What am I doing Wrong??:rolleyes:

[bdahunter]

I found ring number 11 yesterday afternoon down at my favorite beach. A nice 14k gold men's band with brushed finish (pic to follow)
I know, 11 rings in 6 weeks so what's the problem with that??
All the rings are heavy gold, platinum or silver rings. What I would like to find are the finer ladie's rings and so far - Zilch in that department.
I'm very happy with my finds so far but I can't help but think that I'm doing somethig wrong when I'm out there swinging. My little beach has served up a lot of gold, so I find it hard to believe that only the guys are losing their rings.
I bow to the superior knowledge and experience of the more seasoned hunters. Please respond and let me know if this is all in my head or am I just not hunting right.

Good Luck out there at Surf Church,

BDA
Excal 1000

 

[Anonymous]

Most of the thin gold rings w/ stones that are lost by ladies are probably lost in the "Mommy" zone of the beach, where the water is only deep enough for the little ones to wade and splash.

Those thin gold rings usually come in as Foil, so you have to dig all foil hits.

 

[alex]

most rings i found are ladie's rings, i wish i had more man's rings(heavier and bigger). .

Alex.

 

[Martin(Qc)]

That would explain everything Maybe are you going a little fast and miss the fainter signals ? Or do you use an excalibut ? My friend has problems spotting the smallest gold with it. Anyhow, i like finding small gold, but gee do I prefer men's rings ! So far thaugh, i never got any platinum rings

 

[Martin(Qc)]

Forgot about that eventuality. It's true that most of the ladies rings are found in one or two feet deep water maximum. The mens are deepers... probably to watch for sharks and protect the familly. All in all we didn't move too mutch in the evolution since the cave mens wonder where the sharks would come from in a lake beach thaugh... watch for those big trouts !

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

Hmmm...well, of course, the smaller and finer gold rings are harder to find because there's less gold there and it's a more subtle signal and much easier to narrowly miss. I've found my share of small gold with my Excal and I wouldn't necessarily say you were doing anything WRONG, but I can offer common sense. I'm sure you're probably already doing all of these things so if so, disregard. But I'll give my insight in the interest of some newer Excal users that may still be in the learning stages or just haven't heard some of this.

As Allen said, the smaller rings will usually come in as "foil" or a very low (and extemely sweet sounding!) growl on the Excal. Obviously if you're discriminating out ANYTHING then you're missing ALL of these types of rings. So on the Excal, discrimination all the way down.

Second would be that you need to run sensitivity in manual and as high as possible while maintaining stability. With my Excal that's around the 11 o'clock position on the dial, maybe a little "hotter" at 10 o'clock if spending more time in the wet sand than the water, maybe a little lower like 11 or 12 o'clock if in the water or using a larger coil. With the stock 1000 coil and at our beaches I usually find 11 o'clock to be optimal. I was running 10 o'clock last night for a while and in the shallow water and surf she was a little "skittish", frequently losing threshold or falsing when a wave would hit the coil so I backed it down to 11 o'clock and it was better. Better still may have been high noon, but it's a matter of choice how much you want to put up with and I will put up with a LITTLE.

Third would be to run a slow enough sweep and a strong enough threshold that you catch the subtle and easy to miss deep/small/fine targets. I always say "if you miss it by an inch you may as well have missed it by a mile" and sometimes the difference between getting one and missing one is simply catching that brief "break" in the threshold, going in for closer investigation, and then having the machine "lock on". I find the threshold to be a valuable tool on the Minelabs and when used right, may be the reason they seem to find so much more stuff at the beach sometimes compared to machines that hunt silently until they get a solid signal.

Finally, I would stress the need to keep the coil low/flat on the ground to maximize depth and give the best chance of hitting the hard-to-get ones. If your coil is 2 inches off the ground you're losing two inches of depth OR creating a stronger possibility you will miss a tough to get target.

Hopefully SOMEBODY will read some of that and it will get them a ring they might otherwise have missed. Although Excal-specific, most of it can be applied to any detector.

 

[bdahunter]

I am doing some things wrong.
1) I almost never hunt in the shallows, typically waist to chest deep.
2) I didn't realize that the ladie's ring would sound different from the men's ring so I didn't dig foil when I heard it - it's probably the only thing I don't dig besides huge targets - I like relics too
3) I run the Excal at 8 0'clock on Sensitivity, 2 on Discriminate, Max on Volume and just audible on Threshold - Always Disc not pinpoint

Looks like it is time to clean the shallows of trash, oh my aching back.
This forum is one of the things that I find so enjoyable about the hobby. Just a good bunch of people sharing ideas and advice, the good finds and the bad.
May the surf god be kind to you all,

BDA

[attachment 29121 chest.gif]

 

[bdahunter]

Time to move to Florida mon ami, that's where the beaches are endless and full of gold. Zero frostline too.

BDA
just another Canadian enjoying the taxfree sun of Bermuda

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

Your whole problem is pretty much that "2 on discriminate", as that will remove most of those thin ladies diamond rings. The "foil" range is the "Holy Grail" of beach detecting!

Wow! Running sens at 8 o'clock? That's extreme. And it runs stable? Must be the difference in mineralization perhaps.

 

[Goldringer]

Nothing wrong. i have been detecting many years and most rings are mens wedding bands. On an average, every 7th ring has diamonds and again most are mens rings. We are just more active and careless with our things. Keep digging and those big stones will come. I had gone several months without finding one then on one sunny afternoon out pops a fantastic womans wedding set with a 1 carat marquis flanked by several big round stones for a total carat weight of 2.5. This was what appeared to be a custom set welded together. The very next day and not more than 10 feet from where i found that ring up comes another fine marquis at 90 points for the solitare stone set in Platinum. One week later out comes a 1.2Carat brilliant cut set in Platinum and looking brand new. It just happens if you put in the time. They are lost and waiting to be scooped up.

 

[bdahunter]

What you are saying makes a lot of sense to me. I've been running my Excal pretty hot on Sens and Disc and I just wanted to be sure I hadn't overlooked something as I was away from the hobby for a long time and only got back into MDing this year.
I also didn't realize that the men's and ladie's rings would sound very different.

Thanks for your response and Good Luck out there.

BDA

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

>>> I also didn't realize that the men's and ladie's rings would sound very different. <<<

Another thing I would recommend is to gather up any and every small gold ring and jewelry that you can, lay it out on a blanket in the yard, and swing the Excal over it to see exactly what they sound like. And while you're at it you can up the Disc a little at a time with each of them and see where they disappear. Though I still say it's suicide to run any disc at the beach.

I always do the blanket test with any new machine, using jewelry, coins, relics, junk, etc. It helps if you know what you're listening for in relation to specific stuff. And when you're doing "on top of the ground" testing, go to Auto with the sens for max stability...no need for anything more.

 

[bdahunter]

Good Morning Mike:

I keep promising to do the field test but always wind up back in the water swinging, time to be more methodical I guess.
I had read that if you run the Excal in all metal mode you will lose depth compared to running it just off all metal mode at say 2 on the dial.
Auto Sens will cut down on penetration as well according to Gulfhunter's field trials if I recall correctly so I run mine as high as I can without too much falsing (depends on water salinity, temp. variations, bottom condition and wave action)anywhere from 8 o'clock to 11 o'clock. Saturday I could run sens at 8 to 9, Monday it kept squawking with every bump and wave until I turned it down to 11 (the bottom was rough and the temp was fluctuating by around 20 degrees within 10 strides so salinity was probably affected too)
Still waiting on the ladies ring with the ice, or 1 in 7 as goldringer says. I'm at ring #12 now so I would say I am overdue.

Should be good hunting for you once the storm blows through.

BDA

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

OK, I have to say that I certainly dispute the theory of losing depth by running no discrimination as compared to running disc at 2. Any time that you introduce discrimination into the picture you will lose some depth because you are limiting the machine from running "wide open". And again, if you run at 2, you will be knocking out foil signals and thus some of the finer rings that you seek. It's your choice, but if you want the small gold then set that disc control to 1 and leave it there forever. Pull the knob off and toss it in the ocean.

As for the sensitivity, the only thing I use Auto for is for testing objects on the surface in a non-beach setting. Like around the yard or someplace with interference. So I definitely agree with not using Auto. I usually run 11 o'clock, sometimes 10 as I said. I think running 8 is too hot for just about anyplace but if you can do it without the machine acting up, more power to you. It doesn't matter how high you set the sensitivity though if you discriminate out the finer rings you're looking for. So I consider that to be the most important setting of all. Happy hunting!

 

[bdahunter]

Found a quater this evening, some really deep aluminium and a couple of heavily encrusted items, really deep (my favorites).

Thanks for the Tip.

BDA

How's the bike running?

 

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

The bike is running great...I rode it to work today because it looked like the only day it's not going to rain this week. It was a 28 mile ride each way. I racked up a lot more than that this past weekend though...I was hitting the backroads out in farm country and having a ball on Saturday and Sunday. More nice weather this weekend, so will have to plan a ride or two.