Poncho,
Sure you can get a different brand than a Whites. Most other brands operate on a different frequency. Its nice if you have the same brand because the battery packs can interchange, both operate almost the same, same sound, pinpoint, swing speed, don't have to learn a different brands characteristics. Now to the question on rings. Gold rings just happen to fall into the same range that pull tabs and nickles do. On gold rings there may be some break up in the signal because gold rings are sometimes made of alloys and plated with gold which the alloys cause the detector to "see" them as a ferrous metal. If hunting in areas that you think will have gold rings, you just have to dig every signal. Silver rings are different, they sound just like a coin. If you set your detector to just pick out nickles and omit most pull tabs, you should still be able to pick out gold rings. Remember I showed you how to set a point on the scale of the discrimination knob to mark where pull tabs disappeared and could still pick up a nickle in a previous post. If you just buried your ring, also bury a pulltab, and a bottlecap also, and then pass the coil over each one and listen for the least little difference in the sound, there will be a difference between the three targets, after you learn to hear the difference, you will be able to tell most of the time whether to dig or not dig. But if in doubt, dig, dig, dig. When detectors first came on the market for the public, you had to dig every signal, cause every signal sounded almost alike, and they picked up every kind of metal made and cinders too. After awhile you started noticing a slight difference in the sound of different targets, and learned what a coin sounded like compared to trash. Many hunters today don't take the time to learn their detector and the sounds to aquire the "ear" for them to tell the difference. Manufacturers have tried to please us by using belltones, ID tones for different targets, but the sad truth is, only way to know for sure is to dig.
HH. Scotty
