Rutus Alter new update 2.0

More about Rutus Alter 71 update here (subtitles):

[www.youtube.com]

For those of us who have version 1.1
Can our units be updated to version 2.0 ?????
Ship it to Poland ???
Or have to buy New updated Detector control head OR what ??
A new detector package ?????

Thanks for sharing.

I happen to really enjoy my RA 71 the way it is. Picked up the 5 inch coil and not overly excited about it but it does have it's place.
Would LOVE to see a 5 or 6 inch Concentric. (( hint ! hint ! Shelton ))
BUT !!!!!!
What I saw on video presentation REALLY looks pretty darn INTERESTING to say the least

Michael296 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> For those of us who have version 1.1
> Can our units be updated to version 2.0 ?????
> Ship it to Poland ???
> Or have to buy New updated Detector control head O
> R what ??
> A new detector package ?????

You need to send the unit to detecnicks-ltd in England. When I checked with them about updates, I was told that my cost would be the shipping both ways, and there was no charge for the actual update. They have a website, and to my knowledge are the only English speaking authorized sellers. They can do the updates.

I like the Rutus Alter 71. What I really like about version 2.0 is the addition of the 4 user modes. Coils seem to be coming along too.

HH
Mike

Back in early 2017, I tested the Version 1.0 of the RA71 for a UK magazine.

Two years on and I realise even more that the "Rutus" wasn't for me. It can be used in any of '71 Frequencies'

I've realised of late that I have too many detectors and haven't been getting out of late for a variety of reasons (weather) but the main reason is I just can't decide on 'Which Detector' I want to take out and use?

For that reason, I have dusted off my "XP ADX150" detector that has just two controls and a 'no-brainer' to use. No indecision as to "which frequency should I be in?" and a host of 'new problems' we didn't have to deal with up to a few years ago!
So, 'beep and dig', for me in the next few days!!!

Hi Des. I liked your review.

Yeah...sometimes you just don't have time for a particular detector. That's what happened to me and my RA71. I just didn't have the time to put into it.

But I was impressed with it enough to go around with one later when I do have the time.

HH
Mike

Hi Mike,
Your old Rutus is off to merry olde England for the update.
Be interesting to try it out upon return.
I think that unit will be easier for me to use personally with the more familiar -90 to +90 VDI scale.
I suffer from "Detectoritis", (the abnormal desire to try every detector ever made), with a number of units on hand to choose from, my cure is to force myself to use only one unit for a month or two of intense hunting.
Cheers,
Drew.

Hi Druid,
"Detectoritis" HA. Let me know if you find a cure.

Looking forward to hearing what you think about 2.0.

HH
Mike

IMHO, the 'Rutus Alter 71', is every bit as good as the 'Deus' and I was fortunate to test them both, side-by-side.
Some didn't like what they 'saw' in a few of my videos! Tough.

Its the lack of Marketing Budget that's holding this outfit back. That coupled with developmental costs etc.
"XP" is just too strong. From nowhere to almost 'king of the hill' in 11 or 12 years.
They started out the same way: small budget: big ideas.

The other elephant in the room is, the "Rutus Alter 71" is more 20th century in it's hardware whereas "Deus" is 21st Century and light years ahead in it's concept.
The RA71 is 'a b***h to handle in woods whereas the Deus is a dream..nothing to get snagged up and no tall control box to contend with provided of course you mount the 'Remote' elsewhere?

I have both and I prefer RUTUS. Why? More stable behaviour and super hodogrsph ID. Deus has a too noisy on trashy sites. Period.

Good opportunity for a dealer to become a rep over here and start selling some units.

This is not possible in USA with certificates... so you need to buy in UK or in Poland.

"Detectoritis" that's a great term Druid. I'm the same way. Back when I played guitar we referred to it as GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). No matter what you call it, it tends to be hard on your wallet and on occasion your marriage.

My friend has the "Guitaritis Gene", very sad and $$$$ to treat.

This is adapted from the original 5,200 word report and that had to be reduced to 3,400 words for original publication.
It describes the first released version of original software (two other since)
It was re-written completely today to avoid any copyright infringement.
It outlines 'the guts' of this very different machine.
It's such an unusual detector to own and operate, it's learning curve is lengthy and difficult to describe.
Made in Poland.
I don't believe it can be Sold in the USA yet because it has a wired in component for a wireless system (as made by Rutus) that may not be FCC compliant?

Rutus Alter 71 by Desi Dunne

An old farm

The first excursion with the ‘Rutus Alter 71’, was to old farm of 19th C. origins and a regular place for me to trial new detectors. It’s safe to say I have a good idea what to expect from the ground conditions, and what’s to be found including an amount of rubbish.
Contained in the few acres are, broken bits of agricultural equipment both ferrous and non ferrous, coke, foil, ring pulls and rusty nails and good targets are scarce and hard to hear anything of merit but at times it can throw up an item or two.

When switched on at first, the Rutus won’t start up fully until you carry out an initial Ground Balance procedure.
It displays: “Put search coil up then pull trigger”
Then it shows “Preparing Data and 5” and is quickly replaced with an image of the coil with arrows above and below it, then you lower and raise the coil five times, then it displays: “Detector ready pull trigger”
Then it displays “Soil Conditions” and then you can begin scanning. It is the only method of ground balancing and has to be done and if not the machine can not be used.

Setting up in “Coins” 8.2kHz, achieved a ground phase value of -85.7
The Instruction Manual states: “most soil types give a phase reading of around -87.0”
A second GB procedure later on showed -83.1 and readings of -75.0 can indicate metal objects are present in the GB area.

I soon discovered that this machine won’t suit everyone. It’s a slow learn curve and you will have to spend considerable time with it.
I didn’t work it in all seventy one Frequency choices.
The “Rutus Alter 71” is for ‘tweakers’ who want to understand how best to use it. There are dozens of adjustments. The Audio menu resembles other machines e.g. Explorer, Deus etc.
It’s ‘sound’ is ‘a mix’ of several machines while at the same time unlike anything else and I heard some sounds and tones that are unique to it.

I was surprised that it really works quietly in iron and the signals can be manufactured to be ‘long or short’, by adjusting “Reaction” and “Masking”
Similarly, signals can be ‘sped up’ by using in “Ultra Fast” and a shallow target can produce eight bleeps on double sweeps. “Fast” mode was also very quick and louder sounding. Basic mode and Coins mode produce the more typical single bleeps.
I didn’t get ‘Overload’ warnings and this was the same place where the ‘Racer’s’ overloaded the entire time.

“Program Selection” has “Ultra Deep” and Deep & Big Silver”
Deep & Big Silver combine the Motion Mode with Discrimination and the All Metal Mode.
I liked using these when used side-by-side on farmland. It’s essential that a ground balance is done to ensure stable operation and to avoid ‘loud’ ground noises than can occur when you switch programs.

Beach

For the second outing I took the RA71 to the beach. I won’t discuss beach use tin any great detail but much to my surprise, it handled the wet salt sand really well.
Dropping coins into pre-dug holes dug it consistently signaled the two coins being used even deeper than the original holes dug at sensitivity levels between 50 - 60
They were then dug up and replaced into deeper holes and the Rutus found them easily enough. I’m specifically talking about 4” - 7” depths in the drier transition area between the tides.

I changed frequency from 7kHz to 12kHz and up to 18kHz and each time a ground balance procedure was carried out and ranged from -17.1, to -9.77 to 2.89 over wet sand.
The Ground Balance readouts were low indicating the challenging conductivity of wet salt sand.
I experimented with the available frequency choices to see which produced ‘the best hit’ and it looked as if the 12kHz option was best at seeing coins, especially the bi-metal components of the euro coins.
Believe it or not but a proper ground balance was possible directly in a rock pool and immersing the coil into the frigid water gave the occasional ‘chirrup’ false sound.

Into the woods

One of my favorite places to detect is in woodland and I went to two well established search areas.
An interesting thing was no coins were found deeper than I had found previously using other Double D shod detectors but I dug some shallower ones. Perhaps they had been lost after I had searched there last time? But I doubt that.
Loads of shot gun cartridges were dug up from the many tracks that criss cross the woodlands and they weren’t deep at all, 5” probably?
Several coins were found underneath a tree which had a tyre hanging on a rope suspended from a tree.
In a really trash filled area with evidence of bon fires and beer cans strewn about the place, it was hard to work it as the noise was severe from the myriad of targets seen and unseen. So I selected Target ID’s between 95 - 103 as 890Hz and Target ID’s of 105 to 997Hz
Everything else was ignored and I zoned in modern coins. It was just too trashy to chase other signals.
The ‘Overload’ lit up regularly and was soon ignored after the first few cans revealed themselves buried just under the surface.
I’m hearing rumors about a small ‘sniper coil possibly 5” in diameter’ and should this ever be introduced, it could prove invaluable in similar scenarios.

Another farm with old stubble laying about

Weeks were spent on a farm that had been good to me on previous tests for coins and other items of interest. I used the 11” Double D coil here and ran through the entire selection of available Programs.
It’s a large stubble field with rotten maize stalks remaining on the surface late in the season so getting good clear sweeps wasn’t always possible. It was more like walking on a large salad! Power lines cross the field exactly in the center and as I approached and walked directly beneath them there was a definite increase in interference. This didn’t bother me at first but several days later it annoyed me so I worked through the programs to see which was most EMI free? Least prone were the Dual Modes, Deep and Big Silver.

Big Silver sounded fantastic and sweeping the coil was hugely important here as it seemed to be less responsive so you had to be right up next to targets for them to register. The best thing about this program is you have all metal and discrimination together with active TID’s and the very innovative ID Graph (some call this the hodograph) You hear the ‘toneless’ all metal sound that raises and lowers the Threshold as you get closer and leave the target area. It’s slow use but allows for pretty thorough signal investigation. Like everything else, there is a learning curve that’s tricky to find out: if the ID graph doesn’t display ‘lines’, then don’t use any discrimination with, the exception of TID 1. Then the ‘hodograph’ appears as a straight line in the iron nail area and coin areas. The ‘hodograph’ can be a tad ‘lazy’ to appear.

Another good tip is use“Deep” to get the most accurate TID and I found this to be faultless every time. A snag was was I found Deep hard to listen to. Gutteral obnoxious sounding and I hated it. It was used to only verify good signals.
Information from the ID Graph is also better in Deep. A word about this is for the majority of time, coins will put up a straight line while items larger than coins can show curves.
A buckle is a good example of the curvy hodograph displays. Iron and other junk can be displayed as a series of small dots across the display meter.
There is lots of information to be seen and beginning to understand what it all means takes time.
Big Silver program is considered a Low Frequency program (5000kHz) and will put quite the pull on power. The meter showed just one bar of battery life remaining, and the target ID’s cycled rapidly in a loop from high to low as the remaining energy was being depleted from the batteries. Always carry spares.

Coins were easy to recognize as the TID’s were high and anywhere from 94 on copper - 115 for silvers in 12kHz screen ID Type. Depending on size iron displayed either as a straight line on the left side within the Discriminated area (shaded) and showed TID’s from 1 - 18
A soil scraped shilling showed a TID of 111 with a large straight line on the ID graph. Not one, not two, but three small ‘three pence’ coins were found and produced TID’s of 102, 103 and 104 respectively. So the ID graph can show minute composite differences in individual same style coins. But there’s more, the ID Graph in the Basic Program can show nails and the orientation of them in the ground that can be either straight up or at angles. Incredible.

On another note but also pertinent to TID’s, the Coins Program with low 5.4kHz produced the best separation of aluminium pull tabs and ring pulls in trashy coin shooting parks.
It wasn’t all plain sailing because a few large square iron pieces put up TID’s of 114 fooling me on occasion. There were many pieces of small surface iron but these were easily identified by the ‘smearing’ of the ID Graph and left side straight line observed within the shaded discriminated area. Irregular but mostly round pistol balls and other lead items displayed with a small ID graph as a line bent at the top mid screen usually with TID’s from the 70’s to 90’s
Small low grade buttons displayed curvy hodograph lines showing TID’s in the 40’s, roughly quarter ways across the linear discrimination area.

Conclusion

A few things could be improved: The S bend middle rod needs more holes in it to suit short operators but there are accessory short rods available. After changing Programs or Frequency the detector requires you to re-ground balance. That is very tedious if you like to check out different signals in different programs. There isn’t a depth indicator to view but while in the pin point mode you will see two parallel black bars filling the screen - the top one can be used to guesstimate coin depth.
However, gripes aside, I still came away greatly impressed by this low cost feature packed detector.

Technical Specifications

Operating Principle: VLF
Frequency: Variable 4.4kHz - 18.4kHz
Tones: Variable and manually adjustable
Search Coil: 11” DD and 8x9”CC (no coil covers)
Weight: 3.6lbs
Length: 54” full, 48.5” short
Battery: 6AA cells
Headphone: 1/4”
Wireless ready: Yes
Warranty: Two years

©
Desi Dunne
January 9 2019



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2019 05:04PM by Des D.

Hmm may need to send mine back thank's for info!

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

I found a lot of rings among aluminum pultabs. The rings come through with tighter numbers, where as the aluminum has a slightly bouncy number reading. I was fooled on some of the square al. tabs.
Unfortunately none of the rings were gold!

Here is a bit on what to expect from the build quality and ease of assembly from the first "Rutus Alter 71" model.

Build quality

It was supplied with two coils (a) 8” x 9” concentric mildly elliptical shape (b) 11” Double D round (this might be a limited offer so check with the dealer) No coil covers are offered.
Assembly was quick with a black plastic lower rod, grey metal ‘S bend’ mid stem, slotting into the main control box part. Coil cables are extremely long, at 64’’ in length.
Slot the plastic bolt and washers through the lower rod to attach the coil. The coil pins are tiny but there’s a ‘notch mark’ on the plug so there’s little danger of bending or breaking pins. It screws in tightly by way of a twisting collar and there’s a really solid feel to this movement. Once assembled it is the most solid and tightest feeling detector I have handled. No squeaks or rattles even when shaken vigorously, a credit to the manufacturer who must build in small and well supervised quantities? It’s like a “Volvo”, not in weight but in overall feel.
I had to really look around to find the battery compartment and it’s located underneath the forearm area and uses 6 AA’s in a slide out holder. This is very novel and the speaker is housed behind the battery compartment in another solid compartment and acts as the rear stand. When you change batteries, hang onto the door clip. It’s small and easy to lose.

The 1/4” headphone socket is at the rear of the speaker compartment. Speaking of headphones, the Alter 71 has a built-in wireless digital data transmitter which can work on one of two available radio frequencies. There is now a dedicated Rutus wireless system but at time of writing this was unavailable.
Two protective covers were supplied with one to go over the meter area and the other wraps around the battery compartment and rear but you will have to remove the arm rest to do so, which isn’t a problem. You will have to undo the middle section of the fabric cover when making a battery change but not remove it entirely.
With the covers attached the audio without headphones can sound muffled so be sure to use them.

The control box part is a really solid piece of work and whilst appearing basic in form in a bare hard plastic hand grip attached by five screws, I would defy anyone to find any looseness in it. The screen area is small but is perfectly suitable and up to the job of showing the menu choices available. It is backlit and is adjustable from 0 - 29
I kept mine set to 10 the entire time.
There isn’t any real logic to the Menu in how the numbering is laid out. We are used to recent models displaying a 0 - 99 scale for Target ID, Volume, Disc, Sens ranges etc.
The Alter 71 has dispensed with that and it’s numbering system in the Menu and Option choices are all over the place! This is common in Eastern European & Russian detecting systems but mild confusion can occur when seen for the first time.