Ivconic! Where is your money so far!?

[ivconic]

I miss the Off Topic part of the forum again!
Of the older members on the forum, almost everyone already knows me, more or less. And they mostly read all my "stories".
There are THREE important things in these stories, which can irritate the reader.
First: I keep boring others with stories about how I'm very experienced and how I've had a lot of detectors by now, more than anyone (maybe no more than Carl).
Second: I'm constantly "between the lines" complaining that I don't have money, I live hard, I don't have the conditions for this and that...
Three: I keep mentioning how successful I've been in my search, how I've had many valuable finds over the years!

Although all three are true; it is clear that I have bored everyone too much with frequent repetition!
I believe that many people are bored to death with it all.
And that many people wanted to ask me until now: "Man, dude, where is all your big money so far? And you always complain about something?"

Instead of explaining the reasons at length, I will answer those questions with a simple analogy story!

A sick gambler, a serious gambling addict, enters the casino and after a nights and nigts of gambling, he earns the main prize of xxxx money!
What is he doing? Is he happy? Does it stop there? Does he invest that money in smarter things?
Not! He returns again the next evening to continue gambling.
And so on, until the end of life!
The house always wins! You can't beat the house!

So Ivconic! Where is your money so far!?
Invested over the years in newer models of detectors, equipment, etc.
Trips to the sites cost money! Off-road vehicles use a lot more fuel, especially when driving off-road!
But I have a double "disease" plus!
Not only am I an avid detectorist... but I'm an equally avid electronics enthusiast!
I spend all the money I have very quickly and easily on electronics, tools, equpment, materials, etc.
There is a lot of ruined material, a lot of failures, a lot of "white smoke"...
And like any terminally ill gambler; I don't stop.
I am often in a big loss and then sell everything I bought, very often forced to sell at much lower prices.
And in my case too, the "house" always wins and it is impossible to beat the "house"!
Let this "sad" story of mine serve as a great lesson for young colleagues who are just getting into this hobby!

[ivconic]

Two childhood friends meet after many years.
One of them leads a healthy life.
The other is a crazy chain smoker.
He smokes 3 to 5 packs of cigarettes a day.
The one leading a healthy life asks the smoker, "How much does a pack of cigarettes cost?"
The smoker answers: "4-5e".
The"healthy" one asks the smoker again: "And how many years have you been smoking like that?"
The smoker replied, "About 40 years..."
The "healthy" man stops and thinks, counts in his head.
So the "healthy" finally say to the smoker:
"Wow, man! You've smoked the latest Mercedes model by now! If you hadn't smoked, if you'd put that money aside, saved up, now you could buy a new Mercedes model!!!"
And the smoker replies: "And where is your Mercedes?"

[hooby life]

I miss the Off Topic part of the forum again!
Of the older members on the forum, almost everyone already knows me, more or less. And they mostly read all my "stories".
There are THREE important things in these stories, which can irritate the reader.
First: I keep boring others with stories about how I'm very experienced and how I've had a lot of detectors by now, more than anyone (maybe no more than Carl).
Second: I'm constantly "between the lines" complaining that I don't have money, I live hard, I don't have the conditions for this and that...
Three: I keep mentioning how successful I've been in my search, how I've had many valuable finds over the years!

Although all three are true; it is clear that I have bored everyone too much with frequent repetition!
I believe that many people are bored to death with it all.
And that many people wanted to ask me until now: "Man, dude, where is all your big money so far? And you always complain about something?"

Instead of explaining the reasons at length, I will answer those questions with a simple analogy story!

A sick gambler, a serious gambling addict, enters the casino and after a nights and nigts of gambling, he earns the main prize of xxxx money!
What is he doing? Is he happy? Does it stop there? Does he invest that money in smarter things?
Not! He returns again the next evening to continue gambling.
And so on, until the end of life!
The house always wins! You can't beat the house!

So Ivconic! Where is your money so far!?
Invested over the years in newer models of detectors, equipment, etc.
Trips to the sites cost money! Off-road vehicles use a lot more fuel, especially when driving off-road!
But I have a double "disease" plus!
Not only am I an avid detectorist... but I'm an equally avid electronics enthusiast!
I spend all the money I have very quickly and easily on electronics, tools, equpment, materials, etc.
There is a lot of ruined material, a lot of failures, a lot of "white smoke"...
And like any terminally ill gambler; I don't stop.
I am often in a big loss and then sell everything I bought, very often forced to sell at much lower prices.
And in my case too, the "house" always wins and it is impossible to beat the "house"!
Let this "sad" story of mine serve as a great lesson for young colleagues who are just getting into this hobby!

Yes sthat s right . It cost me probably as much to make the detectors , and buy the equipment as I would buy three good ones .
thank you ivca for your offers

[ivconic]

I mentioned the analogy with gambling addiction.
I should have pointed out that this is the analogy that most closely describes my motivation for pursuing this hobby.
But it doesn't necessarily have to be the case with other colleagues here.
There are a dozen (more or less) professionals here for whom it is a job, for which they receive a salary and live from that job.
But I'm primarily talking about a hobby, which is different from a job.
I was into electronics long before I first encountered metal detectors. The basis of my work then was radio telecommunications.
After all, that's what I was trained for.
But life circumstances and objective events often influence the choices a person makes and the changes that occur in life.
So the road took me to a completely different side, something that I could not even dream, plan or even think about.
In life, you are forced to do what you can do to make a living and support your family.
So dealing with metal detectors started as an additional activity to earn some money.
For several years now, I have not been doing metal detectors as a primary business for a living. Because that story ended in these circumstances.
But "love" and urge, habits, way of thinking remained...
I owe a lot to this forum for my unplanned additional and extended interest in metal detectors.
So I guess those habits will follow me to the end.
And anyone who has even seriously tried to deal with this; knows that this is a very expensive hobby.
If you are not a professional who is directly involved in the industry and makes a living from it; then you are a very dedicated hobbyist for whom all this costs quite a bit.
The state of the forum, increased or decreased activity, the influx of new members, the departure of old members... all this indirectly shows the state of the hobby itself.
The admins will know this better than I do, I haven't followed the stats regularly, but the "golden years" are long gone.
As for me personally, that period, the best period for dealing with this was somewhere between 2004 and 2012.
From 2012, the start of a visible variation, but things are still going until 2016/7. Then slowly things start to decline.
And the covid era has definitely changed things. And the current turbulence in the world has additionally stopped everything.
This is all true of what I observe. It doesn't mean that others see things the same way.
In addition to objective circumstances that have nothing to do with the topic of metal detectors, there is also one change that has direct connections.
And that is the complete transition to the digital domain, which was enabled by the development of technology and the drastic cheapening of that technology.
And of course the competition that must be followed in order to survive in that world.
I often noticed and wrote about something and everyone else did not want to comment on it.
And that is a visible lack of inventiveness since the transition to the digital domain.
Is this because everything possible has already been achieved in the digital domain... or is the stagnation simply due to a lack of inventiveness... I'm not sure what the real reason is.
But everything was much more fun before when the projects were largely analog.
We "played" and had a lot more fun then.
And the industry was much more interesting.
And today... a rather disappointing state of affairs in that field. Almost all new detector models are very similar to each other. As if they come from the same "kitchen".
And the reason is clear; the digital domain always leads to the same outcome.
You have the coil, the signal from the coil and a detailed analysis of that signal.
A bunch of digital filters that you may or may not use in the processing of that signal.
And that is that.
How to come up with something new in that situation? How to make things interesting again?
The limitations that existed in the past with the analog domain are generally not completely overcome even today with the digital domain.
Only the problem has been mitigated to a great extent, but it still exists.
Essentially, no solutions have been found for the complete removal of those restrictions.
Greater depths, masking problem and 100% reliable discrimination, i.e. 100% reliable recognition of the material on the target.
In these aspects, not much progress has been made in the past decades.
I know that many will be surprised (perhaps angry) by these statements of mine... but I have been in this for many years and as someone who uses detectors I have a really vast experience.
Sites that I have been visiting for decades also serve as a perfect reference for comparing progress with new technologies.
The problems I had on those sites 35 years ago... I still have them today.
Although in the meantime I brought dozens of different and "better and better" models to those sites.
The gains are very small, often insignificant.
And the total costs of the whole story are getting higher and higher.
A perfect analogy with gambling addiction. At least in my case.