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Any tips for florida beach?

Do not be deterred by other detectorists. I used to have a tendency to rush and try to cover more ground when there were other detectorists in the water. Now I just ignore them, I don't care what they do. I concentrate on hunting thoroughly and methodically. I recently found three gold rings in the water in a spot that was hunted by two detectorists ...
Well said!

I'll be out there with a garrett sea hunter mark II.
Its no excallibur but its what was in my budget.
You have an excellent PI! It will find sliver size iron, necklaces, and earings. And there is always a chance PIs will pick up stuff that was discriminated by another machine. As long as you get your coil over it, you'll be sitting pretty.
Also, consider swinging by home depot and getting a couple of neodium magnets and mounting them to the inside of your scoop. (They are in the fastener aisle) Because the PI does pick up tiny iron, there is a good chance the magnets will catch the small stuff and save you the aggrivation of having the little objects slip through holes and then digging and redigging them.
 
Thanks for all the love here guys and gals. I was able to get out today after work and the beach was gone,lol. Should have been there monday in the rain. Never the less I did find some sinkers, lots of tent stakes, what I think is a small gold jesus on the cross and a very light ring of some unknown silver metal. So not terrible for a few hours.

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Heres a question, so where I was hitting sinkers, nickels, pennies... What of this stuff can an excal discriminate out? Would lead not ring up near gold ect. Just curious if it was somewhere I stood a chance at hitting some yellow or if the excals gad long gone through there. I understand they can miss stuff but my odds still go down.

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Heres a question, so where I was hitting sinkers, nickels, pennies... What of this stuff can an excal discriminate out? Would lead not ring up near gold ect. Just curious if it was somewhere I stood a chance at hitting some yellow or if the excals gad long gone through there. I understand they can miss stuff but my odds still go down.

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You dont want to disc out any of that. Gold can read like everything from foil through pennies.
 
Heres a question, so where I was hitting sinkers, nickels, pennies... What of this stuff can an excal discriminate out? Would lead not ring up near gold ect. Just curious if it was somewhere I stood a chance at hitting some yellow or if the excals gad long gone through there. I understand they can miss stuff but my odds still go down.

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Nobody would discriminate out lead or nickels with an Excalibur. I don't even think you can. Lead sounds just like gold. Nickels sound really good also. If you start finding lead and nickels, you need to slow down and pound that area. That's where you will find silver and gold also. Do not be intimidated by a hunter in the water with an Excalibur. It doesn't mean anything. Half the people out there don't know what they're doing anyway. Just look at the average detectorists walking down the beach, swinging his coil like a pendulum on a grandfather clock. The first time you find a nice gold ring in the water with other detectorists around, will be the last time you ever worry about them.
 
So a pi, say the new Fisher, that could discriminate out iron would obsolete all other beach detectors

I don't really follow all the new machines that come out. A PI that discriminates is news to me. If there is one, I still think you would lose depth. I could be wrong. I can tell you this though, after digging thousands of targets with my dual field, I got to where I could notice subtle differences in the tones of rusty bottle caps or other small pieces of rusty iron, and gold, silver, nickels and quarters. Gold, silver, nickel, and quarters produce a very clean tone, almost like a musical note from a tuning fork, as opposed to the scratchy tone of rusty bottle caps and small iron. A form of discrimination without losing any depth. A lot of bottle caps sound good, but I have never found silver or gold that had that scratchy sound. My machine also double beeps on a lot of zinc pennies so I can avoid those. It took me years to get up the nerve to walk away from my first target, but now I leave probably 15 to 20% of my hits behind.
 
I alternate days hunting with a PI or a Excal. You learn a lot doing this especially about beach conditions.

Even than, your best find may be when you didn't notice a big change in beach conditions.

What's the big secret? Get out there and walk. You have to enjoy the hunt.

Target sounds on a good item will be crisp like Scoundrel says.

I'm talking about a beach with old artifacts. Even if the beach is heavily hunted on a certain day the stars align and a little more erosion happens in a certain spot that has been walked over by thousands of detectorists and you will get your coil over it. It will bong super loud and you with all your experience will assume it's something large and near the surface. After 4 bewildering scoops down to a depth of about 19 inches you will find a totally encrusted artifact that will blow your mind.

And you won't be able to explain why it happened.
 
Heres some good information i like to share every now and then. Norms information is timeless, thanks to his family this site has stayed up and has many years of detecting knowledge to share.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080202045558/http://thegoldenolde.com/

Yes you can disc out nickels with the Xcal..... and yes you can miss a LOT of gold doing that. Disc has a lot to do with what the machine allows the headphones to let you hear. Disc....will chop tones..... you really didnt loose sensitivity/depth persa..... you lost the ability to loose that target (which can be a group of targets). The machine hears it all.... you dont. IMO... best thing that ever happened was when Joe started doing those PPers. Its not a PI, but it functions much like one......like Robo said, you learn a LOT about target concentrations and targets...... but still have the ability for a better ID.
 
I don't really follow all the new machines that come out. A PI that discriminates is news to me.

It would be news to everyone else too! It doesn't exist. First Texas is working on a design created in France, called the Manta but its not in production and nobody has any idea how far or IF it will ever make it into a production model.
 
Manta....every PI thread gets hijacked with this folklore. Sure it was made... but Barbara Walters will interview Big Foot before it goes to production.
 

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As one of those “guilty” of posting stuff about the Manta on various threads started by myself and by others, I think I have just been invited to post here - cute cartoons/captions - by the way.

The Fisher PI is real and will make it to production. When? Nobody knows, probably not even the folks in El Paso who must now do all the hard work of turning an exciting prototype into a mass-produced product. They have stated that electrical design is done, but mechanical design plus extensive field testing and production qualification still lie ahead.

There may be a clue as to its release however - I checked with Barbara Walters and she has Bigfoot booked for 2019.

As far as the Manta losing depth when iron rejection is applied on the Manta prototypes, it apparently was minor. Check at about 14 minutes into the 20 minute video linked below (warning - it’s in French) of a Manta prototype being tested in France by its developers. A hammered gold coin is buried at what looks alike about 18”. The detector, set to all metal, picks it up - it also picks up two nails buried off to one side and the bags of black sand on the other side. Iron exclusion is switched on and the tone volume on the coin doesn’t change, but the nails and the big bags of black sand do disappear.

The video clearly shows the iron ID/exclusion capabilities as well as some ability to “see through” iron (earlier in the video). It is important to remember however that this is not discrimination in the usual sense - only ferrous material is ID’d/excluded by choice. PI machines don’t have the ability (so far) to use phase shift or other methods to do the kind of discrimination that VLF IB detectors can do . But of course, as others have pointed out, if you don’t dig everything above iron at the beach, you will find a lot fewer bits of gold.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G8sdp4RG73g&feature=youtu.be
 
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Just keep telling yourselves they arent going to produce the Manta. Personally i hope they just sell um in the back room to us looking forward to um. Whats the problem here...... no one had an issue ML was coming out with the Nox...... and ML still hasnt completed order on the machine or accessories. Oddly people are still selling machines for their SNAFU or .... marketing.... and everyone seems ok with that. Fisher has made very little posts..... but Carl did say Spring, with a caution of ..... dont hold me to it. IMO.... this could be another leap for water detecting.... if you call the Nox a leap. Id sure like to see a working model here in Fl when they are testing it..... especially if its Aquastar deep. These ole Eric Foster machines are hard to come by. I think based on the Nox sales...... water folks are ready for hot water machine.......and i dont give a hoot if it works anywhere but in the water.:lol:

Sorry for getting off the original post..... but hope my other info helped.
 
The Fisher PI is real and will make it to production.
...the Manta. Personally i hope they just sell um in the back room to us looking forward to um...
PIs are amazing! I have two and I'd be right there in line with you to buy the Manta. But let's be real. Consider...
  • Manta's R&D began in 2013
  • (3) Manta models were built and showcased to the public in 2015
  • Three years later, there is not a single update from Fisher

In almost the same amount of time:
  • Makro has designed, tested, and released three completely new models.
  • Add an extra year and Minelab released the CTX and NOX series detectors.

My point is, if Fisher thought the Manta's design concept was at all feasible, reliable, and marketable, it would have been in stores by now.
 

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Based on conversations I had in the past with Gary Storm the difficulty in coming to market may be the commercial production of coils to perform at 7us.

This is more of an art than a science.

I have a Detector Pro Pulse with a Eric Foster custom coil and it outperforms my 2 other HHPIs and Gary said it's because of the coil.

When the coil maker for the Detector Pro Pulse passed away I believe that's when the HHPI became discontinued and that was just trying to get to 15us.

Maybe technology has improved to a point to achieve this level in a commercially available product, maybe not.
 
Based on conversations I had in the past with Gary Storm the difficulty in coming to market may be the commercial production of coils to perform at 7us.

This is more of an art than a science.

I have a Detector Pro Pulse with a Eric Foster custom coil and it outperforms my 2 other HHPIs and Gary said it's because of the coil.

When the coil maker for the Detector Pro Pulse passed away I believe that's when the HHPI became discontinued and that was just trying to get to 15us.

Maybe technology has improved to a point to achieve this level in a commercially available product, maybe not.
I don't buy that it can't be commercially manufactured. The guy that passed away was basically making the coils in small production runs by hand. Make a jig, a mold, and QC equipment to make a repeatable design.
 
Davi, your dates are substantially wrong on at least one point. You wrote:

“Manta's R&D began in 2013 - you are right about this
(3) Manta models were built and showcased to the public in 2015 - right about this
Three years later, there is not a single update from Fisher” - totally wrong, because...

Fisher acquired the Manta technology and hired Alexandre in April 2017. It says so right on Alexandre’s LinkedIn page.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tartar-alexandre-b7131b99/

So Fisher has been involved for 12 months.

As far as hearing nothing from Fisher, Carl Moreland at Fisher has posted on another forum on 21 Feb 18...

“Yes, there is a new PI in the works, that is no secret. It's not on my bench, rather it's designed by our guy in France, Alexandre. The electronics are done, we're just trying to get a decent (& waterproof) mechanical enclosure designed for it. At FTP, that's not a fast process, but neither is anything else we do. Spring is out; Summer is highly unlikely; Fall, maybe. No promises.”

Carl also posted on another forum on 22 June 17 exactly how they he and Alexandre came together.

“I saw a fellow on Geotech talking about a new PI design he developed. 99% of the time people who say they got something, don't really got something, and it takes very little time or effort to find out they got nothing. All I have to do is say "show me," and they either show me or they start bluffing. If the bluffing starts, I'm done. This guy didn't bluff, he packed up his prototype and sent it to me to evaluate. It worked so well we not only bought the design, we hired the guy full-time.”

If you are signed up for the Geotech forum, you can find the 10 May 2015 post where Alexandre discloses the underlying technology and states among other things..

“Currently I work in research in the field of UHF rfid for a very big private compagny but I developed metal detectors since the age of 14 and I am 35 years old.
I also worked in industry and french military electronic development.

I spend 40 hours every week in addition to my work on the metal detectors.
I worked alone on over 35 versions and models.
Currently we are working to 3 people, tinkerer, willy.bayot and me on new revolutionary technologies.

It is not for commercial purposes, for the moment this is for fun.”

And he further states...

“I intend to produce some units to the end of the year, as Eric Foster did in his time, I will build in the future few detectors, approximate price € 2500 to € 3000”

And...

“This represents 15,000 hours of development over the last 10 years .... It is a true passion”


If they introduce the Fisher PI - fully productionized, in a lightweight ergonomic package, for less than $2000 by this time next year, I think it will be pretty rapid progress.

If you want to see some discussion on how the latest prototypes are performing in Brittany, LE JAG is testing them - you can google his name - or try this phrase in google search “new fisher manta frank in nh” that should take you to a search result which will help
 
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...If they introduce the Fisher PI - fully productionized, in a lightweight ergonomic package, for less than $2000 by this time next year, I think it will be pretty rapid progress...
Thanks for the recap. I've been following this since you posted several months ago. I feel it is a lot like 1989 when George Lucas discussed the release of the next set of Star Wars movies. About 20 years later it happened....but, dang, TWO DECADES!!!! lol

Fisher / First Texas still fails to say anything publicly. If they were any where close to production, we'd see mystery-marketing hype. To make the Manta marketable, First Texas still needs to re-engineer the controller and utilize compact circuitry. Theyneed to engineer power saving components and develop a power management program to forgo the enormous amount of batteries required to operate the current Manta. Then they need to design a housing and figure out production. How long will that take?

Meanwhile, yes, according to news releases and forum based info, Minelab released the NOX in about a 2-year time span. Makro also did this and both companies have implemented structured programs to quickly respond to consumers.

Just my $0.02 ... :cheers:
 
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