DetectingWales.com

hi all, just been on mlo website and heard rumours of explorer 4 coming out in the summer,hitting dealers in july, if it is true , hold on to your hats as it sopposed to be the dogs bow locks, anybody heard anything else on the subject.

This is actually a replacement for the e-trac from what i heared, the new name maybe is E-Pulse 1. So this is a new design. New name.
the good news is that a new flagship explorer is to be released later this year.
Limited information is available but here are a few facts about the new explorer 4 Some all new features that are known to been included with the new machine .
1. Colour LCD screen using advanced high definition graphics .
2. New multi pulse dual phase high power time delay system . The new system is a discriminating pulse induction system.
3. Depth is claimed to be 20 inches on coins.
4. New control box design is fairly similar to whites v3 in size but with much larger LCD meter .
5, The coil is a multi stacked coil , this means multiple coils stacked inside the housing to increase depth by a claimed 40%.
6, Details to dealers is expected July -august this year.
think i will sell my E trac now for one of these.ive been waiting for a nice pulse machine ;D ;D ;D ;D

any news on provisions for servicing machines in future. some rumours were that all future servicing of detectors would have to be sent to singapore!
i was told that singapore was just a manufacturing factory so would like to know from minelab themselves, sent 2 emails to them asking wherether servicing would continue to be handled in UK but got no reply from them, which is pretty poor

Sounds really good, shame it weighs 2 stone with batteries   ;D

is that with the attahed t.v and microwave. ;D

I would be more worried as to howmuch its going to cost to get 20" depth on coins,

thats where most of roman lies ! 

Perhaps we ought have a competition guess the cost of new tector ?

i shoul imagine that the cost will be anything from 1000/1500 i also think that it may cost detecting as a hobby a bit more as if you can pull finds from 20 inch then you are really going to be taking them from situ i wonder how the archis look at this.....any thoughts.?

Cost of detector, plus personal trainer to help build muscle tissue to carry the extra weight and dig those deep holes.  ;D  think i will stick with the T2.

Steve.

Quite deep to dig out a bottle top  ;D

does it come with a bobcat or jcb to to the digging to nearly 2 foot?

paulywow makes a very good point. it may prove an interesting argument from an archie point of view.
I personally have fund a £2 coin at over 17" on sand with a sovereign xs2a, verified by beachboy. my guess on price is in the £1500 region, as the new whites is coming in just below that, which also has a coloured LCD screen.
what i cant wait for though is the "field test" articles that will appear in some detecting magazines. you know these "testers" are going to fields that have been worn out only to find 3 hoards, 2 torc's and a childs lead toy soldier.
with claims that "not only did i locate a hammered coin at 30" but the machine even told me that it was an edward 1st shilling head side facing up....."
and convincing us that with this new detector you'll become rich beyond your wildest dreams. (whilst said reporter fails to mention he's just been given a free machine for his trouble)
Let the bull sh*t begin.

detecting is a numbers game

the more you go out the more you find

 if you are willing to believe the hype then good luck on your  £1500 magic wand

the old addage is" you have to pass over it to find it"

this would always be in your mind " how can I know for sure that I wouldn't have found it with my old machine"

Well Zorrow, has reality just struck home ! Exactly the same when e.trac was launched, old fields suddenly and mysteriously become alive ha ha.

Although I am happy as larry with my se pro, there is still an awful amount of explorer 11 users still out there and that speaks for its self.

I sometimes wonder whether we all are becoming too reliant on  these new machines and expect too much of them especially those costing £1000 + and

as igglepiggle has said you still whatever you use got to put the coil over a target !

agree with you guys totally, my sovereign xs2a works fine for me. just because you've paid £1000 for a detector doesnt mean you find more.
years ago i was quite heavily involved in one of the earliest metal detecting web sites, sponsored to a large degree by a metal detecting  magazine.
wrote articles on such things as re-chargeable batteries, performance on multi frequency machines as opposed to single frequency etc.
Anyway i had suggested that a test bed by layed down, observed by representitives of all major manufacturers, allowed to settle, then tested by independent users to truely test the claims of some of the machines that were going about at the time.
I had asked if members of the site thought it would be a good idea. the response was huge! I also thought it would be a good idea for representitives from the main manufacturers to come along and "show us " how to get the best out of our machines.
a message was duely sent to me saying that  manufacturers had no intention of a "head to head" and to drop the idea!
Taught me a lesson on believeing claims made by manufacturers.
UK brian once told me "Wanna know how good a detector is ? check the second hand for sale columns "
If there are a load of "new" models going for sale they cant be all that good.
and believe me Brian is the most knowledgeable person there is when it comes to metal detectors....might have something to do with him being a professional detectorist for decades.
There is NOTHING he doesn't know about any model or make.(try him out).

ivehad my se for 2 years now ,and as this is my third machine i feel i am stickin with this 1,. even sites that i have been doing for ages are still bringing up good finds and to be honest i dont think a new machine will do any better,,more finds will come out of the ground when my fields get reploughed later this yearso i would rather pay the patience game and wait rather than paying 1500 for something that will only find the same stuff anyway........besides when minelab bring out the new jcb range{yellow only}it would be to big to carry and waaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of most guys price range. ;D 

I agree with most of what has been said in this thread and as I posted a little while ago, VLF technology has basically reached its ultimate depth (law of physics) though the processing Of the returning signal has still probably got some live in it.
VLF technology was jumped on by manufacturers in the late 70's as it was the easier system to manipulate, had research been carried on by the big companies, with pulse induction or even non motion induction balance then we would be detecting at far greater depths. If there is any truth in the Minelab rumour which I doubt, then it would seem that they cracked the discrimination problem with PI machines.
As to UKBrians comments, I'm afraid the second hand market is fed by the fickleness of us detectorists and our wish to believe the promise of adds telling us that "this is the only machine you will ever need".
Just one point Zorro, It is not physically or financially possible to be a "professional" detecorist.

Excellent post Geoff :)

Great posts gents very interesting and informative.

Regarding "professional detectorists" and whether they exist or not, I am friendly with an American detectorist who is about my age and does the Florida Treasure coast line searching for Spanish treasure. He started doing it as an amateur and I believe is now full time for at least 5 years. He agreed that there is a finite amount that can be recovered, but he has emailed me some of his finds in the past and I can assure you he is earning $100k plus a year easily. He also has personal agreements with many of the Miami private beach hotels. I'll ask if he'll let me post some of his finds on here. It blows my mind what he has found in modern diamonds, let along the Spanish solid gold spikes (hammered into the hull to avoid import duty} and other finds!

This is a 1715 Spanish gold and emerald ring he found a couple of years ago.

cheers
Neil

WWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOO.THATS VERY NICE.VERY NICE INDEED.

Geoff surely if someone's only source of income is from metal detecting finds then that makes him a "professional", in my mind anyway.Might not fit into a job CV application though, agreed.
as for not "physically possible" not quite sure what that means. ???
Brian, i think, posted some of his holiday pics on here from New zealand a while back...all paid for from detecting gold whilst out there. i know friends of his have made a very good living from detecting meteorites in certain regions of the Arctic circle (apparently you dig every signal as the only signals you'll get there are meteorites)and sell them for thousands.
Then theres Mel Fisher who has discovered some of the richest ship wrecks in the world with use of metal detectors, admittedly under water ones, so there are people out there who make a living from detecting, though they are few and far between i agree.
agree with you as to the fickleness of detectorists, my point was that people buy these detectors hoping that they will finds hoards every time and believe the hype only to find out the machine falls well short of their expectations and quickly sell the detector. the "better" machines don't tend to hit the 2nd hand market straight after their launch as , generally, the people like them.

There is a big difference between a professional detectorist and a professional treasure hunter, the latter is, at least at the beginning (as Mel Fisher was) usually backed by a consortium.
Uk Brian doesn't earn all his income from detecting though, yes He is the closest you can get ie full time but if he stopped detecting tomorrow he wouldn't starve.

ireland service is not closing as far as they know have been chatting with martin there and finnbarr.
i would sugest this machine may well be nearer £3000 than £1000 and  if it has got 2 phase it will destroy all other detectors that have ever been used sub £5000 your talking real forward here .
the fact is it will work with not problems on sites formally bad soiled and not loose a single mm of depth if it does work pulse.
forget the lot if this comes to light as a detector the claims will be true 20inches will be a 1p probably not old georgians they will be nearer 30 .
bigger spade boys and girls
im going to sell my house to buy 2 just incase one breaks pmsl.

things have changed with regards to detecting for a living . in the late 80's my dad detected for a living really it kept us going anyway he didn't earn loads but he only did wetsand .
these days i would say there are not many people that only detect as a source of income but it is possible to do as is winning the lottery the chance of doing good is low but still possible but i think collectively the minority may get lucky in both yet many try.

I'd like to take you all back to Paulywows comment above. Now  all us detectorists have used the excuse that we only remove coins artifact from the first 12 inches. i.e plough depth....not en situ.

What stronger argument would the anti detectorist lobby need if we started diggig up  artifacts so well into the undisturbed layer. If the publicity of this machine is to believed it could see the start of the end of metal detecting. i.e we lose the plough level defence.

[quote

What stronger argument would the anti detectorist lobby need if we started diggig up  artifacts so well into the undisturbed layer. If the publicity of this machine is to believed it could see the start of the end of metal detecting. i.e we lose the plough level defence.
[/quote]

Thats a very valid point !

Plus imagine the mess on grass land trying to re fill holes after digging out 20" + on clay etc.  £5000 for the elite with large pockets  ???

i think more should be done in the development of a lighter machine

detector manufacturers have got the ultimate detector on their drawing board but if they were to release them on the market they would destroy themselves so they let the modifications drip into the market  so they add little modifications to their machines and then resell you the same machine with  X number of ££££ increase in cost

thats what i think

You also have to remember that most coins and artefacts after natural settling are well within the detecting range of the top of the range detectors, so unless soil has been tipped on a site which would obviously make the targets deeper in the ground or the soil is boggy which will make the coin or artefact sink deeper, so there would only be the odd occasion that the machine would be needed, one scenario would be picking the stragglers from a deep scattered hoard, so in theory you will be digging the same size holes in pasture with this machine as you would with your Explorer, Etrac or LTD.

Obviously the beach is a different ball game with coins and rings sinking and getting covered by lots of sand, this new Minelab would come into its own and clear up   everything in its path.

Steve.