Mark Gillespie

A guy found this detector in a wood pile at a local factory. Looked like it had been there for years, weathered badly, shaft was broken and coil was busted. As a challenge they gave it to me. Two days later I installed batteries and low and behold it came on. Couldn't find a manual so I went into experimental mode and can say I was impressed with the air test (for a China product). To start with I thought it was a single tone machine, dime and nickel gave a high tone, but adjusting the ground balance and the discrimination revealed attributes that reminded me of the TDI. Now a nickel gives a low tone and a dime remained a high tone. Next I took the machine to my test garden of over 10 years and was shocked to hear a repeatable response of my deepest targets. Please note, I’m not promoting China products, only indicating what I found. There is one adjustment on the side that I’m wondering about not sure what it might be. Would also like information about this machine, the internet really doesn’t indicate when they were manufactured or much detail.

Awesome story and interesting information. Always love silver.......

Congratulations. Be careful, the fever causes man to do strange things. Awesome.

For my bad ground hunting sites I don't need more depth, but a good discriminator on my TDI.

I must add one more bit of information, all the gold rings I've dug gave an ID of nickel or below. Only two rings have read pull tab and up. Interesting is the fact that most of the gold rings in the world belong to women and most are thinner and will read from the upper end of tinfoil to around nickel.

Several years ago I counted the pull tabs dug compared to the gold rings and the number was around 100 to 1.

You are 100% correct on the TDI's capabilities. I've manipulated the GB/delay many times to hunt a location. A lot to be learned from a TDI. Looking forward to when 1st Texas releases their PI.

Thanks Steve, very enjoyable reading.

Wow, that is an awesome ring. The F75 is hard to beat.

I wonder how it compares to the TDI in iron..........

Me and another hunter found two barber dimes several years ago that were very close to AU condition. They were almost like they were just lost and less than 4" deep. Now on the other hand, copper coins corrode very quickly in my dirt. I must add, for sure I've dug hundreds of nails to get these coins. That is why I'd love to have a PI with true iron discrimination.

I've tried all, but there's just to much to listen to.

If you're having a lot of chatter from the black sand I'd raise it a little, but the coal waste I deal with is BB size and will attract to a magnet. Raising the delay at my site allowed the signal from the waste to dissipate enough for the coins to be heard. I'm still amazed at the TDI capabilities and also limitations. At the beach I try to run with ground balance off and delay of 10. I have found if I bump the coil on the sand it will false. I might add a sensitivity of 6 is enough and you'll still dig deep targets.

A few things I've learned about coal waste hunting. I started inquiring about some old locations I hunt. Most of the locations are old, shut down schools where coal was used as a heating source for decades. Before the EPA was birthed most people did what ever pleased them when it came to disposing of waste, regardless of what it was and these old school sites are no exception. The burnt coal waste was spread over many acres of school property which created some extremely harsh ground conditions. Grass and weeds find it hard to get a start and most areas are void of any vegetation. Most of the school grounds look like Martian landscapes with small BB size or smaller pieces of coal waste everywhere. This material attracts to a magnet with little effort and can reduce depth of all VLF detectors by well over half. In fact until recently maximum detection depth was actually 2-3”. Any target deeper would give a solid iron audio report if any sound at all. After many years of hunting these areas, all but completely unsuccessfully, I finally purchase a White’s TDI SL. It turned out the SL opened up these old sites and many nice coins, relics and gold jewelry were unearthed, but not without many trials and numerous adjustments. Case in point: one particular area had been, in my opinion hunted out with many different VLF machines (ranging in cost from $250 - $2000) over a 10 year period and I was certain there were no good targets left. Now I’m going to fast forward 2 years of hunting experience and mention a couple very important and rewarding hunting trips that might help someone. Settings: sensitivity 6, ground balance 7 ½, pulse delay 10 and conductivity set to high and used the stock 12” dual field coil First was an old school site where both coal waste and nails are very abundant. I had been hunting about 15 minutes and all the SL was giving were very short audio reports, which sounded more like chatter or EMI and not targets. This prompted me to increase the time delay to about 15 , which increases the time before a transmitted signal is analyzed, thinking the small pieces of coal waste were the short reports (partial masking) I was hearing. Continued hunting another 5 minutes and noticed the short audio chatter continued but not to the same magnitude. Stopping and increased the delay to around 17 and off I went hunting again. Suddenly I noticed the machine was running very quiet, to quiet. A minute or two later and a very loud low tone, which on the SL means a high conductor, I stopped and reduced the delay to 10 and found my definite answer. The coal waste was causing the ground chatter and false audio reports. Increased the delay back to 17 and recovered a wheat penny around 4” deep. Now to be honest I had to stop for a moment and think about what just happened. Decided to start over I returned to where I began hunting and discovered I had passed right over many good targets. After digging a few more wheat pennies and a silver dime I decided to start checking these targets before digging and discovered if I decreased the delay most of these targets became the short sounding audio reports I had heard earlier. The PI was just the trick to discovering some nice coins deeper than 4” in these barren areas. From this site I learned the time delay helps with eliminating small metallic pieces from interfering with coins and other relics. I must admit, at times, I tend to over think some of my hunting trips but the thought came to mind. What if there was gold jewelry in the area where I was hunting coins (conductivity high)? Yes I could have been hunting with a setting of all but the area is so polluted with targets I chose only high. So another trip to the same site with only two setting changes pulse delay 15 and conductivity set to low. In addition to this I change, I opted for the smaller 7 /12” dual field coil. Again the delay settings helped with the coal waste problem mentioned above and allowed me to hunt with a little sanity. Less than 15 minutes later came my first ring, not gold but gold plated, but that helped motivate me to keep going. Dug a couple beer pull tabs and finally a nice gold class ring came to light. What a very rewarding hunt it turned out to be. Mark Gillespie 2017

Still hoping for this to be released this year. Two feature are a must for me, "see through red dirt, and highly mineralized soil" Can't imagine that will be accomplished (they had to start somewhere)with a VLF machine, but I can hope. I've found a lot of nice gold and silver with my TDI SL and many times over with nails, so discrimination is a must for me.

Thanks for posting Steve. Very good information too.

You done a very good job staying after that target. Sometimes you just have a feeling to keep going.

Did a lot of side by side comparisons on deep +7" targets and found in fairly clean ground a setting of 0 on the Deus would still provide enough depth. When increased to 1 or 2, then the deep targets failed to respond.

I dug a nice, large men's wedding band and it have a solid zinc audio and ID number. I was really surprised. If I'd been rejecting zinc pennies that day I'd never recovered that one.

Very informative and impressive report.

I agree totally Mike, that frequency seems to be plagued by EMI regardless of the maker.

Amazing what man will do for gold. I guess that's why they call it gold fever.

Good video, worked fine.

Still a very nice piece of jewelry.

Yes, I have dug bobby pins with my PI, in the Virginia red dirt at 8". That is a chore for sure.