Out of the Hobby

[dahut]

I was thinking about this forum today - I havent been on in a while. Not since last years 3 rd run-in with the authorirites, anyway.
What is going on with the Garrett-ites? Something wrong with Bill??

 

[TreasureHuntersSupply]

yes Bill has not been feeling well since about the 3rd visit to the hospital this year. I talked to him tonight and he might try and get on for a few

 

[flash5153]

Is it you have not been detecting or just not on here??

 

[dahut]

I haven't been detecting. Fact is, I sold pretty much everything but my GTP 1350 and F70 - and one of those is due to go soon.
But here I see something is wrong with my old friend, Bill R.? Shame on me for not keeping closer touch.

 

[Joel-Winnipeg]

dahut good luck with your future endevers.
Drop in once in a while hope you get back in the hobby again.

 

[dahut]

Thanks, Joel.
I'll always have a detector around - but I sure don't need as many as I had. Especially when opportunities for detecting are shrinking all the time.
So, I took up fishing...
At least my family now has something they can relate to, and buy gifts for at holidays and birthdays.

But what of Uncle Bill?

 

[TreasureHuntersSupply]

Bill is doing better and resting at home. Confined to a hosptal chair but making improvements all the time.He came on and posted yesterday and had to go lay back down

 

[dahut]

Thanks Jerry.
It pains me to hear of all this - Bill has been a stalwart, and friend to us all. Ive corresponded with him over the years on many issues, detecting and other wise.
His insight and camaraderie have enriched my life many time over. Thank you sincerely for keeping up with him and reporting to us on his behalf.

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

Hi Dave.
It's good to see you online again
. It's very unfortunate that the local authorities take such a dim view of the hobby. It takes away the very reason we detect; for enjoyment. Yu are right though. there is more to life than detecting. It would be better though that detecting could be part of your life. Sounds like you would have to go out of your area to do that.
thanks for dropping in.
Mick Evans.

 

[TreasureHuntersSupply]

your very welcome. I really think Bill will overcome this but it's going to take some time. The older we get the longer it takes it seems

Thanks Jerry.
It pains me to hear of all this - Bill has been a stalwart, and friend to us all. Ive corresponded with him over the years on many issues, detecting and other wise.
His insight and camaraderie have enriched my life many time over. Thank you sincerely for keeping up with him and reporting to us on his behalf.

 

[metalhead]

Hey buddy!
The Garrett-ites?

 

[dahut]

Mick my man! How in the deuce are you?

Yeah, when I was run out of my public schools and parks by the authorities - the third time - I knew the jig was up. The local club reports that it has only gotten worse, and there is a pending ban on detecting in public places, from what I've heard. When I started this hobby decades ago, no one knew, or cared, what you were doing. Today, it seems everyone is aware of detecting and suspects you of something.
So I've taken up fishing and cycling. I used to fish, back in the days before detecting. And I've ridden a bicycle in some fashion my entire life. So, I've merely gone back to old pastimes. Besides I only have energy for only so many hobbies!
I still have a couple of detectors, and I doubt I'll ever be without one. But one will have to go, most likely the GTP 1350.
I hardly need two if I'm not using any of them, after all!

Things change - that's life. We adapt, or change ourselves.

Im sincerely moved by Bill Revis' struggles, however. I will continue to check in on him...

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

I'm going pretty good Dave.
I haven't been able to do much detecting in the last couple of years. Probably why I don't post as often. I have been learning to play the harmonica and read music in that time. Hoping to take up singing lessons next year.With the boys mostly grown up now (18 and nearly 16) I should be able to take up flying soon. Either paragliding or flying a trike. Also hoping to move back to the coast in about 5 years (about 90kms north of Sydney) so the detecting possibilities will massively improve. Not to mention taking up mountain bike riding, which will be pretty cool. Yeah bike riding is a fun way to keep fit. Like you, I've been riding on and off for most of my life. Used to road race in my youth and still ride to work outside of winter. About 8kms each way (5 miles). Doing other stuff as well, so won't bore you with details.
Pretty sad when folks develop a negative view of what you do. We had a detectorist hunt in one of the town parks several years back, with a shovel used as his digging tool. There have been local club members that have been told to leave that park by council rangers as a result. I have been observed by rangers on a number of occasions, but they seemed happy with what I was doing.Glad they didn't put us all in the same basket as that lunatic with the shovel.
Enjoy your bike riding. I'll enjoy seeing you on here whenever you post.
Mick Evans.
[attachment 200971 RIMG0461.JPG]

 

[dahut]

Thanks, Mick.
Sounds like we've shared a lot of the same interests over the years. Road biking is what I really like, just pedaling down the open road. I do ride an off road bike, but just for fun.
Interestingly, each time I had a run-in with the police over detecting, I was "ratted out" by someone on a cellphone. You know how it is when the cops come - they have to be cops. Citizen phones in an "offender," cops gotta do something.
But its all good. And it sounds like you have a lot coming down the pipe - Good for you!

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

It must have been some old biddy with no life. Heard of a similar case from an Aussie detectorist from down south. Nothing more dangerous than a bored copper, or one that feels he/she needs to justify themselves. We had a police bliz here 4 years back. Our town is 40 000 with the next nearest town of a similar size is 100 miles away (They mostly came from Sydney which is 250 miles away. There was a 100 or 2 extras for the week end.) Folks going about their business were getting chipped for some pretty inane stuff. About quarter to one in the morning, I'd had a gutful of the police chopper poking around aimlessly with it's floodlight shining into everybody's homes. So I rung up the cop shop and asked to speak to the block in charge. Got him on the line and chewed him out, reminding him that his actions were actually in breach of a few aviation laws. I found out when I went to work on the following monday, that there were a few work mates that did the same thing. The chief copper had the hide to come on the radio station and say that it went well and he had no complaints. If I remember correctly, the local paper reported otherwise and although they have come to town in force a couple of times since, they haven't pulled the same stunt as they did on that week end. I don't dislike the Police, A few of them used to be workmates that I used to get on with pretty good, but you can't have them thinking that they above the law of which they serve.
Anyway good luck with getting back on your horse. I hope it goes more smoothly next time.
Mick Evans.

 

[dahut]

AS for the cops, I wont run them down.
It is the nature of their business that they must DO something - can you see them arriving and leaving again having done nothing?
But here are the facts.
Being called means they must investigate,
Once they begin that, action must result.
Later I learned that the cops moved me along to protect themselves, not to prevent mischief from me. Had they left me there after seeing I was innocent, they risked citizen reprisals for being slackers and doing nothing. It was better to roust me than answer for that to their superiors.
Worst of all, the leadership behind the parks, schools and police departments supported their decisions at each turn. They all agreed that I was innocent and doing nothing illegal - or even wrong. But they also admitted that I had to go if the coppers said so. I fear it can only get worse.

That is why I quit detecting for awhile. I made a promise that once it happened a third time, it was time to get out. I'm a man of my word, if nothing else.

 

[sandtrout]

tried something new...spray painted some golf tees flourescent colors. Run the detector EARLY in the morning or LATE in the evening. Don't dig anything...just push a painted golf tee into the ground. Come back the next day (or later in the day if I've hunted in early morning) and bring a picnic lunch and NO DETECTOR....just a screwdriver (and a Garrett Propointer of course, held under my arm pit) to pop coins out and I'm not OBVIOUS. So far, this has worked at 2 parks the police have asked me to leave.

 

[cwilk]

I have had a few run-ins with cops, spectators, parents with cell phones and on and on....... They've all worked out in my favor, more or less. Just one. How about the family who shows up where I'm detecting and calls the cops to report a grimy man with a bayonette threatening their kids. Cops come and I answer I was nowhere near them, I was carrying a small garden trowel, I had had no contact with them except for exchanged waves, and that if they felt seriously threatened why did they hang around for an hour before calling them? I was told to have a nice day and allowed to continue on.

Your situation sounds ghastly and makes me angry. The duty of the police is to enforce the law and if possible to protect the citizens they serve. It is not to harrass hobbyists. It is not to harrass motorists by writing tickets for non moving violations with steep fines (a personal peeve of mine.)

Don't feel too bad. Try not to. My advice is find new territory in some other city. Maybe your club should pursue it with local government. Make it a cause. If you have a public access channel make a short vid about it. Write editorials. Run for office. At the, very least visit with town board members, mayor, etc.

Your situation stinks. You don't deserve it. I hope it improves.

Chris

 

[dahut]

The duty of the police is to enforce the law and if possible to protect the citizens they serve. It is not to harrass hobbyists. It is not to harrass motorists by writing tickets for non moving violations with steep fines (a personal peeve of mine.)

Interestingly, the last time I was hassled the cops said..."there have been break ins here."
"Okay... well, am I a suspect?"
"Well - no. But you cant do that here"
"It's a public place, right? And I am among the taxpaying public, right?"
"Well - yes. But you have to go."
So, there was no logic other than they were in charge.

Don't feel too bad. Try not to. My advice is find new territory in some other city. Maybe your club should pursue it with local government. Make it a cause. If you have a public access channel make a short vid about it. Write editorials. Run for office. At the, very least visit with town board members, mayor, etc.

I did many those things. School board contacts, meetings with the parks director, calls to the police chief - whom I know. Letters to the newspaper. Calls to the City Manager. Etc.
They were all sympathetic - but sided with the coppers. On a positive note, it was recognized that I was not guilty of anything, and am even a model detectorist.
BUT, other detectorists have been digging holes, leaving trash and defacing property in all sorts of places. A ban is currently being considered in the city.

Curiously, the mass marketing of detectors is partly to blame here. Garrett, Whites and Bounty Hunter, in bringing detecting to the masses, also unleashed a horde of ill-trained hobbyists on the world. In so doing they brought the pastime into the limelight.
When I first started detecting, it was still an art. It was practiced by people who worked to learn their craft. Few people outside the detecting world understood it - or cared They hadn't yet thought of detectorists as looters, trespassers or free spirits running amok.
But, once performance detectors were made cheaply and gazillions of them sold to anyone and everyone, the die was cast for this.
I said that way back when... I would have preferred that we kept detecting to ourselves.

But, I have gotten over it now. I've spent a year out of the hobby and have had time to think. There IS life beyond detecting.
Earlier I said, "(sic) You adapt to changes, or you change yourself." With the onset of hot, summer weather, fishing patterns have changed. Without a boat, I cannot follow the fish to their cooler, mid year abodes.
So, I think it is time to crank up a detector and spend a bit more time dirt fishing. Like I said, you adapt and change.

Thanks, Chris

 

[dahut]

Now there is an idea.
Its a shame one must resort to subterfuge to pursue his peaceful pastime. But sometimes you must adapt.
Interesting.
Do you know if anyone has ever found, and taken, your tees?