Rick K - First Member

Nox, you are correct about the edge of the coil and it is like a knife blade. That is a function of the extremely fast sampling and integration of signals by the AQ.

Alexandre named it HRS - Highly Reactive System. There is no lag when transitioning between targets through the whole system from signal to sampling, integration and audio output when transitioning between targets.

This is why it is  fully capable, in tone mode of giving both a low an high tone when - for example - a gold ring is adjacent to or even covered by - for example iron nails.

There are some who will work diligently to learn the AQ’s ways. They will then think clearly about what it does and doesn’t do. They will further review all of their experiences on their various hunting grounds - then they will methodically proceed to uncover items previously not recoverable.

This is Alexandre’s intention with the design of the AQ. Will it be something which lots of serious beach hunters will be able to achieve? We will see. 8 machines in the wild ......just a drop in the “ocean”.

Sorry your hunt turned out so bad. I suspect that any detector would have struggled in that location. AL nuggets, for example can’t be effectively discriminated out with any system of discrimination I can think of. As far as those large pieces of junk - the non ferrous wouldn’t give a low tone unless they were really big or really shallow. As far as the elongated rusty bits, I believe that when you are more familiar with the machine you will find it relatively easy to rule those out as likely good targets no matter what mode you run the AQ in.

I suggest you get some rusty nails, some large bits of rusty junk, some pull tabs, some coins, a few gold rings and find a place in your yard or a nearby bit of open ground and start learning how the AQ works on targets you know the identity of. It’s  all about sound - you have nothing else to go by. 

The key to success with any “audio only” detector is learning what good targets sound like and then go hunting where good targets are likely. Sounds like your site for your unsuccessful hunt has - based on your prior experience there with other machines - a very low probability of recovering a piece of gold jewelry. Add to that, your unfamiliarity with the performance of the AQ and I can understand your frustration. 

4 of the  deliveries were made in the last few days - let them at least unpack them!!!

Tom, the golden barrel cactus have always been my favorites!

I think that Alexandre’s last line (fresh out of Google translate probably) is a reflection of the fact that digging earring backs, foil bits, tiny pellets of melted aluminum bonfire trash is a total waste of time.

The AQ is for serious HUNTERS - folks who expect to find gold in serious quantity.

LE.JAG, Am I correct that you mean that the difference in mass of the light and the heavy ring is what makes the signal of each of them have the same amplitude at the limit of detection, but that the limit of detection of the light ring is a much shallower depth than the limit of detection of the heavy one?

That is a good concrete illustration of the fact that the audio level is a factor of the strength of the signal and that signal strength is a function of several factors and that depth of the target is only one of them.

Yes, the plastic case knocked a couple of pounds off Compared to the Aluminum one.

Somehow I ended up with 3 of the Goldtrax units in the gold boxes with the elliptical coils - need to sell at least 2 of them

Yes,  the audio is modulated, the stronger the target’s return signal, the greater the audio intensity. The strength of the return signal depends on the target characteristics including the distance from the coil (depth) composition, form factor and mass.

OK, normally “cross-posting” is frowned on, but some pushback on another forum and a bit of me protesting that it was a bit “personal” resulted in a more or less graceful withdrawal by the other party. It made me think again about what the heck I am really doing with all this and while waiting for dinner, I wrote this...

Now, XXX with your permission, we’re pals again. 

I ain’t “pushing” nothing. I worked my buns off for three years because I believed that Alexandre Tartar - by virtue of working day and night for MANY years had made some of Eric Fosters ambitions for the utility of a two channel PI detector into a an amazing beach jewelry hunter. I have never wavered in the hope. That hope has turned into a belief and the belief has turned into a conviction. I have probably spent 20 -30 hours on Skype calls with Alexandre. I have use two prototypes, starting in October 2018. I bought (by invitation) the first production unit - which worked great - only to have a request to return it and have it replaced 6 weeks later. 

Meanwhile, Tom Walsh, listening to some small amount of feedback, decided that he really wanted it to be simpler, more robust and have longer lasting on battery. What to do - he had about 100 units kitted out and he could easily afford to scrap them, but he had a better idea. 

Bothered by folks like me and the designer, Alexandre and against the advice of his marketing staff, he decided to launch the thing. It would be the AQ “A” model, which was what it ought to have been called - but none of us were bright enough to see it clearly in the light of normal development in, for example military aerospace development - so he called it the IMPULSE AQ LIMITED. 

Tom ain’t broke. He wrote the “Disclosure” to explain what he was up to. 100 more of less - for sale at roughly half the price of the eventual AQ “B” - sold by one easily persuadable chump - yours truly - and saddle this fool which the entire management of the AQ “A” public facing existence. I make a few bucks per unit - Fisher does direct ship and provides the warranty and I have the responsibility to find the early buyers who will make the most immediate contribution to the collective knowledge of how best to use this thing to extract the maximum gold from beaches. 

I understand why this approach is hard to classify. Is Tom merely trying to make some bucks flogging second-rate hardware? If I believed that I would have withdrawn from this discussion with my tail properly between my legs, 

In fact I am proud and enthused - that Fisher figuring out that this thing that they had ready to launch - could be much easier to use and maintain with some mechanical changes - but that these would take time. And realizing that this thing would IN ANY EVENT require a careful and managed introduction to the niche marketplace represented by hard-core beach hunters - decided to use this early production version as an “AQ-A” model and offer it at a “not to be repeated” low price, to enlist the kind of die-hard beach hunters whose use of it would make or break it. 

I am not embarrassed by my participation. I think that this launch is innovative and probably unique and i am pleased to be involved.
 

There is a thread about this over on Dankowski. After having some muck slung at me by someone over there, who, among other things accused Fisher and me of palming a “Prototype” off on the public.

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Now that I have gotten that off my chest, let me tell you how the AQ is doing. The 8th unit shipped to a buyer yesterday and I expect the production rate to ramp up in the near future. 

The main reason for only having one dealer is to centralize the monitoring of the “voice of the customer”. 

The sharing of experience and learning is proceeding rapidly on a private sub-forum elsewhere. All owners are entered into it upon purchase. 

At Fisher, Tom Walsh, the president as well as his engineering and production leadership are closely involved in evaluating the ongoing feedback. I talk to Tom a couple of times a week and to the Designer Alexandre Tartar about as often. 

The Impulse AQ is the first in a line of innovative and first in class pulse induction detectors focused on very specific “jobs to be done” The AQ is designed for only one thing, finding gold jewelry - especially rings - at depths that exceed the capability of any existing detector. 

Because the majority of detector users have limited or no experience with PI detectors, the learning curve can be steep. The AQ is a tool whose full potential requires skill and experience in order to unlock to the maximum. 

Unlike many modern VLF machines, there are no complex “baked in” combinations of pre-programmed settings which can in turn be modified by changing a large number of internal variables through menus. 

Not counting the threshold, volume, sensitivity and on/off/mode selector controls, the AQ has three knobs, these controls are pulse delay, ATS (Fisher talk for SAT - self adjusting threshold level) and Reject. Learning the optimum use of these in conjunction with one another is the key to extracting maximum performance from the AQ in various hunting conditions. 

The “seeding” of the AQ in the hands of many dozens of the most experienced and active beach hunters in the US and Canada - while ensuring good geographical initial distribution of these units will provide a highly focused and carefully monitored “laboratory” where the “human factors” of AQ usage as well as its mechanical and electronic performance can be studied in a way that (as far as I am aware) has never been done before by any Metal detector manufacturer. 

Are the AQ Limited units “Prototypes” - no they are not. Reaching back to my experience as a pilot in the USAF and later in the aerospace industry with Lockheed, Northrop and Honeywell, I would say that they are “-A Models” Sometimes the “A” model stays in production/service for a very long time, like the KC-135 which I flew, sometimes it appears for a limited run and the lessons learned are incorporated in successive B, C, D, F and G models like the B-52.

Rick Kempf 
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

Facebook is eternal I guess. Plus I suspect Des would be OK having his video live on. He has a bunch of excellent videos on his channel. Desdunne1

Dave. In Tone or Mute mode, the reject control sets a “balance” point. This Is a point along a time line, All signals are analyzed by how quickly their signals decay. 

Signals which decay quickly fall on one side of the balance point, signals which persist longer fall on the other side. 

How long signals persist is based on a couple of factors. Chief among them are the conductivity of the target, the magnetic characteristics of the target due to ferrous content and the mass of the target.

In tone, the AQ gives a high tone to those targets on the “left” or short persisting side of the balance point. It gives a high tone to those longer persisting signals which fall on the “right” or long persisting side of the the balance point.

Signals which decay quickly and therefore are assigned a high tone include gold, aluminum, brass, lead - but only until their mass becomes so large that the signal persists beyond the balance point - in that case they fall “beyond” the balance point and would give a low tone.

A big piece of aluminum will give a long persisting signal, as will a piece of silver or a nail. In the first case, because of its mass, the second because of its conductivity and the third because is is a significant ferrous object.

This is totally different than the operation of a VLF detector which uses phase shift to do discrimination.

Gave you the punch bowl,  it there might be some tricks yet along the way, like bi-polar pulse.

Damned auto correct!!! - Bugging me. None of our friends would beg, although I cannot rule out that some of Steve's sausage dogs do!!!!

If Fisher had advertised at all, my list would be full at 100 in a week. As it is there is only this forum, one other and one FB group where folks can find out about it and how to get it. I’m not complaining, 50 people begging me about when they will get one are really quite enough for the moment!!

The AQ “unlimited” (not what it will be called) requires new injection mounded parts which probably will take a significant lead time.

Any guess I made would be foolish and would likely harm me.

I have a bit over 50 on the list of folks who are ready to buy. At the rate that these are being produced, I can’t possibly keep more than a few of these folks happy per week. I am following the instructions I received when I was given this task. Ensure that the early ones go to folks who are experienced and active and who are likely to be willing to share their experiences with others. I think that so far I have done OK on that score and will continue to do my best. When they get to the point of churning out tens a week or more, the list will get quickly whittled down. Until then I request that folks re-read the Disclosure that Tom Walsh wrote, it pretty much explains the situation (copy below).

On one of the many forums where I have been a “piñata” for some folks to whack - it was suggested that to get an AQ you would have to - if I may paraphrase - “osculate Rick’s gluteus Maximus” - I assure folks that that is not the case. No one who has furnished full contact details and a brief description of their beach hunting experience and activity has been refused addition to my list. In fact, I would welcome another 40 or so ASAP.

One problem is these silly forum names. If folks used their actual names it would be much easier to address comments by folks questioning their status or not on my list.

In any case, my role as a dealer means that it is a business - my business contact is rickkempf@gmail.com

P.S. It is not my intention to “out” all the buyers of the AQ as they get their units. Notwithstanding my hope and expectation that they will be generous in sharing their experiences - they are my customers - not Beta testers. The AQ’s are their property - bought and paid for - and they are free to treat them as they would any of the rest of their personal property and say whatever they want wherever about their experiences - of course, on the latter point, I think we all know that this is the “prima” location for that.

Impulse AQ Limited Buyer Disclosure -- 03June2020.pdf

For the record, lest someone reading an earlier post should conclude that the the videos showing gold rings giving a high tone and nails giving a low tone are somehow faked, contrived or represent the outcome of some kind of specially contrived set-up - I can assert - from my own use of three different AQ’s - that the results in the videos are typical and completely accurate and correct.

LE JAG neither speaks nor writes English with any fluency. He writes in French and runs it through Google Translate.

The AQ has two “discrimination” modes besides all metal. 

Multitone (or tone) provided two tones - high and low (the fact that within the two categories - high and low there are in fact audio frequency variations is noted) All targets which have a time constant shorter than the balance point established by the Reject control setting give a high tone. All targets which have a time constant longer than the balance point give a low tone. 

In Mute the principle of operation is the same, except the targets which give a low tone are muted instead.

Now, what targets? Depending on the setting of the Reject control and the ATS control as well, various targets will fall on the “long” side of the balance point set by the Reject control. Typically these include high conductors such as silver as well as ferrous targets because of their ferrromagnetic characteristics.

This is COMPLETELY different that the phase shift based discrimination of a typical VLF detector.

If you assume that inland gold jewelry jewelry will be relatively shallow - then my newly acquired looks brand new Tesoro Pantera with the clean sweep coil I have (which will fit on it) might be interesting - with skillfull use of the notch/two-tone settings.

The AQ fits the bill except for the coil. Maybe Alexandre can fix that - Of course if he could – that would be the problem with getting First Texas to build it.

It will be interesting to heat from buyers of the AQ in FL when they get them. I have several experienced FL beach hunters on my list. So far, none of them have received a unit.

For raw depth, the AQ should beat it handily, even in very low mineral sand. The overall utility of one vs. the other will depend on the specific characteristics of the beaches, targets of all types and hunters' preferred techniques of operating.

Mary Hudson is a jewel - happily for her, she retired last year. Todd is an Ace, with high tech companies around in OR, hopefully he will get a better job! Or maybe he would like a warmer climate - there is always El Paso - lots of high-tech stuff there now!!

Their whole business model was build stuff for $100 and then sell it to distributors who would sell it to dealers who would sell it to users.

User price $600. Their profits were likely not extreme, the distribution channel ate up all the money.

The distributors are mostly or completely gone. The dealers likewise.

The remaining companies have leaner distribution models, and the future is likely direct manufacturer to customer.

Problem is that the manufacturers aren’t used to this either and are struggling with how to do this. Openness, transparency etc. great ideas but hard to achieve.

Wow - still have an IDX Pro with mods - pretty sure I will keep it - heck I just bought a like new Tesoro Pantera.

Folks pay millions for classic models of all kinds of stuff which were the product of long vanished companies.