Find's Treasure Forums

Welcome to Find's Treasure Forums, Guests!

You are viewing this forums as a guest which limits you to read only status.

Only registered members may post stories, questions, classifieds, reply to other posts, contact other members using built in messaging and use many other features found on these forums.

Why not register and join us today? It's free! (We don't share your email addresses with anyone.) We keep email addresses of our users to protect them and others from bad people posting things they shouldn't.

Click here to register!



Need Support Help?

Cannot log in?, click here to have new password emailed to you

Goldquest SS user report (long)

A

Anonymous

Guest
A report from a user's point of view on the Goldquest SS.
An open letter to Mr. Foster and Bill Crabtree.
It does not take a Old Bird Hunter long to know he has found a excellent Bird Dog.
I am a staunch believe, in fact a cheerleader for the new type PI's that are being made,
however I have had my share of problems with a couple of 'other' brands. Since I was a
manufactures rep. for 23 years who worked with the most innovative engineer there is in
mechanical seals for pumps, I know that the 'Front Leading Edge' is many times the
'Front Bleeding Edge." Sirs, the Goldquest SS is a true winner.
I do not use and most likely will not use the unit for what it truly was designed for, I
am a water hunter, beach hunter in the South <IMG SRC="/forums/images/flag.jpg" BORDER=0 ALT="USA">. For these purposes it is working
excellent. I spend 6 months in Florida in the winter detecting 3 to 4 days of the week
and the other 6 months traveling over the US in our motor home and detecting wherever.
I took my new Goldquest SS to an area that is 'Tennessee Red Clay' and on top of that
red clay is a layer of 4" to 20" Kentucky Sand for a beach, I hunted the beach and the
red clay area where I have experience. I have owned two other PI units and one failed badly
in this area, it falsed the whole time as it saw the ground as a target, the other ran
OK but proved to be unrealiable built. The Goldquest SS in this "exact" same area ran
fine and at the 10uS. setting and the SAT in the slowest or most sens. setting...
NO FALSING-THRESHOLD WAS SMOOTH.
I had marked off a 10 foot square area (no sand) that has bottle caps all
under the ground where a bulldozer filled and leveled this area. People who sit in the
shade of some trees like this area. The Goldquest SS was easily sounding on the old
compression bottle caps deep under this ground. This is a true tough area to expect a
unit to have any depth and work without falsing.
I went out in the sand beach area and found 18 coins at various depths and was very
pleased as I really did not expect it to be a good coin machine...it is. I found one
very thin silver medallion down about 9" that susprised me. Deep targets are clearly
identified from shallow targets. The audio is very descriptive.
I found no gold items but did not expect to find them as this is a very, very worked
area at thisTennessee River County Park area. I was very surprised to find the coins I
did..they were all tarnished and each (except one) was lying on the red clay surface
below the sand, I have to admit I had missed them, along with many others, prior to this
time.
This area was an old farm house and barn that was there when I was a kid and that was 50
years ago. There is a lead water pipe that only a PI will hit, I followed it for yards.
Strong detector in depth.
Again in the Tennessee Red Clay this unit ran smooth with a smooth threshold, no rising
or falling in audio. I went out into the water where it is just some loose sand and all
red clay bottom and it was smooth running.
I have no doubts in my mind that this detector is one I will be keeping, but I have not
been to Florida yet and in the wet sand....I will follow up on that when I do... But if
it will work smooth here it will be a winner in Florida I believe.
One other thing. I did some air tests with it when I first received it and noticed the
radiated pattern was a bit deformed. I had followed the instructions and wrapped the
coil wire around the rod from the coil all the way up. I experimented by running the
coil wire straight up all the way to just under the "S" rod and the loop radiated
pattern rounded out fine... I am not a electrical trained person and cannot explain
this...I am a user/buyer and I really only want what works... I also have used a belt
and suspenders to mount my Goldquest SS on my chest. This way when digging or bending
over it is never in the way, photo is attached.
The only negative I have is when you change the delay setting the unit real gives a loud
2 to 3 second blast in audio that if you are like me and have a bit of a hearing problem
(to too many 105 and 155 Howitzer's fired in the Army) I keep the audio up...it is
really a shock when not prepared for it.
This letter is not meant to be a negative for other manufactures as I know
they were trying to manufacture fine equipment but it appears you Mr. Foster made that
goal.
Note: I will get rid of my Goldquest SS when you make a PI like this one that samples
100us/50uS and 10uS with 3 tones that signals the result of the sample Mr. Foster.
Please put me on your list that tells when this detector is developed.
As you can see I am delighted with my/your Goldquest SS.
Frank Hamill
Chattanooga, Tennessee
 
i also found after you told me to run it straight up the radiating pattern rounded out ive been having the coil wire wraped around the pole its much better straight up i have it the same as your photo and yes its quite the coin getter hh larry ca
 
Hi Frank and Larry,
Good to hear reports of the units performing well. There are always some surprises that come back from the field, though. Why running the coil wire straight up the pole rather than spiralled around, should make a difference to the field pattern has me puzzled. One of the properties of coax cable is that there is no external field generated by the cable. Does winding the cable clockwise give a different result to it being anti-clockwise?
How is this change in field pattern manifested?
Do other detectors show this problem?
Eric.
 
Hi Frank and Larry,
Like Eric, I am puzzled about the differences in the field pattern. Can you expand on this a little as to what you found?
That way, I can see of I get the same results with the Beachscan.
Thanks,
Reg
 
Again please understand I am not electronic trained, I am just a user who want the best results in equipment I use. I am results orientated.
Right off the bat I assembled the unit spiril winding the the coil cable. I did an air test on the US Nickel. There were two or three spikes where the nickel was breaking the threshold and then go a bit farther and it would null at a weaker distance from the coil (radiated pattern not oval or round). I am a ham operator and I remembered about using coil wire as RF traps and I remembered the loss from rf coil wire and Terry in Hawaii had told me about running the wire straight up on one of my other units....Then Bill Crabtree confirmed this to me in an e-mail.... So I ran it straight up and the spikes and nulls dissappeared. From a users standpoint when I was airtesting the unit I noticed the loose coil wire was sounding off like a target as I had the earphones on my ears and trying to swing the nickel the loose wire was interfering...so if it would interfer when swinging it would interfer when using..(my logic)..Straight up it does not.
I hope you did not expect an 'good' answer from me because all you will get is my thinking and many times that thinking is wrong.
Oh, I need to add this and you may want to shoot me but my air testing was on the rod side of the coil as I could not hold back the cable from interfering with the test and reach the nickel far enough on the bottom side of the coil to check it at 14 to 16"...arms are just not that long. It may be the bottom part of the radiated pattern was fine.. In my pea size brain I just figured that if the pattern was mess up on the upper side it was or had to be affected on the bottom side. Whatever running it staight up didn't hurt anything and gets the mass of the coil wire away from the loop.
I guess you should not ask "energetic people" to explain themselves...you most likely will not learn anything (smile)...Frank
 
One addition thing. In the other two PI's I owned in the water the currents of the ocean along with swinging against the resistance of the water cause the coil wire to move...when the coil wire would move the units would give target signals which were not there. After Terry told me about running the wire straight up it still moved in the currents. So I split malt straws and put them one by one around the straight up coil wire and taped them lightly...Falsing of that "type" stopped. A users answer to the problem. However this coil on the Goldquest SS does not need the straws as you put the connection next to the rod connection and straight up is no problem as the distance between the rod and the connection is mere nothing. On my other PI's the distance between connection and rod was several inches and allowed the movement of the coil which caused falsing. From a users standpoint who goes in the water this is a great feature that is needed to be put into coils that are used underwater.
Thank you again....Frank
 
Frank,
That was a good explaination. We are still a little puzzeled as to <STRONG>what</STRONG>, and <STRONG> why. </STRONG> Seeing the cable on top of the coil may not of had any affect to the underside of the coil's detection.
We have to look at this a bit more. At 10uS. the unit is quite sensivitive to small items. I'm sure you have to drag you scoop way behind you, and even things like the eyelets in your shoes can give a response.
Mr. Bill <IMG SRC="/forums/images/smile.gif" BORDER=0 ALT=":)">
 
i had the coil wire wrapped arounfd the shaft and have had it this way for as long as ive had the detector about month and a half in the swing once and a while you would get some unnessaery hums here and there by jest swing the coil and i made shure i had good batterys also now i changes the wire running it straight up and the unnessary hums that were here and there nothing constant but noticeable seem to go away now i think its the coil wires not being tightly wrapped arounf the shaft that would do this exspecially when entering the water the waves going over the coil ( sat set at slow) whould give a rise in threshaold every wave would do this to solve this i found out that i waould set the sat to fast and this eliminated the rise in threshold the goldquest was very quet once this was done also the other way was to turn up the freq. to about 25 uS and have a slow sat. this would make it quiet also now this probally doesnt have anything to do with the wire being straight or spiral i would assume it to do the same thing either way the wire being ran stright seems to give a better pattern i can tell when im pin pointing something doing a cross-hair thing its seem to be dead on with it spiraled it was a little off this is what ive noticed and the detector in dry sand and wet seem to be a bit more quieter with hardly any chatting in the swing its quiet already but is queter now with the wire ran straight trying to explain this is hard to do but from in the field itas better to run it straight up seems that way to me larry
 
it will be noisy no matter what you do so i have found that the 11.oclock position it about right bearly hearing the threshold this is very important now i dont know if this has anything to do with the depth of the detector i havent noticed anything diferent ( having the threshold in a quiet position)
 
Thanks for the feedback Frank and Larry. I think I know what might be happening to some extent at least, and it is an important point with high sensitivity PI
 
Hi Larry,
The cable that you have got spiralled is high up the shaft and will be far enough away from the coil to not give false signals.
Eric.
 
i think it is distorted a bit when i did a test with it in the spiral postion and did a cross hair check of a target it seemd to be a bit hazzy bleeding to one side or the other this is of course in the sat set at slow so you would have a little drift but when i run it stright up the croos hair check on a target seems to be more crisp i hope this sence and i would agree with the flucuation of the rf coaxal cable
 
I will leave the Why's and What's to you guys who know your business... One additional thought which may not have add any additions to the questions and answers. I am a ham operator and I have made many ant. for RF communication. To make a beam antenna you use sucker elements and reflecter elements to distort the RF patterm in a form you desire to add additional hearing and additional radiation to the desired direction. You are actually distorting the original radiated pattern in a desired manner. I just figured that no coax made yet is leak free and 100% in delivery of the generated power, and that with an electro magnetic field if you distort the upper radiated pattern of the field you had to affect the lower radiated field. "For every action there is an exact and equal reaction."
I find it a priviledge to be able to provoke some thought and add to the forum where so many educated and smart people reside, I am delighted... I normally just receive and I have received plenty....Thank you, Frank
 
either way is fine but i would opt for the stright up the shaft method myself less stuff the coil is picking up but this is one fine detector either way larry ca
 
Hi Frank,
At the frequencies transmitted by a PI, the characteristics of rf communications do not apply. No directors or reflectors are possible, as in antennas for ham radio communication. The use of 50 ohm rf coax is incidental to the operation of the detector. It is just that it is readily available, rugged enough for the job, and most importantly, has low capacitance compared to many other screened cables.
I also use RG58 for audio interconnects and for speaker cable in my hi-fi. Tests that I did in 1996 showed it to be as good, and in many cases better, than dedicated audio cable costing 100's of $
Eric.
 
Again I am in way over my head. I try to learn new things everyday and try to have new experiences to learn from, a feller will never know enough...Knowledge is the Key. I have enjoyed being part of the conversation and enjoy the company you keep. I am a supporter of your efforts...Again thank you, Frank
 
Top