Look what I found in the loft! Bobcat & others! (Pics)

[LX Kid]

Did a little cleaning in the loft and found a couple boxes of detectors and various coils, headphones etc. One of the detectors is a C&G Bobcat. Forgot I hod bought this detectors several years ago. Don't know if it works, (probably not), but I'll check it out when I get a chance. Has anyone ever owned one and know if they were any good? They are a VLF discriminator detector.


Other Stuff

[ivan salis]

they are a decent lightwieght machine --in its "prime" it was "the bomb"--the machine to have . still fairly easy to use if its working correctly .

[Sandman]

Funny you should post this right now as I was thinking of asking if anyone else had ever had a Bobcat. Mine was a hipmount silver unit and I think it was a TR if I remember correctly with two disc. switches. One was All Metal and the other was for disc. I loved the zero motion pinpoint. I found a ton of coins with mine an remember that you slid the coil on the ground after you set it. I wish I had it back.

[LX Kid]

Hey Sandman. This one has a switch, lower left, for foil/tabs...., then R/lower left, for Disc/All Metal...., top left tuneing, center for Ground Comp, and far right for On/Off Volume. Has a thick coil of about 3".

[Joe(TX)]

......LX Kid....the coil is thick because it is a Co-Axial Coil not many were used or made.......C&G and Garrett made them for their specific detectors............. seems to be more powerful and more concentrated than the old Co-Planar Coil and is not sensitive to 60 cycle radio interference.......also they seem to handle the wet salt water sand environment better than the Co-Planar.....also they look REAL GOOD........LOL.....................Joe

[Joe(TX)]

........HEY....Let's not forget about the GARRETT ADS III.......I was cleaning and sorting and deciding what detectors of mine to keep and which ones that I should get rid of........And I decided that the Garrett ADS I, II, or III is still competitive with any newer machine as long as the operator knows what he is doing.........the big disadvantage would be the weight .........but i solved that problem by going to a chest/hip mount system..............Now I would not keep all 3 but at least have one of the above plus a parts detector for any emergencies...............I have a I and a III......my original ADS I is so sensitive and stable that I decided it was staying......also I have all of the Coils ever made for it by Garrett plus some from D-Tex that also work......I have 1000's of hours logged in using the DeepSeeker and besides knowing your machine that well.....there is a lot of knowledge gained from switching back and forth from the different modes.........such as target depth, size, width, conductivity and such and all this can be done very quickly ......in fact......in seconds.........this is a very good Relic Detector....and it is also very affordable ........I found mine Non-Working on ebay.......so I got it cheap......and have a friend as a Repair Shop......so I got it fixed relatively cheap.......but do not sell your ADS III for it is defintely a KEEPER......................HH............Joe

[billcburr]

The G in C&g stands for Jack Gifford I believe It was one hellacios machine for its time
I just happened to read your post today Mr Gifford is the man behind Tesoro a legend in detector design
Happy Hunting
Bill

[oldbill]

I had a C G Bob Cat many years ago I liked it because it fit in a suit case for air travil at the time. It was an excellent discriminating unit not very deep but excellent, Keep it and use it if it works in parks abd it will find silver!

[Joe(TX)]

I had a C G Bob Cat many years ago I liked it because it fit in a suit case for air travil at the time. It was an excellent discriminating unit not very deep but excellent, Keep it and use it if it works in parks abd it will find silver!

...... .......A detector very similiar to the Bobcat was the AH Pro Line BackPacker not seen very often today.....Also there was a similiar looking AH Pro Nuggett Hunter....both were very similiar in looks but the Nuggett Hunter was very sensitive to very small gold nuggetts or flakes.....With all of the New technology I am not sure if the Nuggett Hunter would still compete or Not.......NOW I THINK THAT THE BOB CAT AND THE BACKPACKER.....would still find a niche......that is they are liteweight....very compact so would fit in a small case like needed for flying.....or many times on Vacation room in the Vehicle can be very tight.....a small detector can fit into a small cranny......sometimes if a detector does not fit....it is basically left behind......also these detectors have have small coils which make them good in trashy areas.....and basically eliminate the masking effect........Joe

[U.K. Brian]

I thought the Bobcat was an off resonance machine like the A.H.Pro's and Heathkit GD1190 and a C-Scope whose name escapes me at the moment.

So poor depth but great discrimination (A.H. were sold as "True Discriminators")

[Joe(TX)]

I thought the Bobcat was an off resonance machine like the A.H.Pro's and Heathkit GD1190 and a C-Scope whose name escapes me at the moment.

So poor depth but great discrimination (A.H. were sold as "True Discriminators")

...............I have heard that before......"POOR DEPTH"....but what does that really mean..??...I think that the majority that said that meant "Poor Depth in Mineralized Soil"........I have Neutral Soil and have never experienced "Poor Depth" from any of the above detectors especially the AH Pro line, in fact, I have a Pro-2 which can easily hit a silver quarter at 10 inches!!...........Joe

[LuckyLarry]

I have the Backpacker and in really bad soil it beats a Garrett Ace 250. Yes, the Bobcat is a near duplicate of the Backpacker, guess why?

That's right, one hand washes the other. Been that way for years too.

OOPS! I almost spilled the beans. I once worked for a detector company that swapped circuit designs with other companies, it was amazing how similar the things turned out.

My Backpacker actually gets more depth in really harsh soil than an Ace 250, mostly because it's an IB, one that can be adusted to cancel the high iron soils. It takes awhile for the caps to warm up though.

Those were some good old days, I remember digging so many copper rings and bracelets that after awhile I began to throw them away. Those were some great old times.

LL
(EasyMoney)

[U.K. Brian]

Re depth I had the Super Pro Fine Tune which was supposed to be the deepseeker of the whole range and there was no way its six inch coil would hit even a larger coin at 10 inches and don't forget I'm in a country that according to Jimmy Sierra has no mineralisation to worry about.
The reason given by James Gifford himself for the dropping of off resonance was that the principle suffered a lack of depth as they are not induction balance machines but rather the reverse.

When A.H.Pro's came on sale in Europe there were soon questions about the performance and A.H. reply was that "they would not publish data for which there was no widely accepted test procedure" and "The success of this philosophy is shown by the enthusiastic acceptance of our detectors by professional treasure hunters".
I think they remained on sale for about two years and sales were not good.

They also had printed on the back of their leaflets in letters so small you almost needed a magnifying glass "Although we feel that the open air test is the best for conventional detectors (TR or BFO) this does not necessarily hold true for VLF detectors".

[LuckyLarry]

The Super Pro is an off resonance BFO hybrid detector.

The Backpacker is not, it is an induction balance metal detector, and can be easily attested to by the fact that the metal/mineral rotary dial (potentiometer) is used to regulate the voltage from either (-) voltage to (+) voltage, which makes it respond positively or negatively to charged minerals, including salts. TRs could not accomplish this, but in a somewhat similar regards BFO's could, and in fact several BFO's were invented in the 70's by White's and Garrett, with positive/negative meters for references. In fact, advertizements were made claiming that a copper item could sometimes be found in a junkyard while canceling all the iron debris. This is no top military-secret and most certainly not a quandry or a puzzle, especially if you are an electronics tech or engineer.

In my conversations with George Payne back in the early 80's he confirmed my experience concerning the fact that air depth is the single most reliable determinant of depth potential in a VLF metal detector. This also applies to an IB, BFO, or even BB detector too, including AH Pro's hybrids. The reason is simple as Jack Gifford also says, it is because of the gain used in the circuit, you either have the power to create a field just so big, or you do not. Higher frequencies are commonly using as much as 10X the gain of that of low frequencies, and THAT is the greatest reason why they excel at finding small nuggets, not because of their frequencies, but because of the power (gain). You can read about some of this and the above at:

http://www.thomasathomas.com/FAQ_-_M...nd_Answers.htm

and,

http://jb-ms.com/Baron/gb.htm

The older White's using an IB circuit can and wil beat some of the current low-end detectors today for depth, including some BH's, some White's, and some Garretts. I have an old Whites in my workshop that does even better than the Backpacker.

In fact I remember very well having to run my cz-70 at a setting of between a 1 and a 2 on the mineralization dial (a "1" is the worst ground) in a 5 meter by 8 meter area filled with primarily black sand.

I brought out the Ace and the %*%$#^^& Garrett would only go 2" deep, while the old Backpacker did 3" consistently. There was no magic wand attached to the Backpacker either. One must remember that the IB (AKA "metal-mineral" detectors) use discrimination as the basis for it's ground-cancelling abilities, cancelling iron. As Jack Gifford clearly says in his writings above, the manual ground balance will go deeper than an automatic ground balance detector, but only if you tend to it (my words) like a pitbull watching his bone with a lot of fresh meat on it. The Ace 250 uses a rather slow automatic ground balance and that's why it can't handle the really bad ground as well as some of the old IB detectors with their metal/mineral GB dials, and that's why I view the Aces as a piece of junk in harsh soils. Ok, yes, I forgot to say something: The ground balance on your machines, both automatic AND manual - are the same thing as a rough discrimination control, little more, or less.

As regards to air depth of a Backpacker vs an Ace 250 they get the same depth, about 7' on a copper penny in air. And there is no way in H--- that either will get 10" on a copper penny in bad ground or mineral-free ground unless it's been there for enough decades that it's fallen apart and spread around making a bigger target. And I'm not talking about any halo effect either. It is scientifically and rationally impossible. It's rather amusing though to read where people get 40" on an Explorer.. or even 8-12" in this soil here, where it is seriously high-iron, sometimes having as much as 1/3 a cup of iron filings in it. Those people don't even have a clue as to what bad soil is. I know one place where absolutely zero detectors work, on the Washington coast, and even a PI won't work there.

LL

[JCRIII]

That little Bobcat is a great little metal detector. My brother and I got one each back in the 70s. We found lots of coins and old stuff with them. That was ahead of it's time. I still have my Bobcat. If you have a young child it's a great one to start out with. I used it up until I got a White XLT Metal Detector. That's a great detector. No able to hunt now. I was in an automobile accident in 2000 that left me paralyzed from the waist down. Hang on to your Bobcat. I just found a photo of my Bobcat.

[historyhunter1]

Hey guys, thanks for this great topic ! That Bobcat sure was a joy to use !
I had one as a kid but sold it while I was in high school to help pay for a car.
A friend of mine has one that he'd like to sell on Ebay but would certainly like to include a manual with it.
If anyone could share (post) the most important pages from their Bobcat owner's manual many readers (& me !) would certainly enjoy reading it.
Thanks again all !