Tarsacci And Excalibur

[basstrackerman]

 Did some testing on the Gulf beaches with my Tarsacci and my buddies Excalibur. He was running the 15" nel coil.  I buried a 14k ring with a string tied to it at 14" deep in damp sand.  Tarsacci had a nice clear signal and the xcal did ok also. Now wet sand in water..... 12" deep nothing on either, as I pulled up the string the ring would be on edge and at the 10" mark tarsacci picked it up fine, but xcal did not. He has been running the xcal for a couple years and I'm new to tarsacci . Settings for the most part didn't change the way tarsacci was able to go very deep in dry sand , but I did lose a few inches in sand under water. I will do my best to figure out which settings work best.  Very quiet machine for sure.  Very impressed with it's ability to ID iron.  But a 10" ring on edge and the xcal couldn't see it?  Is that normal?  Thanks for any input. 

[Chase Goldman]

1 hour ago, basstrackerman said:

Very impressed with it's ability to ID iron. 

So am I.  If it says its def ferrous, its def ferrous.  If it says its def non-ferrous, it is def non-ferrous (i.e., it doesn't get fooled at depth with consistently up or down averaged TIDs).  I am working on better understanding what it is telling me on iffy targets, one way hits etc.

1 hour ago, basstrackerman said:

But a 10" ring on edge and the xcal couldn't see it?  Is that normal?  Thanks for any input. 

See this video.  Settings matter with the Excal (pinpoint, Auto sense, or manual sense and setting).  Depth limit with the Excal flat-on with the 15" appeared to be about 10", so edge on result is not surprising especially with the 15" attack which will have less sensitivity to targets with a small cross section, than a smaller Excal coil.  Pretty impressive when you think about it as the Tarsacci is only running an 8" wide coil.  I've picked up nickels at >> 12 inches with the Equinox and the stock coil in wet saturated sand.  So all 3 detectors will get decent depth in wet sand.

[basstrackerman]

Thank you Chase.  The tarsacci was impressive in the sand dry or wet or under water.  Ran very stable.  One thing I didn't like about the xcal was the noises it made . While we were testing on the ring the xcal would make the same tone in several areas around the buried ring.  Had to have been the settings.. very hard to tell if ring was sounding off or ground minerals.  This was when we had several inches of standing water over the buried ring.  The tarsacci made zero noises unless over target and it was obvious .  

[dewcon4414]

Glad to see you are out there with the new machine testing.  A note.... Xcals do very, thats why i prefer the Blues.  Not as chatty and IMO in PP gets a little better depth.   We did our testing with a 3 gram 14K between the MDT and Nox.   Another thing we found is the Nox can loose targets in the surf.... not so much with the MDT.   The Xcal and MDT are kind of unique in that one HATES iron and the other Likes it.   What would improve the Xcal is a FAST recovery in disc mode.   There is no recovery in TRUE PP mode.  On edge rings .... theres just not a lot of MEAT there to detect.  It seems most of the salt water detectors .... once they hit the water out a little deeper .... all things become equal in depth on targets.   If you can squeeze out even a couple of inches with the MDT thats a win here in Fl .... thats about what most PIs get.   NOW...... what will that 12" coil do for us?   Drop some settings you are using.   Are you in the St Pete area?

[basstrackerman]

Good morning Dewcon. Settings were salt 30-35, threshold 0 to -3, frequency 9-12 mostly but tested all, ground balance 545 ish it stayed around them numbers when checking. Sensitivity 7,8,9,. Black sand off, tracking off, that should be it I'm thinking.  I'm here a couple miles north of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Alabama. White sugar sand beaches. I tested all modes also. Mostly stayed in all metal...  One thing I forgot to test is disc , I had it set at -30 and didn't change it, but wanted to try some different settings.  I like what I saw and heard.  I use Tony Eisenhower headphones mostly but did try the Bluetooth setup with a trond receiver velcrowed to back of control box and used my Nox headphones.  Both set ups sounded great. My unit has no speaker but has the original battery cap set up.  In the dry sand I picked up several nickels well over a foot deep and was very happy with that.  I'm extremely happy that this machine knows what iron is.  Many don't and false on alot of it, Nox included.  On the Nox you can have a decent tone and numbers in the low 20's or even higher in the 30's on a piece of rusty metal.  The MDT may give a semi good tone but so far numbers were always negative .  .

[dewcon4414]

I prefer the wrap around of iron to those high digits.  Nox can put it right in the middle of gold country.  Have you noticed aluminum will do the same thing when deep in AM.  A pull tab normally is around 6... but will jump to say 26.  This is a good gold machine in the water ... I watch 1 to 10 digits and gold stays pretty steady over trash.  No speaker... I assume he waterproofed yours then?  I took added precautions.... I have a nylon sticker which covers that area as well. No fan of the solid pings and pings.... but love AM.   It’s really a fun machine with a good target zone for gold rings.    Where you really don’t have to dig coins, deep trash that upscales or coins.