Big Boys Hobbies

Ever owned a detector you just didnt click with?

alkazoo

alkazoo

Full Member
Joined
Mar 2, 2012
Messages
236
Location
Kalamazoo Mi
First of all, I don't want this thread to become a Brand/Model bashing. Simply a friendly response regarding one particular detector you never really meshed with or got the hang of personally? Ive been detecting since the late 60s. Im not counting in this thread the tin box "Relco" or whatever its name was I bought for 29.95 that got me interested in the hobby. Ive had the Garrett Freedom Ace, Gold Mountain king cobra (still own), Tesoro Toltec 100, Whites SLII Eagle, Garrett At pro (still own) and now my current Etrac. I look back and each one provided me hours and hours of fun and many finds. Some easier to master then the other, but of all the ones listed, The Toltec 100 was a handful for me...heavy, never did figure out the discrimination settings etc etc, Worked fine, the company has great reputation. but that Toltec 100 baffled me from the get go..hopefully the next guy who bought it put it to good use, I traded it in towards the Eagle SLII back in the early 90s. What got me thinking about this post topic was I saw a Toltec 100 for sale on a FB forum the other day and chuckled to myself as it brought back memorys of owning one.
 
Minelab Safari...wanted to smash that thing. Worst MD purchase I ever made. I'm sure the machine is fine, I just didn't "get it".
 
It was the White's M6, for me. Artur C. and I were hunting an old park that was loaded with silver. After two weeks of no silver, I borrowed Art's E-Trac and found a Rosie within five minutes. He had been digging silver all along. I became a Labber the next day, and found about 20 more silvers in that park. The M6 was sold to another forum member. Hopefully, they had better luck with it.
 
Fisher F75 and the first XP Deus that I owned. In all fairness I didn't give either machine a fair chance before giving up. Decided to try another Deus and actually take the time to learn it this go around. So far so good! I'm really starting to understand its language and have been pulling some good targets out of really trashy areas with it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Tejon (too chattery), Sand Shark (Not very deep), CEIA CMD (super front heavy), etrac (too front heavy with 15" attack/screen sucks in daytime), Sovereign (hated charging batteries for 12 hours), Minelab F3 (8" coil too small), Fisher F2 (poor depth/poor target ID), Beach Hunter ID 300 (ID'd bobby pins as mid tones).

Ones in my Signature are the ones I can't really fault... except the Go Find, but it fits in a backpack, so I'll keep it.
 
I would have to pick the Ace 400, the youth detector with the adult coil, no ground balance. and features (discrimination) that is worthless.
 
Fisher F75 LTD.

I could probably do much better today because I was just beginning my run to find the best for me and I had, up until then, used mostly very stable machines. Whites, Garrett, Tesoro etc. The F75 LTD at the time seemed like a lot of noise and not much else. I know now that noise CAN equal better depth and sensitivity.
 
Detector said:
Fisher F75 LTD.

I could probably do much better today because I was just beginning my run to find the best for me and I had, up until then, used mostly very stable machines. Whites, Garrett, Tesoro etc. The F75 LTD at the time seemed like a lot of noise and not much else. I know now that noise CAN equal better depth and sensitivity.
Click to expand...


Same here. I used to run nothing but stable Whites machines and the F75 just seemed too chatty to me. But now I've learned to live with and even prefer the noisy set-ups for the reasons you mentioned.
 
After owning a Minelab CTX 3030. I thought I would give the XP Deus a try. Just could not get a handle on it. Dug a lot of junk that sounded great. That drove me nuts. Problem is going nuts is just around the corner for me.
 
budaf250 said:
After owning a Minelab CTX 3030. I thought I would give the XP Deus a try. Just could not get a handle on it. Dug a lot of junk that sounded great. That drove me nuts. Problem is going nuts is just around the corner for me.
Click to expand...

Thats exactly why I gave up on my first Deus. Then with some help from forum members I've been able to better understand the difference between the way junk targets and good targets sound. Some good reading here:
http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=236970
 
Tried a BH once, didnt last but a month before it hit the trash can. Electronics went bad suddenly.
 
I had a detector pro unti that i bought from pi joe that just drove me nuts, for some reason minelab machines speak a language I understand better...
 
Detector said:
Fisher F75 LTD.

I could probably do much better today because I was just beginning my run to find the best for me and I had, up until then, used mostly very stable machines. Whites, Garrett, Tesoro etc. The F75 LTD at the time seemed like a lot of noise and not much else. I know now that noise CAN equal better depth and sensitivity.
Click to expand...

Ditto. Mine gets great depth, but it's an absolute wall of noise to me. I can't take it for much more than a half hour, then I switch to my ATP.
 
I bought a used XLT once. Even then it was several years old but it was the first modern detector that I had. nothing made sense to me and I even had it up for sale in my Silversmith shop for a while. Luckily no one bought it. I finally decided that if I was ever going to learn it I had to use it. Before I would use it for about ten or fifteen minutes and then go back to one of my other detectors that I was used to. I began leaving the others at home so I had to keep at it with the XLT. The more I used it the easier it became. It still has some features that I don't understand but i am comfortable with it and have made some good finds. It isn't always easy starting with a new machine. You just have to give it a chance.
 
Had one of the first MX Sports and traded it after 2 hours. I'll wait a few years till the bugs are out before considering another.
 
bowwinkles said:
I would have to pick the Ace 400, the youth detector with the adult coil, no ground balance. and features (discrimination) that is worthless.
Click to expand...

All the Ace series detectors automatically ground balance and they are not just for youths. They are tough and simple and take the work out of using a metal detector. Some of us love them.. Oh and they are yellow so they dont get lost, all of its made is the USA and Mr. Garrett traveled the world testing his machines to make sure he made them right..so there.
 
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