Robo,
I am sorry you took Tony's posts wrong. He wasn't trying to pick on you. Tony has been active on this forum for many years and during those years, this forum was guided by an expert when it comes to the PI.
Unfortunately, today it is all too easy to find information that is not correct. In fact it is almost becoming rampant and part of the reason is because of the ease of starting and running a forum by someone with little or no knowledge. So today someone with little or no real experience or technical background can suddenly become considered an expert especially after starting a forum and running it for a while. The result quite often results in inaccurate info being posted. To someone who doesn't have the technical knowledge or background, it is difficult to sift through what is accurate and what is not.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are lots of forums that do provide a lot of good information and most people who do start forums do start them with good intentions.
Compound this with the fact that little information is out there about PI's and it gets worse. So, in defense of your thought that a higher voltage would produce a stronger signal, well that is the technique often used on VLF's and is often discussed. Want more depth on a VLF, simply increase the transmit voltage and you do gain depth.
Actually, this also holds true for a PI if nothing else is done. In fact, Eric Foster built something called an afterburner which increased the transmit voltage as a means of gain more depth. What was also needed though was a bigger and heavier battery.
In the case of the Head Hunter detector, the 9V batteries do provide a higher voltage, but they can't provide the necessary current to provide more power. In fact, 9V batteries can't come close to being able to output what 9V from AA batteries can. Since PI's work on coil currents rather than simply voltages, then we have to look at the picture from a different perspective. So, the assumption higher voltages should result in greater depths is really a very logical assumption.
Now, with that said, the HH detector also proves that a low powered PI can get remarkable depths of detection. So, it is a feat of unique design by itself.
Getting back to the issue where there was a difference of opinion, Tony is sort of like me. We both have been active on this forum for many years and during that time like me, he has used this time to gain knowledge and use experience to learn a lot about the strange but wonderful PI detector. Fortunately, for many years Eric Foster was a constant force guiding this forum and providing the wisdom which would help people like Tony learn. That is why I recommend people go back and read all the previous posts and glean the valuable information available for them.
When I visit a different forum all too often I read some of the information and know absolutely, the info is BS. Now, comes the difficult part as to what I should do. If I dispute it, usually the discussion is then more of a picking sides and the BS begins.
Today, most people don't want to defend their position with facts and quite often the so called facts they have read are really not facts but more often opinions and wrong ones at that. That is the big flaw with some forums today.
Someone comes along and reads something that is inaccurate and if it sounds logical that information is assumed to be fact. Now, if an unsuspecting person relates that information he believes is fact and someone challenges the information, very often people get defensive. That is just human nature.
This forum has a lot of facts that are true, especially if written by Eric Foster. However, I recently read a post on another forum where a person claimed Eric didn't know what he was talking about. We know this isn't true, but the guy who read something somewhere who has little or no experience with his PI challenged what Eric had written. What makes this a sad situation is without studying PI's from a historical perspective, all to often people have no idea who Eric really is or what he has accomplished in his lifetime.
Get down to someone like me who isn't well known to today's detector users and I am often challenged. I even had one guy call me an old man who never used a detector but only studied them. Now, this guy isn't as old as the number years I have actively used detectors. For many years I wrote for Lost Treasure in which I had a technical column as well as field tested many detectors. I eventually burned out and quit writing before this one guy even started using a detector.
Over the 20 plus years of nugget hunting mostly in AZ I managed to find a few hundred nuggets, most with a VLF but also quite a few with a PI. So, when I was accused of never using a detector or finding anything, I got steamed, somewhat like you did. So, I can relate to how you feel.
I can also tell you that it is difficult to admit when I am wrong. I can relate an issue where the discussion where I made a statement that was incorrect and was quickly put in my place politely. Yes, I got upset too. More importantly, I was determined to prove my point and set out to gather the facts. Well, the facts proved the other guy was right. I had made a determination based upon the detector I was using but that detector was limited, thus my thought process was incorrect.
So, everyone makes mistakes. If we didn't we wouldn't be human. Keep in mind that when it takes a year or so to develop or design a new detector, part of that time is figuring what works and what doesn't. What doesn't means we made an assumption and it wasn't correct. So, it is back to the drawing board to try another approach. This happens even to the best. If it didn't we would have a cure for all diseases and be riding around in vehicles that require no gas or other day to day energy to be used. Oh yeah, when we have to change directions it means we most likely made some mistake.
There is only one way to keep from making mistakes and that is to quit completely and this is something humans can't do while we are alive.
Now, one final note and that is there are a lot of forums providing a lot of valuable service and information. Forums such as the one where my article on how PI's work is one of them. The owner of the forum doesn't claim to have all the answers, especially if the answer requires a lot of technical knowledge. In fact, he is humble enough to state this when asked.
My point is, when someone reads something on a forum, it shouldn't be taken for the absolute truth. Instead it should be investigated to determine whether it really appears to work or is true. Even more important is to remember that what might be true for one detector may not work or work well for another.
Reg
Humble I am.
