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Need information on this detector..

fwcrawford

Well-known member
A co-worker brought this detector in the other day and asked me to check it out and see if it works.
He said it belonged to his grandfather and had been leaning up against a corner wall for who knows how long.
It is made by a company call "DE-TEX" out of Garland,Texas and is called the " PROFESSIONAL" model.
Being I have only been in the detecting hobby for about 5 years, this is way before my time, but I am guessing it is a BFO type detector.
It has four knobs and a switch for a backlight for the meter.
The knobs are labeled as follows:
Knob 1.. Metal/ Mineral
Knob 2...Balance
Knob 3...On/Volume
Knob 4...Off/Batter/Metal
It has an external speaker and a 1/4" jack for headphones also.
I would appreciate any information on explanation on the function of the knobs.
The connector is missing from the coil connector on the cable, and I don't have a clue where to start looking for a replacement except Mouser Electronics, so could also use some help on this too.
Thanks in advance for looking an any help,
Felix
 
I remember them vaguely, never used one. The BFO machines had a single loop, not two windings like TR/VLF
machines.
On the control knobs
4. Off, Battery check, Metal means on.
3. Set the volume
2. Balance I am not sure of
1. Tuning. BFOs made a steady tone. Lay down a coin and sweep the searchcoil over it. If the pitch increases
you are tuned to metal and if it decreases you are tuned to the mineral side. Minerals are such things as
black sand etc. If you tune the dial the other way you will get a pitch decrease over coins and an increase
over black sand. The theory was that nuggets hide in black sand and if you have black sand it is a good
place to pan or use a drywasher. If you are tuned close to center between mineral and metal, you should
get a increased pitch over metal and no sound over mineral.
It has been many years since I used a BFO, but try it out
Incidentally I think the Detex detectors were built by a "Bill Mahan" ( believe). He was quite a treasure hunter
and had some books out on treasure hunting if you can find them.
Anyone else chime in and let me know how close I am.
Rich
 
I am guessing the "Balance" is for Ground Balance. Turn it all the way to one side and you should hear a steady hum. Holding the coil over the ground you will be searching, and turn the knob the opposite direction until the hum is barely audible. You should now be ground balanced. I am basing this on a White's coin master (Model 1) that I had about 40 years ago.
 
fwcrawford said:
It is made by a company call "DE-TEX" out of Garland,Texas and is called the " PROFESSIONAL" model.
A long-ago defunct company, Bill Mahan made a lot of similar-looking BFO models back then, but it sure wasn't last Christmas. More like several decades ago.


fwcrawford said:
Being I have only been in the detecting hobby for about 5 years, this is way before my time, but I am guessing it is a BFO type detector.
Yep, a BFO, and in their day, and when working properly, they worked OK for the time.


fwcrawford said:
It has four knobs and a switch for a backlight for the meter.


The knobs are labeled as follows:
Knob 1.. Metal/ Mineral
Knob 2...Balance
Knob 3...On/Volume
Knob 4...Off/Batter/Metal
I just sold an identical D-Tex Professional, but it didn't have a meter backlight. I don't recall that as a factory design feature. The knobs are common for those, but some manufacturers used different control names.


fwcrawford said:
It has an external speaker and a 1/4" jack for headphones also.
Technically, that is an internal speaker, housed inside the unit. Back when that model was first around, some detector models came w/o a headphone jack and only had a speaker, and some came without a speaker and had only a headphone jack. For some of those brands they made an external speaker that plugged into the headphone jack.

Most folks newer to the hobby don't know about some of those early-day "accessories" we had the option to purchase, if they didn't like headphones.


fwcrawford said:
I would appreciate any information on explanation on the function of the knobs.
Okay:

Knob 1.. Metal/ Mineral.. Our early detector models were commonly referred to as "Metal/Mineral Locators" but today just metal detectors. The Metal and Mineral control here has a 'null point' at about the 12-o'clock position where there is silence and no motor-boating audio that BFO's produced. There is silence between the two adjustment directions if the search coil is away from any metal, and the detector is fine tuned or balanced to the 'null' point.

Adjusted for a comfortable motor-boating audio in the Metal side, it will detect all metal object. The Mineral side will adjust to respond on mineralized ground. This is a coarse-tune control.

Knob 2...Balance... This control could also be called a Fine-Tune control, or even named a Null control. Other names were used, but the purpose of the Balance control was to 'fine tune' the null point setting between Metal and Mineral. It serves as the Metal/Mineral 'fine tuning' control.

Knob 3...On/Volume... Can adjust the volume or loudness of the audio response.

Knob 4...Off/Batter/Metal... Off, self explanatory. Bat. is to check the battery level. Met. is for meter


fwcrawford said:
The connector is missing from the coil connector on the cable, and I don't have a clue where to start looking for a replacement except Mouser Electronics, so could also use some help on this too.
Thanks in advance for looking an any help,
Good luck on finding one. The D-Tex Professional I just sold a couple of months ago had both the larger and smaller coils, and the coils and the cable all had good connectors. I haven't a clue where to find a replacement, but unless you had a real determined reason to have a working D-Tex Professional BFO, it might not be worth the time or expense. Even with the connector you don't know if it will work or not, and I know many of those oldies have circuitry that is non-functional today.

Monte
 
Some D-Tex coil cables tend to detearate near the coil connector, eventuality they tear off.

It is possible to hookup a homemade coil connector, be creative thing outside the box to fasten each of the two wires to the coil connector I know you can pull it off.

I do have a small collection of D-Tex BFO models, actually have six but here is a quick snap shot of three.

Good luck and enjoy your old D-Tex ;)

Paul (Ca)
 
The coil connector is a fairly common microphone/radio style. Try electronic shops or music stores, maybe even Radio Shack. I probably have one in a junk box somewhere.
-Ed
 
I'm not positive, but that coil connector looks like the one on my work truck's 2 way radio antenna... It's called an 'NMO' connector.
There are adapters on ebay to go from NMO to UHF (SO-259, CB radio). Then you could use regular uhf cable (RG-8x with a PL-239 connector) up to the unit. What kind of plug is on the control box?

$(KGrHqJ,!i4F!IuII,l5BQP(f86v9!~~60_12.JPG
 
If you are still on this forum, do you know what model the first Bill Mahan Koin King D Tex Metal Detector imaged on the picture you posted of the 3 Mahan models? I have this model, but can not find any information on this particular model! My coil wire is rotted and am trying to figure out how to replace or repair, it is a 3 wire lead though and some one posted about using a headphone line, but I do not see that working as they are usually 2 wires. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time
west40texas
 
That was my 1st detector\ & I had both coils One day I was near the water and found a gold ring in about an inch. This got me to wondering what was further out there. I called Bill and asked him if he could make me a 10
foot cable that would work. Sure he said and sent me one. I sealed the coil end with pipe dope, wound the cable
around a 6 foot tent post, attached the coil to the end and floating the box on a plywood platform on an inner tube with a aluminum snow shovel bent at a 45 degree angle drilled fill of 1/2 inch holes i was off to the beaches at the lakes and ponds in NE. What I started finding would blow your mind but needless to say a BAD day was a dozen or so gold and silver rings and a pile of silver coins. As soon Whites came out with a waterproof under water detector (AQUANAUGHT) I got scuba certified and the rest is history
 
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