Old Technology left behind...

[Dave J.]

Overall, the machines nowadays are a lot better than back in the bad old days. However there is no machine nowadays that will beat everything the old time machines could do under all conditions.

When it comes to searching a site carpeted with nails, a good high frequency TR from the 1970's will outperform anything I know of today. Useless for anything else, but very good at that. As I explained in a recent thread on the Tesoro forum, VLF/TR disc is also usable on such sites where most modern "motion machines" are impossibly chatty.

Most machines nowadays don't have a good fully static manually ground balanced all metals mode. That's the preferred setup for locating deep caches. Used to be more or less standard on high end machines.

Over the years, there have been certain machines that did some particular thing exceptionally well even if in other areas they were unexceptional. For example, the Fisher 1235-X was designed specifically for competition hunting and is still very good at that. The White's Spectrum XLT "Signagraph" target ID system was exceptionally accurate if you had the patience to use it.

I'm not arguing for a return to the olden days. There are approx. $250 machines nowadays that overall are superior to anything you could get at any price 30 years ago.

 

[UK Brian]

1982 is more than thirty years ago and Q-Tone had brought out their 7K model then with two "no swamp" memories, both negative and positive mineralisation GED modes. two push button memory re tunes, twin in-dependant circuits operating simultaneously, audio and visual target analysis. Advertised that you could locate "a brass door knob in a scrap yard". Go earlier again (197 when tests were conducted on heavily mineralised soil (overburden from an archaeological dig) 75% of the coins found were located by the 77B and Arado 65, 20% with the Garrett Fortune Hunter, Money Hunter and ADS. With the ADS (improved depth, lower battery consumption etc) an option was soon offered to reduce the sensitivity to that of the early models which improved the performance on ancient sites....improvement in the lab hadn't followed through to real life conditions. Results haven't changed much today.

To get depth (in excess of 10 inches on hammered silver coins) detectors with an all metal primary search mode had to be used which seemed a little bit to much work for the average U.S. detectorists though Jerry Tyndall who had started building detectors in 1976 eventually came out with his Nautilus DMC which was talked about as being a real step back in detector design but went on to win the G.N.R.S. for seven out of the next eight years against all the major U.S. brands. Get a DMC IIb in good working order with an on spec coil and it more than holds its own against modern machines for the work it was designed for ie not wet sand or extreme mineralisation as long as the user is up to using the resistive and capacitive controls to adjust the coil architecture. Many aren't.

Dave is correct. There are advantages to some old designs but you have to know where their particular edge is. The Nautilus has its excellent mixed mode whilst modern detectors such as the V3 and V3i offer a cheap copy. Manufacturers should look back before they try to reinvent the wheel.

 

[MarkCZ]

Also, in the days past a LOT of hype was bought and sold!
I lot of claims to a lot of things that maybe looked good on a test bench but in the real world had much to be desired.
The detectors where HUGE!
Heavy,
Ran on pounds of batteries,

The best I had was the Teknetics 9000/B for target ID, but it wasn't much on depth, but 35 years ago things were not as deep.
Many people liked the Teknetics Mark I but I had one and it may have been a little deeper but it didn't ID near as well as the 9000/B.

Mark

 

[Tom_in_CA]

n/t

 

[slingshot]

How much tech do you need to find a coin 4" and yet enjoying the hobby-paying for it.?

 

[mudpuppy]

I tell you, with all the choices and marketing now a days, its tough on a noobie to pick a decent rig and get going...If it wasnt for the Forum, those poor guys would be seriously lost just trying to figure out settings and all...Most of you old timers had to learn on your own, at least we have the Forum membership to assist...I can say I was intimidated by the high end rigs, didnt think I could learn them, so I settled on mid priced USA gear figuring it would be well built and something that would work in various situations, and it has...Luck aside, this Sport demands commitment and lots of coil time to get good...
Mud

 

[joe dirt_1]

I kept most all of the catalogs I got from the big name detector store in florida back in the early 80's.
One in particular was a Christmas catalog from 1985 that shows detectors most newer guys to the hobby
have never heard of like the Orion Rocket or the Gardiner brand of detector with the huge searchcoils.
It's interesting to look back to the earlier years to see what was being sold compared to todays detectors.

Roger

 

[ironsight]

joe dirt 1, speaking of earlier years,
Must of been in hi school at the time, a buddy and me seen this diy metal detector project in one on the science or mechanics illustrated catalogs.
Looking back it was a simple BFO.

So we scrounged up some electornic parts and fabricated the coil per instructions.
As i remembe we used a jury rigged broom stick for the shaft and a small kids hoola hoop for the coil!
That coil was huge compared to today's average size coils, maybe a couple+ feet in dia.

After a few false starts mainly trying to get the oscillator to fire up, we got it working....sort of!
That contraption is now long buried in a land fill somewhere!

 

[joe dirt_1]

Ironsight, seems like I remember those DIY kits from the magazines. If I remember correctly, some of the kits
used a regular transistor radio for the electronics. Pretty hi tech stuff back then.....lol

Roger

 

[michael NY]

Garrett CXIII Has surface elimination feature, It was used to eliminate the amount of pull tabs or other items you might want to avoid
It also talked, my Friends dad heard the voice when I turned it on one day looking for something and could not believe it talked! I really like that detector

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I think you are mis-understanding that feature. All it does is reject all signals with an intensity over such & such setting. Thus if there's a coin under a surface pulltab, and the tab is eliminated (d/t it's a louder signal), then you do not magically still get the deep coin underneath it. The masking is still going on.

 

[slingshot]

I think you are mis-understanding that feature. All it does is reject all signals with an intensity over such & such setting. Thus if there's a coin under a surface pulltab, and the tab is eliminated (d/t it's a louder signal), then you do not magically still get the deep coin underneath it. The masking is still going on.

Ahh memories! I still have my beloved Royal Sabre with the surface blanking feature. I was hunting one day and never noticed I had accidentally flipped it on. I got a blip and went back to retrace only to eyeball a quarter atop the ground! Always checked to maked sure it was off after that.

 

[amberjack]

when we buy a brand new detector today's latest models are all old tech, this is what I know and so do they, they have the tech out there to identify what metal is under the coil, by exciting the atoms it would say 90% aluminium 10% zinc, or whatever is the case 75% gold 12.5% silver 12.5% copper.

the tech is out there and why are we not using it ??? because that's the end game no more detectors needed so they would shoot themselves in the foot to sell it to us.

so don't for 1 minute think any of us are using new tech we are still in the stone age !!

AJ

 

[thump7]

when we buy a brand new detector today's latest models are all old tech, this is what I know and so do they, they have the tech out there to identify what metal is under the coil, by exciting the atoms it would say 90% aluminium 10% zinc, or whatever is the case 75% gold 12.5% silver 12.5% copper.

the tech is out there and why are we not using it ??? because that's the end game no more detectors needed so they would shoot themselves in the foot to sell it to us.

so don't for 1 minute think any of us are using new tech we are still in the stone age !!

AJ

You hit the head on the nail.
Of course it's fun to buy, try and find which machine I enjoy and performs best for me. BUT, until they (any detector company) come out with a machine that can identify gold, I will not acknowledge that a significant improvement has been made.

Going back to old vs. new/modern technology, here in Canada the fisher 1200 series find our clad coins better than any other detector that I know of. With the fisher, I can cherrypick only the coins. Most new machines will either null them out or identify them with iron. But there again, they just do that 1 thing better than all the rest.

 

[ironsight]

when we buy a brand new detector today's latest models are all old tech, this is what I know and so do they, they have the tech out there to identify what metal is under the coil, by exciting the atoms it would say 90% aluminium 10% zinc, or whatever is the case 75% gold 12.5% silver 12.5% copper.
the tech is out there and why are we not using it ??? because that's the end game no more detectors needed so they would shoot themselves in the foot to sell it to us.
so don't for 1 minute think any of us are using new tech we are still in the stone age !!
AJ

I also agree as i've posted similar in the past. Sort of like the internal combustion engine which has been around for a 100 years. The engines today are only vastly 'improved' on that same basic old engine technology.

 

[mudpuppy]

All in all, we actually do pretty good with this Flintstone tech...amazing in fact, some of the wonderous finds posted..with just about any old rig, cheap to high dollar..?

Quite similar to Archery technological advances when Compounds came out...after the dust settled, it was still the 'Indian' and not so much the 'Bow' regarding producing in field..Sure, Compounds made the 'success' window wider for a larger customer base...same as us with our slightly advanced 'modern' gear with TIDS, ergonomic, and thresh and all....

A giant leap in Detector tech would be incorporating XRF technology!...Imagine being able to tell a Tungsten ring from a Gold one before the dig? A .22 bullet from a Gold nugget? Let alone a nickel or a pulltab!

But thats never gonna happen, too cost prohibitive...I bet the Wizards who design circuitry stay awake at night and dream of this though...gold jewelry falls into too wide a parameter, the cost would be outrageous...

A guy might just as well get good and fast with a comfortable recurve, and hunt in the right locations.....We are in the Stone Age, both mentally and detector wise, heck, detectors have only been in popular use for about a generation and a half....So its the Indian. We are addicted to the hunt, like our forefathers long ago...subsistance hunters out for a big kill.. we do pretty damn good despite the lack of tech advances in the gear..probably a good thing too....the thing is to get out and hunt, hard, fast and often...no matter what gear you have.....cant find nothing sitting around the house..XRF or not...
Mud

 

[amberjack]

they can do it but we cant afford it plus its the end then isn't it XRF on a stick that can get 5" 90% of the gold is gone real fast and all the detector company's just put themselves out of a job and they make more than all the gold I can find.

so I was thinking if I could have one super power it would be x-ray vision walk in the park spot the gold get them and on to the next park, then all I would need is super girl to give me a hand and life would beee

no harm is fantasy right

AJ