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Explanation of new coil mounting system on the new Fisher Impulse AQ metal detector. ZPT® "Zero Pressure Technology" Official Fisher video. Fisher Impulse AQ Detector Data & User Reviews Fisher Impulse AQ ZPT® "Zero Pressure Technology" Fisher Impulse AQ ZPT® "Zero Pressure Technology" detail image

Demonstration of how the new Fisher Impulse AQ handles non-ferrous items surrounded by or under ferrous trash. ZTS® "Zero Target Separation" Official Fisher video. Fisher Impulse AQ Detector Data & User Reviews Fisher Impulse AQ ZTS® "Zero Target Separation"

And a survey of what a reasonable price "is" would be interesting. TDI or SDC price tiers, or maybe a little more. There is a very long development cycle to be taken into consideration, as well as production costs. Will the coils be machine wound or have to be laid up by hand? Two forward looking warranty concerns, 7us tolerances(drift) & waterproof. There are a lot of knobs on this unit and everyone of them is a potential moisture entry point. You have to cost these factors for worst case projections so in essence you are paying for insurance up front should disaster strike.

Anyone who has used a White’s TDI much knows that the ground balance can be manipulated to exclude certain targets. This is less about conductivity as White’s sells it, but about target size. What that means is you can exclude high conductors and large ferrous and concentrate on smaller low conductors and small ferrous. Or you can exclude small ferrous and small non-ferrous and go for higher conductors and larger ferrous. The system does not make gold hunters happy because to dig small gold you still dig small ferrous stuff. Or when you are digging larger gold you still dig nails. My guess on the Impulse is that it is using at least two “ground balance” points to bracket the most common ring responses, which tend to be lower mid-range targets. It would be quite a balancing act tuning out both the smallest stuff and the largest stuff and just hit the sweet spot. I personally think this could be a powerful method for essentially cherry picking rings while eliminating most small ferrous and large ferrous. There still will be a class of mid-range ferrous targets that read good - I promise the system can’t be perfect. The flip side however is that at least two large “holes” are going to have to exist as a result. One that misses smaller gold targets, like earrings and chains, and possibly the smaller thin rings. And then on the top end very large heavy men’s rings and silver rings, and most coins may also be lost. The solution will be to turn off the discrimination and go back to digging everything. Hopefully there will be some ability to tweak the discrimination as target / trash mixes do vary somewhat and shifting the accepted range up or down would be beneficial. I am just guessing based on what I know about how a PI works and how one could potentially discriminate out a class of targets. I could see a very acceptable trade being made, more depth at the expense of certain target classes. Yet I wonder how the general public will react to videos displaying numerous gold items, especially large ones, being completely undetectable by the Impulse in discrimination mode? The wiser among us may understand what’s going on and the trades being made, but if I know one thing about a lot of folks, the idea the machine misses good stuff won’t fly too well. Witness the silver dollar on edge fiasco with the Equinox, or the similar issue with the early Gold Bug models. Anyway, don’t take this as being more than speculation, but it is something that the more knowledgeable among us will want to find out quickly once the Impulse hits the streets. It should be easy to find out, just air test with a large range of jewelry targets running from tiny to large and check the results. And the same with ferrous. Unless a Pulse Devil miracle machine is in the works, and I am betting that’s not the case, there will be some definite caveats to deal with when employing the discrimination system. For me it’s kind of a non-issue. I’d be happy with the machine as a straight up pulse digging everything. It’s the ergonomics and price along with the finely tuned low pulse delay that have me looking more than some magic discrimination system. Anything it does there will be just a bonus. I will actually be surprised if the nugget hunting terra version has any discrimination at all due to the possible issues I am outlining. It would tune out most natural gold nuggets. Optional blocking of high end nail type signals would be of more benefit to nugget hunters in small gold areas. It would risk missing large nuggets but in some places that’s not much of a worry. Fisher Impulse AQ Data & Specifications Fisher Impulse AQ pulse induction metal detector

The Impulse AQ has a volume control. The headphones are not the ones Fisher has used for a long time on the 1280X and CZ-21. They look more like the DetectorPro Amphibian without external volume control than anything else I have seen. Should be a great fit, and hopefully we for once will get an underwater detector that has excess volume enough for underwater use. The headphones have a unique but easily obtainable three pin connector so aftermarket phones should be quick to follow. As will some kind of dongle to convert to 1/4” so we can use dry land headphones or wireless adapters. Fisher would be smart to make the dongle available themselves but we will see. Photos by Rick Kempf, click for larger views.

Just read on another forum that LE JAG will soon be testing an 8" coil on the Fisher Impulse AQ! Should make some folks have a Happy New Year. Bill

Per a conversation I had today with Tim Mallory - VP of marketing and sales at Fisher/First Texas - I am apparently “customer zero” for the AQ. For reasons of copyright protection (which I don’t understand) it was important to sell exactly 1 Fisher Impulse AQ in calendar year 2019. I guess because I am a PITA, I was invited to be it. It had to be a bona fide sale, so I am paying for it - cheerfully. Can’t discuss the price because that may or may not equal the eventual launch price. I am told it will ship Monday. Since I figured that I was “in the catbird seat” I asked them to include a Fisher cap to replace the one I lost a while back. My nearest US beach is in San Diego and I have no time to drive there soon. I will be doing an “unboxing” video and some stuff of using it inland here in Gold Canyon AZ - where there is no gold. Imay borrow some of my wife’s “minor” bits to practice with however.

Could there be an early book on the horizon?

Me too. 😕 I'm hoping when it does come out that it does not pick up these rocks. They read #1 on the Equinox - right where the small gold and chains read. I would be willing to pay postage and send some of them to Fisher to make sure they are invisible to the Impulse AQ

Just noticed the pulse delay ranges from 7 to 12 in comparison of the TDI 10 to 25. Now this is for the salt water environment and not for dry land "Terra". I might surmise the 12 would be more than adequate for the salt water hunt but on my TDI a pulse delay of 17 1/2 is required. Always good the ponder why!

I consider myself to be extremely fortunate due to the fact that the entire age of modern metal detecting has taken place over the course of my lifetime. I was too young in the 60's to be one of the many famous names that were there first on the ground with these new toys that go beep. That's good though for me as most of them are gone now and I'm still here. I got my first detector at the true dawn of the modern detecting age when I got my White's Coinmaster 4 in 1972. It was one of the first of the new "TR" machines that were the starting point for what most of us use today. Mine was as basic as a detector gets, no ground balance existed yet or discrimination. Just a couple inches depth and a beep, dig it up. So I have been involved in detecting now for 47 years. I started my business while in high school in 1976, and have been involved in metal detecting pretty much daily ever since. Anyone who followed my online presence starting in 1998 may see a pattern. I have been involved in some top end machines, some VLF, but basically almost every ground balancing PI made has been in my hands at some point. I had a vision in my mind based on my background in computers that told me what was possible and where we were headed. I was particularly incensed when an upstart company from Australia showed up the industry leaders at the time with the world's most powerful gold detecting PI machines. All the more so when I heard White's had a shot at it and passed. I made it my mission to jump on and foster anything that came along that might compete, and so I was involved with the Garrett Infinium, the first U.S. ground balancing PI. I had a lot to do with White's finally producing the TDI. Yet the fact is nobody ever seriously took Minelab on, and finally they won me over because they delivered when the rest just milked us. Minelab has been the sole company at the forefront of this technology since the SD2000 was introduced. All this time I have wanted two things. A vision in my mind of what a VLF could be. And a similar vision regarding a PI. Both those visions basically revolved around something a normal person could use both as regards ergonomics and price, two areas we kept getting bent over on for 20 years. Long story short I am grateful to Minelab for allowing me to be involved in the machine that delivered on my first vision. The Minelab Equinox is the first machine ever that really can do any VLF metal detecting task and do it well. In any one area it may not be "the best" but no one machine delivers across the board like the Equinox. My VLF quest is over. I will use an Equinox as my primary unit until a detector comes along, probably a Minelab, that does what it does but better. No more VLF buy and try for me. Yay! In 2017 I laid out my vision for the PI I wanted. The price was kind of a set the bar high (with a low price) thing so there is a little wiggle room there. But not a lot... the machine price should be something most people can stomach. As far as I am concerned the GPX 4500 sets the standard at $2699 both for performance and price. The TDI wins on ergonomics but loses too much in performance for me. All I really wanted was a GPX performance in an ergonomic package, and we all know it can be done. That is what is so frustrating. It's one thing to introduce new tech but all I want is proven tech packaged right. Garrett has really been a disappointment not putting the ATX in a light box. They can do it but so far have refused. I would have been satisfied with that. Right now I am calling the Australian made QED as being the default winner of my challenge. The rough edges have been smoothed out, and it's got the ergonomics, coil selection, and price all right. I am not going to argue with anyone over performance. Based on what I know it's good enough for me to go find gold and easily beats the TDI and is competitive with GPX. Good enough for me and good job boys. The only niggle is no FCC approval for U.S. sales, no U.S. dealers or service. But by end of 2020 if there is nothing better I will have one anyway. But we have the Fisher Impulse AQ on the verge and a dry land prospecting version promised. I would be crazy not to wait and see what develops there. I sold my GPZ for many reasons, mostly because I was not going to be detecting much this year, but I resolved when I sold it I would wait until my vision appeared. I knew it was close. I decided I can have fun enough with Equinox until that happens. Put as simply as possible I want a reasonably powerful PI packaged like a good VLF that most of us can afford. Something that can get in and out of a small backpack with an hour of labor being involved. So I am tossing down the gauntlet. I have my magic VLF and am looking for a mate for it. Right now QED and Impulse are in the running. And it's up to Minelab, Nokta/Makro, and sure, let's toss Garrett and White's in there also. It's time to deliver as by the end of 2020 I am getting one. I prefer in the spring but if something is one the radar I may wait. By 2021 I will be using something that finally fulfills what this high school kid from Alaska has known would happen someday. And I got to be there and see it all from start to finish. As I said... a very fortunate soul! Interfacion QED PL2 Fisher Impulse AQ

They have taken the original youtube video of the Aqua Manta down. I've had the youtube site ear marked since they first made the beach video and it is now gone. It was very interesting to see the machine work on the beach but no more.

No, I actually do not know what the new Fisher Impulse Terra will be called. It is just that I doubt it will be called the Impulse Terra and Impulse AU seemed like a good pairing with Impulse AQ. Probably wrong but I can change it when we find out for sure. The main thing is this dry land gold prospecting version of the Impulse AQ is 99% certain at this point, so I wanted to start tracking it as a separate model with what is know about it so far. Which is not much. WE know testing is taking place with an 8" coil but do not know for sure if that will be the stock coil or not. It would be a good choice for small gold but not good for covering ground or for larger deeper gold. OK though if that's what they go with. Presumably a 12" coil is a possibility as stock or as an option. It will have to ground balance, and it may or may not have ferrous rejection capability. I personally hope it does, as some areas are full of ferrous trash and missing some gold is worth it to be able to use a PI in those areas. Anyway, will be updating as I find out stuff. I'm kind of more interested in the beach model myself as i have nugget detectors already, but it will depend just what the feature mix is that will swing me one way or the other. Fisher Impulse AU Specifications & Data

The Aqua Manta has finally arrived in the form of the new Fisher Impulse AQ. The Manta has been officially named the Fisher Impulse AQ, a development that happened later in this very thread. It has also been revealed a gold prospecting model is under development. Go to the link above for the latest information and photos. Or quick jump to the Fisher Impulse AQ Specifications & Data & Fisher Impulse AU Specifications & Data pages. The information below remains for historical purposes. The challenge I have for Fisher or anyone else is to make a dry land ground balancing PI that weighs under 4 lbs yet is more powerful than a TDI SL. The alternative is waterproof but under 5 lbs. The price must be under US$2000.00 Waterproof Pulse Induction Metal Detectors Compared The Fisher Aqua Manta (edit 3/2019 now known as Impulse AQ) has been rumored for some time, and confirmed by First Texas as a project nearing completion. Prior threads: January 2015 New Fisher Pulse Induction January 2018 New First Texas PI Under Development June 2018 Aqua Manta Pulse Induction Beach Detector The long story short is this is a project by Alexandre Tartar. The Manta is most likely an offshoot and improvement on the orginal Eric Foster Goldscan circuit. Alexandre has built at least three major prototype devices before the rights were acquired by First Texas. The following photos and information is derived from this thread where the V3 prototype is sold. Here are the basic specs as described in advertisement (the seller is French and translating): "I sell a "prototype" Manta v3 There are only three copies of this detector and it is the best of three .... (See mantametaldetectors website) Pulse induction, works exclusively with mono coils to the beach, possibly for the land, but no ground control Calibrated for low conductors, gold and platinum, among other. Delay 7us of 17 volts more sensitive, deeper and faster than Deepstar Equipped with a coil, Manta, latest generation she has one month, the quietest and most efficient on the market, all brands included. (it will operate on TDI and Deepstar) Connector Type TDI, it accepts all coils (mono) of TDI / GPX Weight: 1.5 kg without battery that is worn at the belt headphone jack and on / off switch on the battery pack (lipo) supplied charger more than six hours of detection at full power. Carbon Rod Anderson + extra cane down braided nylon belt military style All the possible settings and need a good PI SAT speed, TX frequency, noise threshold, delay, volume, sensitivity.... The delay was 7us , lets see gold ends very thin rings, earrings, jewelry hollow that other detectors can not see and of course, the wholesale jewelry it goes deeper Ferrous recognition by a double beep well marked" What I find interesting is this note "Pulse induction, works exclusively with mono coils to the beach, possibly for the land, but no ground control" Yet here is the picture that accompanies the advertisement. Now remember this is from March 2016, almost three years ago. The prototype clearly has labels for ground controls... Alexandre Tartar Manta V3.0 prototype The control markings as seen above: Volume Threshold Sensitivity Sat Speed. Motion. (recovery speed) Tx Frequency (transmit frequency, usually to offset for EMI mitigation) Pulse Delay. GB Type (the shorter the pulse delay, the more sensitive to tiny metal and salt water) Ground Balance (usually a ground balance control, but ad says this is lacking?) Statements by First Texas suggest version 1 of the new machine is aimed at beach use and may not be suitable for land use (gold prospecting). That in turn makes me think work on the ground balance system is lagging and may be key to the future of the machine. Will it be beach only, or have a future for gold prospecting? I have to assume the unit will be competitive when it comes to the horsepower, or why bother? Until now the Eric Foster Deepstar is generally acknowledged as one of the deepest beach PI detector’s ever made. And the ad says “more sensitive, deeper and faster than Deepstar”. That being the case what really has my interest is the weight and compactness being displayed. The following photo collage from the advertisement shows the size of the control box and belt mounted battery: Alexandre Tartar Manta V3.0 prototype Granted the battery is belt mounted, but that is one tiny control box. I have to think that First Texas can slim down the circuit board and use a top notch integrated rechargeable battery and get this machine into a very compact package - hopefully waterproof and with wireless headphone capability built in. Well, that's about all I know about this one. This thread will collect any new information as it is available. This is one of a couple detectors I am watching so fingers crossed for a 2019 release. It is encouraging that Alexandre's original website at http://www.mantametaldetectors.com/ has been taken over by First Texas and is displaying this banner: Fisher Research Labs - New Pulse Induction metal detector COMING SOON!

¿Alguien tiene noticias de AQ?

Don't you know when it's going to be released?

There is on-going field testing of the Fisher Impulse AQ in progress trying to improve the discrimination. This despite the machine getting ready to go to production at any moment. 2020 Edit: The Impulse AQ has been revealed - see details here For those that do not know metal detector development never stops. It just gets to a point where it is good enough and you launch. Engineers can improve for eternity if you let them. This does raise a concern however. This machine is as far as I can tell using a new premise for what it does, and is obviously up against deadlines to get out the door. There is nothing here about internet update capability, and in fact it seems I recall somebody at FT saying there never would be such a feature on their machines. But given that nearly every serious platform released by FT sees software bugs and updates in the first year, including the recently released F-Pulse, the odds are this machine would benefit from an update once it gets into user hands and the inevitable bug is found. It really is a set up for having to mail machines back to be updated. I would like to be one of the first to jump on one of these but given the First Texas poor track record in this regard a lack of update facility does give me pause, especially in a detector that will likely be over $2000. I get a cheap detector having no update facility, but First Texas may end up regretting not putting the capability in this detector. Forget the unhappy customers - it costs the company money if it ends up having to physically reprocess every machine sold to perform some kind of software fix. In this day and age internet update capability is an expectation - every Nokta/Makro machine no matter the price has it, even the upcoming under $300 Simplex. I am a bit amazed that there is no mention of this capability on what appears to be the most expensive First Texas metal detector ever made. Source thread at Dankowski Forum Fisher Impulse AQ Data & User Reviews Fisher Impulse AQ metal detector

The latest developments of the AQ pre-production platform continue to increase the utility of the ferrous discrimination capability of the machine. Steady refinement of the design have made the machine not only deeper overall but greatly narrowed the gap between sensitivity in all metal and sensitivity in the iron ID modes of mute and multi-tone. 2020 Edit: The Impulse AQ has been revealed - see details here I suspect that if no iron/steel trash existed at the beach, no serious beach hunter would use anything except a Pulse Induction machine - unless they were in dry sand, and maybe not then. The reason I say this is that the depth advantages of existing PI machines is well demonstrated since they can operate on most beaches without the penalty of using ground balance. Also, except for iron/steel, no other level of discrimination is useful since gold jewelry can appear almost anywhere in the ID range above iron. So of the iron wasn’t there - PI’s would likely dominate. In the case of Phase shift discrimination systems like VLF IB detectors use, the strong iron signal dominates the audio output, either silencing the audio entirely in the case of a single tone VLF, by nulling like an FBS/BBS - or by giving a lower tone in a multi-tone Detector. Even in the case of the multitone VLF’s, hearing the non-ferrous target depends on the recovery speed of the processing hardware in the detector. With the AQ’s PI time-based discrimination, The discrimination of iron is reported to the user either as silence (in the mute mode) or as a low tone (in the case of multi-tone). In mute, not only do you not hear the iron, but you hear instead silence - unless there is a non-ferrous target, in that case you hear the target with no hint of the iron at all. In this mode, the AQ software simply makes the ferrous targets disappear - just disappear. In the case of multitone, you hear a high tone for non-ferrous low and medium conductors and a high tone for ferrous targets - close or even superimposed, makes n difference you would hear both tones in any case. This has several major advantages. First, there is “zero recovery speed” - All targets produce an output signal if they return one - the ferrous is - by operator choice - either silenced or assigned a low tone. The low/medium conductors always return their characteristic high tone. This occurs 100% of the time - there is no “switching delay” from target to target based on processor speed limitations happening. Separation distance between adjacent ferrous and non ferrous targets is ZERO. By zero, I mean exactly that, even non-ferrous directly beneath ferrous gives a clear non-ferrous high tone and the iron simply “isn’t there” (in mute - in multi-tone it gives a low tone which you would hear along with the non ferrous high tone). This means that “silent masking” that Tom wrote about long ago, where even a tiny bit if ferrous like a common staple can mask a deeper and larger valuable target, is largely eliminated. Now this isn’t magic, it’s just that the iron is above the ground balance point (or at it) and you are hearing the signals below the GB point and the ones at or above the GB point are silenced (or give a low tone). Is it perfect? - no. In discrim on the AQ some high conductor targets will be “above the GB point” and be treated as iron. If your idea of a good beach hunt is finding a bunch of dimes and quarters in dry sand, then stick with whatever light, cheap VLF you want, they can help you avoid all that aluminum and gold which would just slow you down - lol All this is clearly demonstrated in the video I have linked to before. The machine in the video is the Manta prototype from 3-5 years ago. The system has gone through a lot of development since then, including the very latest gains in overall depth and depth in the iron ID modes which I reported in the first sentence in this post. Will the AQ “obsolete” any other detectors? Depends on what you mean by obsolete. The gas turbine aircraft engine (the jet) quickly replaced the extremely complex, high maintenance multi cylinder reciprocating aircraft engines for heavy, fast and high aircraft, but lots of light aircraft are still piston powered. The piston engine is still undergoing development for some aircraft applications. So I expect that IF the AQ in the hands of the early buyers lives up to its claimed capabilities, that serious beach gold hunters will adopt it quickly. When a new tool in the hands of early adopters proves to be superior at doing a specific job to the previous best tools for the job in question, those who are really serious about performance for economic or other reasons will adopt the new tool and stop using the old one. How many framing carpenters still use a hammer. Not many if the compressor/nail gun noise at any construction site is any guide. The framing hammer is not obsolete - it still works just fine - but for serious users the nail gun became “compelling”. Time will tell how “compelling” the AQ will become for serious beach jewelry hunters.

In a weird way I see this as good news. Apparently Fisher was ready to start producing the Impulse AQ. The reason I know that is there has been a publicly announced "production delay" over some sort of mechanical aspect of the detector. So I read that as meaning that as soon as this hardware bug gets addressed units will be rolling out the door. The only problem is we don't know how long it will take to fix the bug, but they must be on it 24/7 at this point. Management has to be cracking the whip hard by now to get it out the door. I have to assume we will see this before end of summer. Fingers crossed! Source for the info at Dankowski Forum Fisher Impulse AQ Data & User Reviews Fisher Impulse AQ metal detector

The Fisher Impulse AQ is clearly aimed at beach hunters. Specifically saltwater beach detectorists. It is a PI and as such is being billed as able to handle thick black sands. Pictures have been posted showing just that - saltwater beaches with heavy magnetic black sand content. Yet at the same time we are being warned this detector has a ground balance with limited range, and that it can't handle extreme ground and hot rocks i.e. gold prospecting. 2020 Edit: The Impulse AQ has been revealed - see details here So what's the deal? Can it handle intense mineralization or not? I also wonder about the discrimination. The machine is clearly based on the Eric Poster/TDI in some regards but is also being billed as multi-channel, which TDI is not. I suspect just as with TDI that the discrimination is tied directly to the ground balance, and that in order to be effective as far as discrimination the ground balance is very limited. It has been mentioned that the all metal mode might be better for prospectors, which makes sense given what I am speculating. The discrimination is said to be "gold only" with high coin signals eliminated. That makes sense again as coin and nail signals are in the same GB range with the TDI. If they are going dual channel it may be employing two ground balance points as the limits on the discrimination range, something I suggested ages ago. It should be obvious that the TDI can use ground balance to establish one range limit - a second channel defining another limit seemed a no brainer to me. I always wanted to get an SD2100 to experiment with the concept since it allows the two ground balance channels to be set manually. Never got around to it though. Any PI can deal with relatively homogenous ground. Even the non-ground balancing White's Surf PI handles black sand beaches well, as long as the coil is kept at an even height over the bottom. I therefore think the machine will do well on relatively homogenous beaches. Given that it is said to not handle hot rocks well, how does that translate into Hawaii as a location? My main issue there with the Surf PI was basalt hot rocks embedded in blond non-magnetic sands derived from reef erosion. I have to question whether the Impulse AQ can handle those hot rocks given what has been said about it. What about freshwater? The is no difference between a freshwater Tahoe beach and some of the worst prospecting ground. Thick black sands plus hot rocks. Is the ground balance range tied more to saltwater operation? I would like to run this machine at Tahoe, but given what is being said I am questioning whether it can handle the hot rocks there. Not a bit of this speculation is a knock on the Impulse AQ. It is a machine targeting a subset of a niche market. In other words, a machine with very limited application and they are telling us that up front. I am not one to ever complain when I get a detector and it does not work when I try to make it do things it was not made to do. And there is always a catch, always limitations, always unexpected things that pop up in widespread use that can't be captured in limited prototype testing. I get all that. The bottom line is I am just airing the thoughts that are bouncing around in my head. I don't worry about it because I am perfectly capable of getting all the answers to these questions on my own. It's actually these types of questions that makes me want to get detectors because I love pushing detectors outside the envelope and finding the limits.... and then doing things with them others might not think of. It's kind of my detector super power. They sure seem close to having a finished product. I hope so as once end of October hits I will have to wait until spring. Well, I don't have to, I just will. I may wait for the prospecting version anyway. We will see. Fisher Impulse AQ Detector Data & User Reviews

I just added the upcoming Fisher Impulse AQ pulse induction metal detector to the Metal Detector Reviews & Specifications Database. Fisher Impulse AQ Prototype

Anyone out there know any information on this machine ? It supposed to be being tested and could be really interesting when released . 2019 Update: The Manta is now called the Fisher Impulse AQ - see Fisher Impulse AQ Detector Data & User Reviews May be able to discriminate Iron out . You Tube this . AQUAMANTA A1 TESTS HARDELOT . All in capitals . It is compared to the Sovereign and CTX , the Aqua is the last one tested . Unfortunately LIKE the Equinox most of the time before release , its in a foreign language .

My VLF detectors are rapidly sorting themselves out and I am satisfied I am doing about as good in that regard as can be done. There really is only one area of metal detecting left that is bugging me. 2019 Update: The Manta is now called the Fisher Impulse AQ - see Fisher Impulse AQ Detector Data & User Reviews The Garrett Infinium was the first waterproof ground balancing PI and not a bad first effort. White's TDI might have improved on it but White's never did a waterproof TDI. Surprisingly, Minelab has never done what I would consider to be a true waterproof saltwater beach hunting PI. The SDC 2300 really is a prospecting detector first and second. I finally ended up with the Garrett ATX, which currently sets the bar for a waterproof ground balancing beach and water detector. Yet the ATX housing was designed more for military use than beach detecting. The coils are overly expensive due to an integrated rod design. Worse, the detector weighs in at 6.9 lbs and cannot be hip or chest mounted. In a sign of faith I am going to sell my ATX and wait on whatever First Texas has in the works. As Rick Kempf posted here previously, First Texas hired Alexandre Tartar and purchased the rights to produce a version of his Manta PI Project. And to quote First Texas engineer Carl Moreland from this thread "Yes, we've hired Alexandre. Yes, we are working on PI. I was personally working on PI before hiring Alexandre, but now we are seriously working on PI." Fisher has not made a PI since the Fisher Impulse was discontinued back around 2013. This collaboration with Alexandre Tartar gives me hope that First Texas can get something out in the next year or two. My bar is low - a waterproof ground balancing PI at least as good as the ATX in a more ergonomic package. Seems fairly doable. Another company that may come out of nowhere all the sudden is Nokta/Makro as we know they are working on a PI. I don't know, but I think this is First Texas' game to lose at this point. So there you go, ATX going up for sale and a spot held open for whatever company can meet the challenge. Good luck First Texas - I am rooting for you!

Last July (July 2014) Tim Mallory of First Texas made a post on a Facebook page. First Texas is the parent company of Fisher, the well known detector manufacturer. Fisher used to make a pulse induction diving detector, the Impulse, but it has been discontinued. Fisher stands out as a company with strong VLF prospecting detectors but also as the only "Big 5" manufacturer without a PI detector of any sort in the lineup. 2019 Edit - Announced as Fisher Impulse AQ Fisher was also a leader in multi frequency detectors with the CZ series but has rested on the laurels ever since, with no digital version of the old CZ3D offered to date. It has been common knowledge for some time that Fisher has at least been working on a new PI and a new multi frequency models. Facebook post by Tim Mallory of Fisher (excerpts): Tim Mallory - I'm new to your group. I'm head of sales and marketing at first texas products, which owns fisher, teknetics, bounty hunter and two night vision companies, night owl and nivisys. We've got a lot of exciting new products coming down the pipe, starting with the f19, introducing right now, then an upgrade for the f75, in the fall, and then new super weather resistant machines on the mid to low range, in the spring.... Lots coming.... Joe Trino - Is the water resistant machine dual feq? Tim Mallory - Joe, no. They are replacements for f2 and f4. They'll be a lot of machine for the money...but not multifrequency. We have a mf in the hopper and it has recently moved from research to development, but it takes a long time to innovate a new machine of this caliber. Joe Trino - Tim I love my cz21 I have dug a lot of gold and silver with it my only complaint would be the shaft is flimsy and could beef up the coil wires and headphones I feel confident I can keep up with any mine lab machine about time for a new fisher pi unit. Tim Mallory - Joe, we have 15 seasoned engineers. Still it takes 3 to 5 years to get a new platform to the intro stage. Let me just say, a PI is in the works. Dusty Willis - So I was wondering.... When is fisher going to get into the pulse induction business and come out with a pi machine for gold to compete with minelab? Tim Mallory - Dusty, it's on the bench. But still in research...arguably close to development stage...someday we will have a kick ass PI. I notice Fisher getting grief on some forums for "being late" with the new machines. The fact is however there has never been any hint of a production timeframe from Fisher. Units are always under development, and many never see the light of day. Anything under development can stop or go at any time for any reason. There simply is no reason to expect a new pulse induction or multi frequency machine from Fisher until they make an official announcement that a release date is near. Still, one can always hope, and I hope we see something one of these days. I would certainly welcome a lightweight affordable PI alternative to what is currently available. The CZ was always one of my favorite detectors, and a more compact lighter CZ would also be welcome. But I am not holding my breath!