In 1980, when I was still in high school, the city did a downtown renewal/streetscape project. They tore out 2 blocks of downtown district sidewalks. Put in all-new decorative sidewalks & such. So you can bet that 5 to 7 guys were out there, each day at 5pm when the workers cut out, plying their luck in this sidewalk tearout project. Right along the commercial/retail row frontage no less! So multiple seateds and barbers and V's and such were getting found. Fun fun fun.
And at that time, as anyone who knows that era will recall, there was great leaps of technology evolution that had occured over the previous 5 to 10 yrs. Thus by 1980, everyone was swinging the "latest greatest" discriminators and new-fangled motion machine technology ! There was a 5000d series I out there (circa 1976-77-ish), there was a few 6000Ds (circa 1978-79-ish, that could effortlessly work the un-even ground WHILE in discriminate, woohoo!). There was a Red Baron SPD (circa 1978-ish) out there, as I recall. And I was swinging a Garrett Groundhog (circa 1977-ish).
But along comes a guy swinging a Compass 77b (circa 1972-73-ish). I recognized it as a machine I'd seen when I'd first started out several years earlier (mid 1970s). Yet we'd all ditched such machines, when the newer latest greatest machines had come out. Ie.: no more digging foil in the school yards, etc..... , deeper, blah blah. So we looked with pity & smug disdain on this poor fellow who was using this dinasour. No one paid him much attention.
But imagine our surprise when the fellow spanked everyone else's coin counts by 5x to 1x ! I talked to the guy and he explained: "This detector doesn't see the nails". At first, I was totally confused by this statement. I mean, doesn't OUR machies reject nails too?
So what is the guy talking about ? It took me many more years to finally understand what he meant: While we were effortlessly passing nails (of course), yet he was seeing THROUGH them to combat masking.
At the time, as a beginner, I had no concept of masking. And though it was all about depth, discrimination, ground cancel, etc..... While those things are fine and dandy for most hunting, yet when you're talking about a location with lots of small iron/nails, and a location where depth isn't an issue/factor, and the soil is modest enough to allow an all-metal TR, and where you are in relic mindset (ie.: dig all conductors), then in such cases, the 77b is actually superior in all respects to the "latest greatest".
That fellow went on to get interviewed by the local newspaper, and the story of his success was profiled in a newspaper article. Pix of the coins, pix of him on the Main St. tearout, etc.... Needless to say, he did eventually move up to a 6000d, when he was getting spanked 10x to 1x for old silver in the park turf. But he probably kept the 77b around for just such occasions as old-town urban demolition tearouts.
And at that time, as anyone who knows that era will recall, there was great leaps of technology evolution that had occured over the previous 5 to 10 yrs. Thus by 1980, everyone was swinging the "latest greatest" discriminators and new-fangled motion machine technology ! There was a 5000d series I out there (circa 1976-77-ish), there was a few 6000Ds (circa 1978-79-ish, that could effortlessly work the un-even ground WHILE in discriminate, woohoo!). There was a Red Baron SPD (circa 1978-ish) out there, as I recall. And I was swinging a Garrett Groundhog (circa 1977-ish).
But along comes a guy swinging a Compass 77b (circa 1972-73-ish). I recognized it as a machine I'd seen when I'd first started out several years earlier (mid 1970s). Yet we'd all ditched such machines, when the newer latest greatest machines had come out. Ie.: no more digging foil in the school yards, etc..... , deeper, blah blah. So we looked with pity & smug disdain on this poor fellow who was using this dinasour. No one paid him much attention.
But imagine our surprise when the fellow spanked everyone else's coin counts by 5x to 1x ! I talked to the guy and he explained: "This detector doesn't see the nails". At first, I was totally confused by this statement. I mean, doesn't OUR machies reject nails too?
So what is the guy talking about ? It took me many more years to finally understand what he meant: While we were effortlessly passing nails (of course), yet he was seeing THROUGH them to combat masking. At the time, as a beginner, I had no concept of masking. And though it was all about depth, discrimination, ground cancel, etc..... While those things are fine and dandy for most hunting, yet when you're talking about a location with lots of small iron/nails, and a location where depth isn't an issue/factor, and the soil is modest enough to allow an all-metal TR, and where you are in relic mindset (ie.: dig all conductors), then in such cases, the 77b is actually superior in all respects to the "latest greatest".
That fellow went on to get interviewed by the local newspaper, and the story of his success was profiled in a newspaper article. Pix of the coins, pix of him on the Main St. tearout, etc.... Needless to say, he did eventually move up to a 6000d, when he was getting spanked 10x to 1x for old silver in the park turf. But he probably kept the 77b around for just such occasions as old-town urban demolition tearouts.