to get a land machine. And the way you tell depth with the Excalibur is turn it to AM and use it like the sand shark.. shape, size, sign strength, chirps, So much more information there and most never use it... and turn the pod around if your going to hunt and switch between mods. Much easier just reaching over with your grip hand and turning. I also would suggest checking your orings once ever few months....specially on the on/off and disc/pp knobs.. very easy to do..

 

[KirkS]

Just my opinion here, and we all know what an opinion is worth....

If I lived in Raleigh, and went hunting regularly on land and at the salt beaches, I wouldn't own a specialized machine. A land machine won't be the best in the water, and a water machine won't be the best for the land.

I'm a creature of simplicity, and I would only want one machine that I can use, learn, and be comfortable and confident in both situations. There is only one machine (that I know of) that would fit that bill, and it's the CTX3030. It also will give you something you're not used to in salt; discrimination.

So if you're planning on doing about a 50/50 mix of land and salt, I'd sell the Excal, and buy a 3030. But that's just me.

If you're doing 90% salt, and only 10% land, keep the Excal, and for land anything would be fine, and probably a Compadre or a Mojave would be my choice.

I think it really depends on your expected use, as always.