T.W.O. Metal Detecting
One of my long-time hobbies has been metal detecting - or as I have more often practiced it in the past, coin shooting. I say in the past because, where I now live I will probably be doing more relic hunting than coin shooting.
My detector of choice for general MDing is a White's Spectrum XLT. I have played with programming it but have never been able to demonstrably beat the factory programs for depth of detection or number of recoveries.
For use in salt water I use a White's Surfmaster PI.
My Machines
The first metal detector (beeper) I ever owned (about fifty years ago) was an inexpensive ($9.95?) Radio Shack beat frequency oscillator (BFO) type with one control - volume. It was not worth what I paid for it, I never found enough to even pay to keep batteries in it. But in all fairness I did get what I paid for. I think Radio Shack still sells that same model machine, but now it's $29.95 - ahh progress.
I now own six beepers: an ancient Garret BFO type that I inherited from my dad; a JetCo BFO that I've had for at least 30 years, and which still operates as well as the day I got it; a Bounty Hunter discriminator; a Tesoro that I got for my wife because the control box comes off the stick and belt-mounts; a White's XLT; and a White's Surfmaster PI.
All of these machines have found enough coins to pay for the batteries in them, although the two Whites are the only ones that have actually paid off (mostly with gold and silver rings).
Beach Hunting
There is nothing else in MDing that compares to the instant gratification of beach hunting. You hear the beep, scoop the sand, give the scoop a shake, and the rattle against the wire of the scoop says coin or ring. It is literally seconds from the beep of mystery to the revelation of treasure. Or as all too often happens bottle cap or pull tab.
Bottle cap, pull tab, "don't you know how to use the discriminator function on your machine? you ask. Of course I do. But, it is a sad fact of MDing life that if you discriminate out pull tabs you will also discriminate out some coins and small gold!
How Some Metal Detectors Work
For a discription of the working principals of the three most popular MD technologies click on this link: MDTech.html. If some of the descriptions are fuzzy contact me and we'll talk about it.
A Short Story About Beach Hunting
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