UT Dave

Anxiously awaiting Gerry's shipment! Now, haven't heard anything, so presume there's nothing to hear, but I'm also anxious for that small elliptical coil. - Dave

An announcement eh? Yeah, maybe. Or maybe just more promises to make announcements. Just make the Manticore manual available. Announce that. Announce "something". - Dave

Dang it... I had myself all settled in for a long winters wait. Had the excitement all tamped down. Now you go and get me all anxious again. - Dave

Meh... Fries of French origin, okay. But, frites, now, frites - what fries wish they could be - frites are Belgian. Put frites in a bun with merguez sausages and andalouse sauce, the French are begging for the recipe. Downtown Salt Lake has a hole in the wall that serves exactly that and calls it the Machine Gun. Bruges. Highly recommend if you're ever hungry in downtown Salt Lake. Best Italian sandwiches in town next door at Caputos's. - Dave

My guess why not, is Minelab is a disciplined operation and speaking of such is for the marketing folks, not the engineers. Where I work, I don't really want my engineers getting out in front of the marketing folks either. The marketers have their job, we have ours. Ours is to build it. There's is to sell it. Two vastly different skill sets. I'll add though... The dang marketing folks do like to get out in front of the engineers and talk about stuff that isn't even in the design phase yet, let alone close to completion - or sometimes even possible! Marketing. Can't live with them. Can't live without them. - Dave

Purely speculation - obviously. But I think that Minelab's seemingly somewhat disciplined radio silence may indicate that, forces that want to hold shipment until all the T's are crossed (engineers), may be having some success in swaying the forces that want to ship MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and ship updates later (sales, marketing). Publicly traded companies don't dare try and get cute with holding up ready to ship product. They'll ship just as soon as they come off the production line. I think I'll be at least moderately surprised if there isn't at least one update on the heels of release. We'll see... - Dave

I've no idea when it will actually ship, of course. But when it's done and in production, it will ship. Whenever that is. Sitting on completed inventory when there are dealer orders open and in need of being filled and other projects and products already queued up behind the Manticore would make zero business sense. At any time of year. Fill the orders and take the money is what you do. Inventory on dealers shelves is the dealers problem. But I doubt that will be a problem early on, pre-orders should suck up most of the initial shipments nearly immediately. I'm hoping for Christmas. But betting against it. - Dave

Exactly what I meant. A run time meter. Swinging backwards reminds me of a couple of pickup trucks I leased years ago. I put big tires on them to get around better out in the desert and such. Did not correct the speedos. Did not have to pay for the several thousand miles over the lease agreement I put on them. 😂 - Dave

I actually wouldn't mind an hour meter. I won't miss it either, though. But a clock... No. Detecting time is like fishing time, or hunting time. No clocks. - Dave

Already on the list with you Gerry. Hope you get a bunch of them in the first shipment! I'm wanting the 8x5.5 coil too. Hope they are available soon after the Manticore ships. - Dave Affleck

I've mixed feelings on the Manticore release. The fact I'm buying one, not withstanding. The lack of real info from Minelab, combined with the embargo on early independent first hand reports. Result is there just isn't a whole lot of meat and potatoes on this beast yet. Which, means to me, really, compared to the D2 and Legend "launches", this one has been actually very quiet (so far). The "hype machine" isn't really generating much buzz, compared to the last two blitzes, I think? I lament the lack of solid info from Minelab for something I've already ordered. I rejoice the lack of youtube testers (those early "independent" first hand reports) krap-posting everywhere and turning boards into non-stop Jerry Springer purse fights. I wish Minelab would be more forthcoming with hard documentation of features operation. I'm relieved Minelab didn't send out early test units to people who shouldn't really be entrusted with such. - DAA

I'm not all that interested in any videos, so far. What I'd really like to see, soon, is a user manual. I can get more out of that than almost any video ever made. There's only a couple of "online guys" I pay much attention to when it comes to how machines perform, in my typical dirt and hunting situations. Both have posted on this thread saying they aren't going to be early adopters. But, I got in line for one myself, awhile ago. As Cal said, take the Pepsi challenge for myself. At the end of the day, that's all that matters - my take, on my own terms. Not any videos or forum posts. I'll have one of the first to hit the USA shore, and I'll see for myself. As Mr. McClendon pointed out, I won't likely post much if anything about my thoughts when I do get it though. Unless it's just super straightforward factual stuff - my opinions can stay my own. - Dave

If the product is ready to ship, start recouping development costs ASAP. The cost is sunk. Time value is ticking. Economy doesn't really alter that decision? Budget for projects still in development? Different deal altogether. Devil would be in the details and outcome could go either way. - Dave

So... I don't actually know anything about this. But, I have a pretty new Nox 800. And I have definitely noticed that around town, EMI is worse this spring than it was just last fall. Why? Don't know. Some have said perhaps it's the proliferation of 5G stuff going up everywhere. Maybe. I can't say. I'm not just imagining that I have to turn down the sensitivity a few notches lower, than I did six months ago, in the same places though. Just two days ago, I ran through every frequency, noise cancelling at each one, and couldn't go above 16 sensitivity without the constant audible chuckle of EMI. As it turned out, at that site, 40kHz is the only single frequency that would even let me run that high. Anyway... I really know nothing about this. But just on the face of it, considering what a universal issue EMI is, how many people have been trying to deal with it, I'd be flat out amazed to learn that just getting a new battery could make a meaningful difference. - Dave

I'll trade you my Barbers for that half a half 😆. - Dave

I got my Nox 800 in Sep. and have been having what I think is pretty good luck with it. Park hunting isn't my favorite, but it's what I mostly do because I can get in an hour or two after work or between honey-dos. My goal for this year, was simply to find an 18xx anything US coin. Penny, dime, whatever, as long as it is 1800's. I had reasonable confidence I'd find one this year. But I never expected it to happen in a park! But it did. Short park hunt today. Not very deep, in some tree roots. A 1895 S Barber! Couldn't hardly believe it! Up till now, I've found only two silver Rosies in the parks around here. The other Barbers and the one Merc I've found were at ghost town type sites. So I was sure my 18xx coin was going to come from a site like that. But, nope, park find! I have been on a tear on the park .925 and gold lately though. Counting today, five out of my last six short park turf hunts have produced silver and one of them produced 14kt gold. From just the last couple weeks of short park hunts: I find those sterling CTR rings fairly regular. I guess because silver coins are so few and far between for me in the parks, I call those sterling CTR's "Mormon Mercs". No offense to my Mormon family, friends and neighbors of course. But they are by far my most common .925 finds. Anyway, stoked to break into the 1800's! And it looks like the 1895 S is a semi-key date to boot! - Dave

I do believe that's it! Thanks! - Dave

A little on the small side for that, maybe? But yeah, "Mon Choix" does sound better than "soap added for foam". Thinking along those lines, cigar box label? Definitely could be something like a mirror frame. My buddy thinks it came off a piece of horse tack. Buckaroos were known to get fancy with their horses sometimes. Me, I just don't know? I see what you did there with Mon Choix 😆. - Dave

I bet it does look familiar 😁. Although, not to very many. Thanks! Used to be world class coyote country. Prolonged drought and giant wildfires have decimated the habitat though. It's a far, far cry from what it used to be. I've called as many as 25+ in a day out there in the good old days. Now, 5 in a day is doing real good. Still, I got a few coyotes to talk to me from camp each evening. - Dave

Last weekend I was finally able to get out and detect something other than park turf. Detected several sites from the 1870's and up. Got snowed on quite a bit, rained on quite a bit, the wind howled most of the time, but it was a blast! Some of my finds: Lower right, are a couple of brass or copper tags. My Google Fu is weak, as I can't find what they might have come on. One says "Mon Choix", the other "Unique". I had to clean the "Mon Choix" a bit with a wire brush to read it. Anyone have any idea what these came from? "Mon Choix" sounds like some sort of ladies item? "Unique" could be darn near anything. Although, the one possible thing I found is a sewing machine from the early 1870s, which is the right time period for where I found it. One of the more interesting items to me, I think I know what it is. I think this is part of a shotgun that died in a fire. There was a lot more of it in the hole but it was all crumbling to the touch. Only this chunk of what I believe to have been part of the forearm/magazine held together. The site where the Unique tag and the shotgun part were found. The Mon Choix tag was found here. Also found at the site above was a little piece of silver decorative trim. Thinking it might have been horse tack decoration, but not at all sure. Wasn't totally sure it was really silver, but acid says it is. And straightened out a bit. Anyone know what this might have come from too? A bit heavier than it looks, at 6 grams. Totally wild guesses as welcome as well informed opinions! - Dave

That, is just amazing! - Dave

I use a Worksharp Ken Onion edition, with the optional grinding attachment. A Harbor Freight 1" belt grinder works too, but the smaller Worksharp tool is easier to control the amount of material being removed and doesn't heat up the blade as fast as the regular belt grinder does. I don't go for razor sharp on it though. Just a bit thinner/sharper edge than as issued. - Dave

Trees can be a good tell, for sure. Saturday I was hunting a fairly new soccer park, too new for silver coins. I remember when it was built, about 40 years ago. We used it as a motocross track before that. Nothing very deep on the soccer fields, under the sod/soil only about 5" deep was a base layer of gravel. But along the east edge of the park, are some old trees. It's a part of the park that looks particularly unappealing and doesn't see much traffic, so not necessarily an obvious place to hunt. But, I know those trees were there long before the park was built, they were big mature trees 40 years ago. So, not getting anything but clad and tiring of Corona caps and aluminum trash digging low numbers hoping for jewelry on the soccer field, I wandered over there to the old trees. Different colored dirt. Re adjusted GB. And no gravel layer underneath, getting much deeper targets. Pulled a couple of old shotshell butts from 8". Few other non-ferrous junk. Then a '64 Rosie from 8" deep! In a "new" park. Had to be a drop from before the park was built. Old trees led me to it. Not the first time old trees have put me on something good. - Dave

I've been managing software engineers for a couple of decades. First thing any dev wants to do with any legacy codebase is re-write it. Often, with good reason. It sounds like the technical debt of the V3 code is just too much to overcome without a complete re-write. Which, usually doesn't make financial sense just on the code side. Toss in the hardware obsolescence, and yeah, I can't see any business saying "oh heck yeah, let's take that old stuff and re-do it all". Just not how tech works. - Dave

I don't "think" anyone uses stainless buckshot, even less likely sintered. But, I only think that, I don't know it for fact. I use pure tungsten shot, which is shiny like stainless, but that doesn't look like tungsten. There are varieties of alloyed heavier than lead pellets which are sintered, too, but that doesn't look like any of them I've ever seen either. Nickel plated lead buckshot is common. Ringing 10-11, that sounds possibly lead too. If, that's buckshot, my wild theory on the facets, would be a duplex load of buck and much smaller shot pellets. Buckshot showing deformation from being surround by smaller pellets in the payload. That's a lot of maybes strung together though, I wouldn't necessarily place any bets on my own theory 😁. - Dave