The Gold Bug 2 discrimination system is different from coinshooting and relic hunting discriminators. Gold prospecting is almost always done outside urban areas, and the need for the highest sensitivity possible meant that the discriminator was designed to be silenced (if necessary) primarily through sweeping it over the ground, not through control settings which are set for best operation in the all metals "autotune" mode.
We have researched the history of what the Gold Bug 2 does in discrimination mode by comparing several units new in-house and older units in-house and sent to us by customers, as well as the original lab notes from the prototype of October 1994, and we find no evidence of any systematic change in how the discriminator was manufactured or adjusted. What has changed is the electrical interference environment that Gold Bug 2's are being used in.
Part of the confusion in this thread (and in the factory's attempts to figure out what was going on) turned out to be that one of the Gold Bug 2's which was relevant to this thread had a bad searchcoil, which has been replaced.
The whole issue of electrical interference in metal detectors (not just the Gold Bug 2) is discussed in detail in the 7 August 09 essay post on the Fisher F-series forum.
Two people in beeperlandia who were following this thread sent us their own personal GB2's for evaluation in hopes of helping us unravel the mystery. I wish to express my gratitude for the role they played in helping us make sense out of what was for a while a real puzzle to us.
--Dave J.
We have researched the history of what the Gold Bug 2 does in discrimination mode by comparing several units new in-house and older units in-house and sent to us by customers, as well as the original lab notes from the prototype of October 1994, and we find no evidence of any systematic change in how the discriminator was manufactured or adjusted. What has changed is the electrical interference environment that Gold Bug 2's are being used in.
Part of the confusion in this thread (and in the factory's attempts to figure out what was going on) turned out to be that one of the Gold Bug 2's which was relevant to this thread had a bad searchcoil, which has been replaced.
The whole issue of electrical interference in metal detectors (not just the Gold Bug 2) is discussed in detail in the 7 August 09 essay post on the Fisher F-series forum.
Two people in beeperlandia who were following this thread sent us their own personal GB2's for evaluation in hopes of helping us unravel the mystery. I wish to express my gratitude for the role they played in helping us make sense out of what was for a while a real puzzle to us.
--Dave J.