Does Anyone Want To Open This Can Of Worms?

[geof_junk]

In the late 1980s I made a PI from an electronic Magazine that I, altered some of their parts and settings. I was good at detection depth compared to the VLF detectors at the time (Garrett and Whites 6000) but the sound was like a clicking geiger counter (useless). It was very slow with the swings but handled the Golden Triangle soil but I  decided to stick with the Garretts. Those were the days of coin plus size nuggets were you were first on the scene and swung at a very fast speed to get the cream before others. A work mate gave me a few dollars over it cost and used it on his farm for tracing pipes successfully. A year or two later a mate of my prospecting partner got one of the first Eric Foster PI and scored a few good nugget at Maryborough Vic.   

[Geotech]

From the Better Late Than Never dept...

Neither Eric nor Bruce invented PI. Hard to nail it down to a particular person, here are some references Eric posted on Geotech:

1. 'On the Induction of Electric Currents in Cylindrical and Spherical Conductors' by Horace Lamb, 1884. 'a much simpler treatment' (than sine waves) 'that of the currents induced by the sudden cessation of a previously constant field'.

2. 'Apparatus for geophysical prospecting' (US Patent 2,278,506) 1942. TX pulse and RX switching by a motor driven camshaft which operated switches.

3. 'A Conducting Sphere in a Time Varying Magnetic Field'. J.R. Wait 1951. Both sine wave and step fields are covered.

4. 'A Method of Detecting a Mass of Non-Ferrous Metal Located at Depth in the Earth'. J.H. Wescott, 1955.

5. 'A Pulsed Bomb Locator'. F.B. Johnson 1956.

6. 'Method of Geophysical Prospection'. J.R. Wait (US Patent 2,735,980) 1956.

7. 'Eddy Current Method for Measuring the Resistivity of Metals' C.P. Bean et al. 1959. 'The measurement is made by noting the rate of decay of flux from a bar situated in an external magnetic field that has been rapidly reduced to zero'.
 

Eric was working on PI development in the 1960s at Oxford and wrote some journal articles of his own.

[mn90403]

Reg Wilson has some thoughts on the origin of the technology.

[Reg Wilson]

I first came across a newspaper article when I was visiting London in 1988 about Eric Foster and his development of pulse induction. I gathered as much information as I could, and on my return to Australia flew to Adelaide and discussed the reported superiority of this form of detection with Bruce Candy. I still remember Bruce's reaction. He was doubtful that pulse induction would be of use in the pursuit of gold as he believed that the 'halo' from the induced magnetic field would die quicker with gold than other metals, making it difficult for the Rx to pick up the signal when the winding changed from transmit to receive. I pointed out that the PI machine that Eric Foster had developed was finding Celtic gold objects at greater depth than could be achieved with VLF detectors.

Having tested a prototype GT16000 for Bruce in 1987 (resulting in a couple of hundred ounces and lots of positive advertising for Minelab) I was confident that if anyone could produce a top performing PI it would be him. About twelve months later the phone rang with good news, and shortly after I had a Bruce Candy PI prototype in my hands. The rest is history.

[GotAU?]

On 10/16/2023 at 7:30 AM, klunker said:

 Worms should always be purchased in a box and not a can.  Persons whose opinion is otherwise probably lack my experience and expertise.  

Worms are for trout, the tasty ones from my campfire.

[Rivers rat]

2 hours ago, Reg Wilson said:

I first came across a newspaper article when I was visiting London in 1988 about Eric Foster and his development of pulse induction. I gathered as much information as I could, and on my return to Australia flew to Adelaide and discussed the reported superiority of this form of detection with Bruce Candy. I still remember Bruce's reaction. He was doubtful that pulse induction would be of use in the pursuit of gold as he believed that the 'halo' from the induced magnetic field would die quicker with gold than other metals, making it difficult for the Rx to pick up the signal when the winding changed from transmit to receive. I pointed out that the PI machine that Eric Foster had developed was finding Celtic gold objects at greater depth than could be achieved with VLF detectors.

Having tested a prototype GT16000 for Bruce in 1987 (resulting in a couple of hundred ounces and lots of positive advertising for Minelab) I was confident that if anyone could produce a top performing PI it would be him. About twelve months later the phone rang with good news, and shortly after I had a Bruce Candy PI prototype in my hands. The rest is history.

Fantastic!

 

RR

[klunker]

19 hours ago, GotAU? said:

Worms are for trout, the tasty ones from my campfire.

 Dang you GAu! I Pretty much got away from trout fishing when I stated detecting but  now you reminded me of how much I miss camp fire trout, boy, did you open a can of worms.

[GotAU?]

37 minutes ago, klunker said:

 Dang you GAu! I Pretty much got away from trout fishing when I stated detecting but  now you reminded me of how much I miss camp fire trout, boy, did you open a can of worms.

Yeah, I miss those also, it’s been a long time since I could do that.

[Jim McCulloch]

Speaking of fishing and gold, at a SoCal gold show I sold a GMT to a guy, who, like myself, was an avid Surf Perch fisherman. The sale included my list of Southern California gold nugget areas. A few weeks later I again met him at the Las Vegas show.  He told me that he had given up his regimen of fishing every Sunday.  I asked him "What happened, did you become a communist?" At that he showed me a little over four pounds of the Most Happy Yellow Metal that he had detected over the last eight Sundays. Way cool...

[Gold Dust Ernie Jr]

"If somebody can get Bruce Candy to chime in... then I think we would have the Mother of all Pulse Induction threads ever created on planet earth!"  

...Because (with this thread) we already have the thread of the Century (Does Anyone want to open this can of Worms?) right here on "Detector Prospector!

If you want to understand how to beep deep... well you've come the right place!

Then we hear from the Imortal and Immutable Jim McCulloch... "Oh ya... I sold a 24K to a fisherman and showed him where to go... and 8 weeks later he shows up with well 4 pounds of gold!..."

I called the Goldmaster and the TDI SL the Dynamic Duo of gold prospecting machines... and now we have the 24K and the Axium and the GPX 6000 and the Goldmonster 1000... wo hoo!

We're not their just yet... but we are getting there!