Are we really moving forward??? Back in the late 70's and mid 80's I used a Whites blue box as well as the Wilson - Nueman GBD 2............. and they were excellent at knocking out bottle caps. In fact bottle caps were not any sort of issue. I hope Dave J will eventually give us a detector that will cleanly reject bottle caps as if the weren't there just like the old days. I'm sure there were some trade offs..... i would gladly sacrifice 50% of my detectors depth, if I could get clean "no sound" bottle cap rejection. That would open up endless areas that are currently to difficult too hunt. Back to the drawing board Dave................and good luck we are all rooting for you!!
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Re; Gold Bug PRO and Bottle caps..........
- Thread starter Ivan
- Start date
Dave addressed this at the top of the page. There are a couple of ways to identify bottle caps. The one that works best for me is wiggle your coil and watch the screen the signal will always show iron when you get to the tip of the coil. If target I.D. remains the same through this process dig it. Hope this helps. HH 
The units Whites and Daytona GBD 2 were VLF units not TR's!!! You did not have to do any weird "wiggle" movements the coils. You could ignore iron at regular sweep speeds......hardly a crackle ..you didn't hear iron. Are there any old timers who remember using these machines, I guess I may be the lone wolf on this one!
GoGoGopher
New member
I will also take the depth over the older machines...
HH,
HH,
Those of us who have been working a wide variety of detectors, from the early era when they were called "Metal/Mineral Locators" through to the general-use term "Metal Detectors" have had the pleasure of experiencing and learning so many different types of performance as well as an abundance of new-fangled electronic wizardry that we sort of brought on ourselves.
Naturally the manufacturers had to keep coming out with something new and creative ... just to make sales ... just to compete with their rivals ... and especially because too many 'average' level 'hobbyists' seem to keep begging for the makers to give us a model that will do everything perfect. Well, many times these steps forward have resulted in two-steps back. More learning, understanding that there are now more trade-offs, and realizing that there is no such thing as a 'perfect' detector. Never has been, and never will be.
However, we have also been provided a wide array of models from many manufacturers that give us various levels of Audio Tone ID, different methods of probable Target ID as well as numeric Visual Discrimination Indication numbers. A transition to different processing of signals to provide easy-to-use motion-based Discrimination. And let's not forget the transition from simple analog electronics to the more blended analog/digital designs and on the to current way-too-digital modern circuitry.
We used BFO's and traditional TR's and then 'advanced' to BFO-Discriminators and TR-Discriminators. By about ''74 we had our very low frequency TR models, generally just referred to as VLF back then (which implied they allowed Manual Ground Balance), which was quickly followed by the VLF/TR-Disc. models. These usually operated from
Naturally the manufacturers had to keep coming out with something new and creative ... just to make sales ... just to compete with their rivals ... and especially because too many 'average' level 'hobbyists' seem to keep begging for the makers to give us a model that will do everything perfect. Well, many times these steps forward have resulted in two-steps back. More learning, understanding that there are now more trade-offs, and realizing that there is no such thing as a 'perfect' detector. Never has been, and never will be.
We have moved forward in that we now have many lighter-weight detectors. We have better-balanced detectors. We can more easily accomplish ground canceling operation, and there is no doubt that we can get a little better depth than we did in the much earlier days of the hobby.Ivan said:
However, we have also been provided a wide array of models from many manufacturers that give us various levels of Audio Tone ID, different methods of probable Target ID as well as numeric Visual Discrimination Indication numbers. A transition to different processing of signals to provide easy-to-use motion-based Discrimination. And let's not forget the transition from simple analog electronics to the more blended analog/digital designs and on the to current way-too-digital modern circuitry.
Hey, let's not forget that the majority of the 'trash' we commonly found when hunting urban or rural sites back in the 1960s and 1970s was the iron nail, hair pins, bottle caps, and smaller-size foil from gum wrappers to larger-size foil from cigarette wrappers. That was the bulk of all the typical junk.Ivan said:
We used BFO's and traditional TR's and then 'advanced' to BFO-Discriminators and TR-Discriminators. By about ''74 we had our very low frequency TR models, generally just referred to as VLF back then (which implied they allowed Manual Ground Balance), which was quickly followed by the VLF/TR-Disc. models. These usually operated from
something like the modified IDX Pro. The Classic III SL, Classic ID and the Classic II that my brother used also seem to do a bit better in many bottle caps areas.
I am referring to just how they work in general with an average sweep speed and without having to always rely on 'Quick-Out' or 'EPR' techniques, although I do use those from time to time. Even just a little extra sweep on a questionable bottle cap seems to help break them up better.
There is no 'perfect' detector, like I always sat, but there are some that have their own strengths. I'm not saying these Classic models are never going to beep on a B.C., but I will say they seem to work better than many other out there in the past 15 years or so, and I credit some of that to their analog design.
Monte
I am referring to just how they work in general with an average sweep speed and without having to always rely on 'Quick-Out' or 'EPR' techniques, although I do use those from time to time. Even just a little extra sweep on a questionable bottle cap seems to help break them up better.
There is no 'perfect' detector, like I always sat, but there are some that have their own strengths. I'm not saying these Classic models are never going to beep on a B.C., but I will say they seem to work better than many other out there in the past 15 years or so, and I credit some of that to their analog design.
Monte
Note, if you will, that I generally reference models in this class as being "older TR-Disc." or often I say "original TR-Disc." The last several years I describe them as "TR-Disc., the True Progressive Discriminators."sgoss66 said:
Most of the hobby-oriented detectors in use today fall into one of three categories that describes their principle of operation:
Transmit/Receive .. or .. Beat Frequency Oscillation .. or .. Pulse Induction
Let's leave the Pulse Induction topic for other forum discussions such as water hunting or some nugget hunting or selective relic hunting and only concentrate on the makes and models that are Transmit/Receive by design.
Late 1960's and early 1970's BFO's had been most in production, but the T/R (Transmit/Receive) and I/B (Induction/Balance) design was gaining popularity due to the loudness (volume) change response rather than a pitch change. Note: I/B and T/R principles are the same and most manufacturers quickly changed to the T/R reference in the early 1970's.
Most of the early T/R models operated at a higher frequency close to 100 kHz. By
sgoss66
Well-known member
Monte --
No, I am NOT bored by your response. What a great history lesson!
I followed everything you said, a very nice, progressive-through-time summary, except for one thing. You said that "TR Disc" machines, which were "progressive" in their discrimination (but were NOT ground balancable in disc. mode), would knock out "crown caps" -- which are slightly more conductive (despite being iron), due to the shape, than iron nails. This makes perfect sense for me, in that "eddy currents" will be stronger in a round object, right? So I understand why a "progressive discriminator" should knock out a crown cap BEFORE knocking out a gold ring, or a nickel, etc. BUT -- it seems in your summary that as soon as ground cancelling was developed to be capable of working in disc. mode, something changed -- you called them then MOTION-BASED machines, and somehow tied into this "motion-based, ground-balanceable, able-to-discriminate" thing is where the problem with bottle caps crept in (i.e. discrimination is not "progressive" anymore, in that a relatively low-conductive crown cap is hard to discriminate, since the "motion-based, ground-balanceable, able-to-discriminate" machines see them as a high conductor, similar to a quarter).
This then begs the question as to WHY did this happen? What is it about a motion-based, ground-balancing, discriminating machine that has changed -- such that it sees a low-conductive iron cap as a high conductive target?
I am likely treading into technical territory here, but am interested to understand...
Steve
No, I am NOT bored by your response. What a great history lesson!
I followed everything you said, a very nice, progressive-through-time summary, except for one thing. You said that "TR Disc" machines, which were "progressive" in their discrimination (but were NOT ground balancable in disc. mode), would knock out "crown caps" -- which are slightly more conductive (despite being iron), due to the shape, than iron nails. This makes perfect sense for me, in that "eddy currents" will be stronger in a round object, right? So I understand why a "progressive discriminator" should knock out a crown cap BEFORE knocking out a gold ring, or a nickel, etc. BUT -- it seems in your summary that as soon as ground cancelling was developed to be capable of working in disc. mode, something changed -- you called them then MOTION-BASED machines, and somehow tied into this "motion-based, ground-balanceable, able-to-discriminate" thing is where the problem with bottle caps crept in (i.e. discrimination is not "progressive" anymore, in that a relatively low-conductive crown cap is hard to discriminate, since the "motion-based, ground-balanceable, able-to-discriminate" machines see them as a high conductor, similar to a quarter).
This then begs the question as to WHY did this happen? What is it about a motion-based, ground-balancing, discriminating machine that has changed -- such that it sees a low-conductive iron cap as a high conductive target?
I am likely treading into technical territory here, but am interested to understand...
Steve
thats a great question like to hear the answr myself.
what about the gold bug likes crown caps and my other brand machine likes screw caps and they both fall in the same range of discrimination but the bug dosnt hit on screw caps and the other brand dosnt hit on crown caps, why then my question is dont we get the 2 designers together and make them hit both caps
or even better no caps 
Digga
what about the gold bug likes crown caps and my other brand machine likes screw caps and they both fall in the same range of discrimination but the bug dosnt hit on screw caps and the other brand dosnt hit on crown caps, why then my question is dont we get the 2 designers together and make them hit both caps
or even better no caps Digga
nick hunter
New member
I am always in admiration, impressed and glad when i read Monte's posts.
I have been mding for about 27 yrs now, and I am more interested in MDs than in finds.
That being said, I tested the GB last summer on a beach (dry sand) here, at the other side of the pond.
I was impressed at tyhe quality of the unit, especially when I had seen the finds the owner made inland at places he had been over with miscellaneous detector, including a F75. But I wasand disappointed with the bottle cap issue. 72/73, often with a good audio.
Its not that it bothers me that much, it is that it takes the fun away. Yes I like mding to be fun !
That being said, I have a BH Time Ranger and it has ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEMS with bottle caps.
Same with two other BH units (LS & QDII). Not a bottle cap will be detected when iron is disc ed out.
In the Target disc mode, set to all metals, on the BHTR, the bottle caps are correctly identified (iron 3 or 4) and never jump to 25
I have been mding for about 27 yrs now, and I am more interested in MDs than in finds.
That being said, I tested the GB last summer on a beach (dry sand) here, at the other side of the pond.
I was impressed at tyhe quality of the unit, especially when I had seen the finds the owner made inland at places he had been over with miscellaneous detector, including a F75. But I wasand disappointed with the bottle cap issue. 72/73, often with a good audio.
Its not that it bothers me that much, it is that it takes the fun away. Yes I like mding to be fun !
That being said, I have a BH Time Ranger and it has ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEMS with bottle caps.
Same with two other BH units (LS & QDII). Not a bottle cap will be detected when iron is disc ed out.
In the Target disc mode, set to all metals, on the BHTR, the bottle caps are correctly identified (iron 3 or 4) and never jump to 25
