Minelab Excalibur series tips, settings, questions

[Sa_bogan]

hey mate,

i have a small handscoop im willing to pass onto you if you like - ill post a photo later tonight and show you what im talking about - basically a bendover scoop that you could mod a little and would be easy to use

good to see its getting a work out

 

[Robert Le Mal]

Hi SA Bogun,

I take the Excal where the CTX doesn't dare to go
Threshold is a pain but.... I just turn it down.

Photo would be great of the scoop you have.

Also I've got Andrew (Mac Urban) looking at making me a smaller version of his neat home made scoop.

When I have something that works I will post video just in case another intrepid Captain Nemo wants to search Davy Jones locker.

Robert

 

[Sa_bogan]

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/ODY3WDEwNTA=/z/3HEAAMXQQQhRffd~/$(KGrHqVHJFQFEMT0KB+2BRffd+utrw~~60_57.JPG

like this one - the top is open on it but you could add a netting or something - have you bought the straight shaft for diving? seen people on youtube using it and seems to get them a lot closer

 

[Robert Le Mal]

that looks pretty cool, not sure if I'd want the handle further back so I could jam the nose of the scoop in deeper.

I'm just using the shorter shaft that came in the box, works well enough. Main problem is learning to pin point better (CTX has made me very lazy).

 

[Sa_bogan]

Here it is. Check out this
http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=290993991991

 

[Mackka]

Hey Sa-bogan , where you bin?
Good hearing from you.
Mackka

 

[Robert Le Mal]

Under water at Williamstown early this morning.
Only found one of the sinkers with the Excalibur - not sure if the area is loaded with metal or the machine is falsing? I've been trying different settings without much joy. Lots of targets could only dig one.
Everything else found by eye.

Saw baited line in the water and gave it a good tug. Blokes on the break water asked if I'd seen any fish - "nah not many", he said there's something big out there as it had a go at his line

 

[treasureman]

you need to find an old shipwreck le mal

 

[Robert Le Mal]

Yeah I dream of finding something big. I have dived on the wreck of Loch Ard many years ago, lots of stuff down there like tiles, railway tracks, machinery, even shot gun pellets just laying there under what's left of the hull, however it's a heritage site so everything stays there (which means other divers get to see it too so that's fair).

I know the wreck of the New Zealand which is only in 2-3 meters of water but it's in Portland harbour, might get back there one day. Though I reckon anything of value would have been salvaged long ago.

Just need to get the Excalibur to behave or me to actually be able to operate it, then there's the digging bit.
Still it keeps me off the streets.

 

[Paulmarr]

Hi Robert

The Excaliber is really a Sovereign in a waterproof housing.

I know SA Bogan first had issues too so send him a PM for the settings he used.

To begin with I set mine to iron mask on - discrimination off - auto sensitivity and barely audible threshold until I learned how to ground balance with manual sensitivity but to be honest all the good stuff is usually less than 6 inches down so I leave it on auto sensitivity.

Hope that helps

Cheers
Paul

 

[Robert Le Mal]

Hi Paul,

ok will have a look at the machine with your settings. Could be a whole bunch of factors including operator error.
Was planning on sending it to Minelab to have it checked out but that could be a fair bit of $.

 

[treasureman]

I came across a site not to long ago that had all the historical shipwrecks off the coast of australia. Tgere were heaps and had approximately how much gold they were carrying at the time. Coins etc. Amazibg to see how much is actually out there. Thousands upon thousands of gold coins

 

[Robert Le Mal]

the southern coast has heaps of wrecks. I did volunteer work at Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village a few times and they've got some cool stuff on display.
Down the hill in Lady Bay the remains of one of my ancestor's ships is still buried somewhere in the sand - along with a buttload of other vessels that came to grief.

We don't have Spanish treasure ships, if we do can you please send the GPS location by private message ;-) but we do have lots of interesting history, including the notorious Mahogany ship which is playing a very successful game of hide & seek. Wouldn't that be something to find with a metal detector?

 

[Robert Le Mal]

not sure if this is what you were referring to Treasureman?
http://www.flagstaffhill.com/media/uploads/ShipwreckTrail.pdf

If you scroll down to Portland and look at no.11 you'll see the New Zealander which is very close to the light house, and in shallow water.
I was told by a local historian the crew actually burnt it so they could p*ss off to the gold fields.

All good fun, unless you were the captain or the owner.

 

[treasureman]

no it wasnt the pdf link you posted. But that is very interesting. I think it was on a government website. Ill try finding it tonight or in the coming days. it mentioned how muhc they had on board etc. (treasure chests)!

 

[Robert Le Mal]

so I got my Excalibur back from Minelab - lessons learned ...
Technicians are pleasant to deal with.
Technicians accept payment on Friday and then let 'repaired' item sit on desk until next Thursday when I ring to ask when it was posted.
I am charged a fair chunk of money for repairs & machine is "Test ok" but in fact is not.

"Pissed off" I think describes my state of mind in a way that doesn't require more colourful language.
I now have to send the machine back to the people who apparently fixed it to have them fix it again. Actually I'd just like the money I spent on repairs refunded - since they failed to do the job and I can send it to someone who has been in touch with me privately.

I bought Minelab because it's Australian, I like their other machines and I thought 'well at least if it needs repairs South Oz is not too far'.
NEVER AGAIN.

The machine worked flawlessly for about 15 minutes at 3 meters and that's where I found most of what you see below. After that the threshold was moving around in terms of volume & pitch so much I had to put it in pin point mode (and even that tone wasn't stable) and use the machine that way.... which means without discrimination I might as well have bought a pulse induction machine in the first place. Apparently unstable threshold noise appears a fair bit if you search the web, I would have thought that Minelab would have worked out the problem by now or at least how to fix an Excal that comes into the repair shop like that?

Anyway the limited treasure - if only the b**dy machine worked I reckon I'd be showing you a fair bit more.
BTW if anyone knows Aleesha Dean, please let her know I'm happy to return her pendant to her.

 

[silver]

Bugger !

 

[Ramjet]

Man that is so SH&tty Rob. Sorry to hear it isn't repaired properly. Must be frustrating for you.

 

[Robert Le Mal]

yes gentlemen - frustrating begins to sum it up.

On the upside I have become much better at spotting old bottles while diving without a metal detector... which is what I'm doing tomorrow. Back to the remains of the Point Gellibrand Pile Light.

 

[Goldpick]

That's pretty bad form, I hope they refund the money, but I guess that would once again require a return trip for proof of it not being up to scratch. Did they even tell you what the apparent issue was?

Judging by the sinkers in your finds, looks like you wouldn't have been far off finding something more valuable.