Mike Hillis

I'm a Fisher F75 LTD fan myself. I can recommend one of those with out any hesitation....unless you are going to snorkel with it. HH Mike

I like to hum a little ditty as I swing, "I like finding silver and gold, silver and gold, silver and gold. I like finding silver and gold, silver and gold today!" Very nice find! HH Mike

I was out weekend before last and had both my TRX and my TekPoint in my finds bag. TRX with batteries, the TekPoint without batteries. When I pulled out my TRX to use it, it wouldn't turn on. I fiddled with the batteries and still couldn't get it to turn on so I pulled the batteries and put them in my Tekpoint. They ran fine in the Tekpoint and I've used it that weekend and this last weekend. I put new batteries in my TRX and it works fine. I guess when the batteries finally quit on the Tekpoint I'll move them to the F75 and finish them off. Moral of the whole post is that the Tekpoint is pretty good on batteries. HH Mike

always nice to find some good things in the clean up pile. HH Mike

Carl, do you know if Todd or Centerville can do the upgrade from a V3 to a V3i? Thanks, Mike

I agree. It looks like a good stone. Very nice piece of wearable silver. HH Mike

Thanks for cleaning that up, Mitchel. The world would be a much more trashed out place if it wasn't for the few, like yourself, who care enough to stop and deal with issues like this. HH Mike

I feel for you, Steve. I hate ordering new stuff and it show up busted. It always reminds me of that one Christmas where the best present I got was a really great electric car and race track set, only the car was busted on arrival. I never did get to play with it, and best i can recall, my dad took it back and returned it and pocketed the money. Now that I'm all grown up I can throw a fit without getting a whipping HAHAHA. Anyway,.....I can feel for you. HH Mike

I'm going to try out the new Tek weatherproof headphones with the 8500 They are really designed for use with the armrest headphone jack models like the T2 and F75 but I have an extension cord that allows me to use them with the 8500 These are very nice weather proof Koss models made for 1st Texas. I've had them awhile and I've used them with my F75, Impact and Gold Kruzer, V3 and Etrac. Audio wise I find them to be on par with the White's Prostars. I don't have any problem recommending them and they are reasonably priced. HH Mike https://www.tekneticsdirect.com/products/Weatherproof Headphones These metal detecting headphones are designed by Koss for Teknetics® following our stringent product specifications. They are weatherproof to IPX4 specifications to withstand the harshest weather conditions. Our Headphones have superior sound quality, dual volume control and are noise isolating. Teknetics® has created these high quality, weatherproof headphones ideal for beginner detectorists and professional treasure hunters alike, now at a very affordable price. Weatherproof IPX4 Comfortable Over the Ear Design Dual Volume Control Noise Isolating High Performance Sound Quality 18-20,000 Hz frequency 5 ft 60 in Coiled Cord with ¼” Jack 2 Year Warranty Folds Up for Compact Storage and Convenient Travel

Got my Teknetics Omega 8500 Pro Pack yesterday from metaldetectors.com. This is my first dealings with them. 1: The Omega 8500 Pro Pack is a factory assembled package. I had originally thought the pro pack would be a like a Kellyco deal where the dealer would open the box and chunk all the extras in and reseal and ship but its not. The 8500 Pro Pack is fully factory packed with everything in its place in the box. I really enjoyed unboxing it: Omega 8500 with 11" Biaxial coil 4" concentric coil. Rain cover TekPoint pulse pinpointer with holster Arm strap metaldetectors.com included extras are: 1 Year Location Membership with ring finders. ( I don't know what this is) 30 day free digital Western and Eastern Magazine subscription. 2: The date codes on the detector and the included Tek-point were all June of 2020; They are the latest production runs. This was the primary fear I had as my Gold Kruzer purchase fiasco had left me skittish, that the Pro package deal would be used to move old stock/returned stock but that was not the case. Everything was the latest greatest production run which is what I wanted. All for the low price of $389 shipped. I am extremely pleased with my purchase from metaldetectors.com HH Mike

I used a Millennium CoinTrax II for a while. Very nice performer for old school user interface. I liked the concept of the Baron's; adding and switching models to change functionality. They were the precursor to internet downloads. At one time George was working on a more modern version but nothing ever came to market. I miss JB. Thanks for bringing back the memories. HH Mike

Put in fresh batteries. Low batteries will make them go crazy. HH Mike

They'll have no problem competing or staying in the market place. State sponsored/funded companies compete at a different level. R&D development dollars don't have to come from sales. HH Mike

I want one, please. HH Mike

Thanks for the Taktyk two box link, GB. I'll keep an eye on that Thanks Chase, I wonder what the big target hunters are using for artillery shells..... I'm kind of partial to the F75 and the $120 new price tag makes their coil an attractive option over the Nokta offering.... Just thinking out loud...the Fisher coil would probably need at least a 6" air gap to function properly....I wonder if a simple counterweight would solve the balance issue.... I dunno....stuff to ponder.... HH Mike .

I would think this would be more of a dry sand activity...Pretty cool though. HH Mike

That is interesting, Rick. We don't know what we don't know when we don't do that type of hunting ourselves. I guess it has to do with how the design engineers treat big iron. We tend to think of iron as iron but it has a discrimination range just like non-ferrous and the DE's have to figure out how they want to handle the FE range and the related iron effects, too. For most of us we want to keep all ferrous buried deep in the ferrous range so we don't get fooled buy it, yet still be able to adjust our disc around the FE/Non-FE break point. Big iron typically wraps around to the high conductive side and small iron floats around the FE/non-FE break point. Its why we can disc out nails but not axe heads. Add to that the fact that the DE's also try to extend the high conductive break point to FE as far as possible in order to keep high conductors responding as high conductors as long as possible before it crosses over the FE boundary. This also affects how big iron crosses that boundary in reverse. When you add in detectors that also have a mineral range it gets even more complex. Thanks for bring this subject up. HH Mike

Thanks for the report, Sven....I've always liked that "fine instrument" look of the Blisstool. HH Mike

Fisher makes a cache coil for the F75. 15" DD Nokta makes a cache coil for the IMPACT. 15 x 17" DD Both offer multiple non-motion static all metal modes; F75 has the DE, BP, and CL operation options for their static all metal mode. . Nokta has the STA and STA(D) static operating modes. I wonder which detector is the better cache hunter? I guess I need to find out. The winner gets the cache coil. Any thoughts? HH Mike

Thanks GB_Amateur. Sensitivity consists of two components, Gain and Threshold. For instance the F75 has two gain settings 0 and 30. Settings are 1 to 29 are threshold settings for the low gain setting. Settings 31 to 99 are threshold settings for the high gain setting. The Omega also has the two components....only different: 0 to 70 are gain settings, with 70 as max gain...all nice and linear....settings above 70 are threshold settings. If your site lets you get your Gain to the max gain at 70, then you can try and adjusting the threshold settings. Think of settings above 70 as hypergain settings. Sometimes you can get a good quiet location and really get the threshold up. Most places, settings above 70 are going to be considered "working into the noise". For EMI control the 8500 has the two Deep settings (2 & 3) that include 60 and 50 kHz filters plus a small 3 selection frequency shift. Sometimes you have to add a little disc or notch/notch volume control if you can isolate it to a general phase range. Deep 0 can be useful too...only you start out a bit handicapped in the depth area at the onsite if you have to go there but it can perform in high EMI sites. Another way to circumvent bad EMI is to use a lower gain setting with the D5 audio. D5 audio is full bore unsaturated audio. Only downside is its full bore audio for everything in the receiver.....but if you have to run really low gain settings, full bore audio can make up for some of the depth loss. The 8500 feature set is pretty good. HH Mike

I'm back in the black...finally....hope to have it in hand next week. HH Mike

that's a Geotech picture. Carl, how many more have you added since that picture was taken? HH MIke

I use videos to hear the audio tones. i make buy decisions based on the feature set as described in the operating manual. No operating manual up yet for the Apex Ace. HH Mike

I used a Little Wizard II woodworking probe as my electronic pinpointer for a few years when I first got started. I don't know how long the reclaimed lumber industry has been using/offering electronic nail detection........ HH Mike

The only metal detecting commercials i ever saw on TV were Whites Detectors. I used to love to see those come up on late night television. I think they quit airing around 2008. HH Mike