Gary's vista sprite interview

I have been given the Deeptech Vista Sprite to review by Gary's detecting, but before I go out in the field I wanted to find out a little more about the man himself and what makes him tick, as most of us know Gary is a normal guy with strict morals and has been on the detecting circuit for many years, he has no electronics experience but his tests and reviews have helped a lot of people make the right decisions. Gary always keeps a low profile in the field, many of us have detected along side him and chatted to him in the past without realising it's him, I wanted to know why he chose the Vista Sprite as his signature detector ?

I interviewed Gary over a coffee here's how it went.

Aaron : You have built your reputation as an independent field tester how are things going these days ?

Gary : Very well I have built up good working relationships with several manufacturers, over the years some have become really good friends. I would like to point out that I'm not the font of all knowledge when it comes to detecting, just a guy passionate about the hobby and like to help as many people as I can.

I think the detectorists out there appreciate straight talking reviews, some just like to see nice pictures and pick up basic information written in non technical terms. I've always said when it comes to reviews the operator can only tell it how it is on the day, it is virtually impossible to test a machine under every site condition, this is why I do not do beach work.

Aaron : So Gary why did you choose the Vista Sprite as your signature detector The Sprite chose me really !, the idea of launching my own machine was just something that was thrown into a conversation and then things started progressing.

For several years I have always had a very strong relationship with Plamen and Rosi from Deeptech, the first machine I tested was the Vista Mini, I was really taken back by it's simplicity combined with outstanding performance. The Vista Smart as many of you know is a real eye opener, based on personal experiences it can leave a productive area divested of all metal in a very short time.

Rosi and Plamen are the owners of Deeptech, Rosi takes care of the admin side of things and Plamen heads the electronics and R&D team.

Plamen Rashkov is arguably one of the top metal detector engineers in Bulgaria and has the qualifications to back it, he is a very quiet humble man who just gets on with his work, he has no interest in chest beating and massive depth claims like we see from Bulgarian manufacturers, I guess it's just their way of life, Plamen simply knows his stuff and is very comfortable with it. Over time they have just gone from strength to strength and are now personal friends of mine, not just business acquaintances.

Aaron : So tell me why you did you choose a machine with basic functions, surely if you had a blank page would you not put as many bells and whistles on it as you can..

Gary : Firstly simplicity, I wanted a product that would suit a wide range of skill levels, a complete beginner could pick up a Sprite and start finding straight away, also an expert would find this machine hard to beat on an iron laden site, it has a very fast recovery speed, a 15 Khz 11 x 7 elliptical DD coil and a precise audio signature. The precise signal clarity will also appeal to those who have slightly diminished hearing. It

may be worth adding, optional coils are available for the Vista Sprite, an 8 x 5 DD known as the super six and an 11" round DD. Secondly I wanted to keep the project within a price that will suit most people's budgets, there are lots of expensive machines out there, and to enter that type of market would require a lot of major changes especially to cosmetics, on the outside the Vista Sprite appears to be a traditional un assuming machine, but I can tell you the real passion is within the finely tuned circuitry. We could spend thousands on expensive injection moulding and tooling but this is not what Deeptech are about, they pride themselves on affordable machines that impress, it's simply a working tool.

Aaron : Yes I have owned a Deeptech Vista Smart and found it to be one of the deepest and by far the most competent machines I have used to date, on the subject of depth what are your thoughts ?

Gary : Depth !!! now that's a good one, I have had my hands on several VLF machines over the years, and to be honest I don't think they make a bad one these days, but you could still pick fault with any machine if you wanted to.

Based on my travels up and down the country I firmly believe that depth is highly dependent on soil conditions . For example here in the Chilterns the soil is very chalky, most coin type targets have a maximum depth of 8 and 10 inches using a 9 or 10 inch coil, at this point you may be thinking my machine is deeper than that !, however take the same machine to a different part of the country and you may possibly achieve 12 - 14 inches, if go detecting around some parts of Northampton / Bedfordshire, the soil can be black with fine particles of iron contamination, maximum depths can be down to 4 inches.

It's all down to the soil, and in most cases not the machine, providing it is set up correctly. As a rule my formula is a 10" coil will go down 10" on an old 10 pence piece. I'm not a lover of air tests because I have found the machines that air test the best tend to loose the most performance in the soil.

Depth is only a very small part of what makes a metal detector a suitable choice, asking the question how deep will it go ? is something that can not be answered honestly, recovery speed, balance, weight, audio feedback, discrimination, sensitivity and price are all contributing factors which make up each individuals ideal machine If a machine looks cutting edge it automatically says it's deep, very much like a Ferrari looks fast even if it's parked up, but in reality you can't mess with physics.

Let's imagine a coin is in the soil, as it gets deeper the ground minerals begin to swamp the target, first producing a broken or iron signal until the target is finally consumed by the ground and nothing is heard. Mineralised soil will consume the coin much faster than milder soil, hence the different depth's achieved in different parts of the country. Some fields may only have a small patch of mineralisation, how often do you hear someone say, "there's no signals in that field", could it be because it is highly mineralised !

Can a modern digital machine overcome this age old depth problem compared to an analogue machine...I really don't know. Occasionally I use a Nautilus which originally dates back to the 80's, it looks like it was designed using a gavel and chisel but it still finds targets at the same depth a most modern machines I test, so it's really cat

amongst the pigeons time. I really enjoy using the latest modern machines with endless menu's, I think they are the future, but the future comes at a price and in all honesty I don't think at this moment in time you are buying depth !

Aaron : OK so that's put the depth theory to bed, what things would you say are important in a detector ?

Gary : One important thing is matching a machine to your site and detecting style, for example lets take a trip up North where the fields are littered with coke or coal, with most VLF machines there is every chance you will be digging these unwanted targets every few minutes as they give such a good signal, in all honesty the multi frequency machines rule in this situation because they totally ignore coke type targets, hence why the Vista Sprite has a push button coke check which makes it far more appealing to a wider range of detecting situations, the Coke check switch can also be used for park hunting and site work, but I will let you find out more when you use it.

Discrimination is also very important, to gain optimum performance your discrimination needs to be matched to the site you are on, sometimes a very fine iron rejection is required which allows the operator to find targets close to iron. A rotary potentiometer is by far the best for this situation because you can really fine tune it, where as some target id machines use a block type discrimination so you are limited to using single on screen blocks...It is really frustrating when you can not always get your perfect iron rejection setting, quite often I find my optimum setting may be 1.5 blocks which is not possible to achieve due to the single block limitations, it's one block which is to low or two blocks which is to high.

Above all I think the most important aspect about any detector is you must feel comfortable with it, if your comfortable with a machine it will inspire confidence, once you have confidence you are 99% of the way to finding those good targets.

I see lots of people using machines that are way above their technical levels, some take the time to learn them, some just battle on with factory pre sets. It goes without saying an over complicated machine will be very counter productive. I've had some of my best detecting day's with simple switch on and go machines, there is no shame in it, the real shame is not enjoying the hobby to it's full potential because you can not form a partnership with your machine.

Aaron : What advice would you give to people starting in the hobby ?

Gary : Educate yourselves about the hobby and what's expected from you as a detectorist.

In the good old days we always attended the big rally's, they were great social events, we would meet the same people from different parts of the country year after year, you really felt part of a community, it was great watching the boys getting hammered on home brew and the heated banter in the beer tent.

I am really concerned about the hobby it has really changed over the years and we need to get things back on track if we are to survive as a professional group.

Aaron : Why is that ?

Gary : For example last summer I attended an organised dig in the Berkshire area, we all lined up and waited for the whistle, when the signal sounded everyone moved off in a hail of un suppressed noise, ding dong...dding, dding, you can't imagine how bad it was....or perhaps you can.

I counted at least 20 people with no headphones wielding digging tools from garden forks to pick axes. As they walked up the field, I made my way back to the tea wagon.

Once they had cleared I ventured back onto the field only to find it looking like the battle of the Somme with open holes and iron laid on the surface everywhere.

I have seen first hand what damage a single horse shoe laid on the surface can do, I was helping a good friend with his harvest one year when a horse shoe entered the combine harvester, it flew around inside like a pin ball machine and did a lot of damage. We had to wait 5 days for a part to arrive from Germany, by the time it arrived the rain had set in for a further 7 days, so this poor bloke nearly lost his remaining crop over a single piece of iron, how do you think he feels about detectorists now.

I guess in these times of ever increasing government legislations we really need to step up and keep this hobby alive and show ourselves as responsible people, and to be fair most seasoned detectorists are. I believe we need to educate people, this includes the dealers when they sell new machines to newbie's, also rally organisers should make the rules clear before the dig.

Aaron : So lets get back to the Deeptech Vista Sprite what can you tell me about it's performance ?

Gary : Personally I'm very happy with it, the prototype unit was exactly what I asked for, it has now gone into full production. However let's be realistic about things here, I'm naturally going to sing it's praises after all its my baby. I would really like you take the machine mate and put it through it's paces and I'm sure you will give me your honest opinion.

More information can be found at www.garysdetecting.co.uk