Metal Detector Engineer's Who Led The Way Dave Johnson & Bruce Candy

[George Kinsey]

12 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

George Payne

My guy.

[Bob Sickler]

I second that George Kinsey! I haven't researched it enough, but I'm pretty sure George Payne is responsible for many critical patents we use today such as target ID and audio ID. I spoke to him years back and tried to get him interested in developing a "MicroMark1", but he bowed out gracefully. To that end, he even sent me the schematic to the original Mark I thinking I could have a go at it myself... Yeah right! 🙂 The original Teknetics metal detectors were all designed with stock off-the-shelf parts. I guess custom IC's were expensive back then and he did everything the long way, which is pretty tough to do even so. This is why the circuit boards and detector housings were so large I would imagine. In addition, so would the (14) AA NiCADs it took to power the circuit!

He was most proud of his Mark I model design. I was so excited about its release, I reviewed and tested the detector without compensation for WE&T in 1985. In my soil, the Mark I meter resolution could indicate the difference between clad and silver coins most of the time. I had a hunting partner who wouldn't talk to me for a month because I took all the silver and left him all the clad and penny's at one location... I kid you not. I eventually hipmounted the Mark I to contend with the weight, but that got to be too much even in that configuration. For me it was an incredible detector, very resolute visual ID, near perfect analog continuous pitch audio tone, real slow-motion detection, and fairly deep penetration even with a little 7-1/2" bi-planar concentric searchcoil. The Mark I was a monster on silver coins and gold rings.

The last time I spoke to George Payne he was working in the logging industry designing detectors to locate deep nails in trees to protect expensive saw blades. I asked if he would ever return to the metal detector industry and unfortunately he said, "I doubt it." I believe all the struggles between White's and Teknetics probably had a lot to do with his answer.

One for the road... Let's not forget Jerry Tyndall of Nautilus Metal Detectors. I got to become a close friend with him, he was a kind man, loved animals, and knew how to make a detector to hunt deep relics! Many of my best CW relic finds were made with his non-motion LF Relic King. His DMC motion series was a simple concept that could be used to incredible advantage on coins and relics. I miss our long talks over the phone. I will never forget him.