Sweep Speed - Sov GT vs. Excal

[SurfPro]

I've been reading the old posts, all the way back to 2005. There's plenty of remarks regarding the benefit of a really slow sweep speed using the Sov. It's never mentioned in regards to the Excal. I'm using pretty much the same sweep speed with the Sov that I used with my Dual Field, it seems to be working out ok. Being primarily a beach hunter, I've found that the goodies are usually in a concentrated area. Is there really a benefit to going that slow on the beach? Unless your lucky, one may never find the zone that way. The individuals that I've observed with the Excal both on the beach and here on videos (Oldbeechnut, GravediggerMax) are not walking at a snails pace, but seem to be moving right along. Is there a difference between the Sov and Excal? I understood that they were pretty much the same machine, besides the waterproof housing for the Excal.

Regards,
SP

 

[Marty]

At the Beach, I tend to go a little faster (using all metal) until i hit 'the zone' i then go real slow & work the patch. I think you can swing a little faster in 'all metal' .
Cheers

 

[SurfPro]

At the Beach, I tend to go a little faster (using all metal) until i hit 'the zone' i then go real slow & work the patch. I think you can swing a little faster in 'all metal' .
Cheers

Hey Marty,

Is that using an Excal or a Sov?

Best,
SP

 

[Beachnut]

I have both the Excal ll and Sov. GT. I find the Excal ll can handle a faster sweep speed than the GT as it seems to recover from null's much faster than my GT. The GT is a couple years old where as the Excal is just 3 months old. (I Just sent the Excal in for repairs as the battery cable has a bad connection at the bat pod and it is causing it to turn on, off, on!) The GT's slow speed is made up by having a 10 x 15" SEF coil on it so one sweep of the GT is like 1 and a half sweep with the 10" coil on the Excal. I think the trick is to sweep and walk at a medium clip until you start hearing nulls, then slow way down as might be "the zone"!

 

[kered]

Where i hunt I can't do that speed as in the videos either, i would miss too much, but i can go a little faster in all metal than in disc with the excalibur2, with the sovereign not much difference between the depth on either mode but the same speed gain in AM, in disc you will start to null on nothing if you go too fast or try using too much sens(excali too) in the water you can't swing too fast due to water resistence, unless your built like popeye.
Using the Sov on a dual field sweep speed i would say is too fast, especially if your in disc mode, i can't even use my Etrac at that speed and i don't swing the DF fast, now the F75 is another ball game you need the faster swing to get the depth and better ID

 

[Marty]

Hey SP, that's with my trusty Sov XS2a , I've just got myself a GT & i'm keen to give it an outing at the beach & see how it goes in all metal tracking. The pinpoint all metal threshold on the XS2a can get a bit erratic at my beaches but it has still produced many great finds, I'm hoping the GTs tracking mode will give me a super smooth threshold to bring even more goodies.
Cheers mate!

 

[Neil]

Where i hunt I can't do that speed as in the videos either, i would miss too much, but i can go a little faster in all metal than in disc with the excalibur2, with the sovereign not much difference between the depth on either mode but the same speed gain in AM, in disc you will start to null on nothing if you go too fast or try using too much sens(excali too) in the water you can't swing too fast due to water resistence, unless your built like popeye.
Using the Sov on a dual field sweep speed i would say is too fast, especially if your in disc mode, i can't even use my Etrac at that speed and i don't swing the DF fast, now the F75 is another ball game you need the faster swing to get the depth and better ID

you can speed up the etrac swing a bit by just using a little bit of quickmask and forget the programs(if your using a program). and I find I can slow down the sweep of my f75 by using all metal motion and still get great depth and ID.

regarding the sov/excal I agree, you can get a faster sweep in all metal on either one over disc, they seem to be the same circuitry.

 

[Critterhunter]

I've read that the GT can be swept faster if you hunt in silent search mode rather than threshold. It might say that in the manual as well (?) but I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere. I haven't tried it, though.

I'm still very new to this machine so keep that in mind, but I'm finding that the machine wants a fast sweep speed over a target in order to pull the best audio and ID out of it. I'm not sure if that's just in my head because I'm used to doing this with my QXT to reach a bit deeper once I locate a target. I know for sure that the Sovereign "wiggle" on deeper targets seems to prefer it. But, I'm also finding this somewhat true on shallow targets. If I linger over the signal too long the audio and VDI will tend to wander off and not give me the best picture of what the target is. With a medium to fast sweep I seem to get the best signal out of the target. This is all different though (sweeping over a target you know is there) than what the best sweep speed would be while searching for the next target...

I can get away with a faster sweep speed than most would probably recommend. When the speed reaches the point to where the threshold starts to null out too much I back it down a hair. I listen for any changes in the threshold including any nulls and then will stop and investigate the target. I keep hearing people say that depth will be lost unless you slow to a crawl but I haven't noticed that (yet). I'm wondering if people mean to slow down or you might miss a target that will offer a more threshold changing response than it would if you just glanced over it quickly. So long as I'm keen on investigating any threshold changes I don't see a problem, but as I said I'm very new to this machine. I think next time I'm air testing I'll see what kind of response I get from a coin at the fringes of detection range by sweeping slow and fast over it. That might be a good idea to try on a deeper target next time I'm in the field too.

If anybody can clearify exactly why they feel they must swing the coil very slow to notice the deepest of signals while searching I'd like to hear more on that. I always heard that BBS and FBS technology is supposed to need more time to process what the coil is passing over than a typical VLF machine.

 

[tomcatpl]

i got my excal 1000 not to long time ago (switching from a garrett gti 1500)i find more stuff when i slow down my swing and yes the wiggle does tells me a lot ... that after i read the 2 books "treasure hunting with minelab metal detectors" and "advanced field methods for the minelab excalibur:theory and practice"

 

[kered]

Where i hunt I can't do that speed as in the videos either, i would miss too much, but i can go a little faster in all metal than in disc with the excalibur2, with the sovereign not much difference between the depth on either mode but the same speed gain in AM, in disc you will start to null on nothing if you go too fast or try using too much sens(excali too) in the water you can't swing too fast due to water resistence, unless your built like popeye.
Using the Sov on a dual field sweep speed i would say is too fast, especially if your in disc mode, i can't even use my Etrac at that speed and i don't swing the DF fast, now the F75 is another ball game you need the faster swing to get the depth and better ID

you can speed up the etrac swing a bit by just using a little bit of quickmask and forget the programs(if your using a program). and I find I can slow down the sweep of my f75 by using all metal motion and still get great depth and ID.

regarding the sov/excal I agree, you can get a faster sweep in all metal on either one over disc, they seem to be the same circuitry.

I know burt its still not a fast machine compared to some