Jack Roach, inventor, his personal unit???

[Melbeta]

Not only an oldie, but a rare oldie. In mint condition. Dual coil. Picks up ferrous in one coil, picks up non-ferrous in the other coil. Target ID by meter reading. Was a unit before VLF came out. Also before TID came out.

Jack Roach was a Rocket engineer with the US government. Roach made some earlier detectors out of his home. Then he contracted with Semtech, to have Semtech make the units. In the meantime George Payne came with his VLF ground cancel invention, and Semtech only sold a few of the units, and pulled them off the market. I believe this particular model was a "presentation case" given by Semtech to Jack Roach, as the FIRST Semtech model produced, as Semtech began to tool up for production... A few models got out to the magazines for field tests, beyond that, I am not aware of the models out in the public domain.

The unit even has the rare earphones and the even rarer sales flyer.

Who was this mysterious Mr Roach? Here this impressive person is:
"Mr. Roach has 30 years of experience in the following areas: missile defense, space surveillance, missile warning, missile crew operations, space and missile intelligence collection, development and implementation of Emergency War Orders, battle staff, nuclear positive control and coded switch programs, space launch, spacecraft command and control, mission planning, operational concept development, project management, requirements definition, system integration, test methodology development, test planning, test conduct, system evaluation, configuration management, software development, program advocacy, budgeting and programming, and Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD) oversight of Space, Helicopter, and Ballistic Missile Defense programs."


Melbeta

[Chiv]

Saw this Jack Roach post and spark my interest an new a Jack Roach who was a prospector, and thought may be same bloke until I started to read. you know some people and don't know there back ground to well and the Jack Roach I knew was a hermit type of bloke that love to find gold. Some of the old prospectors that I have come across have history that comes out over a few beers with a camp fire and you would not pick their back ground to what they say, many are from highly stressful jobs that burnt them out. This Jack Roach you have posted about sounds like a real thinker, a very nice old school shape detector

[homefire]

No Card Board Box ? LOL

[Melbeta]

Chiv
I see you are out in the Gold nugget country of Western OZ. I too used to hunt for gold nuggets. Yes, he was a real thinker. Got his first electronics training in Northern Colorado. In order to separate out the ferrous from the non-ferrous, inside that coil housing, he had to really be thinking. He wanted some way of Identification of ferrous from non-ferrous. Now if the VLF's had not come up, who knows what he would have come up with.

When the VLF's came out, he probably thought "The hell with it", and walked away. He had more ahead of him then he walked away from. The VLF that GEorge Payne came up with put the BFO companies, and the straight TR companies, out of business.
Melbeta

[Melbeta]

Semtech, back then, was no slouch as an electronic parts manufacturer...........

No Card Board Box ? LOL

The two field tests, showed that the Jack Roach machine had real good promise. But when VLF's came out, the market would be different after that. Now I was not a Semtech dealer, but I predict that they shipped basic machines out in cardboard boxes. This Jack Roach machine came out well before the Semtech machine came out. Semtech came out with their more modernized version of the older Jack Roach design, with space age electronics in 1974. It caught my attention. It even caught the attention of Compass Electronics.

Now remember, this new Semtech machine, differentiated between ferrous and non-ferrous, INSIDE THE COIL itself, not in the detector electronics. Therefore depth of detection was not hindered. The front coil (forward coil) was the non-ferrous coil. The rear coil was the ferrous coil. So you looked at the meter, the meter reading told you WHICH COIL the target was under. Each coil had an opening in the center of the coil. So it the meter said it was non-ferrous, you put your digger over that hole, moved the coil, and dug up the target.

But the new Whites Electronics COINMASTER V SUPREME, went so deep, it even found rust! In fact, guys had to dig so deep, they complained to Whites. So in 1976, when Whites came out with the new model, it had not only TR discrimination, Whites had SCALED BACK the sensitiveness of the machine.

By the year 1977, Semtech and Jack Roach, saw the hand writing on the wall, and the Semtech/Roach detector was pulled off the market. Even in Compass and at Garretts, they were testing their own versions of the new White's VLF machine. And during this time period, Compass was testing their own COIN MAGNUM model. Garrett found out about the forthcoming Coin Magnum, and created his own version, which he was testing up in the Pacific Northwest...
Melbeta

[dbanner]

HOLY DIVER, MAN! IS THERE ANYTHING YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT HISTORY OF METAL DETECTOR?

[Melbeta]

HOLY DIVER, MAN! IS THERE ANYTHING YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT HISTORY OF METAL DETECTOR?

Dbanner
As far as American metal detectors, I was in the right place at the right time, for a lot of it... And I saw, I watched, I participated, and I asked, and I used a lot of them, but as far as foreign metal detectors, I had no interest in them. I could answer your question with "not much" but then that would not be really true, as I go on in life, I learn all the time more about what I thought I knew.

I write booklets too, been doing this for years and years. My booklets are collectables, and rare book dealers try and sell them for large prices on Amazon, Google, and Yahoo. What I wrote and sold years and years ago, for $4.95, they are trying to see for $700 to $800. So my material is either really really good, or they are really really greedy...

Oh, on your electric chair icon, I met a young guy during the winter of 1957, I was kind to him. Later on he went on a rampage, killing people, and they caught him, prosecuted him, and put him in the electric chair, and ended his life that way. His name was Charles R. Starkweather, and Hollywood made a movie about him. He was a mass killer of people.
Melbeta

[Melbeta]

Figure 8 coil????????????????????

I have been reading and analyzing the Norm Pflaum PRG unit, which he sold to Technos, and the Jack Roach unit, and the Compass Coin Magnum, and I believe there is some similarity back and forth there.

Jack Roach was a NASA engineer before he went into U.S. Govt space rocket work. PRG was also working for NASA. Jack Roach was from California, and Norm Pflaum was also from California. Hmmm!

I have no idea if Roach told Pflaum about his work, or if Pflaum told Roach about his, or if they worked together in California somewhere. There definitely is some strange coincidence with what they did though.

Then Roach set up Roach Electronics, inserted his display adv in June 1974, it hit the magazines in the Aug-Sept issues. I have a copy. Next PRG advertised in Western-Eastern magazine, also in 1974, Did you notice what I just said? Both put full page advertisements, of their own metal detectors, in treasure magazines, in the same year!!!!

Yep, same year! Both worked for NASA... Coincidence? You tell me.

However PRG used their coil as a Co-Axial operating as a Gradiometer. Roach's coil, I do not have a wiring arrangement, but it seems to be some kind of a dual concentric coil, with two separate centers. In fact, in the field test by Semtech, they described the coil windings, and darn if it does not sound more like a FIGURE 8 winding!!!!! I have the book, "Inside The Metal Detector", written by Carl Moreland and George Moreland, and in this book, they describe the layout and how the two separate Figure 8 windings work, and it sounds exactly like Read the field test (clip) on the Figure 8 Semtech (Roach) coil for yourself!


So what would happen, if a guy took a Semtech metal detector, and hopped that detector up, so it went really really deep? Well, you would have a PRG on steroids, but with a coil that separated out the ferrous targets from the non-ferrous targets, WITH A BETTER METER!!! A meter that reads out the numbers... With better balance, with a arm balance cup. And what if someone put in a new smaller board, using SMD small parts? WITH ground cancel? Maybe even TID? And NO MOTION like Compass Coin Magnum? Another thought! Since a ferrous target fully saturates the meter at 100, why not have the back (ferrous) coil use an LED to light up when a ferrous target is found or when the meter hits 100? It would be like a TID only using a LED light! Maybe tone ID?

And I believe there is an actual Jack Roach (Semtech model) in a beautiful wooden case, out there somewhere. Such as this one:


Now both Roach and PRG, used the coils to separate ferrous targets from non-ferrous targets. That is the coincidence that one cannot deny. It is in each of their full page advertisements... Yep! Each mentioned it in their own respective full page advertisements!!! I HAVE both full page advertisements.........

But there was one difference. Norm Pflaum went for a patent, but Roach did not. Norm Pflaum filed for a patent on July 30th, 1974. Does the thought that both of these fellows might have worked together at NASA, yet each was working on his own circuit designs??? I have no idea, but the thought sure runs through my mind.

Roach contracted with Semtech to come out with a redesigned Roach detector in 1976, but he made 50 units in his home, and was selling them in I think that Roach had secured a very very important job with the U.S. Government at this time, and he did not have time to fool around with any more metal detectors. How do I know this? By a resume... Here it is:
Quote:
"SAIC
Mr. Roach has 30 years of experience in the following areas: missile defense, space surveillance, missile warning, missile crew operations, space and missile intelligence collection, development and implementation of Emergency War Orders, battle staff, nuclear positive control and coded switch programs, space launch, spacecraft command and control, mission planning, operational concept development, project management, requirements definition, system integration, test methodology development, test planning, test conduct, system evaluation, configuration management, software development, program advocacy, budgeting and programming, and Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD) oversight of Space, Helicopter, and Ballistic Missile Defense programs.

Mr. Roach received his MS in business from University of Northern Colorado in 1979 (Greeley, Colorado). He received a BS in biology from Arizona State University in 1975. He was granted the Air War College Outstanding Graduate (Seminar) in 1993 and is a certified acquisition professional, level III."
UnQuote:

But by then George Payne, with Whites Electronics, had the Coinmaster V Supreme come out, and its depth destroyed both PRG and Roach/Semtech detectors. And Whites made their V Supreme discriminate with the main TR circuits in the 1976 version, and the destruction was final. The 1975 Coinmaster V Supreme was going deeper then the PRG and the Semtech versions, and GROUND CANCELLED THE MINERALS. That was the finale!

Now after this posting, I think there might be some comment...
Melbeta