Newb Introduction

Greetings All,

My Name is Phillip and I am a newb to the site but not new to detecting. I used to be very active seeker of lost things when I was younger and had funds I could waste on my countless hobbies but that was 20 years and 3 kids ago. I am a military and college educated electronic engineering technician(Basically an over-educated electronics technician) that is no longer able to work in my field due to a back injury that I received while serving my country that has now come back to make life very miserable. I don't want to completely throw away what I have spent my whole life working on learning so I figured that I would try out this site and see if any of the kind folks on here could help me find plans so that I can build my own detector instead of shelling out money that I don't have to line someone else's pockets to buy on off the shelf detector that may or may not do what I want it to do.

I am a living historian as well as a hunter of relics from our countries turbulent past to share with the many school children that I try to teach. What I am looking for in a detector is something that will give me the ability to distinguish between the heavily mineralized soil in these great southern states and the lead of musket balls, brass buttons, steal hardware and gold and silver that might be in the ground as well. I need something that can go deep into the ground and can be used in streams as well. I can design a housing that will be water resistant and possibly water proof because I would like to search the shallow waters off of the coast of Florida for some of that Spanish gold that occasionally washes up on the beaches after bad storms next time I go see the in-laws.
Unfortunately I am not an electronics designer and I kick myself in the ass for not learning how to design the more complex circuits that are used in the high tech world but what I can do is work wonders with PIC, designing PCB's for threw hole or SMT circuits, build incredible inductors & coils, properly & thoroughly test circuit virtually and physically. I also have the skills necessary to manufacture beautiful resin or plastic covered search coils for the detector once I get a good design to work with. I've made search coils for friends in the past and built a few basic detectors for friends in the past but I've never taken the time to build what I want and right now I just don't have $3k to $5k to drop on a brand new metal detector. If anyone can help me or point me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated.
Respectively
Phillip C.

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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,16667.msg106815.html#msg106815

from Utah!
HH

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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,16667.msg106831.html#msg106831

Welcome from New Mexico!   

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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,16667.msg106927.html#msg106927

Hello from Kentucky.  I'm a newb here too, but this seems to be a great site!

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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,16667.msg107090.html#msg107090