Xcal today

Got my Xcal in today. Im a little disappointed. The box and coil is cool. Beyond that .... the shaft, arm rest, and bolts leave a lot to be desired. This is what i was talking about in an earlier post. Its a shame you pay good money and might as well throw half of what you got away and order after market right off the bat. That said .... im sooo ready to do some digging tomorrow and get a little hands on before this weekend. Dont want Tom to get all the goodies LOL.

Dew

First run with the Xcal i didnt burn it up but i learned a lot. I got to checking and see the Sov comes with a straight shaft.... wonder why they didnt put it on the Xcal seems like an obvious thing to do. I see the price of an upper shaft for the Sov is about $50.... is it possible to put it onto the lower rod of the Xcal? Could be a cheaper way than buying an after market shaft. Though it seems like a simple machine there are some tweaks that were needed for me to hear the targets differently. Like not turning the volume up all the way. At about 3/4 it seemed to better define the target like a ring. I also noticed it was very focused toward the center of the coil much like PP on some machines with out a lot of HALO on targets near the coil that you get from say an SE. I liked the PP mode that you could hunt in. It didnt drift or get louder and not being a processed signal stayed pretty deep with a nice mellow threshold. Im not a big fan of the PITCH HOLD threshold but used it occasionally on the SE and see its purpose for weak targets you might not have picked up on. I had an alkaline battery pod on order.... seemed like a logical choice to put rechargables in and same me $60 over another pod..... not so guys the book clearly says its water resistant NOT water proof. I hip mounted the box on a divers belt like Tom recommended... that was a really simple way to eliminate weight and balance. You need it when you are trying to dig with that scoop. That was more a challenge than the detector.

Dew