Badger-NH

The tribe on F-Troop was the Hekawi. They originally wanted to call them the Fugawi but the the censors wouldn't allow it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_Troop#The_Hekawi_tribe

Winter is my favorite time to detect here in coastal NH. Open ground freezes solid but the woods are always diggable. Two or three inches of snow really helps when gridding an area. I dug a colonial copper and large cent just last week. When the snow gets too deep, we hit the beaches. I have Reynaud's but can usually get by with ski mittens. I have to take one off to push buttons or pick up a find but that doesn't take long. I use handwarmers sometimes if it's well below freezing. The best way to stay warm is wear lots of layers and a good winter hat. For extreme cold, I add a fleece neck warmer. A lot of heat escapes through your neck.

It's working for me. https://www.detecting.com/ It's funny that is the first time I've ever had any reason to visit the BH site.

The photo is from Google Maps. https://rb.gy/038sso A few of the photos show cars in the parking lot. They all say "Image capture Jan 2018", except for the 360 street view at the bottom which says April 2021 and shows well over 100 cars in the lot.

Sharp looking coil. Reminds me of the old White's Bigfoot. Looking forward to your review.

The only reason I check this forum is for the suspense. Will the company go down in flames? What poor decisions will they make next? They waited too long to come out with new detectors. They had their chance 15 years ago and blew it. I don't see how they will ever catch up at this point. The Fisher company was built by detectorists. First Texas was built by greed.

Don't believe anything that Smellyco tells you. They will do anything to hook you in. Their sales people must be working on commission. They outright lied to me enough times that I finally said never again. There are lots of good honest detector stores out there that will give you just as good a deal. You know you're at the right place when the store owner answers the phone.

I had SEF coils on both my T2 and F-75 and was amazed at the difference in performance over the stock coils.

They also need a whole new line of better coils. I was happy with the Fisher concentric coils back in the old days but the Fisher/Teknetics DD coils have been poor performers from the start. .

I'm a big fan of wireless. That would be a major selling point for me. I would do away with integrated speakers. The speaker should be an accessory that you clip on and plug in. Plus, speakers should always face the user. Not point away like so many do today.

The place where the CZs really shined was in the salt environment. I'm still using the CZ-20 I bought in 1998 and love how it performs. It is every bit as deep as my Equinox if not deeper. The electronics rival anything on the market today. It just needs to be redesigned into a beach detector. Make it lightweight, ergonomic, and affordable. No screen. No speaker. Just multi-tone ID and pinpoint is all it needs, with the main focus on performance. That is a detector I would buy and use. They should completely discontinue all the present Fisher models and replace them with a new line of CZs to fit every niche and price range. Some models could be digital and others simple and affordable, while never skimping on performance. At the very least, there should be a CZ line of beach detectors. Design the AQ as a super deep, all-metal pulse machine and leave out the discrimination BS. The market is wide open for a high-performance, easy to use pulse detector. The problem with FT might very well be that none of the decision makers are into metal detecting. They are just business men/women selling product. They have a vague idea of what metal detectors do but they don't waste much time thinking about it. All they see are numbers. If playing golf on the weekends is more important than going metal detecting, the company is going to suffer on some level.

The F-19 was a great machine. I liked the look of the coil and the camo. It's the only one in the line I would consider buying. The price was a bit steep though compared to what's available today.

I didn't have time to read everything here but if no one mentioned it, when just starting out, the best way to avoid digging iron is to focus more on the sound than the numbers. Dig only clear, repeatable, 360 degree signals. Walk around the target and if they sound smooth all the way around with no low tones mixed in, it is more than likely non-ferrous. Some large iron might also sound good but the target profile will be large in pinpoint. Most non-ferrous targets like coins will have a small profile. Once you get familiar with the sounds, a lot of iron can easily be avoided. You definitely want to dig the pull rings and lead because they could also be gold or hammered silver.

If that's India, why isn't he speaking English? Traditional languages are generally not used much there. India is said to be the second largest English speaking country.

The stock 11" coil is a throw away IMO. It came on my T2, Gold Bug DP, and F-75 and they all had very poor performance in my test garden compared to aftermarket coils. FT makes some pretty good detectors but they suck at designing coils. The stock 11" has not changed since the original design. The ears are extremely thin and brittle, and snap off very easily if you don't remember to use the special red washers that come with it. That should have been corrected after the first year of production. If I were to buy an F-75 today, I would toss the stock coil and get an SEF. Maybe this new coil will be an improvement.

I think most would agree that the AQ would not be the best choice for coin hunting. You'd be much better off going with a Minelab Equinox. Even if you were set on buying the AQ, it may be years before it is released if ever. They made 100 prototypes over a year ago which are still being offered. Apparently they have not yet decided whether to put a final version into full production or scrap the project. Hence the silence.

It has nothing to do with strain from the magnet. More likely, the cracks happened during the manufacturing process. They might have used a weak formula in the plastic. Then it cracked when it was stamped together. That's my guess.

I wonder if anyone at the event will ask Russ when the new AQ will be available. 🙂

I'll bet Minelab is regretting marketing the Equinox as a water hunting machine. I wonder what percentage have leaked since the beginning. All I had to do was trip and fall once with mine and it broke it open enough that I could see the electronics inside. I imagine that just a slight tweak or bump of the control pod could easily pop the seal enough to make it leak and you would never know it until you enter the water. The Equinox is simply too fragile to be used for water hunting after the warranty is up.

It's funny how TNSS stays within the range of 5-7 and I primarily use just 4 or 8. If the 800 had only two recovery speeds, those would work fine for me. In iron laden sites, I use both. 8 for separation and 4 for depth. Most sites with iron have occasional spaces between the iron where the deeper setting of 4 can pull out targets that 8 can not reach. I generally use Field 2 in iron for good separation or sometimes 20/40 kHz. Gold mode is also worth a try but I usually find that it falses too much on the iron.

On which video was it and at what part is it mentioned? Edit - Found it. The video is "an evening with joe beachnut!!" and the AQ is mentioned at 11:20. It will be interesting to see if what Russ told Jeff is true. What does Jeff mean when he says that when he gets his AQ he'll be giving people the mumbles?

I would not trust anything from Kellyco. If I was in charge at Fisher, I'd be saying publicly that the AQ is expected to be available at such and such a date. Or the AQ project has been delayed or put on hold and give the reason why. Most importantly, I would be honest with my customers.

My gut feeling is that they have scrapped the idea. If anything was in the works, they would be letting the public know about it. I think the rumors of its iron ID capability were mostly hype. It may have excellent depth in all metal but it's not worth $2000. Those who got the Limited got a good deal and an opportunity to try new technology.

I don't know much about electronics but was thinking, maybe you could just connect four of these to the two wires in the detector. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9V+Battery+Clip+Connector&i=industrial&ref=nb_sb_noss

If I find any, I'll be sure to toss it in the nearest trash.