4 11" and need a light weight MD...suggestions?

[Magic Fingers]

4' 11" and need a light weight MD...suggestions?

I will be buying my first MD in a couple of months. I am a shorty and use my arms and hands for work all the time (massage therapist). What are some light weight MDs? Can the length of the MD be shortened or do they come in different lengths?

Thanks,
Donna

 

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[WV Hillbilly]

Re: 4' 11" and need a light weight MD...suggestions?

Just in case you're interested there is an F4 on treasure depot classifieds . It has 3 coils & is listed at
$ 310 .00 . He earlier had it listed for $ 300.00 . Don't know why he raised it $ 10.00 but would bet you
could get it for $ 300.00 . Been thinking about buying it myself . Treasure Depot also has a feedback
forum if you wanted to check him out .

 

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[EasyMoney]

Re: 4' 11" and need a light weight MD...suggestions?

Mai plaisir mon ami Magic Fingers..



My pleasure.

HillBilly, the F-4 is a nice one but the F-2 has such a nice SAT and fast auto-ground balance, that I'm thinking it would work a bit easier for her, but maybe not, because they F-4 has a choice of manual OR auto ground balance.. It's really tough to say, because when an iron filter is needed for water, you REALLY have to think about nearly everthing concerning this. If the F-4 has the extra 10 coil PLUS the 4" coil it's a good deal, but that 4" coil is better at finding tiny gold stud earrings and BB sized gold nuggets than the stock 8" coil. What a delema. When there are tons of iron in that soil, it's really bad. I would stay with the Compadre or the F-2, or if the F-4 for $300 has the 4" coil, I would opt for it, the money is cheap and you can't lose much oon any of those machines. The re-sell is normally quite high for them.

I used to have an iron filter on my water when I lived in the valley just 30 miles from here. I used bleach to catch it in but the water still tasted like an old rusty iron pot.

Here, check this out, it's a rating of many detectors vs price frames. Yes, it's a dealer, but he does bring out some fairly good info comparing detectors with one another. The Compadre AND the Ace are in there too.

http://www.bigvalleymetaldetectors.com/best.htm

The Ace 250 and 150 are coil-heavy, the Compadre, F-2 and F-4 are not.

HH all, and to all a good night's sleep..

Larry

 

[JOe L]

Re: 4' 11" and need a light weight MD...suggestions?

Thanks everyone for the great advice. I am having knee surgery next week and will use the down time to narrow down which MD I plan on getting. You might see me on here a lot that week....hehehe.

This is an awesome place and everyone is so friendly.

Oh. Good luck with the knee surgery, MD'ing can be great for recovery.
I started with an Ace250 and never looked back. My hunting partner has the ACE 250 and it will be her last, most likely. Highly suggested for a light general machine.
Good luck... Joe

 

[EasyMoney]

Re: 4' 11" and need a light weight MD...suggestions?

Yes, the Aces do seem to work a bit better in lightly mineralized soil than the bad stuff, but in half the USA the opposite is true. On salt/high iron beaches though, they really do suck. Even in Garretts (own user charts) they are not suggested for beach hunting. Sure, now and then you hear someone around here liking them, but it's mostly because;

#1 They have soil to hunt in that's not been bombarded by the meteor showers that hit here around 10,000 years ago (meteors are mostly iron in composition). There is some of that weak soil about 60 miles to the north of me, and even a cheap old TR works well there. But that soil is pretty rare in the west and Mountain States.

#2 They only hunt in sawdust, wood chips, or prefab soils found in tot lots.

#3 They have never used anything BUT an Ace 150 or Ace 250, so they don't know the difference.

Like my old martial atrs master used to say when one of the students remarked at what they were doing in another martial arts school; "Let's just stick with what works instead".

A good philosophy

PS: Hope that the surgery goes well for you Magic. I have two bad knees but I mostly use self-hypnosis to combat and disassociate from pain, that and a little bit of aspirin. Both do help. I'm just fortunate to not need surgery. Take care.

Larry

 

[WV Hillbilly]

Re: 4' 11" and need a light weight MD...suggestions?

Since you mentioned it Easy , I think the F4 is being advertised with 4 " , 8 " and double D coils .
I just assumed the F4 was basically an upgraded F2 . Guess not .

 

[SC_hunter]

Re: 4' 11" and need a light weight MD...suggestions?

Easy...I don't think you ever miss the opportunity to run down a Garrett machine. As I scrolled down your mighty list of detectors, I did notice, I didn't see a Garrett in the bunch. As far as your little #1 #2 #3...well #2 and #3 doesn't apply to me. But, everyone has their own thoughts on detectors and it ultimately ends up to the one that is making the purchase.HH and didn't mean to hijack the post.

 

[Magic Fingers]

Re: 4' 11" and need a light weight MD...suggestions?

Thanks for the link EasyM. It was nice to see them broken up by price also. I have an old Subaru that still runs well to sell. Whatever I get for it goes into my MD. I went to Missoula today and there is only one dealer there and he only carries White but was all sold out.
I was hoping he had some there to try on for size.

Thanks EasyM and Joe for the well wishes for my knee surgery. I move snow during the winter months (after working all day) by driving a bobcat. While climbing out my foot stayed put while the rest of me came down. I tore my medial meniscus. They said it was an easy fix and I will feel so much better. I sure hope so since I am standing all day massaging. Plus I need my knee to work to dig up all my great finds I will be finding...hehehe.

Donna

 

[EasyMoney]

Re: 4' 11" and need a light weight MD...suggestions?

SC, here is (part) of what I know about Garretts;

The Infinium is the best PI on the market, bar none.

The Aces,, ALL of them, from the 100 to the 550's are NOT designed for bad soil, they are designed (by Garrett, by virtue of their need to reach a more profitable market) to be sold (and used) in western Europe and the deep south and east coast of the USA. Those two markets far overpower the smaller market here from the Great Divide, and westward.

Most White's are the same, with exceptions, just as with the Garretts. The Minelabs are mostly designed for beach hunting, and most people know that too. Tesoros are the best all-around detectors to work well in a very wide variety of soil conditions, and Fishers (usually) get the deepest depth in highly mineralized soils. This is not my opinion, they just do..

By virtue of Garretts own admission, the 1250, 1350, 1500, and 2500 are all being upgraded with an add-on chip to be able to handle bad soil better, but still are a bit lacking and feeble in that regard. This is not my "opinion", and in fact Garrett now installs the upgrade in a small chip in their newer VLF's in order to help with this problem somewhat. You can get the upgrade if you send your detector to them. This is no joke.

The Garrett GoldStinger is a real HONEY, a bit troublesome for some to handle, but one of the only two detectors made that I would buy new for hunting nuggetts. It has such an unbelieveably sweet ground balance that it amazes me. It will work ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET, something that few other detectors will do. And it's an excellent coin-hunter too, in mild soil.

The original Garrett Deepseeker and the Fisher 400 and 500 series detectors were the deepests VLF detectors ever made, with the Garrett having a slight edge in cherry-picking and the Fisher a slight edge in depth. I used to commonly find old rusty pennies at 12-14" in extreme black sand/salt soil on Washington State beaches with the original Garrett DeepSeeker, something that no other detector has allowed me to do, to date. Ask Joe (the dealer) if he gets that depth with his 550d, and you get a real education about the old Fishers, they really were a super-deep workhorse .

Now you know exactly what I know about Garrett detectors, and as to how I feel about them? I don't. I don't have any opinions on anything, I just deal with the facts, nothing more. In the facts, I also include a vast array of electrical and electronics experiences too, when I make a statement.

As far as running down a detector, I only tell things like they are, nothing more. The Aces are not well-designed for hard or high magnetite or high sodium, or high black sand soil, and that is the truth, not my opinion. It's just the way it is.

The Ace 250 I had? I gave it to my daughter. She lives in the State of Washington, and it doesn't work well there either. I seldom see another Garrett around here any more, it's because they can't handle the soil.

Oh, one other thing. On an enormous battery of tests done on dozens of detectors, the Garrett 2000 and 2500, Compass GoldScanner Pro /Relic & Coin, and Compass x-200/x-100 were found to have the VERY DEEPEST all-metal AND discriminate depth of ALL current vlf and multi--freq detectors tested, including Minelabs, Fisher 1270's, and Red Heats. This of course was done in mild soil, not high iron soil.

If you want the site, I can get one of them to you. Not sure about the other one.

 

[SC_hunter]

Re: 4' 11" and need a light weight MD...suggestions?

No offense taken Easy..Nice explanation...HH

 

[EasyMoney]

Re: 4' 11" and need a light weight MD...suggestions?

Check out this site. It has some old detectors, but new ones too. This is a fairly accurate chart in my experiences.

http://www.polbox.com/d/dark/testy.htm#minter