[meteorite-list] Metal detectors

From: Steve Schoner <steve_schoner_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:22:38 2004
Message-ID: <20030614070509.6240.qmail_at_web12706.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Deborah Martin <dak_mar_at_alcor.concordia.ca> wrote:
> Is there a website that would rate metal detectors
> for meteoritic research
> ? I have checked the archives but could not find
> anything on this topic.
>
> Thanks
>
> Andre Bordeleau
>


The very best metal detector I have ever used was the
Wilson VLF-710, manual, no-motion detector. I have
used it religiously for over 15 years, at Gold Basin,
and especially Glorieta Mountain.

I have had more luck with that one machine than any of
the many detectors that I have ever used.

Then when Wilson's Northstar came out in 1997, I used
it to find the 20.7 Kg pallasitic mass after, get
this, 15 minutes of searching in an area that I had
never searched before!

I was just testing that machine, which was rated as "a
very slow motion" machine. Then, a year later, the
same day that Portales Valley fell, I was at Glorieta
and I found a very nice 2.7 Kg Glorieta spicule,
buried over 3 ft. deep in a gully. Then later, with
the same machine, I found a 775 gram spicule also
about 3 feet down.

But with the earlier 710-VLF Wilson machine, I have
found more meteorites with that than any other machine
that I have used.

I still have it, though it is old, and no longer in
production, I still use it.

He has one more in his archives, and I would love to
have it as well.

In my opinion, and with my many, countless hours of
searching... Hands down, I think it is the best
general purpose meteorite detector ever made. It is
not the most powerful by todays standards, and there
are some machines such as the Gold Master which works
very well in soils like at Gold Basin, but all in all
the VLF-710 stands the best.

When I was at Imilac with Marvin Kilgore in '96, I
brought it along, but unfortunately, the coil was
damaged in transit, so I had to use his Fisher Gold
Bug 2 with a 15 inch coil. I found with it 8 Kilos of
fairly large specimens, but it was for me more
difficult to use that the trusty 710.

I wonder how much I would have found had my 710 been
in service then.

Steve Schoner
http://www.geocities.com/meteorite_identification

P.S.
Paul Wilson still makes detectors, and holds many
patents for coils and detector electronics. He does
not advertise like the "big names"-- but those in the
know, know that his machines are bar none the best for
meteorite hunting.

(Could be luck, but with years of experience with many
types of machines... I doubt just "luck")



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Received on Sat 14 Jun 2003 03:05:09 AM PDT