Analog Detecting 'Learn To Adapt'

I've been thinking a lot recently about my metal detectors, I have rather a large collection now and I love all of them. I use each of them to their strengths, I've said it many times before, for me, one machine can't do it all despite what the marketing makes you believe. All my detectors have slight differences in their operation and I've come to understand this by putting as much time as possible into each of them. Analog metal detectors don't serve you, to get the best performance you have to set them up and modify as you go. This is something that a lot of people that have only used digital machines seem to find hard to understand. just because something is sold with the "Latest Technology" doesn't make it better than what we already have, most of the time it's just a variation of a theme. 

Recently I've managed to get hold of an immaculate Saxon SM45, I've been wanting to get one of these machines for ages. This will be another river Thames unit, it's built for hunting in iron, I have no interest in depth on a terrain such as the foreshore, actually I have no interest in how deep the detectors I use on the river can punch because I don't require it. My focus is how they perform in the iron hunting non-ferrous targets on the same level or a couple of inches down. Everyone will know by now that I'm only looking for depth on my inland sites and for me nothing beats Nexus in this department. When I was walking my dog Eric the other day, suddenly a thought came into my head which is very relevant when it comes to metal detecting with analog machines in this day and age

 "People buy an analog metal detector in the hope that it will mould to the way they operate, when it's actually the opposite, you have to mould to the way the machine you're swinging operates"

The above statement might sound obvious but in a day and age where everything is designed to be automated for easy use, the points within that statement don't enter some peoples heads. I can't swing my Saxon the same way I swing my Compadre and I can't swing my Compadre the same way I can swing my Cutlass. Some have fast signal responses and recovery speeds and others have a more laboured response. For example, my Laser Rapier 2 hits on the tiny targets fantastically with a slow to medium swing speed, my Tesoro Lobo hits the tiny targets with a medium to fast swing speed, obviously operating frequency plays a big part. But both swing speed and coil height play a huge part in allowing a detector to perform at its best.

Simplicity Requires Skill

The river Thames is such an individual and unique terrain in regards to the sheer amount of iron present, for me personally it requires what I call a forensic approach. A slow to 'really slow' swing speed allows all my machines to excel because I'm listening very carefully for potential masked targets and small to tiny signal responses. Success is not going to be achieved by swinging at high speeds. Factor in the fact that I'm using a really low discrimination setting, this forces me to slow down because I'm literally having to analyse every target response. 

What I've explained in the above paragraph is what I call the "art of metal detecting", low disc settings with a slow and methodical approach enables you to connect to the language and feel of your detector. Killing the iron completely and swinging really fast seems to be a modern 'digital' phenomenon. This approach caters to those that are relying on their machine to do all the work and serve them so very little thought has to be applied. Fair play if that's the way you want to do it but for me that's as far away from actual metal detecting as you can get. But let us remember that we are now living in an automated nonthinking world so it shouldn't come as any surprise that people want the "dopamine" hit with minimal effort involved. 

So the point of this blog is simple, if you choose to buy an analog machine don't expect it to serve you and adapt to the way "you think it should operate", you need to adapt both your frame of mind and approach for it to perform to the best of it's abilities. Only when this has been truly mastered and practiced thoroughly, you might find yourself being quite surprised at what this supposed "old and obsolete" technology has to offer. Single frequency analog machines will never be obsolete and I'll quietly continue to demonstrate this.