Steve Herschbach

Excellent Find! Congratulations Peg!!

That is a members only site. I will ask in advance that nobody copy and paste the information here. I don't like it when people copy my stuff and post elsewhere and so frown on it here. Here is the direct link to the thread. Membership there is free, tons of deep technical info. The forum is run by Carl Moreland, engineer at Fisher Research. https://www.geotech1.com/forums/showthread.php?25445-ML-EQUINOX-coil-discussion-thread

I have several of the longer ones. Got most of them from Docs Detecting.

You might try a Factory Reset if you have not already. Other than that I’d be calling my dealer to get it sorted out.

To revert back to factory defaults please follow the steps below: * Turn the detector on by pressing the power button. * Once the SIMPLEX+ logo appears on the screen, press and hold down the Settings and Pinpoint/Confirm button simultaneously until 3 short beeps are heard. For a hard reset in case of any unresponsiveness of the system, press and hold down for about 6 seconds.

Yup, just confirmed that, 32” upper and 24” lower.

When you have time Rick, weight of the detector complete would be great, as well as a weight for the battery separately. The length of lower and upper portions broken down would be handy. And battery run time is a question everyone wants to know.

If it goes exactly as deep as a TDIBH and truly eliminates even half the trash a TDIBH would have me digging I'll be happy. More depth is a bonus I'll happily accept. The battery cable could have been more elegant, but it does allow for the possibility of a larger capacity battery belt mounted and connected by a curly cable. The headphone connection I am happy comes out under the elbow instead of out of the front of the pod as is the case with so many underwater detectors. I think all of us who have leaned detectors against vehicles have experienced them falling over. Yet I admit I still do it - go figure.

Posted previously here but it never hurts to bring it up again! The key thing is this is for emergency responders and they want something simple to operate. They want something that goes beep, no discrimination and minimal controls. What that means is that if the detector offers discrimination it has more controls and is therefore downgraded in this report. Probably most users here would rate discrimination higher on the list of desired capability - a plus instead of a minus. I usually break detectors into two categories due to this difference in desires - all metal pulse induction or VLF discrimination. Pulse induction is generally more powerful, goes deeper, and handles saltwater and mineralized beaches more effectively. It does however mean you dig everything, and pulse machines love ferrous items more than non-ferrous metals. If you like bobby pins and nails you will love pulse induction. VLF detectors offer discrimination and further split into single frequency and multifrequency. Multifrequency is a clear winner in saltwater environments but single frequency can offer very good performance in freshwater. Here are the summary charts from the report listing detectors in order of how the report rates them. Most people have never heard of J.W. Fishers. I used to be a dealer. They offer heavy duty commercial gear but their pulse machines, while they work well enough, are actually really old designs, built like tanks and rather expensive for what they do. But as this report shows they target a certain market very well. Click for larger versions....

It does sound like your beaches got stirred up and everything gone deep. The sand goes away and all the heavy stuff remains behind. Then the sand comes back in and buries it beyond reach. All a guy can do is get out and hunt where the people are thickest and hope for recent drops. I do like hunting the shallows ankle to waist deep if the surf is not too rough. Body surfing areas are great but often hard to hunt. If you have calm pools where the moms take the little kids... go there. Next time you have a storm that strips the beach, take the week off and live on the beach. Locals that can do that have a huge edge over visitors. You will be amazed at what you can find for that brief time conditions are perfect.

I don't know much about the nature of the beaches you are hunting. Concentrations of people is a must. But deep sand and storm action can take even good beaches and by stirring it all up put the jewelry too deep to find. I have found smaller beaches with relatively shallow sand over hard coral and rock to be more productive than the huge sandy beaches. With a Gold Bug type detector I would concentrate heavily on the "towel line" where people lay out towels and lay in the sun plus any areas where sports like volleyball or Frisbee are taking place.

People talk about a chip protecting the coils - more like an entire circuit board! Seems like a lot of components, more than I would have expected. The difference in windings left to right side is also interesting. Thanks for posting!

Why, why, why? People ask why. Why did they do that? Why don't they do this? Well, here is some explanation via Dave Johnson of First Texas posted in 2009. To quote specifically "Sometimes forum denizens claim we do this or that for some particular reason, when in fact they know nothing of our reasons. And then there's posts which demand that we say why we do this or that. We don't sell "whys", and therefore don't publish very much information about them." FISHER, BOUNTY HUNTER, AND TEKNETICS: SETTING THE RECORD REASONABLY STRAIGHT 5 Feb 2009 Dave Johnson Chief Designer, Fisher Research Labs & First Texas Products There's been a lot of nonsense posted on the forums about the relationship between Fisher, Bounty Hunter, and Teknetics. The nonsense doesn't seem to be getting cleared up through normal forum self-discipline, so I've decided to intervene with information from "the factory". Fisher and BH/Tek (First Texas Products) are two separate business units which operate under the same roof and utilize mostly the same people. The product history of these two business units is different. The present Bounty Hunter and related products mostly evolved from George Payne's designs of the 1980's. During the 1990's under a different company, the BH trademark earned a reputation for terrible quality. First Texas Products purchased the BH line in 1999 and got to work improving the manufacturing operations. After Dave Johnson came on board in 2003, the products were completely redesigned inside for improved performance and reliability, even though most were unchanged externally. Bounty Hunter is now, and has been for years, a quality product which offers excellent value. And if you trace out the circuit of (for instance) the venerable Quick Draw II or Time Ranger, you'll still see the "Payne target ID circuit" which was at the heart of the original Teknetics. The Teknetics T2 introduced in 2006 was a totally new metal detector from the ground up, not based on any earlier design. The senior designer was Dave Johnson, and John Gardiner wrote the software. We called it Teknetics because we owned the trademark and because the goal was to be on the leading edge of metal detector technology and performance, just as it was with the original Teknetics. Dave Johnson was the senior electronics engineer for Fisher (in California) from 1981 to 1995. Of the legacy Fisher products we still manufacture, most are Johnson designs. In 2006 the investment group here in El Paso bought Fisher from its parent company COHU, and moved operations to El Paso. Since that time we have introduced several new Fisher products. The F75 & F70 were major revisions of the T2 platform. The F4 & F2 are major revisions of a BH type platform which is a modern descendant of the original Teknetics designed by Payne. On these new products, Dave was the chief designer and John wrote most of the software. Nothing to be ashamed of there! For several years we've had under development a totally new platform for use in products which don't have to push the extreme leading edge of performance. That platform was first brought into production as the BH Gold and Platinum. With major revisions it became the Fisher F5, and with further revisions the platform became the Teknetics Delta, Gamma, and Omega. Dave was the chief designer for all these products, but most of the actual development work was done by Jorge Anton Saad with assistance from other engineers. SUMMARIZING: back in the Stone Age, Bounty Hunter, Teknetics, and Fisher were completely different products from unrelated companies. In 2009, these are brand names of mixed ancestry which became relatives through acquisition. Within the present extended family, there are several different basic platforms, and more platforms are under development. In the Fisher line, there is continuity of design engineering going all the way back to 1981. DO WE EVER MAKE MISTAKES? Yep. In the last several years we've come out with more new products than the rest of the industry put together. If we had done nothing, we'd be out of business, but at least we wouldn't have made any mistakes along the way! WHERE ARE OUR METAL DETECTORS MADE? Almost without exception, our metal detectors are manufactured in the United States. Most of our circuit assembly is done in Juarez just across the river, in plants just as modern as you'd expect to find in the USA. Several legacy Fisher models were manufactured in the Orient rather than in California: new Fisher management terminated that arrangement. One high volume low end BH platform series of products is manufactured both in the USA and overseas, giving us some flexibility on that particular platform. NOW, ABOUT THAT NONSENSE: Here's a brief sampling of the sort of malarkey that I occasionally see posted in forums. Some of this is so outright stupid you might think I'm making it up. Nope, I've seen all this on the forums, and lots else besides. "Bounty Hunter is cheap junk." .....(was true a few years ago, but no more) "BH bought Fisher in order to run it into the ground." .....(with Dave J. as the chief designer? Get serious!) "The new Fishers and Teknetics are just rebadged Bounty Hunters." .....(hasn't happened yet, but if it does it's a good thing, not a bad thing) "The new Fishers and Teknetics are made with the same parts as the BH's, so it's all junk." ......(we buy the same high quality electronic components that everyone else does) "The new Fishers aren't 'real Fishers' ". ......(being new makes things not real?) "They're all made in China, that's why they're junk." ......(made in China = junk? Where do you think most electronic stuff is made these days?) "They're all made in Mexico in chicken-shed maquiladoras." ......(nope, someone's imagination is 'way too vivid) "They cut costs by hiring a bunch of illegal aliens." .....(why bother? There are plenty of people here legally, experienced in the electronics industry, and willing to work) "The person I talked to on the phone had a Mexican accent, must be stupid." .....(smarter than you think, and speaks better Spanish than you do, too) "The 'old Fisher' did everything right, now look what happened!" ......(the "old Fisher" was a basket case, that's why COHU got rid of it) There are sometimes posts about new products by people who hardly know anything, and are mostly just making up a bunch of stuff. Sometimes forum denizens claim we do this or that for some particular reason, when in fact they know nothing of our reasons. And then there's posts which demand that we say why we do this or that. We don't sell "whys", and therefore don't publish very much information about them. We sell metal detectors and do publish information about them. There have been posts by people who were happy with their machine until we came out with an improved version, and then they're mad at us….. gee, if they want a metal detector with a guarantee that the company which manufactured it won't ever come out with anything new or improved, we're definitely the wrong company! They need to buy a Compass on Ebay, then they're safe. A forum is place of discussion and disagreement, sometimes vigorous debate. There is no perfect metal detector, no two people have exactly the same preferences: therefore a machine that some people love, some other people will not like at all. So, some posts are going to be quite critical of our products. The negative posts which are based on reason comprise a valuable source of information for guiding development of new products. Heck, there are things about some of our products that even I don't like. Sometimes I print out a critical post from the forum, take it to company management, and say "See, I told you so." I don't have anything against a post being critical. HOWEVER: I have no respect for posts which deliberately spread misinformation about us and our products. I don't even have respect for posts which deliberately spread misinformation about our competitors and their products. I've worked for several of those competitors, and on the whole I regard them favorably. Many beeperists own and use metal detectors from several different manufacturers. I have no respect for posts by people who want to complain just for the sake of complaining, about things which are not problems. I have no respect for posts by people who want to complain about something that is a problem, and love complaining so much that they then complain about attempts to resolve the problem. I have no respect for posts which are not for the purpose of engaging in discussion of metal detecting, but rather are for the purpose of creating and maintaining personal conflict quite to the disgust of others in the forum. There are probably quite a few forum denizens whose list of stuff they'd rather not see clogging up the forum is just about the same as my list. There. I done said my piece. --Dave J.

Welcome to the forum! What part of Alaska is your mine at?

No allowing about it, just do it and you did! Welcome to the forum Tom, and Happy New Year!

Three meters would be an increase from the original one meter reports so it would be good to get double confirmation on that from Fisher. It’s a very important factor for some people. Length of the upper and lower shaft disassembled would be good to know. Going to be a tight fit in my suitcase but should fit.

Two piece S rod or straight? Hard to tell. I don’t see how there could be much length adjustment with an S shaft. Looks like a Fisher CZ rod... no twist lock? The carbon faceplate looks nice. I see the SAT (Self Adjusting Threshold) knob was relabeled as the ATS (Auto Tune Speed?) knob. SAT is a White’s term so no surprise there. I wish it was under my tree but this is next best! Fisher Impulse AQ Data & Specifications

Thank you for the detailed explanation Alexandre. One question about the above statement - is the salt compensation still active in the all metal mode? I hope you are feeling better soon!

As noted at the link above there only were two coils made for the Gold Strike, the 10” elliptical and 6.5” elliptical. A 14” elliptical was planned but sales for the machine were so poor it was never produced. No other coils are compatible on the Gold Strike. Another thread about the Gold Strike

Merry Christmas One & All!

I think that's fabulous for 20 hours detecting Gerry. Us old-timers all suffer from the same problem... the detecting just ain't what it used to be. They are not putting more silver coins in parks nor more gold nuggets in the nugget patches. Jewelry does replenish but I have noted the same thing as you. When I used to first hit Hawaii I was digging a lot of jewelry that had accumulated for decades. As those old accumulations have worked out we are now entering a time where it is more the recent drops. With more hunting pressure jewelry is not accumulating much if at all. When we get storms sometimes conditions get us into an older unexploited layer, but those times also are getting fewer and farther between as detectorists now swarm beaches after storms, and even the deeper old layers are depleting. There are just way more people detecting jewelry on beaches now than there was 20 years ago and the effects are showing. It is not helping that some people are shifting to titanium or tungsten jewelry or no jewelry at all. I do think the constant presence of detectorists is also a subtle warning to people to be more careful with their jewelry than in years gone by. Unlike silver coins and gold nuggets there will always be new jewelry finds to be made, but my thinking about it has definitely shifted from a few years back. I thought I was going to be traveling around now and hitting beaches and paying for my trips like I used to do years ago, but the last couple times out have told me differently.

Four months later, still on the Minelab website, and still available at many vendors. This is the longest discontinuation I have ever seen. Like that mattress store that is always going out of business with everything on sale!

Long story short this has never been mentioned at any as a potential feature on the Impulse AQ. Perhaps it may be seen on the land prospecting version since the AQ methodology is not very application to ground balanced nugget hunting. The main problem with the ferrous blanking as implemented in both the Minelab PI detectors and the ATX is it only works on shallow targets, and not on the targets where you need discrimination the most - the really deep ones. I don't mind digging 6" nails, it is the two foot nails that I find annoying. This inability to function at depth made the GPX iron blanking pretty useless for most of my applications where deep ferrous is a common occurrence, whether on a beach or in tailing piles. That, plus numerous instances of my seeing quite large and valuable gold specimens rejected as ferrous by the GPX meant I never used it. It might be acceptable to miss bullets due to improper identification but not $500 gold specimens. Now don't get me wrong, the surface ferrous blanking function can be very useful for some people and some applications. I can see where it would be a great benefit for relic hunting in particular. I'm just pointing out it has some serious limitations such that most gold prospectors at least never use it except in rare circumstances. This is typical. This location produced some real nice gold nuggets. I got a bare whisper signal with the GPX 5000. I had a Gold Bug Pro on hand to act as a pinpointer and discrimination tool, but no signal from it until well over a foot. It started reading ferrous but by that time I was close anyway, and wanted the potentially target masking nail to be gone. So after quite a bit of effort in packed rocky soil out comes a large nail at about two feet. That is what I hope the Impulse AQ will help with. On the beach in particular the effort expended goes up exponentially with depth as the hole is likely caving and filling almost as fast as it can be excavated. I have had to dig some huge pits employing a PI in the surf with mask and snorkel only to retrieve a large ferrous item. Heading for China with a shovel And my reward - did not help it was wedged under that large rock in the hole

It has been mentioned that an 8” coil has been tested on the prospecting version of the Impulse. If so it would make sense for this coil to be available for the Impulse AQ. The stock coil on the Impulse AQ is a 12” round mono.