Posted by Bob Sickler
on 9/8/2009, 10:12 am, in reply to "Re: mark1 target select adjustment"
67.250.121.76
Peter... You are welcome on the email.
The Mark I was well ahead of its time in 1985 because the genius of George Payne and fellow engineers were behind it. George holds several US Patents... "Target Identifying Metal Detector #4,677,384"; "Metal Detector System With Undesirable Target and Mineralized Ground Discrimination #4,470,015"; "Metal Detector Systems for Identifying Targets in Mineralized Ground #4,507,612; and I also think he holds the "Ground Exclusion Balance" patent as well. This could be the short list only with his days working with the original Teknetics company.
I had the honor/pleasure of talking and working with George at trying to re-package the Mark I. We were going for the digital direction like the current Teknetics series at the time, but my belief is now that the analog Mark I is still the best way to go.
You are correct, many of the knobs could be "set and forget" trim pots even with external access. But the biggest aspect of analog meter and audio circuits are the power requirements, thus the 14 AA cell compartment architecture of the old Tek cases. The Tek circuits of the time were standard "off the shelf" designed and I doubt there were any special or custom IC chips on the boards, amazing, but another reason the case was also large. The Tek Big Bud series was an attempt to scale down the architecture and power source.
All I can say is if George Payne were not part of the metal detecting community in the 80's, it might have taken a whole lot longer to have what we have today! He is what they call an "innovator"! George if you are reading this... You are also a good person as well. We all miss you and your talents.
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