New Nokta PI

[Sand Sifter]

New Nokta PI

I’ve seen a bunch of posts/comments on several Beach/Shallow Water sub forums, which is where I primarily hang out.

Lots of talk/discussion about a new PI that Nokta is supposed to be coming out with. Some of the posts go back a few years. I stumbled upon this info earlier this afternoon about Nokta’s new “Magnetar” PI, so thought I’d share.

Looks like they’ll be 2 versions, one for gold nugget hunting, the other for searching historical relics. According to the list of details known so far, it's also supposed to be fully waterproof.

Here's the link to the Blog announcement. There’s quite a few pics of the Magnetar. I've also attached what looks like a Nokta marketing piece to this post.

New Metal Detector Nokta Magnetar: First Images - MD-Hunter Blog

The Turkish manufacturer is preparing to release a new metal detector, the Nokta Magnetar, based on pulse induction technology. According to the plans,

md-hunter.com

 

[tvr]

New Nokta PI

I’ve seen a bunch of posts/comments on several Beach/Shallow Water sub forums, which is where I primarily hang out.

Lots of talk/discussion about a new PI that Nokta is supposed to be coming out with. Some of the posts go back a few years. I stumbled upon this info earlier this afternoon about Nokta’s new “Magnetar” PI, so thought I’d share.

Looks like they’ll be 2 versions, one for gold nugget hunting, the other for searching historical relics. According to the list of details known so far, it's also supposed to be fully waterproof.

Here's the link to the Blog announcement. There’s quite a few pics of the Magnetar. I've also attached what looks like a Nokta marketing piece to this post.

New Metal Detector Nokta Magnetar: First Images - MD-Hunter Blog

The Turkish manufacturer is preparing to release a new metal detector, the Nokta Magnetar, based on pulse induction technology. According to the plans,

md-hunter.com

Nugget version is supposed to be in field testing with the relic version to follow. That seems to have been the status for at least six months with no pending release date.

Should it actually be released, I'll wait for some reports on how it performs in salt water, wet salt sand and highly mineralized wet salt sand.

 

[Sand Sifter]

Nugget version is supposed to be in field testing with the relic version to follow. That seems to have been the status for at least six months with no pending release date.

Should it actually be released, I'll wait for some reports on how it performs in salt water, wet salt sand and highly mineralized wet salt sand.

Seems PI manufacturers these days always cater to gold & nugget hunters. Maybe those guys have serious gold fever and are willing to spend mega bucks on a high-end PI. I'm a Minelab guy, and the PI's they make are all targeted towards gold/nugget hunters and are uber expensive. Lots of us Beach/Saltwater hunters would love to see Minelab come out with a decent PI designed for Beach/Saltwater hunting, maybe one that looks like a Manticore, and that wouldn't cost $5K, $8K, etc. And sure, there's definitely a market for expensive PI's for gold/nugget hunters, just like there's a market for Mercedes, BMW's and other expensive luxury cars. But the vast majority of people don't own and/or can't afford those expensive cars. So, really, how big is the niche market for gold/nugget hunting compared to the market for us Beach/Lake/Water hunters?

The gold I seek is located in the sand of Beaches & Bays. In the last 56 years, I've never owned or swung a PI, only owned VLF's, and way back in the day, TR's & BFO's. But luckily, due to the kindness of a couple really great fellow detectorists who I now consider friends, I'll be taking possession of my first PI, a White's Surfmaster PI Dual Field. I'm a beep & dig, audio only, gotta have knobs to twist kinda guy, so the DF with only 3 knobs looks like a PI I can wrap my head around. And yeah, I'm prepared to dig it all because that's what I've always done when hunting with my Sovereign Elite. I don't want to dig it all when coinshooting on land, lol, but hunting on sandy beaches, much easier to dig & refill holes. Pulltabs can sound like nickels & gold, so ya just never know. Gotta dig it all!

 

[tvr]

Seems PI manufacturers these days always cater to gold & nugget hunters. Maybe those guys have serious gold fever and are willing to spend mega bucks on a high-end PI. I'm a Minelab guy, and the PI's they make are all targeted towards gold/nugget hunters and are uber expensive. Lots of us Beach/Saltwater hunters would love to see Minelab come out with a decent PI designed for Beach/Saltwater hunting, maybe one that looks like a Manticore, and that wouldn't cost $5K, $8K, etc. And sure, there's definitely a market for expensive PI's for gold/nugget hunters, just like there's a market for Mercedes, BMW's and other expensive luxury cars. But the vast majority of people don't own and/or can't afford those expensive cars. So, really, how big is the niche market for gold/nugget hunting compared to the market for us Beach/Lake/Water hunters?

The gold I seek is located in the sand of Beaches & Bays. In the last 56 years, I've never owned or swung a PI, only owned VLF's, and way back in the day, TR's & BFO's. But luckily, due to the kindness of a couple really great fellow detectorists who I now consider friends, I'll be taking possession of my first PI, a White's Surfmaster PI Dual Field. I'm a beep & dig, audio only, gotta have knobs to twist kinda guy, so the DF with only 3 knobs looks like a PI I can wrap my head around. And yeah, I'm prepared to dig it all because that's what I've always done when hunting with my Sovereign Elite. I don't want to dig it all when coinshooting on land, lol, but hunting on sandy beaches, much easier to dig & refill holes. Pulltabs can sound like nickels & gold, so ya just never know. Gotta dig it all!

I don't have volume information, yet it appears a lot more PI's are sold for nugget hunting than for beach hunting. Garrett discontinued their beach PI. I've got two of the Fisher Impulse AQ LTD's. Fisher seemed to have difficulty selling the last of the first small batch they made and it has been a long time since they were talking about making a couple of improvements and releasing a "production" rather than the "limited" version. The AQ is a beast on the beach but could use a little refining in both packaging and a couple of performance things. Other PI's I've had are Tesoro Sand Shark and DetectorPro Headhunter Pulse.
I'm hoping to see Nokta deliver and hopefully deliver as they are advertising "redefine affordability and performance".

 

[Sand Sifter]

I don't have volume information, yet it appears a lot more PI's are sold for nugget hunting than for beach hunting. Garrett discontinued their beach PI. I've got two of the Fisher Impulse AQ LTD's. Fisher seemed to have difficulty selling the last of the first small batch they made and it has been a long time since they were talking about making a couple of improvements and releasing a "production" rather than the "limited" version. The AQ is a beast on the beach but could use a little refining in both packaging and a couple of performance things. Other PI's I've had are Tesoro Sand Shark and DetectorPro Headhunter Pulse.
I'm hoping to see Nokta deliver and hopefully deliver as they are advertising "redefine affordability and performance".

Great points TVR, made me look at this from a different angle. What caused me confusion was that I was looking at this purely from overall numbers of detectorists rather than from a specific use-case perspective. Now the fog has cleared. If someone's gonna chase gold and nuggets, they really have to use a PI if they want to cut through heavy mineralized soil. But if I'm coinshooting an old house or church on land, I wouldn't even think of using a PI. I'd want an SMF with VDI & Target ID, pinpointing, etc. I can dig as many holes as I want on the beach, but I don't want to be digging a bunch of holes on someone's land, so I need to be much more laser focused and require a detector that can give me target ID, depth and pinpoint its exact location to minimize hole size.

I guess us beach/shallow water hunters, along with relic hunters, are the "in-betweener's". We're in that cross-over group that can use either technology, PI's or SMF's. Some may use PI's but I think a greater percentage use SMF VLF's, due to lower cost & all the bells/whistles today's SMF's are loaded with. Now it makes sense why PI's are heavily marketed to nugget hunters, as PI's are the detector they really need, where beach/shallow water hunters, we have a choice and can use either a PI or SMF VLF detector depending on our preference. Not all beach hunters work the wet and/or water. Newbies typically just hit the dry, maybe venture into the wet a bit, so a lower cost SMF VLF would work great for them. And since most SMF detectors these days are waterproof, they could also venture into the surf if they choose. It's probably only more serious wet/water hunters that would consider using a PI to get greater depth in saltwater, and serious wet/water hunters probably represent a much smaller percentage of overall beach hunters.

 

[tvr]

But if I'm coinshooting an old house or church on land, I wouldn't even think of using a PI.

Get into some really highly mineralized dirt and a PI might be the only way to get good depth. Thinking of Culpeper, Virginia and similar soil conditions.
In the water I have experienced a PI opening up a whole new world of targets because of depth. One trip in particular was very memorable in that respect. I had along an Excal and a Sandshark at Delray beach in Florida. Was getting very few targets with the Excal. With the Sandshark, I was hitting a layer of targets beyond what I was getting with the Excal. Unfortunately most of it was bottle caps, yet there were targets deeper than I was able to see with the Excal. With the Impulse AQ, it is even deeper. Issues with the Impulse AQ are in the stock battery capacity, the connectors used, susceptible to EMI and for highly alkaline water the waves sounding, it would use a longer pulse delay. To light up bigger pieces of gold it also could use a wider pulse width. Still. the AQ is a beast and I hope what ever Nokta comes up with will give it competetion in depth and audio clarity without the same issues.

 

[Sand Sifter]

Get into some really highly mineralized dirt and a PI might be the only way to get good depth. Thinking of Culpeper, Virginia and similar soil conditions.
In the water I have experienced a PI opening up a whole new world of targets because of depth. One trip in particular was very memorable in that respect. I had along an Excal and a Sandshark at Delray beach in Florida. Was getting very few targets with the Excal. With the Sandshark, I was hitting a layer of targets beyond what I was getting with the Excal. Unfortunately most of it was bottle caps, yet there were targets deeper than I was able to see with the Excal. With the Impulse AQ, it is even deeper. Issues with the Impulse AQ are in the stock battery capacity, the connectors used, susceptible to EMI and for highly alkaline water the waves sounding, it would use a longer pulse delay. To light up bigger pieces of gold it also could use a wider pulse width. Still. the AQ is a beast and I hope what ever Nokta comes up with will give it competetion in depth and audio clarity without the same issues.

I've also heard that the AQ runs really hot in such a small enclosure, but the guys I know that use them run them in shallow water, usually submerged, so the cool temp of the water probably helps for them. Neven had any issues in MD hunting houses, churches, etc., and having to deal with highly mineralized dirt, but around old houses, there's always lots of metal trash so a PI would probably drive me crazy and all the holes I'd be digging would turn the lawn into a minefield, lol.

 

[tvr]

I've also heard that the AQ runs really hot in such a small enclosure, but the guys I know that use them run them in shallow water, usually submerged, so the cool temp of the water probably helps for them.

Oldbeechnut most likely ... he seems to know just about everyone who is detecting in the water. He did some temperature measurements on various parts of the case. I have not had an issue with electronics failures even with hunts were it is in the high 90s and I keep to the wet sand because of wave chop I don't want to deal with on a particular day. The older I get the less I like to get flipped by the waves.

 

[Sand Sifter]

Oldbeechnut most likely ... he seems to know just about everyone who is detecting in the water. He did some temperature measurements on various parts of the case. I have not had an issue with electronics failures even with hunts were it is in the high 90s and I keep to the wet sand because of wave chop I don't want to deal with on a particular day. The older I get the less I like to get flipped by the waves.

Yep. OBN is an early adopter and runs 2 AQ's in the water.