Hey everyone, I didn't even know Joseph had put the video on this forum, so I'm reading the replies for the first time. I'm the "Tom" in the video
I'll address the questions and comments presented here:
First, I want to interject that, although I haven't had experience on the TDI prior to that day, I have had experience on pulse, in general, going all the way back to when the first ones made their debut on the CA beach hunting scene back in the very early 1980s. No, not that I used one exclusively, but I did play with them. There are definately better experts with their tones and ability. I've handled them, and saw their evolution, hunt side-by-side with their users, etc.... I have also followed every thread and post about the TDI, studying closely everything that the GS5 users were saying, comparing it to what I know about the feel and response of previous Whites pulse units.
R-n-R, no, it's not a pulse/VLF hybrid. Even though pulse machines have historically always been thought of in terms of all-metal (and thus relegated to only the beach or nuggets), there has always been the use of the pulse delay, even on some of the old pulses, for use to distinguish between highs and lows. The problem has always been that, unlike VLF - where nails are at the bottom (so to speak) and highs are at the top, pulse is a little different: once you knock out lows, on an ascending scale (think of it like the old-time ascending disc. knob with no TID), you STILL hear nails. In other words, nails and high conductor coins will still both come in at the highest disc. setting (assuming you want to call the pulse delay a "disc. setting
). So basically, no one ever used the pulse delay as a disc. setting, since .... who would want to pass low conductors on the beach anyhow? Or why knock out lows, if you still have to dig nails when land hunting, etc.. blah blah. You get the point. But enter the element on ground balanced pulse technology, as opposed to auto-track pulse. It has been known, for machines like the GS5 (the TDI's predecessor) that the GB control could be used to fool the machine into rejecting iron, as if it was part of the ground's makeup. True - you'll be out of ground-balance, and thus loose depth, but you will have acheived iron disc, to some degree
So morphing the high/low existing ability, with this quasi-form of iron disc in GB mode, is what the TDI has acheived. So, no, this machine is not a hybrid with a VLF to acheive the disc. Note: this is all just in layman's language, and I'm sure a tech expert would take issue with some of the explanations. But this is just how I understand it, having seen all the evolution.
Ise450cc: Yes, I should have played with swing speed on the TDI, as there is no doubt that each of us are accustomed to swing speeds on machines that we've had experience on. I'm sure that once a person becomes attuned to a machine, they'll know the optimum speed, tones to interpret, settings, etc... That is why I made mention in the video, something to the effect that "once a person becomes familiar with the machine, they would know more of what the sounds are telling them..." etc.... That is no different than the Explorer (for example), that a skilled user uses tones and wiggles of the coil to tell him oodles of information. But if you handed the Explorer to a newbie, everythin would sound like an indistinguishable symphony of sounds, like a flock of geese on steroids! So for purposes of this test, my only goal was to see if the TDI could
get the flagged targets, to
begin with, that a known power-house had flagged. Beyond that, it is up to more tests to see if 1) can a user distinguish coins vs larger objects (like that turned out to be), or can it go "deeper yet", etc.. etc.... Once I got the signals, it didn't dawn on me to also try slower swings, since, afterall, I'm getting it already. To someone advancing further, wanting more target info, YES, they would learn wiggle and swing and criss-cross techniques to tell them more about a target. BTW, at this same location, on another occasion, I had flagged a deep coin and showed it to a skilled Ace 250 user. Try as he may, he could barely get a signal (maybe once in every 5 or 7 swings). So that's quite telling when a machine can't get it at all. But that's for another thread
B.T.: you are right. My friend was mistaken to call this nasty ground here in our low-land CA. I think he said that because I had prefaced our test by telling him that pulses generally can go into the nastiest soils around. Soils so bad that a VLF can't even pick up a coin on top of the ground. Those would be, for example, gully washes on the beach after a storm, or .... I suppose.... some land sites. But no, our land soil here in CA isn't that bad. Yes, in some soils funky enough to skew TID's or slightly limit depth, but no, not enough to cause the Explorer to out-hunt a Whites here, or vice-versa, in coin/relic sites,
as it pertains to minerals. Yes, one might out-hunt the other on depth due to OTHER reasons. As far as the MXT vs Explorer, you're right: The MXT would handle minerals better, since, of course it's a nugget cross-over machine. That doesn't necessarily mean it will get deeper on coins though, just because it handles minerals better. In moderate ground, a coin hunter is better served by an Explorer, XLT, 6000 Di pro, etc.... for coins/relics, if raw depth is what he's after. So basically, I think Joseph was getting depth mixed up with ability to handle minerals. That would be a correct assessment, if minerals were SO bad that a VLF couldn't go beyond an inch for a coin. In those cases, yes, a machine that "handles minerals better" would be the choice, because it can cut through those conditions (like a pulse or a nugget machine of some sort), because, even though the MXT in nugget set-up may only get the coin to 4 or 5" deep, that sure beats the 1" that a VLF would get in soil that bad
Pirate John, you've got it right: the Explorer does beat the MXT for coins/silver, when compared to the MXT (at least in mild to moderate ground). And no, that's nothing to do with one having a better ability in minerals than the other, for our moderate soils. And it's also not a knock to the MXT to say that, since: quite simply, the MXT is a cross-over machine, made to be able to switch back and forth between the 2 pursuits, with proper control settings. So you can hunt coins one day, and prospect another day, with the same machine. No easy feat to produce a cross-over like that, since the 2 goals are almost diametrically opposed. A coin/relic guy DOESN'T want to hear and find every single staple, birdshot, wire-twistee, etc.... But a nugget guys does want to hear those teeeensy things
And since machines are designed and built from the ground up, for their desired goal, it was probably not an easy feat to make a machine like the MXT that can swap back and forth between the 2 types of hunt goals. Therefore it excells in neither arena: There are better coin machines, and there are better nuggett machines.
Cosmic, regarding trying it with other shapes and sizes of iron: As you saw in the video, the iron object we tuned out with the GB, was merely one that I had flagged with the Explorer (the low thud tone when in ferrous mode). The only problem with doing that though, is we merely tuned it, therefore, to nix out that size nail (or whatever it was) and smaller! In other words, iron that is larger than the nixed out iron, would still come in (albeit maybe audibly differentiatable). Some people are saying that the way to knock out "most" iron, is to use a screwdriver, held at a certain angle, as your benchmark of how much iron to tune out. But when Joseph and I got there to do the video, the screwdriver I'd brought along to do that with, was apparently too large and beefy in size. Because no matter how I set the GB, I could not get it knocked out reliably. I went back to my truck to get a smaller screwdriver, but didn't have any others. That's why I chose to just use nails in hand, and the flagged nail, just to move on. This problem of iron size is no different than VLFs I suppose, in a way. Because when you knock out iron on a VLF, you will still get larger iron that "bleeds through", like RR spike sized stuff, or cast iron, manhole covers, etc... will still give a signal, even with iron nixed out. I suspect this will be more of a problem on the pulse though, since iron is a more difficult concept for it, than a vlf. But then again, even though larger iron (larger than a test screwdriver) may bedevil a TDI user, I'm guessing that eventually audio tricks will alert them to the differences. Suffice it to say, that the GS5, and now the TDI has been used for turf hunting already, and users have reported being fooled by very little, to no iron. But then again, let's face it: the amount of large iron in
park turf may be quite different than the amount of large iron encountered in building demo's, ruins, ghost towns, etc....
Still more experimenting to be done. Hey, I even got an email from a Jimmy Sierra rep. that he wants to compare notes. I will self-lessly offer myself up for more tests and reports, if he puts a long term loaner in my hands
