Buy a WOT coil for the Excal or a Whites PI machine? Warning Long!!:crylol:

[OUTATIME]

I haven't been finding much in the way of gold this year (they just renourished the beach)
Hint, if they renourish your beach...Move!!!

My finds have been cut in half and now everything(including gold and coins) is falling down through the soft sand into a bottomless pit of nothingness, which is much further than the Excalibur was ever designed to detect!!

So recently I've been going to another beach, which just happened to be renourished one year prior to my normal beach. Oh the Joy!!
Well anyway, this beach is at least starting to show signs of life, I've been getting deep quarters and some silver jewelry, but no old gold just fresh drops.

Me and my buddy have been hitting this beach and he has a WOT coil on his Excal, where I have a Sunray S12 coil. I've been noticing that he gets twice as many signals as I've been getting, really deep stuff, like quarters two feet down!!! (P.S. He keeps the coil 6" off the ground at all times and walks fast) As a matter of fact on a few occasions he has asked me to find quarters because he loses the signal. I can hear them in pinpoint but not in discriminate. I think the reason I'm able to retrieve them is just because of my digging skills, got to be fast to get that sand out before the hole fills back in.

I feel the Excalibur is a great machine, it's able to find quarters at 24"(with the right coil) but so what! What about gold? Most of the gold I find, unless it's some big class ring is usually less that 8" deep. Usually if I haven't dug up the target by the second scoop then you can bet your bottom dollar it's probably not gold. Therefore finding gold usually depends on how well you can read the beach.
Don't get me wrong, I know to walk slow, swing slow and listen for those faint signals. Trust me I've dug my fair share of deep gold sometimes over a foot deep. But I need something to penetrate all this deep sand. And I can only think of two things that will do it - a WOT coil for the Excal or a PI machine (i.e. Whites PI Pro/Dual field).

A couple of years ago I actually purchased a PI Pro (new) and decided to give it a test run (prior to the beach being renourished). First I gridded an area of beach with my Excalibur dragging my scoop behind me digging every good signal and marking every iron signal. Then I went back over the same area using the Whites PI to see if I got anymore targets. The result - nothing! The Excalibur got everything on the beach except the iron! I promptly sold the Whites after a couple more tests proved the same thing.

But now I'm wondering if I made a hasty decision, maybe I didn't give the PI a fair shake, after all I didn't learn to use the excal overnight! And now beach conditions have certainly changed, there's very little iron on either beach now! So, I won't be digging up very many nuisance iron signals.

In any case I need something that I can get in the water with, right now the only place anybody is finding anything at (either beach) is in the water. The WOT coil is massive to try and swing in the water, that's why I'm kind of leaning toward the PI. It's small enough to cut through the water and it will pickup on gold chains(or so I'm told) plus there are even fewer trashy iron signals in the water here to dig.

Help, I'm drowning in sand!!

OUTATIME


Any thoughts on the subject?
What's the deepest gold you've ever found using a WOT coil.
What's the deepest gold you've ever found with a whites PI pro/ dual field?

Any feedback would be appreciated!

 

[grumpyolman]

IMHO and from what I have been reading all over the forums and from cjcs book, the PI is going to be a deeper machine. There appears to be a learning curve to use one effectively. If you learned the nuances of an Excalibur you certainly can learn the same about the PI if you give it a fair shake.

Another variable for you to answer or consider. How turbid is the water in which you will hunt? The bigger the sail (coil) the more the wind (water) will impact it.

Somewhere someone will have to do the waterproofing of the coil connections if you don't get a water dedicated machine and coil. Some have done the WOT fine and others have ruined theirs.

Just more things to put on the scale and weigh.

Maybe a PM to cjc will get better info... Jim

 

[sand turner]

I used to use a Sov XS/WOT combo on the beach and did ok. I moved to PI's because I wanted more depth/less weight.

Some Pi's will give you more depth over that combo. I'm not convinced the Whites will despite it's popularity.

 

[GraveDiggerMax-VaBch-Va]

n/t

 

[Bobbie]

You have a slower response time with the SunRay but it does go just as deep as the WOT. Turn your threshold to silence and your volume way up and listen for that slight whisper. Your target may be as much as 5 feet away from where you are swinging......go back and double check where you thought you heard that slight sound and zero in on it. This takes time and practice and if there is gold you will find it.

 

[AUDuke]

I used a Ex with a WOT and it was a good combo, but I think that a PI with the proper coil will go deeper. I also think that all PIs are NOT created equal.

 

[Scotto's Excal]

I have an Excal with a WOT, and have had success with it. A PI machine with a bit smaller coil would be easier to navigate in rough surf, but picks up everything. Depth will be comparative. They each have their +`s and -`s.

 

[OUTATIME]

n/t

 

[grumpyolman]

If you are thinking PI of any kind, get cjcs book on pulse power. It's $20 and all the things you will learn here, except owner bias, is explained in that book. If you don't like the idea of PI after reading the book you are only out $20 and can probably get half of that back in the classifieds. Jim

 

[UK Brian]

The Pro was the worse in the series as due to the constraints of the control box size Whites had to remove the pulse delay control to fit the gain control. This did not help with the black sand performance one bit.

The DF is better though not as good as some make out, it just seems far better than the Pro and its fairly cheap.You get what you pay for in Pulse machines as with most things.

 

[rehless]

Never used an Excalibur. Have three White pi units. Use them in fresh water. Using a scoop, you will be doing some serious digging, if you dig the whispers.
Often the signal with my Pro and with my Dual Field are almost my imagination. A fan or two of my hand and if the signal is still there, I'm after it. I don't
think I would like having to try to scoop as deep as some of my fanned targets are.