dahut
Hero Member
- Nov 6, 2004
- 809
- 54
- Detector(s) used
- 21 years behind a coil
Fisher F70
Bounty Hunter Lone Star
Tesoro Tiger Shark
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
I tried one of these today, courtesy of my partner, Hal. He just got the thing from Mr. Bill and this was it's inaugural outing. I thought highly of it in many respects. I've always thought it was a dandy of an idea, mounting the controls in the headset like that.
It is very lightweight of course. Maybe a littel tooooo much so. I normally use a Tesoro Tiger Shark, which is a lot heavier than the Wader - but built like a tank, by comparison. There was a noted spindliness to the Wader that might not be well suited to the ham-fisted or clutzy detectorist.
The heaphones fit comfortably well and again, are almost not there in use. I did notice the coil cable has a naughty tendency to wrap on itself and I fiddled with it at least a few times unravelling it. A few tie wraps here and there might help that.
The controls were about as dead basic as you can get - a good thing on a water detector:
On/Off/Volume
DISC, 0-10
SENS, 0-10
That's it. Nice, huh?
Performance was adequate. I found the depth to be acceptable, although I would have to differ with some who claim it to be stellar. It'll do.
On a dime it hit solid up to about 6", and turned iffy at somewhat more - up to about the limit of 8". Make no mistake, that aint bad at all. In fresh water, targets tend to stay where they fall, in general. They arent affected by tidal action nor do they sink too fast.
NOTE: Everyone wants to talk about detection of chains. Let me put that to rest: chains are much ado over nothing.
There isn't a detector made that does reliably well with them - including the Tiger Shark. Some folks buy the lie that says, "if a detector will pick up chains, it'll do good on anything." That's garbage. To be sensitive enough to reliably detect the smallest of chains, you likely couldn't live with the thing in use!
From what I could tell, the Wader wont blow your socks off, but it WILL do in terms of performance.
In addition, I gotta say I really liked the audio response. I'd call it very close to the Fisher 1200-series style audio. I personally like that whiny zip it has. If I didnt know better, I'd say the designer either worked for Fisher or is adept at opening a 1225X case!
On the other hand, I also have to admit that the audio was pitiful, amplitude wise. Im talking wimpy here, even at full volume. Those same designers of the thing need to add a different audio driver ciruit to get that sound level up. That would also help differentiate some of those deep, iffy targets. PLEEEASE correct this, DetectorPro. It is the one black eye on an otherwise nifty little detector.
Stability was excellent. My Tiger Shark is a twitchy beast, popping off at every coil bump. Im growing used to it, by now, but I noticed little tendencey towards this sort of behavior from the Wader. Only at the highest SENS setting did it act squirrely. Hal mentioned that it will sound of on the hot rocks we have around here, and I noticed he runs it pretty high on the SENS. He added that he could pretty much tell when it was a rock.
I didnt really test it for target separation. As a water unit, that isnt a paramount criteria since targets in the water are generally far apart and youre gonna dig about everything that sounds off, anyway. If you wanted the Wader for trashy areas like picnic grounds, parks, schools, etc., you would have to look into this a little deeper. I suspect it, too, is adequate.
I'm still up in the air on value for the money, though, as it seems steep to me. I opened up the battery side of the headset and thought things inside were a little less than industry standard. It looks as if they are hand assembled, which could account for the price. A bit more use, observation and cussin'/discussin' is in order before that final judgement is rendered.
Bottom line, it is a VLF detector intended for dunking use in the water. It acts like one and is well suited for the task, being lightweight, possessing good performance and frankly, just plain easy to live with. It would be nice to wring it out some more and I hope Hal doesn't sell it before I get to (are you listening, HAL??). With any luck, he wont.
For fresh water searching, travel, or just tossing in with the picnic gear on the way to the lake...well, I'd like to have one.
It is very lightweight of course. Maybe a littel tooooo much so. I normally use a Tesoro Tiger Shark, which is a lot heavier than the Wader - but built like a tank, by comparison. There was a noted spindliness to the Wader that might not be well suited to the ham-fisted or clutzy detectorist.
The heaphones fit comfortably well and again, are almost not there in use. I did notice the coil cable has a naughty tendency to wrap on itself and I fiddled with it at least a few times unravelling it. A few tie wraps here and there might help that.
The controls were about as dead basic as you can get - a good thing on a water detector:
On/Off/Volume
DISC, 0-10
SENS, 0-10
That's it. Nice, huh?
Performance was adequate. I found the depth to be acceptable, although I would have to differ with some who claim it to be stellar. It'll do.
On a dime it hit solid up to about 6", and turned iffy at somewhat more - up to about the limit of 8". Make no mistake, that aint bad at all. In fresh water, targets tend to stay where they fall, in general. They arent affected by tidal action nor do they sink too fast.
NOTE: Everyone wants to talk about detection of chains. Let me put that to rest: chains are much ado over nothing.
There isn't a detector made that does reliably well with them - including the Tiger Shark. Some folks buy the lie that says, "if a detector will pick up chains, it'll do good on anything." That's garbage. To be sensitive enough to reliably detect the smallest of chains, you likely couldn't live with the thing in use!
From what I could tell, the Wader wont blow your socks off, but it WILL do in terms of performance.
In addition, I gotta say I really liked the audio response. I'd call it very close to the Fisher 1200-series style audio. I personally like that whiny zip it has. If I didnt know better, I'd say the designer either worked for Fisher or is adept at opening a 1225X case!
On the other hand, I also have to admit that the audio was pitiful, amplitude wise. Im talking wimpy here, even at full volume. Those same designers of the thing need to add a different audio driver ciruit to get that sound level up. That would also help differentiate some of those deep, iffy targets. PLEEEASE correct this, DetectorPro. It is the one black eye on an otherwise nifty little detector.
Stability was excellent. My Tiger Shark is a twitchy beast, popping off at every coil bump. Im growing used to it, by now, but I noticed little tendencey towards this sort of behavior from the Wader. Only at the highest SENS setting did it act squirrely. Hal mentioned that it will sound of on the hot rocks we have around here, and I noticed he runs it pretty high on the SENS. He added that he could pretty much tell when it was a rock.
I didnt really test it for target separation. As a water unit, that isnt a paramount criteria since targets in the water are generally far apart and youre gonna dig about everything that sounds off, anyway. If you wanted the Wader for trashy areas like picnic grounds, parks, schools, etc., you would have to look into this a little deeper. I suspect it, too, is adequate.
I'm still up in the air on value for the money, though, as it seems steep to me. I opened up the battery side of the headset and thought things inside were a little less than industry standard. It looks as if they are hand assembled, which could account for the price. A bit more use, observation and cussin'/discussin' is in order before that final judgement is rendered.
Bottom line, it is a VLF detector intended for dunking use in the water. It acts like one and is well suited for the task, being lightweight, possessing good performance and frankly, just plain easy to live with. It would be nice to wring it out some more and I hope Hal doesn't sell it before I get to (are you listening, HAL??). With any luck, he wont.
For fresh water searching, travel, or just tossing in with the picnic gear on the way to the lake...well, I'd like to have one.
