Steve Herschbach

That’s how metal detectors fail... they work until they do not. You are far fro the only person that has ever had to have a detector serviced, so do not worry about it. Go detecting, have fun!

Yeah, I just added a note to my first post. This is the same detector as the much more expensive Fisher F4. The F4 comes with an 11” DD coil instead of the 8” concentric on the 3300, plus the F4 has a three piece instead of two piece rod. However, the target id scale on the F4 is compressed from 0 - 99 compared to the amazing 0 - 199 scale on the 3300... see my post above. I doubt Walmart and Cabelas are very happy to be sitting on 3300 stock at higher prices.

Not only four tones with manual ground balance, but nearly 200 points of non-ferrous target id range! 0 - 10 ferrous and 11 - 199 non-ferrous. Note that the “all metal mode” is a discriminate mode with all items accepted. That means the tone discrimination is active in the “all metal” mode.

Yeah and no real mention of PI. However, what there was they covered briefly and well, with good illustrations. Concentrics in particular are overlooked so nice to see a clear explanation iof them. In mild soil with targets not too close together they are a secret weapon. Metal Detector Search Coil Compatibility VLF Concentric vs DD Coils

Just spotted a pallet full at Costco again, this time for only $99.99. That really is a smoking deal for a four tone ground balancing metal detector. Newer Thread On The Subject Here

Last year Costco had the First Texas Bounty Hunter Discovery 3300 for about $129 if I recall correctly. This year I am seeing a pallet full of them at Costco for $99.99 Costco #1233678 First Texas Products Metal Detector Discovery 3300 That is honestly a steal for a ground balancing VLF four tone metal detector. From the Bounty Hunter Discovery 3300 Data & Specifications page: Manual ground balance Zero in with microprocessor-controlled discrimination Deep-seeking one-touch pinpoint 5 Modes of operation 4-Tone and 11-segment target identification The Discovery 3300 is basically the same detector as the $249 Fisher F4 (up to $399 at some dealers). The F4 comes with an 11” DD coil instead of the 8” concentric on the 3300, plus the F4 has a three piece instead of two piece rod. However, the target id scale on the F4 is compressed from 0 - 99 compared to the amazing 0 - 199 scale on the 3300... see the post below. Bounty Hunter Discovery 3300 Owner's Manual

This is the best video I have seen yet explaining the basics of search coils and why some may be better at some uses than others. By Garrett May 2019.

Basically, no, a coil can't break a VLF detector. They may not work properly when plugged in but that's about it.

It's a shame Lunk and I never hunted together while I had my GPZ. He and I hunt the same way, super slow and methodical gridders. We both find gold. But we are complete opposites when it comes to tuning. I tune for hot and noisy and let my ear sort the signals. Lunk goes the other way, tuning the machine as best as is possible to eliminate all the false signals that I am sorting with my ear/brain. Both methods have reasons why they may be better and in general I recommend people tune like Lunk does rather than the way I do. I'm more the oddball person out on that sort of thing at the other extreme. JP falls more in the middle leaning perhaps a little my way - he hates smoothing. In any case it would have been fun to hunt together and cross check targets found so opportunity lost there. It may have helped shed a little light on which methodology is best. If there is a tuning wizard out of the three of us though I vote for JP. Lunk and I are more the outliers. No offense meant there Keith!

That all sounds excellent, especially the small gold results. I am in total agreement that any discrimination system has trade offs, even in the best VLF detectors. Those trades are perfectly acceptable as long as we know what they are so we can apply proper judgement on where to employ discrimination and where to dig everything. The big downfall for PI has always been its affinity for ferrous targets making it simply impractical for use in some locations. Impulse AQ addresses that issue and I expect the best places to use one initially will be exactly those locations that PI users have avoided until now. I personally have no doubt this detector will be very productive in the right locations and look forward to using one myself. I have not owned a waterproof PI since I sold my ATX and have been waiting patiently for something better to come along. For me the waterproof TDI was too little too late. I wanted one from the very first day I used a TDI but after years of being ignored in my lobby efforts I found by the time White’s finally made one better things like the Impulse were on the horizon. Very kind of you to post that information LE.JAG..... thank you! It’s especially good to hear the Terra version is in beta testing, that bodes well for a dual machine introduction.

That’s some good news! 👍🏼 If there is any area in metal detecting that needs the “Nokta/Makro touch” it is pulse induction.

Don’t worry Rick, your reputation as unofficial spokesman for First Texas is quite secure. You do more to promote their detectors than anyone that actually works there.

Was a bit puzzling with the headquarters shuttered and for sale.

Wow, two silver dollars! I’ve only ever found one in all my years detecting. And great relic finds also... good for you!

Metal Detecting: Nokta-Makro Simplex Firmware Update Guide Oct 27, 2019 TheHunterGT

https://www.detectorprospector.com/tags/fisher impulse/

All the major dealers are quoting "early 2020".

I think Minelab may have pulled the extra early intro trick one time too often. The machine is not supposed to actually be available until sometime next year. In the meantime the Nokta/Makro Simplex+ is actually shipping, stealing the thunder. The gap between announcement and actual shipping dates on Vanquish is so large that people will have almost forgotten about it by the time it's available, or at least it will just be old news. It seems to me Minelab is squandering a certain amount of excitement that results in people making quick impulse buy type decisions. Given too much time people calm down and find reasons not to buy. I can't say I am a big fan of machines being announcement way before they are available. Hopefully the trend reverses. It may be Vanquish proves to be the time it went to far and we we go back to manufacturers keeping a better lid on things until we can actually buy them. Minelab Vanquish 340 Data & Specifications Minelab Vanquish 440 Data & Specifications Minelab Vanquish 540 Data & Specifications Minelab Vanquish 540 metal detector

Anyone who has used a White’s TDI much knows that the ground balance can be manipulated to exclude certain targets. This is less about conductivity as White’s sells it, but about target size. What that means is you can exclude high conductors and large ferrous and concentrate on smaller low conductors and small ferrous. Or you can exclude small ferrous and small non-ferrous and go for higher conductors and larger ferrous. The system does not make gold hunters happy because to dig small gold you still dig small ferrous stuff. Or when you are digging larger gold you still dig nails. My guess on the Impulse is that it is using at least two “ground balance” points to bracket the most common ring responses, which tend to be lower mid-range targets. It would be quite a balancing act tuning out both the smallest stuff and the largest stuff and just hit the sweet spot. I personally think this could be a powerful method for essentially cherry picking rings while eliminating most small ferrous and large ferrous. There still will be a class of mid-range ferrous targets that read good - I promise the system can’t be perfect. The flip side however is that at least two large “holes” are going to have to exist as a result. One that misses smaller gold targets, like earrings and chains, and possibly the smaller thin rings. And then on the top end very large heavy men’s rings and silver rings, and most coins may also be lost. The solution will be to turn off the discrimination and go back to digging everything. Hopefully there will be some ability to tweak the discrimination as target / trash mixes do vary somewhat and shifting the accepted range up or down would be beneficial. I am just guessing based on what I know about how a PI works and how one could potentially discriminate out a class of targets. I could see a very acceptable trade being made, more depth at the expense of certain target classes. Yet I wonder how the general public will react to videos displaying numerous gold items, especially large ones, being completely undetectable by the Impulse in discrimination mode? The wiser among us may understand what’s going on and the trades being made, but if I know one thing about a lot of folks, the idea the machine misses good stuff won’t fly too well. Witness the silver dollar on edge fiasco with the Equinox, or the similar issue with the early Gold Bug models. Anyway, don’t take this as being more than speculation, but it is something that the more knowledgeable among us will want to find out quickly once the Impulse hits the streets. It should be easy to find out, just air test with a large range of jewelry targets running from tiny to large and check the results. And the same with ferrous. Unless a Pulse Devil miracle machine is in the works, and I am betting that’s not the case, there will be some definite caveats to deal with when employing the discrimination system. For me it’s kind of a non-issue. I’d be happy with the machine as a straight up pulse digging everything. It’s the ergonomics and price along with the finely tuned low pulse delay that have me looking more than some magic discrimination system. Anything it does there will be just a bonus. I will actually be surprised if the nugget hunting terra version has any discrimination at all due to the possible issues I am outlining. It would tune out most natural gold nuggets. Optional blocking of high end nail type signals would be of more benefit to nugget hunters in small gold areas. It would risk missing large nuggets but in some places that’s not much of a worry. Fisher Impulse AQ Data & Specifications Fisher Impulse AQ pulse induction metal detector

Nov 6, 2019

NOKTA/MAKRO SIMPLEX + FINDS HAMMERED COIN, metal detecting uk Nov 4, 2019 EnglandsHistory LOTS OF GOLD & SILVER FINDS FOUND THROUGH OUT THE DAY, ROMAN, MEDIEVAL AND MORE... nokta makro simplex + finds me a silver hammered coin, plus many other finds found by others.

As admin I would say the rules here basically say keep it respectful, and no politics. So beware the line between saying dowsing as a methodology is "dishonest" and saying that those who believe in dowsing are dishonest. If a person believes dowsing works they are not being dishonest in that belief. The perception of such things causes discussion to stray into people defending their ethics and intelligence instead of staying dispassionate about a subject. Tread carefully on these forums when it come to respecting other peoples "beliefs". What constitutes allowable public policy or not is merely an opinion when it comes to politics. Some people (not me) approve of theocracy. They are not "wrong" and you are not "right" in your opinion that public policy should be based on science, proof, etc. It is all opinion based on personal preference as to how to structure government. I do not allow politics on this forum as it is the realm of endless argument over such opinions, and so that's the end of that part of the discussion. If you want to do battle in that realm there are better venues. LRL threads have a way of going south and so this one may get locked at any instant that it appears to be heading that way. To reiterate, my concern in starting the thread was to warn people about LRL devices, not prove whether or not dowsing works. Nobody here will ever be able to prove it does not to people that think otherwise and attempting to do so will just needlessly ruffle feathers. If anyone wants to state an opinion one way or the other about whether they think it works or not, that's fine. Trying to prove other people wrong... let's not go there.

Dowsing does not bother me because it’s honest about what it is. As long as people stick with homemade or very inexpensive dowsing tools no harm done really. Spending big bucks for dowsing gear I personally think is ill advised. LRL devices are dowsing devices pretending to work on scientific principles, and therein lies the deception. Dowsing is a belief system that has never passed the barest thresholds of scientific testing. There are on the other hand plenty of people who have anecdotal evidence about dowsing that causes them to believe in dowsing. The same can be said of ghosts and over a third of Americans believe in ghosts. Being a science nerd type I don’t believe in either dowsing or ghosts. I also acknowledge it is impossible to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that things like that can’t exist. I would be foolish to think there are not things currently outside the reach of known science. Those kinds of questions I am therefore more than willing to toss in that vast category where I simply don’t know, and the truth is I know almost nothing. It’s not my job to prove people wrong when in fact I cannot. I maintain it’s the other way around... prove to me it works, and then we can talk. And just in case anyone thinks I am close-minded about something I have never tried, I have a set of dowsing rods and have tried it. For me it’s all a truth in advertising thing, and if people want to think dowsing works and buy something advertised as a dowsing device... that’s fine by me. They know what they are being sold. LRL not only crosses that line but inevitably seems to come with insane price tags attached. That is where I object and where silence is being complicit by not taking a stand.