Eagle Spectrum and XLT

[The Silver Pirate]

The two look identical. Do they use the same programs? In other words, can a custom program for say, coins, be used on a Eagle?

[U.K. Brian]

Same but different.

You can use all the same programmes but Whites made things difficult by changing the ranges of the adjustments.
An example of what in effect happened is that you could have sensitivity on a standard detector with a knob adjustment that turns 180 degrees. The manufacturer could mark round the knob anything he wants ie 10 segments of 18 degrees, or 18 of 10 degrees. 180 of 1 degree etc etc. The sensitivity range is exactly the same whatever is printed on the control box.

Whites varied their number ranges between the models so that they don't always relate. 50% power on one would be the same as 50% on the other in performance terms but on the visual display a different number might be displayed so if they used 1 to 100 on the XLT half power would display as 50 but if the older machine displayed a range of only 1 to 80, to use half power you would have to set to 40.

My theory is that this was done to hide the fact the later machine was not an improvement over the previous model performance wise. The XLT had a better battery system, was lighter in weight and had more slots for your own programmes but was more a step sideways than forward.