Excal on Land

[Neil]

I find the Sovereigns to be excellent in most land sites I have seen and that included some very trashy site that is littered with Pull tabs and the old rusty bottle caps. To begin with I hated those trashy sites as many were for me, but once I got to know the Sovereign I was picking out coins in with this trash with no problem. I use the tones first and you have to go slow and use the 180 meter and use the right coil for the area. The coil I do the best with in these sites is the older 8 inch coinsearch coil and the S-8 of Sun Rays which seem to even work better in the trash, but signals seem to be smaller and linger lees than the coinsearch coil.
With a Sovereign and the Explorers and E-Trac you have to swing slower and listen to what the detector is telling you and if you don't you will miss some great stuff. To me the Signals are harder to hear on the Explorer, but find the E-Trac is better for me with the pitch hold. I have used many different detectors over the 38 years of detecting including most top of the line detectors of Garrett, Whites and Fishers plus some others too like the Teknetics (Mark 1) and find a lot of deeper coins and coins close to trash in these same spots now with the Sovereigns I was unable to get before. I have even got signals of a deep coin others try with their top of the line detectors and tell me there is nothing there or iron only for me to dig a deep wheatie or silver coins.
The secret is knowing the Sovereign or the Explorer or E-Trac and getting to know what it is telling you, then you will see why so many swear by the Sovereigns, Explorers and E-Tracs for coin detectors and picking out so much more others have missed.
Myself if I was going to do land hunting I would not use a Excal and buy a Sovereign even if it was used as I feel by using a meter to go along with the tones it is great for coin hunting and dig so much less trash and able to pick up those super deep coins better. I also feel the Excal is heavier to swing in the stock configuration plus feel the chance of doing something to the seals might make it leak if used for water hunting.

Does anyone else notice used Sovereign prices have went up and hard to find compared to a few years ago. Could it be others are getting to see what these Sovereigns can do and keeping them and those that do sell want good money for them?

Hey Rick I agree with you, one has to spend the time to learn the machine. The Etrac to me is a bit above all the other minelabs with its quicker response between targets. The explorer SE I like alot also. As Ive posted on here before, would love to see a sov with an adjustable iron mask and a speeded up response. What I dont care for on the sov is the pitch hold, would much rather it be like the explorer or etrac in that it return to a preset threshold. On the beach if Im hunting my sov in disc, I find myself often reseting the threshold tone with my scoop because the lower iron tone is unpleasant. Also to reaquire a deep faint target I find its best to have the threshold reset so when I rescan where I heard the faint response, I want to hear that threshold change again.

The Sovs are climbing up in price, would be interesting to know if minelab is selling enough of them to keep them around or if a new updated version is right around the corner. The Advantages went up in price, then you rarely saw posts about them, then they were discontinued......hoping the Sov isnt following in those footsteps. The Sov selling price is higher than before but I think percentage wise they have actually dropped in value. Even the Explorer SE, new are like $1200 and you can get them used for under $700 in excellent condition.

How do you like your AT Pro? I found some gold with the one I had this past summer, really a nice machine, especially for the money. Balanced out well on the wet salt sand at the ocean.
How do you like yours?

Neil

 

[dewcon4414]

Im not a big fan of the pitch hold either, it concerns me i might loose targets as the threshold changes and gets louder. The Exp has pitch hold and ive used it when doing some desert hunting to pick up tones i might other wise miss. Id rather they had the threshold adjustment like on the SE. It allows you to adjust it better for your hearing or get pretty close to other machines you have used.

They must be selling a good many Sov because they just raised the price on them didnt they? Tells me the Xcal and Sov has a pretty good piece of the beach market and they thought they could use the ole supply and demand on us. These forums really have kicked up the demand on Xcal, Sov, Et, and the DF with gold prices. What im hoping is the newness wares off and more of them gets tucked away for the winter and end up 4 sell.

I think the problem with using the Xcal for me in the park would be the preset IM. I like being able to adjust the machines ability to react to iron. The Xcal seems to be a pretty narrow focused machine but i dont know how it reacts to targets in close proximity or how mineralization combined with the preset IM might affect it. Its a BBS like a Sov, but without some of the needed adjustments for park use. Can you hunt with it.... you can hunt with anything once you learn how, but is it the best choice for what you are doing. If they did a water proof Sov and an Xcal which would be your choice? So they arent quit the same.

Dew

 

[Tony in FL]

The Sovs are climbing up in price, would be interesting to know if minelab is selling enough of them to keep them around or if a new updated version is right around the corner. The Advantages went up in price, then you rarely saw posts about them, then they were discontinued......hoping the Sov isnt following in those footsteps. The Sov selling price is higher than before but I think percentage wise they have actually dropped in value. Even the Explorer SE, new are like $1200 and you can get them used for under $700 in excellent condition.
Neil

I also wonder about the future of the Sovereign. I am a big fan of the Excalibur so I have considered getting a Sovereign. The price increase as well as Minelab dropping the digital target meter lessened the appeal of buying one and makes me wonder if they are going to be phased out in the not too distant future. It would be nice if they came out with a new Sovereign that had minimal water proofing, such as what comes with an AT Pro. Of course then it might be too much like an Excal.

 

[desmond]

Drew, makes lot of sense. I should just buy an E-trac or Sov. Will when I get the cash. I don't want to break mt excal using it on land either, cause i love it in the water. Des

 

[Rick(ND)]

Neil,

Never got out with my AT pro more then a couple of times and it was only to try it out to see what I could do with it.. It seems OK and has some possibility in being one I would keep around but need more time with it and do some actual comparing with some others and their detectors. With a bit of luck next year I hope me health will be better so I can get out more than I have in the last 2 years.
I love the pitch hold and like you hate the low tone when going over iron, but for me as soon as it see any other target the threshold changes even if it is a slight signal I can hear the change. With the Explorers that threshold would change too, but for small targets or deep it seem so fast and back to the normal threshold I found it real hard to hear when it seen anything, but that could be just me and my hearing. On the SE Pro and the E-Trac I was able to go to the pitch hold which worked out better for me as I could tell when it seen a weaker signal.

I remember when the Sovereign original, the XS (one of my Favorites) and the XS2 were a lot on the forums for around $200 - $300 used, now most are asking around $400 for a used one if you can find one, so like I say I feel more have seen what the Sovereign can do and are keeping them. One of the problem with the XS,XS2 and the XS2a is finding rechargeable batteries for them, used to be able to get them for the XS plug in type and convert the XS2 and the XS2a to the plug in type, but the place we were getting them from no longer makes them. I feel the Sovereigns will go down in the hall of fame as one of the best detectors ever made along with the detector that was ahead of any others in the 90s.

Rick

 

[Neil]

Rick I agree with you about the earlier sovs and the problem with getting batteries for them. the people who make the battery bundles for the excal could probably do the same for the earlier sovs. I never liked the slide in system minelab used on the sovs after the xs model but the plug in one on the original and xs were great. Its also an easy conversion to do.
I would grab one of the older sovs again if I could locate one in super shape, preferably an XS model. Ive read several times where people have said the tones were broader on the older ones and I have had them all but never noticed that and never had both to compare on targets. If the older ones had a broader tone range then I dont remember it.
Back in the early 90s me and a buddy went to a local dealer and bought Sovs, they were nearly $800 at that time, he gave us no discount that I remember but I think he threw in one of those trash pouches or something like that. Sovs were originally pretty expensive if you couldnt get any discounting. The excal wasnt out yet and I can remember the guy calling us when it did come out and we went up and saw it and I forget the price but it was beyond what we were willing to spend at the time so neither of us bought one. Plus at that time we were water hunting with 1280X Aquanauts and they worked pretty well for this area. I remember how they floated right next to you in the water when you are digging a target.
Duriing the 90s I dont think there was any better detector than the Sov or Excal but close to it was the CZ which was wildly popular. I always wonder how good that detector would have been if Fisher could have developed a DD coil to work on it but Ive read they just couldnt do it so your stuck with just the three concentrics for it. I forget the total count on how many coils are available for the sov, but its gotta be 10 or more.
Hopefully next year you can get out a little more with the AT pro, its a pretty good detector.
Neil

 

[tippyhound]

I've only used my Excalibur once on land and it was a local lake park. The lake attendant told me a woman had lost a wedding ring by the swing set in the park and they had spent two days looking for the ring with no luck.

I went out there one evening to look for her ring with the Excal. and around the swing set I found numerous nickels and pull tabs plus other coins. I don't know how this guy had his detector set up but if he wasn't digging nickles and pull tabs he was waisting his time. And no I didn't find her ring either, I figure some one spotted it on top of the ground and took it home. Rick IL.

 

[dave44]

I took the Excal to a place that I have found many flat buttons, US buttons and 1 Virginia button, bullets, Indian heads and a few matron heads today. I did not find much, not surprising because I hit it hard with my XLT, then E-trac, and with my newer At pro. I took it because my At needed new batteries and I wanted to test it.

My experience is that the Excal is pretty nice if there is a separation from trash, I like when it sounds off and I know that it is not Iron! But, if a target is to close to iron the target nulls out too!
To test it I placed a penny on a small bit of barb wire sticking out of a tree, air test sort of thing. The penny was invisible!

My point,, I still love it on the Beach. Not the dirt.