Charles Garrett & The Coming Storm

[Bill (S. CA)]

Just now, Bill (S. CA) said:

 

 

Hey Bob, I thought I remembered your name.  Not many of us old school field testers left.  Reading between the lines was the key indeed, wasn't it?  I wrote the last published field test for Western and Eastern Treasures.  Rosemary Anderson was an angel and encouraged me from the very beginning when I submitted my first freelance article.  I remember when she promoted me to contributing editor - I felt like I had just won an Academy Award, I felt so honored!

Thanks goodness Steve created this forum.  It is the only safe haven left for old pros like us.

Totally agree with your assessment of the Apex, too.  I do wish they hadn't introduced it as part of the Ace line.  That little detector is still a sleeper, you know?

Looking forward to continuing the dialogue with you, Bob.

Bill

[Steve Herschbach]

3 hours ago, Bob Sickler said:

Awhile later, my pal Joe Patrick calls me and says, "Have you seen the new Garrett?!" I think I was in love at first sight! Sleek low-center of gravity control housing, a lighter 2D 11" elliptical coil, redesigned display and menu system - large and small enough to match my age, a wireless system with no discernible latency, integrated lithium charging, firmware updates, single/multi-frequency operation.... Yahoooo! OK, I lost my slosh and rinse capacity, but I never really cared because I never was a water hunter to begin with. But it is nice not to worry about water incursion. In short, a detector I could spend my time hunting with and not playing menu roulette.

In the interim I saw some good American metal detecting companies leave us. It got me to thinking how good and secure it was to be back with my roots and more satisfied than I have been in years.... Nut shell!

Mirrors my thinking exactly. Though to be honest I think the Apex lacks a little punch in my mineralized ground. With that being said if the Storm proved to be nothing more than a waterproof Apex with just a tad more horsepower under the hood, I might be first in line to get one. I really, and I mean really, like the form factor and basic control/menu layout. No side mounted buttons, everything within reach of a finger - thank you Garrett!

[phrunt]

I too hope Garrett stick with the Apex style control pod for the coming weather event, I'm not much of a fan of the mobile phone on a stick design with side buttons, I like the bigger screen designs like the CTX, and now Apex.  The AT and Ace series had terrible screens, I have good eyes and I struggle to see the little screen in the sun sometimes, let's face it, tiny little things even though the Cottrol pod is massive.

I hope Garrett realize the Apex has a nice pod design and suitable for their higher end machine and don't think it's their "Ace" lineup pod and go for the phone on a stick design for their higher end machine to be like the competitors. 

[DIG5050]

Some of my best finds of the last 4 years were made with my Apex. It seems to work well in my Ohio soil, at a lot of the old homesites I visit. 

Steve, how would you describe “more horsepower under the hood” of the Apex. What would you add, remove, change etc. 

I have my own ideas of what I’d like to see changed in the Apex if indeed the Storm was a refined Apex but would like to hear others ideas. 

[Steve Herschbach]

1 hour ago, DIG5050 said:

Some of my best finds of the last 4 years were made with my Apex. It seems to work well in my Ohio soil, at a lot of the old homesites I visit. 

Steve, how would you describe “more horsepower under the hood” of the Apex. What would you add, remove, change etc. 

I have my own ideas of what I’d like to see changed in the Apex if indeed the Storm was a refined Apex but would like to hear others ideas. 

More horsepower equals more useable depth. Hit targets that machines like the D2 hit at depth with  good id in my bad ground. The Apex either gets a poor target id on those same targets or misses them entirely. Close that gap. The Apex by all accounts, not just mine, is a moderate performer when run next to machines that cost 2-3 times as much. One might say that’s to be expected and in my case it is expected. So charge me for the 8 cylinder engine instead of the 6 cylinder - I’ll gladly pay for more horsepower. But it has to deliver.

[Bob Sickler]

4 hours ago, Bill (S. CA) said:

Hey Bob, I thought I remembered your name.  Not many of us old school field testers left.  Reading between the lines was the key indeed, wasn't it?  I wrote the last published field test for Western and Eastern Treasures.  Rosemary Anderson was an angel and encouraged me from the very beginning when I submitted my first freelance article.  I remember when she promoted me to contributing editor - I felt like I had just won an Academy Award, I felt so honored!

Thanks goodness Steve created this forum.  It is the only safe haven left for old pros like us.

Totally agree with your assessment of the Apex, too.  I do wish they hadn't introduced it as part of the Ace line.  That little detector is still a sleeper, you know?

Looking forward to continuing the dialogue with you, Bob.

Bill

Ha, I think the majority of young newcomers to the hobby would ask what a "magazine" is, let alone two antiques like us! 🙂

[Bob Sickler]

13 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

More horsepower equals more useable depth. Hit targets that machines like the D2 hit at depth good id in my bad ground. The Apex either gets a poor target id on those same targets or misses them entirely. Close that gap. The Apex by all accounts, not just mine, is a moderate performer when run next to machines that cost 2-3 times as much. One might say that’s to be expected and in my case it is expected. So charge me for the 8 cylinder engine instead of the 6 cylinder - I’ll gladly pay for more horsepower. But it has to deliver.

I guess I'm very fortunate to have ground I can hunt in without too much much issue. My current site I have been working now for 13 years has a higher ground readout of 87/99 which changes little overall about the area. Attached is a photo I took with my phone as I dug for a nickel-sized flat button with the Apex. It was the actual depth of my pinpointer's length (9"). The soil was a foundation yard with sandy/loam, nearly no rocks... perfect digging. I chased it carefully because I got a solid repeatable ID. The target signal, with Garrett's hybrid audio, was very clear, repeatable and "surface loud" surprisingly. My depth gauge register nearly maxed. So for my soil, that's better than medium performance and about ground zero for target age. I do think the site spanned many decades given the variety of targets found. I tried a larger coil on the Apex in the same area, found nothing further. I did use no discrimination and max sensitivity with the Apex.

For me, when I owned the D2, it found all the "good sounding" deeply rusted square nails in the field at around the same depth, but no more buttons or coins when covering the same ground. I think I was running the stock SensFT mode on the D2 when I used it. The D2 in comparison is an expensive detector with a profound affinity for small heavily rusted iron, but that is not what made me dislike it overall.

[Steve Herschbach]

That’s awesome Bob! Yeah, different ground means different results, a thing often forgotten on the internet. This is where I was detecting yesterday. That is not “black colored sand” - it is almost pure magnetite. Most PI models struggle in this stuff and what you see with a VLF is shocking for those that have never experienced it.

 

 

 

[Joe D.]

   Just wanted to add to the "would like to see" list for the new detector! Adjustable audio; or selectable audio! Knowing how everyone has different "likes" of different detectors audio! I really enjoyed the Pro Audio on the AT Pro, and wished that they had used that in the Apex, or could have somehow added that via a software update! And as mentioned, waterproofness like the AT Pro, and I'd like it to do well at the surf line (unlike the AT Pro), and not get drowned by a rouge wave!🍀👍👍

[Bob Sickler]

3 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

That’s awesome Bob! Yeah, different ground means different results, a thing often forgotten on the internet. This is where I was detecting yesterday. That is not “black colored sand” - it is almost pure magnetite. Most PI models struggle in this stuff and what you see with a VLF is shocking for those that have never experienced it.

Yes Steve, you are so correct! I can remember mid-80's when I was a magazine Field Test Editor, I tried to get the magazine interested in a more equitable system of field testing I had dreamed up. In short, I wanted to get the new unit from the manufacturer, set up a network of experienced users in different mineralized areas around the US, and the same detector passed from tester to tester. They would document their successes and failures in standard scenarios I was to set forth. The idea never flew I think because too much consumer comparative information might leak out, pitting one manufacturer against another. 🙂

Your hunt site pictured would give most detectors today grief! I have hunted a few beaches like that and also some southern red clay in my CW relic days. Most detectors I used fell flat on their control housings, but that was the advent of synchronous phase discrimination. My old Teknetics Mark 1 slow-swing motion detector worked fabulous here in NY, but couldn't find a Minie Ball deeper than 3" in southern red clay if my memory is correct.