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I received my new 5-inch EXcellerator coil yesterday. I immediately took it out to my test plot to find out if it would hunt. It does! But I have been through that plot so many times that I have all the locations memorized. The real test would come today, when I took it to the local park. Those of you who know me realize that I seldom (never) hunt modern parks. Two reasons: 1. I would rather find a handful of 100 year old coins than a pocketful of clads. 2. The parks around here were beat to death back in the 70's and 80's, making old coins few and far between. I know. I was one of the guys who beat it to death! But, this Field Test was to try out a 5-inch coil for the Minelab Advantage. We all seem to be preoccupied with depth and the misconception that with coils, bigger is better. What I hoped to accomplish today was to test the theory that there were lots of coins still hanging in that top 6 - 8 inches and that a smaller coil could find them with better target separation than you get with a large coil. The unknown element was the number of coins still there and the functionality of the new 5-inch EXcellerator coil. Here is what I learned.

The 5-inch coil is small. REAL small. It feels as if there is nothing on the end of the rod. Like I said yesterday in my initial comments, it feels like you are pointing a stick! I was able to hunt for 2 1/2 hours today and the weight / balance of the Advantage / EXcellerator was not a negative factor. I had to quit after 2 1/2 hours because I was worn out from getting up and down, digging holes! But, I am getting ahead of myself.

I got to the park and obtained permission to hunt. Something I always do, no matter how many times I have visited a site. This park is over 100 years old. Within the past 25 years, however, quite a bit of it has been covered by concrete. A large parking lot, a basketball court, 2 tennis courts, 2 shelter houses and a large area had about a foot of sand brought in for volleyball courts. It was 55 degrees and pretty windy today. Glad I had the Gray Ghosts on to block out the wind and noise. I usually set my discrimination using a nickel and a ring. Today I forgot both, so, after putting in a new set of Alkalines, I set the level at 2:30, just like I do with the TS series of coils. I turned the volume control completely clockwise and set the ground balance on fixed. I did happen to have a dime in my pocket, so I waved it under the coil to make sure everything worked. I made a couple passes over a dime after I threw on the ground and tried the process with manual ground balance. I instantly realized that manual ground balancing improved the depth of detection a couple inches. Sweeping this coil took some concentration. I have a tendency to sweep pretty fast (to keep up with my feet) and found that this small diameter required me to really slow down my stride. I made every effort to overlap my swaths and headed for the area of the park that still has big old trees. Running full gain caused some chattering. I found that I could rebalance the machine periodically and keep the chatter to a bearable level. I also found that I could silence the chatter by backing off the gain a bit. I chose to keep the gain at max and accepted the fact I would keep a close eye on the ground balance.

This coil was unbelievable. I used all the tricks I had learned from the TS series of coils in that I listened for solid tones. I checked each target from multiple directions. I made sure the target sounded from the same exact location regardless of the direction of the sweep. Sure, I dug some targets that didn't meet all these criteria. But doing that is part of the field test. It passed with flying colors. The mixed tones were all junk. Mostly pull-tabs and a couple larger pieces of deep iron. I did get fooled with a couple aluminum screw caps, but even at the time, they seemed to be broader than a coin. I don't use pinpoint mode with my other coils, and I did not use it today. I really can't see any purpose of pinpointing a target that is located with a 5-inch coil. How small of hole can you dig anyway?

I dug lots of coins, including one silver dime. I also dug a silver ring and a gold ring. All of the targets were located between 7 inches and just below the surface. Ironically, the silver dime was only an inch deep and the broken brass key was a full 7. Notice that I did not dig any nickels. I attribute that to not having my discrimination set to accept them. Remember that I usually set mine using a nickel and my gold band. Today I used the setting normally used on my TS800 coil. I can only assume that the discrimination level on the EXcellerator coil is a bit different than the Minelab coils. A further test is in order to determine for sure. I kind of got into the "zone" and was sweeping faster than I should have been for finding deep old targets. A sharp tone caught my attention and I rescanned the area slowly. I got one solid tone immediately followed by a broken tone. When I approached from a perpendicular direction, I got two separate tones. One solid and the one about 2 inches closer to my feet was broken. The top target was a 4-inch Lincoln and the broken target was a 3-inch pulltab. Great separation. I was quite pleased with the initial results. I have been using the TS800 coil just about all the time, due to the weight and balance, as the 10 inch is too much for this crippled old body to swing. With that said, I plan to keep the 5-inch coil on the end of the rod for hunting parks and where I need superior target separation. I did not notice any loss of depth, and it was, without a doubt, the lightest coil I have ever used. If you have any questions or comments, fire away. HH

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