I am a beach hunter and thought that I pretty much kill it with my excal 1000 .Then there was that ONE day where I simply had it! A buddy recently switched to a 3030. After about an hr of hunting at the beach one day we met up to share the what we found. He had about 5x what I recovered. This was becoming a routine thing. I had enough.
With the excal if you get a solid tone you then only have your ears to figure if you want to dig it or not and usually I dug EVERY solid tone except for the obvious aluminum super low tone growl. It turns into a penny nightmare. It'll recover a penny nearly 2 ft down in the wet sand. That gets old fast. When my buddy came to show his finds he had 3 pennies. I had around 20. He also had about 20.00 in coins. I had 3.50..
After I was home and pacing about why he owns me at every hunt lately I watched a few ctx videos. I was sold w/the multiple target ID and the iron masking issues that were fixed. I made a call to KellyCo and 3 days later I had a CTX3030, a 11" coil and a 17" coil in hand. I did the o ring upgrades and bought a pro swing 45 harness.
My buddy was more than eager to help me and give me tips. Overwhelming actually coming from an excal where once your settings are set, they are....well.....set.. Then you just listen... My first 2 hrs at the beach were frustrating as hell. I felt like it was chatty, heavy and when we dropped a quarter about 12" down then buried it, I simply couldn't find it. I thought, "Why did I buy this POS?" I went home and watched a ton of UTube vids, read the book and took it out a few days later. I haven't hit any gold yet as I only have about 4 hrs on it but I can say this..... The last time I hit the beach, in 45 minutes I found 16 quarters that were DEEP, and about 4.00 in dimes and nickels. All were worn and only a few quarters were fresh drops. This stuff was passed by several detectorists as I know that this area gets hit hard by excal, AT PRO's, sovereigns, and a White's.
I was happy and I'm sure I'll get better at EVERY hunt. The biggest thing I've noticed so far is not to concentrate on numbers but just like the Excal, the solid tones, then look at your numbers. I did that and at first thought that if you get a solid tone, your numbers have to be a 12- something. NOT TRUE. I noticed that sometimes a solid tone will be a 9 to 13. Then when I dig it and get closer the numbers come back towards 12's. That can be confusing but now I have THREE ways to read a target instead of one. Audio, a marker on the screen, and a number... And I love avoiding those 12.37's . I'm loving it so far....
With the excal if you get a solid tone you then only have your ears to figure if you want to dig it or not and usually I dug EVERY solid tone except for the obvious aluminum super low tone growl. It turns into a penny nightmare. It'll recover a penny nearly 2 ft down in the wet sand. That gets old fast. When my buddy came to show his finds he had 3 pennies. I had around 20. He also had about 20.00 in coins. I had 3.50..
After I was home and pacing about why he owns me at every hunt lately I watched a few ctx videos. I was sold w/the multiple target ID and the iron masking issues that were fixed. I made a call to KellyCo and 3 days later I had a CTX3030, a 11" coil and a 17" coil in hand. I did the o ring upgrades and bought a pro swing 45 harness.
My buddy was more than eager to help me and give me tips. Overwhelming actually coming from an excal where once your settings are set, they are....well.....set.. Then you just listen... My first 2 hrs at the beach were frustrating as hell. I felt like it was chatty, heavy and when we dropped a quarter about 12" down then buried it, I simply couldn't find it. I thought, "Why did I buy this POS?" I went home and watched a ton of UTube vids, read the book and took it out a few days later. I haven't hit any gold yet as I only have about 4 hrs on it but I can say this..... The last time I hit the beach, in 45 minutes I found 16 quarters that were DEEP, and about 4.00 in dimes and nickels. All were worn and only a few quarters were fresh drops. This stuff was passed by several detectorists as I know that this area gets hit hard by excal, AT PRO's, sovereigns, and a White's.
I was happy and I'm sure I'll get better at EVERY hunt. The biggest thing I've noticed so far is not to concentrate on numbers but just like the Excal, the solid tones, then look at your numbers. I did that and at first thought that if you get a solid tone, your numbers have to be a 12- something. NOT TRUE. I noticed that sometimes a solid tone will be a 9 to 13. Then when I dig it and get closer the numbers come back towards 12's. That can be confusing but now I have THREE ways to read a target instead of one. Audio, a marker on the screen, and a number... And I love avoiding those 12.37's . I'm loving it so far....
