Us - enthuisatic users of metal detectors to pursue a wide variety of purposes.

Them - engineers, inventors, physicists who design and build the tools we use

The Others - folks who put their bodies on the line - doing military or humanitarian de-mining operations in the field.

There are a lot of “Them” who design, not to serve “Us” but “The others”

The others have more money...Military and to some extent humanitarian budgets can support research by a different bunch of “Them” than the ones who have traditionally provided the tools to “Us”

More to come - long day - dinner soon, but I plan to develop this line a bit over the next few days.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

$$ talk and it's our dollars talking. Worth it though to save life and limb.

Various agencies have published test information and background papers on use of electromagnetic instruments for detecting mines and UXB.

Here’s one which provides a really good summary of the development of “metal detectors” as we know them.
The background stuff is right at the beginning of Chapter 1 - you have to go past a lot of intro material to get there.

[www.sic.rma.ac.be]

This link is to a thorough test program of mine detectors.

[www.minelab.com]

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

Us & Them.....

[youtu.be]

Can someone please explain to me what this post/thread is all about. I'm slow but I still hate to miss something.

We use and enjoy the detectors we use.

Almost all of us (myself included} have limited understanding of how they work and why.

There is a tradition in the “trade” of not being very clear with us customers what they do and how.

Engineers, scientists, other folks who wish to make sure that the huge expenditure on mine detection equipment using our tax money (not to mention the arms and legs of the operators) is well spent - have done a lot of work and documented it in tests and studies. All of which are unencumbered by the kind of bumps written by the marketing departments of the companies which produce the tools we and our friends use in our hobby.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

Yep,similar to the auto racing industry and how the tested things on the track make it to the common man after awhile....but things like “intellectual property” is a hard thing to just make someone cough up,kinda like rolling up to the gates of Area 51 and saying,”Hey,I’m a taxpayer and want to know what’s going on in there!” Not so much...
I’m like you Rick in the regard that I want to know EVERYTHING I can about metal detecting,my specific machines and EXACTLY how they work to the Nth degree! Certain people have an insatiable curiosity about things,others don’t give a rats butt. The ones who are curious and always want to learn something generally DO,and therefore become very good at their craft over time. I hope to do that and to know more about the “innards” as rock solid information becomes available. Til then,WE,as end users,get to learn things by observation and repeatability...still a form of the scientific method,although a bit blurry at times.

I use to be like that, wanting to know how they worked on the things that interested me. But technology flew past my brains understanding and capabilities. Take cars for instance. Use to be they were fairly easy to understand and work on......now, forget about it. Use to be more mechanical than electrical. You could practically stand on the ground inside the engine compartment.....now you cant see even the ground, looking down. One thing that sticks in my mind is...under every bodies auto and every drive way had a minimum 2 foot diameter oil stain. These days that familiar stain is almost extinct unless the driveway is old.... ha! funny what we remember.

Anyway, my point is that there isn't enough time to try to figure out everything we're interested in and how it works down to the nitty gritty. So these days I just say to myself 'just use it and enjoy the results, don't let your mind go there.....tooo many more important things to take care of, for me anyway.

Cutting edge..... adapted to mass use a good many times gets watered down to be used easily by the novice. This can lead to years down the road to get to where we should have started and keeps us behind where we should be tech wise.

Rick with good info---as usual. Thanks.

This Us, Them and Others.
The lines between have closed somewhat.
Why?
The digital world has allowed.

We can see now more at a glimpse what is going on, we get to hear the thoughts of the professionals, etc.

We don’t have to go digging so much for info.

More info sharing occurring due to digital world.

Just think 30 years ago we likely wouldn’t be seeing what Engineer T. Dankowski is thinking out loud.

Of course my opinion here could be full of it.
But is how I see it.

Tnss - Absolutely right

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold