Firstly, welcome to the forum and the hobby. We support you in your new endeavour. Secondly, there are a few shows, "Diggers" in particular, that are viewed with quite a bit of disdain by detectorists. It's a matter of perspective. If someone has been detecting since the 70's and considers themselves to be somewhat "professional" about their hobby, then a silly, new show like "Diggers" feels like an insult. It's also inspired some unwanted attention from the shovel police *cough* archaeological community as there really is very little documentation being produced as they dig and they are digging historical artifacts. In a proper excavation, fine details of position, depth, and orientation would be collected methodically, along with information about ground strata for understanding local deposition. Then again, the archaeologists can't dig it all by themselves (not before the artifacts corrode into nothing, anyway). So, there are some contentious issues wrapped up in the public portrayal of our hobby.
A lot of the tension comes from the fact that so few care about our hobby, meaning very few people care about the laws that regulate our hobby. Most people, even many cops, don't really know the laws on exactly where you can detect/dig and where you can't. We are also burdened by the fact that hardly anyone ever puts up a sign that says, "Metal Detecting OK." Almost all metal detecting signs are prohibitive. We are assumed to be able to do what we want on public property as long as it isn't specifically prohibited, but then bureaucrats and representatives of all types would rather make everything a judgment call (keeping power-on-a-whim for themselves) than bind their own hands by explicitly saying you can do something. Committing scares people, not to mention the fact that many people would rather just not be bothered, so they'll give a quick "no" without knowing the law/policies, without checking, and without having the authority to give an answer in the first place. If you were told "no," though, some people would expect you to respect it, even if you weren't confident that it's correct. So, we're never really sure where it's legal to detect or not, even when we ask.
I'm not trying to discourage you at all. This hobby is certainly fun and rewarding. I would recommend it to anyone. You just have to make slow, wise progress. On the shows, they take care of all the legal stuff behind the scenes. They selectively show the 15 minutes of the day that were exciting and then ignore the 380 minutes spent swinging on nothing, digging, taking a break, et cetera. They talk a lot about only a few finds and show a tableful of stuff that hasn't been discussed. Many times, the trash is more interesting than one would think. These are just some things to think about when identifying yourself as a "detectorist."
