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I find the discussion about using a PI to find small gold and whether it can be done somewhat amusing. Ask a lot of PI users and they can tell you they have seen a PI in use many years ago that could do just that. How do i know this? Well, many years ago a lot of the invisible gold being discussed at that time was gold found around Greaterville AZ. John Blennert had found lots of the stuff and used to have fun challenging PI owners to try to detect it or build a detector that could. In some cases, the gold tried to be detected was several grains in size. In fact, there were a couple of the "invisible" nuggets weighing about 8 grains totally frustrated a lot of PI owners. Lots of owners tried to detect those nuggets and lots of owners failed. One detector could detect those nuggets even for a couple of inches in distance with a nice strong signal. John B. used to joke how some owners would pound the gold and the ground trying their best to detect this gold. Some said it couldn't be done. He used to laugh and say they couldn't pound it flat enough to detect it. Well, many years ago John Blennert challenged people to build a detector that would detect this gold known at that time he called invisible gold as well as gold down to a grain or less in size. Well it was proven it could be done and was. The detector operated at about 8 usec and could detect a lot of those nuggets not detected by the present PI's of that day and most made today PI's made today still failed. Discussions and displays were held in places such as at the old 24K club and many of the well known PI users in AZ saw it happen either there or somewhere else including at least one other member of this forum. This member saw a demonstration at Greaterville. How about it Fred, remember when you were at Greaterville along the well known AZ twins that frequent the Nuggetshooter forum and saw a demo? The truth is, the question of whether it can be done and at what delay was answered many years ago. So, to me this discussion is old stuff but still fun to hear all the speculation of what needs to be done. Reg.

So it seems that we have some very interesting people on this forum with regard to really knowing about MD-tech. Where does someone with a solid software (but very little electrical) background start? I understand the 20,000' theory level for some of it, but without the EE background it makes it difficult to put into practice. So I'm working on shoring up my EE side. Are there are canonical/seminal books on learning VLF/PI technology ... or just Google around? I've been reading the GeoTech site (which is awesome) but I'm not sure if the 'net is the most efficient place to start or if I should pick up "book X" to really set a foundation. My "real job" pays much better but this stuff is far more interesting. =) Thanks! -mox

From Interview with Dave Johnson at http://www.fisherlab.com/hobby/davejohnson/Interview%20with%20David%20Johnson.pdf Many of the people reading this interview unknowingly own products of your design. Would you mind listing them? My first metal detector (in 1971) was a portable experimental vehicle detector for use on roadway loops. It discriminated between cars and trucks, but to become a practical product would have required a lot of development and nobody was interested in investing in it. Fisher in California: 1260, 1220, 1210, 1235, 1225, 1212, 1265, 1266, CZ6, CZ5, CZ20, original Gold Bug, Gold Bug II, Gemini, and industrial instruments including TW6, FX3, XLT-16, PF-18, and circuitry of the TW-770. Tesoro: Diablo MicroMax, Lobo SuperTraq. White's: GMT, MXT, analog circuitry of DFX, Beach Hunter and PCL-600 line tracer. Troy: X-5 and X-3. FTP Bounty Hunter: major revisions to existing platforms most of which originated with George Payne. The BH Junior, Platinum, Gold and security wand (sold under various trademarks) were new designs. FTP Teknetics: T2, Alpha, Delta, Gamma, Omega, G2. FTP Fisher: F2, F4, F5, F75, F70, new Gold Bug, circuitry of the TW-82 industrial line tracer. In the case of microprocessor-driven FTP products, the software was coded by John Gardiner and Jorge Anton Saad. Mechanical designs were done mostly by other people, but I engineered the ergonomics of the T2 mechanical design, which is also used on the F75. See also Detector Stuff Interviews FT-Fisher Engineers, David Johnson and John Gardiner at http://detectorstuff.com/detector-stuff-interviews-ft-fisher-engineers-david-johnson-and-john-gardiner/ Want people to know you own one of the Dave Johnson detectors listed above? Just download and print the attached logo and apply to your detector.