maxxkatt: said:
I know a lot of you guys and gals have quite a few detectors new and old.
I have 8 detectors, five models, in my current working battery. In addition I have 6 'old-fashioned' detectors I keep on-hand to use in my Metal Detecting Seminars. What for? To demonstrate what we had, where we came from in development, and how we have progressed to today's detectors ....
→→ and what performance we lost along the way!
maxxkatt: said:
Have you ever take out an old vintage detector and compared it in a test bed or on a hunt with your Equinox or XP Deus or any other modern detector and did some side by side compares?
I always compare any newer model detector I get my hands on with what I regularly use, as well as against some of those older models.
I also take them out detecting from time-to-time when I feel they offer some advantage for me based on site challenges. I had limited time yesterday before the thunderstorms and heavy rain arrived so I used a couple of them out in a section of my yard that is terribly littered with crimp-on Bottle Caps. in any trashy site you can't really c\achieve any functional 'depth' unless you first remove the masking trash, so 'dpth' wasn't an issue. This place has a lot of discarded or lost coins along with an over-abundance of Bottle Caps in several areas. The former owners drank a lot, and he also has his own brewery and this is one of the worst places I have ever hunted when it comes to Bottle Caps.
So, my goal is to work in and around all the problem trash and try to find any and all non-ferrous targets I can while ignoring as many ferrous-based Bottle Caps as possible. Common US Coins, to include the lower-conductive 5¢ piece, are scattered in all this unwanted debris. Have you adjusted YOUR detectors to accept the 5¢, 1¢, 10¢ and 25¢ pieces yet at the same time NOT respond to those lowly and annoying Bottle Caps? How do they sound on YOUR 'modern' detector?
So far over 287 coins have come out of this yard, with all but 9 of them located from surface to about 3" to 4" depths, and there are a lot of Bottle Caps also from surface to maybe 3" depths. A LOT of them!
I can use my Compass Coin Hustler TR that lacks Discrimination, but I can still audibly 'classify' a good 95% of those BC's. Instead, I can use my Garrett Master Hunter TR-Disc. unit w/DD coils purchased in '75 or '76 and use the 8" coil, which I used a short while, then switched to my Garrett American S2 TR-Disc. at 50 kHz or my American S3 VLF/TR-Disc. at 15 kHz, both using a 7" Concentric coil I enjoyed the 'simplicity' of just flipping the toggle to Discriminate Bottle Caps and the good old TR's nulled-out on the ferrous-junk Bottle Caps and give me a good audible 'Hit' on the coins and other non-ferrous targets.
I also have a 98% condition White's Coinmaster 6000 Series 3 Hip Mount and it does a good job in TR-Disc. as well, and the motion-based GEB-Disc. kind of breaks up on Bottle Caps. It's not as good as the 6000 Pro XL or XL Pro or XLT that feature Bottle Cap Reject and work very well at giving that sputtery audio to alert you to likely Bottle Caps.
maxxkatt: said:
Be interesting to know how the new stacks up with the old.
For a lot of hunting conditions, th newer detectors can be better mainly because they are working in a GB-Disc. function so the coil can vary a little from a nice-and-proper coil-to-ground relationship. However, some trash targets pose a bigger challenge. If I hunt a place where i am only dealing with Iiron Nails or similar 'wire-iron' such as a cut fence pieces, the good old TR's, w/o Discrimination, working at or close to 100 kHz did an excellent job of 'ignoring' the Iron Nails and producing a good it on the unseen non-ferrous target.
maxxkatt: said:
not really, I don't really believe that the old ones are better, just curious how they really compare. I have heard many stories how such and such detector was so good. But maybe those are just stories.
I also heard that in the late 80's there was a jump in the technology and many deep coins were found due to this increase in technology.
I am thinking it would be interesting to see how much better our modern best selling detectors actually do compare to some of those in the late 80's.
Yes, some of the older detectors COULD or CAN perform well, and better in many ways, to a lot of our modern detectors. In this past 20-40 years we have seen improvements in achieving detection depth, in favorable environments, and being able to hunt with less challenges from search coil / ground orientation. We have audio and visual Tone ID and Target ID. so we have come a long way. I just wish they could have retained the very good 'progressive Discrimination' we used to enjoy with things like Bottle Caps and a lot of Iron debris.
maxxkatt: said:
Don't forget to factor in how, back in the 70s and 80s, there were more good targets in the ground. Many of these targets (such as silver coins) haven't been replenished (and probably never will be) in the past 40-50 years.
Yes, the latter '60s and on through the mid-to-late '80s we had a lot of easily-huntable and top-producing sites to hunt. It's tougher today because there are still a lot of desired targets out there, especially in the densely littered sites, and it is up to us to remove the debris to be able to find and hit on the masked targets.
It calls for using better detectors, smaller-size search coils, using a low Disc. setting, and working a location slowly and methodically to do the best job of handling the trash. And sometimes, those 'old school' detectors can still do well.
Monte