GB_Amateur

Interesting. Eventually they added the First Texas popular/common format 7"x11" DD. I think you can buy the F44 configured with either the teardrop concentric (as shown in your attached brochure) or the DD, with a modest(?) price difference. If the upcoming repackaged (Fisher F19 --> Bounty Hunter 3300) has an anticipated low price, I wonder what FT will do with the F44, if anything.

Thanks. Best price I could find in US (with shipping) is ~$20 for that 40 pack. Possibly dollar stores (or even Aldi, since you said they are German made) might have them cheap without shipping. Anyone use Costco brand 'Kirkland'? I think those are $17 for a 48 pack, still not as good as the Aussie price. I don't use as many AA's as previously, but still so many household items require them, and some detectors. I have a 16 eneloop pro 23.50 mAh set. As long as a device can handle the lower voltage (and as long as you overcome their initial cost and the cost for a charger), that is a good way to go. I got those for my TDI/SPP but also later bought a HP2900 (mAh) 12V lithium pack -- not cheap, either. One thing I've found, which is contrary to at least one usually reliable online site's claim -- not all alkalines are equal.

Well, that's easier to say now that the Nokta-Makro Simplex is making it to market and the Minelab Vanquish will be any day now (meaning, oh, in the next few months as Minelab tries their best to keep the fish on the line). Here's a thread where some people were pretty impressed with the price. Back when this thread was created & filled the Minelab Equinox wasn't even being hyped by the industry's king of hype:

Welcome, Dave63! Wow, I sure hope that's the beach behind you, because if it's desert I can't imagine any fauna or flora being able to survive out there. Is that gray contraption the engine's air intake? Pretty neat idea. Long ago we could get Toyota Land Cruisers in the USA. Then they used the name on a soccer mom vehicle. The only off-road it could handle was the supermarket parking lot. Yours looks like it could conquer Everest. Please share pictures of your finds. I can see you have the right tools for the job.

Where do you get those, and what is the brand?

Surprised you can still hunt up there. Dare I ask the temperature? Great looking specie, BTW!! Glad to hear the ORX is delivering for you.

Received a Kellyco holiday catalog in the mail this week (even though I've never bought anything from them...). They are advertising the Vanquish models as if they have them in stock. Presumably they printed the catalog assuming they would be getting detectors in before Christmas. (I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.)

My plot only shows binary alloys. Naturally occurring gold can (and does) have more than just one other component. Thus trying to tie down native gold conductivity even with identically shaped and sized pieces (already not valid) is further steeped in uncertainty, consistent with Steve H.'s 'experimental' findings. Coins and jewelry composition are much better controlled. For detectorists (the one's I think give gold the bad rap 😉), note that most US gold coinage made for circulation (specifically 1834-1933) is 90% gold, 10% copper. That also can be seen very near the bottom of conductivity on the chart. Speaking of gold alloy, I was watching a NatGeo TV show (Lost Cities with Albert Lin) about the 16th Century Conquistadors trying to find a huge cache of gold in what is now Columbia, South America, what they called 'El Dorado'. The natives in the area had lots of gold items which were in fact gilded, although the Spaniards, in their greed, assumed they were pure gold. The local museum curator was talking about how those natives alloyed the gold with silver and copper. I was wondering if rather they just used the natural occuring alloy.

If it's based on the F19 (as all indicators point) then it will. Having V-break and discriminate level tied to each other on the Gold Bug was too restrictive but they fixed it for the F19. If you've read Jorge Saad's history of the Gold Bug development (page 11 of http://www.fisherlab.com/wtn-2014/) you'll see that they were afraid to make it too much of a coin and relic detector for fear of scaring away the target audience -- native gold hunters. AFAIK, yes, that was First Texas's last new design, and it actually was new, not rebranding. At least that's my understanding.

Another trick to reduce EMI (I don't mean from other detectors) is to lower the recovery speed.

Is this another example of "do what I say, not what I do"?? 😁

And not all that long ago (in detector development years😁) they hired Carl. I don't think that was so he would help make night vision goggles.

The F19 actually came (should make that preesnt tense -- 'comes' since it's still on the market) stock with the 5"x10" DD, which I recall being Steve H.'s preferred gold hunting coil for the Gold Bug Family. I have all three FT stock coils for my GB Pro and like all 3, but if I were to do it over I'd get the F19 (with 5"x10") and add the NEL snake and Detech Ultimate. I call that the 'Phrunt' upgrade!

I modified the format of the data found here and then plotted it: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f038/b47f83d3478be37c2c69a57db722c68a36ea.pdf Gold gets a bad rap for its conductivity, but in pure form it's the 3rd best elemental conductor after silver and copper. (Aluminum is #4.) Very few items we find are elementally pure but rather all are alloys. Further adding to gold's reputation is that copper and silver alloy well so what most people call 'silver' is actually silver+copper alloy together and still an extremely high conductor.

Excellent review. I wish there were more pinpointer reviews (guess I could help there...🙄). Have you tried it as just a pinpointer, without the small coil? I don't beach hunt so it would be more useful to me as simply a gun barrel pinpointer, although I can imagine the coil mode being useful on special occasions.

Great discoveries! I'm surprised you didn't find any small denomination coins. I bet they're still there. Maybe the difficulty of the ground is hiding them so far. That padlock in particular is a nice find, with manufacturer and what appears to be usage wording, or is that just the model of the padlock? I'm not used to that kind of ground so can't help you with your settings. But you might want to take some coins out there, bury them (I wouldn't go deep, at least at first) and then adjust your settings to maximize the responses. Thanks for posting and please continue to do so as you pull more goodies out of that site.

Excellent finds, Hugh! Well done giving the Eqx a chance in that super highly mineralized ground. Glad to see you were able to find some time in your busy schedule to get out, particularly before the winter weather hits. For those of us semi-ignorant in Civil War history, could you explain what a 'US cavarly bit boss' was used for? It's ironic that I've never gone CW relic hunting but in my hometown have found 2 or 3 CW items, including a cartridge box plate which I reported back in July 2018 (found on 4th of July!): I also found one CW eagle coat button and a Mexican-American War dragoon coat button. All three of these were from different hometown parks here in Indiana, where no battles were ever fought. Meanwhile I've only found one silver quarter and no silver coins of larger denomination even though old coins are what I crave. Go figure.

Isn't he the designer of the TDI series?

Actually they still have an SL model with 2 coils for $1200 retail (tan or camo decoration): https://www.whiteselectronics.com/product/tdi-sl-high-q/?lang=us Agree that a new PI which simply matches the performance of the TDI/SL is a non-starter. Garrett ATX performance level has got to be the minimum, IMO.

That's not quite true even for dry land PI's. The White's TDI/SL qualifies, but is underpowered compared to the competition. The QED PL's also qualify but unfortunately their distribution is currently limited. So, yes, there is a huge need for a moderately powered, widely distributed, lightweight, affordable dry land PI. (And I suspect that's what you really meant. 😉)

Just another thought to "kill two birds with one stone": For the counterbalance to accomodate heavier coils, have a way to attach spare battery packs. This allows you to carry the battery spares on your person (pocket, backpack, etc.) when not needed for counterbalancing but easily used as counterweight when a heavy coil is mounted.

Dear Nokta/Makro: As far as coil compatibility, I hope that also includes Coiltek and Nuggetfinder. I think lightweight, balance, and battery convenience are all achievable. Please (I'm sure you have) read what Steve says about balance taking precedence over minimum weight. A variable counterbalance system (or at least the ability for a detectorist to do that himself) would be great so that different coils can be used and still allow balance. What I'd like to see in the battery area is both a rechargeable lithium pack and the ability to use standard AA's such as alkaline throw-aways and NiMH rechargeables. I'd prefer not having to tether the batteries to my person -- I'd much rather just change them out when they get low on juice. Oh, and I do hope we're talking about a dry land, native gold hunting capable detector. Now, I'm not a beach hunter so fully waterproof isn't necessary nor do I want to pay for that, if possible to avoid. I could imagine two versions, one for beach hunters (waterproof) and one for landlubbers (waterproof coil and rain resistant contol head). For the headphone sockets, why not include both (at least on the dry land version) 3.5 mm AND 1/4"? First Texas has done that in some cases and I find it extremely convenient. Hope you don't mind all this 'help' designing your detector. 😁 As usual you're not going to make everyone happy and a Swiss Army Knife approach probably won't be feasible. Most important to me are minimum weight for a truly balanced dry land capable detector with no tethers. The other stuff would be nice, but I'm sure I can live without them. As far as cost, yes that's important to me (most of us?) but you've repeatedly proven you know all about that!

There are few things in detecting I can say I beat Steve H. to the line, but operating a detector is one of them. I first used a metal detector (home built from an electronics mag in 1969) and had my first usable detector (Heathkit GD-48 in 1970/71). From there it's been all downhill. It would be a complete sham to pretend my detecting skills approach Steve's, or for that matter many of those who post here. However, I'm not going to admit that I don't have observations which might deserve consideration. I was out today with my EQX 800 in a school yard I've been working for 1 1/2 years. 3 1/2 hours produced two old US 'nickel' 5 cent pieces and a lot of other metal objects whose origin/usage/meaning are mostly a mystery. When I go detecting it's as much about learning as it is about finding, and today's hunt was not exception. What comes back to perception (I won't go as far to say 'realization') for me is the issue of masking. Iron is king when it comes to all metal detectors AFAIK. But any metal object, given the right size, shape, and location can be a masker. Recent detectors have made strides in unmasking desirable targets, but I sure hope they aren't finished. Although it's always true that you can't beat mother nature (physics), most of the time that doesn't prevent improvements such as speed and software 'intelligence'. There may be hardware breakthroughs out there, or not, but I'd like to think even without that we will see the biggest problem in coin and relic detecting realizing improvements in the near future. Which company will do that? I don't care, but there are several capable and here's hoping at least one cares enough about us detectorists, for whatever reason, to do so.

Care to give us some concrete evidence to back up your contention?

Good observation, schoolofhardNox, and I'll add that it's even true with IB/VLF. Anyone who thinks he's 100% sure of what's giving the coil a signal is fooling himself. That's why there are so many good find still available for those of us who search previously detected sites. I guess we should thank them.