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First Texas To Bring In Top Engineer To Save AQ And Possibly Company


Knomad

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My point in posting that video and comment was Primarily because as a technical guy I think it is Hilarious.!

The original story behind it is said to be the guy was an actor and made all that up On The Spot, if so that is very impressive and creative.

My secondary reason for the post is sometimes if people are made fun of even if it offends them it at least wakes them up.!

This is a Technology Based competitive industry, if you do not offer competitive technology, You Soon Won't Be In The Industry.!

I find the older I get, The Less I care about offending people, Especially these days with Political Correctness Out of Control.  A JOKE is A Joke, People.

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I'm what I'd consider a good customer of First Texas, I own five of their detectors and all of them the higher priced models, and their F-pulse pin pointer and for those five detectors I've bought almost every First Texas coil they've made available including with much disappointment the T2 manhole cover.  I also don't pay US prices for these things, I pay Australasia prices, think the price you pay and add another 50% to the product price and you're about what we pay.   All I do is express my disappointment in a company that's basically given up, and my reason? I care.  I'd rather if they saw this forum they took some criticism to heart and it motivates them to try. 

It really seems at this point they don't want to try, even their own employees point that out.  Carl speaks so comfortably here knowing they'll never see a word he says because they just don't care and I applaud him for speaking out, keeping us informed as every time we get our hopes up about the possibility something is about to happen, something new to be released he puts us back down on earth.

It would be a very different situation if they were trying, they're simply not and their marketing decisions blatantly rip customers off, having the Gold Bug Pro on the market for the price it demands and then the Time Ranger Pro on the market at the same time for a far cheaper price for a better detector is just wrong.  You can buy the Time Ranger Pro and a small prospecting coil to go with it for cheaper than buying the Bug.  How many people get ripped off buying the GBP that know no better? I just can't agree with this way of selling product.  Do they just blame the customer for not doing the research if the customer finds out and contacts them saying oi buddy, what's going on here?

I think they're comfortable just selling entry level detectors and flooding the retail shops with a big range of entry level detectors to make it look like they're the big brand to buy from to that market.  This strategy isn't going to last much longer for them either as the competitors are coming out with entry level detectors that rival or exceed their high end machines in performance and often exceed them in features.   Retail stores want to sell the products that they can turn over quickly and make their profit, I can think of a Turkish machine that could easily sit on the shelf in one of the US big box stores that's box would look far more appealing with its feature list to a mum and dad detector purchase team looking for a birthday present for their child than the large row of various Bounty Hunter models sitting next to it.

Garrett are trying, and they're going to succeed, they're in the game and I'm very positive towards Garrett, they've put the effort in and are getting places.  First Texas sadly is not, they probably thought they had an easy quick buck with the Impulse AQ, a good deal to put an outsourced almost finished product to market under their name rather than make a new product themselves, sadly that hasn't worked out too well for them either.  Had another company taken on the Impulse and done the same thing I would not be surprised if it turned out better, the Impulse debacle is largely as bad as it is due to management decisions.

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This has been talked about already, look at the wasted "up-grade" of the Gold Bug 2. A lost chance. 

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4 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Having spent my entire adult life running businesses, I have a short list of culprits where it comes to business dysfunction:

  1. Management
  2. Management
  3. Management

Was that Tom Dankowski in the video? :laugh: He wins my prize for engineer geek speaker.

If I could heart this Steve, I would.

 

Also, to anyone out there wondering why a company may be losing people? People don’t leave a job because they don’t like it, they leave the management.

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2 hours ago, Knomad said:

My point in posting that video and comment was Primarily because as a technical guy I think it is Hilarious.!

The original story behind it is said to be the guy was an actor and made all that up On The Spot, if so that is very impressive and creative.

My secondary reason for the post is sometimes if people are made fun of even if it offends them it at least wakes them up.!

This is a Technology Based competitive industry, if you do not offer competitive technology, You Soon Won't Be In The Industry.!

I find the older I get, The Less I care about offending people, Especially these days with Political Correctness Out of Control.  A JOKE is A Joke, People.

Here is the latest update....

 

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If they are looking for a bunch of speeches and hot air along with mumbo jumbo talks this might just work.

If on the other hand, they were serious about giving a D about metal detecting equipment it would not be at this point right now. You can hire 40 engineers and still have idiot management that will muck it up. At the current rate of downfall that wonderfully paid sack of garbage management will not much longer be milking the udders for every last drop because there won't be any money left.

It's too late for them to all of a sudden "care". No, what they care about is there pockets staying full. You don't make things people will buy at a decent price point= you're not going to be making any sales or have anything come in.

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Aye true AG, without Bruce Candy`s input the MD detectors we`d be using would be dinosaurs. We`ve turned this initial top humor vid thread into a bitch, but that illustrates MLs approach has made competitors fairly irrelevant.

Depends on your thinking, but I believe the price we pay for MLs products giving them funds for R & D is returned in tech superior MDs that in a more competitive market we may not be enjoying, if my thinking is on the money this throws a cloud over our capitalistic competitive market being able to produce the most tech advanced product. With only going back a little, IMO the Z and the 6K are two prime examples of MLs successful R&D funded by expensive MDs approach.

You can drive out to your favorite gold field in many different makes or types of vehicle but your greatest chance of success is the wise use of a ML MD once there.

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I suspect First Texas isn't primarily a metal detecting company, their focus is on the other side of their business, it seems to me it would be the most lucrative too. 

https://ftpcircuits.com/

Look, even the website is modern and up to date, last changed in 2022.  Compare that to their metal detecting website from the 1990's.

I guess metal detectors went on the back burner when they found they could make more money producing electronic circuit boards for other companies that need to outsource that part of their product.   It all makes sense. 

They can keep pumping out their existing designs for as long as people will buy them which explains the paint jobs we keep seeing, a bit of a model refresh, when that day comes they just don't sell anymore they'll just focus on their FTP Circuits business and forget about metal detectors, no great loss to them anyway and then they don't need to spend a fortune on R&D to try keep up, they're too far behind now anyway.

It seems to be as a metal detector company they're basically dead.  As a circuit maker they're doing just fine.  It's a sad reality for those of us who hoped they'd remain in the detectors business, their role in the metal detecting industry has largely been replaced now anyway with some Nokta detectors having an uncanny performance similarity to some of the First Texas units.  

It's in a way a shame the Impulse AQ wasn't a collaboration with Nokta, the Nokta Impulse AQ, I then think we'd be seeing a very different detector with many happy users by now.

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