A comparison and a question.

[lesjcbs]

At a very large public park, I walked up to a man using his Garrett metal detector (MD) to find targets in the ground. I told him I dowse for targets then pin point it with my MD. He looked at me with a puzzled look. I asked him if he dowses and he said: “no” We talked a few minutes about our MD's then we parted.


I went to another area of the park and from a distance, I took a few moments to watch him work. As I did, I noticed something very familiar that I had not noticed, considered or even thought about before. As he slowly walked along, swinging his detector back and forth in the usual manner when one uses an MD to detect metal targets, he would suddenly stop, bend down, and dig out an unseen target in the ground. Sometimes he did not bend down and dig, but would stop and thoroughly search the spot, then continued his searching.


All during his searching, I noticed his path of travel would vary from straight ahead, then to the right,then to the left, then maybe straight again, then over here, then to over there etc. It looked like something invisible was guiding or urging him to go in each direction.


When field dowsing with L-Rods, if we dowse long range, we go in the direction our rod / s points. As we walk along in that direction , if our rod starts turning to the right, we go right, if it turns left we go left, if it keeps pointing straight ahead, we continue going straight. We change directions ONLY when the rod indicates to change and we continue on until it indicates to stop. Now, like MD users, while dowsing, all this happens when we cannot see the target with our naked eye. The only time both the MD users and dowsers gets to see the target is when we dig it out of the ground.


So, for the dowser, it is crystal clear, the rods points in the direction we need to go and when to stop and dig..


I now have a question: What prompts, urges, or stimulates the one using an MD ONLY to go over there, or over here, then somewhere else to find unseen targets in the ground?

 

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[kcm]

Good question Les. I think the "complete" answer will be VERY MUCH more involved than anything I can think of, but a lot of these types of differences do have some very common origins. For example, some detectorists will use a grid-searching method, so as to cover ground as thoroughly as possible. Others will zig and zag without any apparent strategy. Sort of the same thing happens with people - some people keep their bedroom/house/car/lawn immaculate; not a thing out of place and not even dust to be found outdoors! Meanwhile, other people will drop things wherever they land, with nothing having any real, designated place. ...Remember the show The Odd Couple?

Another reason might be due to MD education/experience. Some people may simply not have thought to be so meticulous as to grid-search. Many detectorists don't know or understand the shape/depth of the search field underneath their coil. I would assume (<-- there's that word again!) that many people just sorta assume that their coil will sense everything in the ground as long as their coil goes over the spot - in other words, if you have a 10" coil, then you have a 10" search field that goes straight down like a cylinder. Other people may assume that the effective detecting radius is within a foot or two around the coil.

Lots of people also work off of hunches, and I think this is where you're sort of leading to. MANY folks, hikers, hunters, fishermen, etc, etc, etc, etc....., will go where they go because it "feels" right to them. They listen with their hearts, rather than their minds - so to speak. I'm sort of both ways, but tend to lean a bit more on following hunches....usually. Of course, I'm also usually wrong!

Is this sort of what you had in mind?

 

[aarthrj3811]

When I follow a signal line I use a S Pattern. Over the years we have had reports from people who claim to use conversional metal detectors using mental input

 

[lesjcbs]

When I follow a signal line I use a S Pattern
View attachment 1341606

Using an "S" pattern to follow a signal line is very effective, and in the end you end up at the target your rod pointed to in the first place and that was in one direction from you and one direction only. Example, your rods first pointed in a southerly direction from where you are. On your way to the target, even though you turn to the west then to the south, then to the east, then back to the west and so on, crossing the signal line as you go, your progress is to the south of where you first started from. When you get to the target, you are south of your starting point which is where you knew you should be, and would be to locate that unseen target.

I presented this scenario and question because some dowsing skeptics have claimed dowsing out a target is purely a random event. But, one walking around a park swinging a detector and turning here then there is possibly being urged to do so from the same force / source that makes it possible for a dowser to pick up a signal line from a distant target. The difference is the one using an MD only, does not know this while a dowser does. Why then? The one using the MD is depending completely and only on electronics to do the job, where the dowser using a simple L-Rod is not.

So, the MD user, relying on electronics within the MD only and not suspecting or knowing such forces exist outside his MD to cause him to turn, will claim dowsing is a random event, as coat hanger type L-Rods do not have batteries in them and thus, do not go beep.

In short, both the dowser and the MD user are urged or prompted by unseen forces. It is this unseen force that the skeptic / scientific type with their slide rule will dismiss.

Have you ever known or heard a person who uses an MD only, claim or say the electronics in their MD pointed to a distant target?

 

[aarthrj3811]

Have you ever known or heard a person who uses an MD only, claim or say the electronics in their MD pointed to a distant target?

Only when they were following a signal line made by a LRL

 

[GA_Boy]

Mental Dowsing maybe? That would require a huge amount of concentration.
Marvin

 

[aarthrj3811]

Mental Dowsing maybe? That would require a huge amount of concentration.
Marvin

I don't know how they do it. They found gold

 

[lesjcbs]

Only when they were following a signal line made by a LRL

After asking my question and before getting your answer, I thought about the LRL's. But, I was talking about the metal detectors with the round coils that are placed next to the ground to detect targets.

Speaking of LRL's, I do not own one but I know of people who have detected targets over a very long distance with them. I also know of people who have done the very same thing with simple L- Rods made from coat hangers, brass, or copper rods with no batteries in them. In fact, I myself have detected targets at a distance with my folding pocket L-Rods.

So other than one having battery power and the other one not having battery power, what is the difference between the two that makes it so they obtain the same results?

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

non my friend LES, THEY BOTH ACTUALLY WORK ON THE SAME PRINCIPAL. neither work by themselves.

 

[GA_Boy]

Les, maybe your guy was mentally deciding which direction the target was the used the detector as a pin-pointer.
Marvin

 

[aarthrj3811]

There is another way to follow signal lines. Walk until you get a good signal. Turn 90 degrees and move your hands inward. When the tips are a few inches apart start walking. They will guide you. The best way to practice is to put down a target. Then find the signal line and mark it. Put a rope between your mark and the target. Follow it

 

[lesjcbs]

Les, maybe your guy was mentally deciding which direction the target was the used the detector as a pin-pointer.
Marvin

GA, I really think that when one using an MD and does not dowse, the reason they go over here or over there is because they are following an unseen force that urges them to go in that direction. A dowser is keenly aware there is such a force and uses it, where the one who uses an MD only and does not dowse is not aware of it, but follows it anyway.

 

[lesjcbs]

I been thinking about what has been discussed here about "Signal Lines" from a target. If all objects gives off energy, I do not think that such energy is transmitted in only one certain direction. I do know that when I dowse long range, as I turn in the direction of the target, as my rod / s comes closer to a line FROM ME to that object, my rod moves closer to an X position. When I keep turning past that line from me to the target, they open slowly again. I can sit there all day and they will not suddenly and violently cross or open as I move them in a direction from my position to the target area. It is exactly like an Automatic Direction Finder (ADF) used in airplanes to determine the direction the radio station signal is coming from. The pilot can then use that information to navigate to or from.

I get the impression here that for one to pick up a target signal while dowsing, one has to be in a cardinal direction from that target in order to pick up that targets signal / energy. If that is what is being said, is that not like saying one must be in a certain position from a radio station to pick up it's signal?