Everyone made metal detectors with variable discrimination so the user could increase it just to the point they were comfortable. For me, that was usually just enough to reject iron nails. Some folks increased it 2 knockout full or even is high as eliminating most pull tabs at the time and that included the US nickels as well.

A few people were using the modern fast motion discriminators but some of us, and that includes me, still enjoyed using a VLF/TR-Discriminator.

Then in 1983 we had two notable changes in the metal detector industry. One came from the original Teknetics who introduced the first Target ID model, and the other was Tesoro who introduced a slow-motion quick response fast recovery detector.

From that start the detector manufacturers quickly started working on and marketing their own Target ID detectors. Initially they were the upper end or top dollar models, but soon we saw mid-priced and then low and models that featured some form of graphic Target ID.

Up to that point anyone using a metal detector would you say beep / dig approach and recover all the good sounding targets above their discrimination setting. That means they were finding good stuff, and also recovering trash. Was that bad? No, not really, because as we removed the common discarded trash we started finding the desirable targets that were partially masked and in amongst all the trash.

And what was the benefit of the new Target ID models? Simply did it allowed people to rely on it more expressly and therefore recover Target's that gave a better lock on and more likely good reading response. Any Target that indicated as being junk, or a good Target that didn't lock on and was somewhat like a junk Target, got left behind.

The result? Some good targets being recovered but more trash targets being left behind which continued to mask desirable targets that were there. And since that time, 37 years ago, there has been more trash discarded which means more good targets and old targets being masked even more while people continue to pluck some of the lock on Target ID readings that are good.

If more people would learn a detector without relying on their visual Target ID, to better learn how the detector performs and how targets respond audibly it would help them. And they would find more desirable targets because they would be recovering more targets. Yes removing some trash, but in the long run that's really all part of the game we play with metal detecting.

Those folks who go out and rely on something like a Tesoro Bandido or Detech Vista X which lack any visual feature and rely on audio, will often find a lot of good targets that would be easily missed by those using visual Target ID.

Monte

"Your EYES ... the only 100% accurate form of Discrimination!"
Stinkwater Wells Trading Post
Metal Detector Evaluations and Product Reviews monte@ahrps.org ... or ... monte@stinkwaterwells.com 503-481-8147Detector Outfit: A selection of my favorite makes and models, with the best coils mounted, for the tasks I'll take on.Pinpointers: Pulse-Dive & ProPointer AT .. Headphones: 'Hornet' & 'Wasp' .. MS-3 Z-Lynk .. ML-80 .. N/M Green edition*** All working well today to make memories for tomorrow. ***