THE CURSE OF THE 25K MACHINE

It did not take long to see how sensitive the Vista Gold is. Because of bad weather and long work hours, I was only able to play around with the detector close to home. I took the Gold to a local park just a short distance from home this week. I know it is not a coin shooter, so I decided to only dig weak signals to get past the modern trash. the park is filled with pulltabs, screwcaps, and can slaw.
The first weak signal was a 22 cal bullet shell at 10". the second was a very small initial pin at around 8". A copper penny at 7" in a wet area. And so on and so on. But I hit a few signals that were weak but were not deep. These targets were so small, I had a hard time finding them. And a couple I never did find. I could wave a handfull of soil over the coil and get a signal, but even with a pinpointer I could not find them in my hand. I would often drop part of the soil and never find it again.

I plan to go to the deep woods and get away from all the trash soon. for now all I can do is plan....

Tom in SC

Sounds like you need a high-frequency pinpointer, if you haven't already. My 65KHz pp will comprehensively outdo my Garrett propointer on tiny, difficult targets. Do Tesoro still make that nugget-shooting pinpointer?

Can you tell me the model?

Interesting guys...I also occasionally find targets, with my Gold Bug Pro, that I can't then find with my Pro-Pointer, just like is being mentioned...what kind of pinpointer are you using, Pimento?

Steve

It's a Sherlock DTS-Pro, also sold as a Scanmaster, and virtually identical to one called the Merlin SXL. They are based on the Cherry CS209 'metal detector chip'. I admit it has been the subject of some significant experimentation, but even as standard it was pretty good on tiny stuff. As an example, a 0.22" airgun pellet: Garrett range is 5mm, Sherlock does 21mm standard (and over 30mm in 'experimental trim'). I think a lot of the cheapo pp's run at high frequencies, the ferrite rods they use are basically long-wave / medium-wave radio ones, so works best at 100KHz up to a few MHz. I think at 10KHz these rods would be poor.
I should point out that they aren't very good in other respects - not robust, not waterproof in the slightest, cheaply put together etc.

Edit: I've just had a look online, it seems they have improved it, this is the Mark2 version:
[detectorpoint.com]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/2013 09:21AM by Pimento.

Tmanly, good to here more positive results from another detectorist on the Gold. I am just beside myself waiting for mine to arrive. Sounds like maybe the owners of these machines may have to find a different kind of pinpointer to find the micro items like with the Goldbug II using a sifter at the beach. Not practicle in wet dirt and muddy conditions. So any ideas from maybe the prospectors on the best pinpointers may help. They are always looking tiny gold flakes.

*** It's a Sherlock DTS-Pro, also sold as a Scanmaster, and virtually identical to one called the Merlin ZXL (or similar).****

All the way to Italy? Is there a distributor in the U.S.A. or a way to order this?

The Italian link was just for info. The original boxy style Sherlocks/scanmasters are probably discontinued, as the CS209 is obsolete. There is a very similar chip available now, the TDA0161. I don't know if the Mark2 version uses this new part.
I would be surprised if you could not find a US dealer, they may be sold with a different name.
A bit more Googling shows there are two different DTS2's: this one, the 'extra-sensitive':
[metaldetectorforummarche.forumfree.it]
and the one in my previous link, the 'SuperScanner'



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/2013 10:23AM by Pimento.

tmanly Wrote:
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> The first weak signal was a 22 cal bullet shell at
> 10".

That's a heck of depth for a 22 shell !

I detect now on the same land I used to shoot on ,every time I dig a shell I think I hear them rabbits laughing.......lol