Deeptech vista metal detector range | Last year Deeptech released 4 new machines | The Vista Mini, Vista Gold, Vista Relic and the Vista RG1000v2.
"The deep tech Vista Mini is best described as a low cost Relic hunter", I have been told the word "Mini" refers to the price"
Information about DeepTech Metal Detectors
Under £300
Before I start I feel it is worth mentioning something about the electronic designer and owner of the company Dipl. Eng. Plamen Rashkov.
Plamen started the company in 2003 when he designed and made deep seeking pulse detectors, in the same year these pulse machine gathered a following and the SDP-2014A was exported to the USA, in the years following, Deeptech designed pulse machines, security detectors with micro processors and LCD displays mainly for the highly demanding German market.
Due to popular demand in 2008 Plamen Rashkov designed and marketed his first VLF series of detectors.....The Vista RG750 was released.

>>> Vista Mini <<<

Vista Gold 25Khz

Vista Relic 8Khz

Vista RG 1000 12.5 Khz

DeepTech Vista Mini high performance entry level metal detector at a low price


I would describe the Vista Mini is an entry level Relic hunter
The Vista Mini is best described as a low cost Relic hunter, I have been told the word "Mini" refers to the price.
For those who are new to the hobby and looking to buy their first machine let me very briefly describe the basic differences between a Relic Hunter and a Coinshooter, although they both do exactly the same job, for the more seasoned detectorists you may want to skip this section.
Relic hunter V/s Coinshooter
The term coin shooter is possibly an American term where it is very popular to "coin shoot" in local parks or sports fields and cherry pick desired items while ignoring the trash. Coin shooters have a discrimination control and possibly a notch filter to remove unwanted targets such as foil or ring pulls. Coin shooting is not so popular here in the UK...probably because these days we are not allowed to detect on most public places, so we are forced to search mostly farmland for ancient coins and artefacts, this is where the main difference can be seen between US and UK detecting....If we were to reject ring pulls and foil we may be loosing ancient coins and small Gold as the range of metallic conductivity can be exactly the same...so to play it safe here in the UK (and possibly the rest of Europe) we only reject Iron and dig everything else.
Also Relic hunters tend to use bigger search coils of a 2D (widescan) configuration to overcome bad soil conditions, where as coin shooters prefer the concentric (polo) style coils to allow better target separation between foil and coins etc in cleaner soil.

Vista Mini controls
To keep the Vista Mini on a tight budget without loosing performance the machine has been stripped back to basics, the discrimination level has been pre-set to reject most iron but allowing foil to be detected, we have volume and sensitivity controls, a unique ground tracking system and all metal circuit. The search coil is a nice chunky 11" 2D which should give us plenty of depth. "The all new Deeptech 11 x 8 elliptical coil proved a perfect all rounder for UK conditions" and is the coil I would recommend.

Build quality
The Vista Mini has a reasonably good build quality, equally the same standards as other popular machines in it's price range, it utilises a 3 piece stem so can be packed away in a holdall, the lower stem is carbon. The search coil is very light only 500g which is quite impressive for it's size,the overall package is well balanced and has a solid feel.
Performance
I found the Vista Mini very easy to operate, the audio signal has a very sweet tone which is easy on the ears.
Beginners and novices will find this machine simple but effective, the Vista looks quite a heavy machine in the pictures, I found it extremely light and well balanced, throughout my tests I felt no need to use the arm strap while searching short pasture.
Pin pointing was very accurate a quick sweep of the target left no doubt where the centre was, deep targets gave a much softer tone, small targets near the surface sometimes gave a double bleep which made locating them a little difficult at times.
Iron identification
The Mini was very accurate, I found inconsistent signals were always iron, like all single frequency machines you will always dig a small amount of odd shaped iron and the Mini is no different, the small amount of iron I did uncover gave either a very loud signal even with the coil 12" away from the ground or a slightly clipped audio sound.
Some pieces of tissue like foil from a cigarette packet also gave a slight audio clip at the end of the sweep, so I would say the manufacturer has got the pre-set iron rejection adjusted exactly to how I would use any other machine.
Good targets were easily to distinguish because they sounded exactly the same in all metal and discrimination mode.
Tip
If you get a slightly broken signal in discrimination mode and broken in all metal mode it is worth investigating as the target may be on the detectors depth limit.
If all metal and discrim do not correspond in terms of audio signal and signal strength the target will probably be iron.
Ground Balance
This fast grab method really worked well, simply turn the sensitivity up full...hold the switch down on the spring and pump the coil a couple of times until the sound settles, let go and start searching. I found occasionally the machine became unsettled, possibly because I walked over some different type of soil.. a quick ground balance eliminated the problem straight away.
One thing worth mentioning is remember to switch the toggle into discrim after ground balancing, I found myself leaving it in the all metal position, and also remember to lower the sensitivity as it will still be on maximum.
Sensitivity
Most of the time I used the sensitivity between the 12'oclock and the 3'oclock position. Sometimes you may have to operate the machine at zero sensitivity if your ground conditions will not allow to use more, rest assured you will still maintain reasonable depths I found air testing a Victorian penny at zero sensitivity was 8" and maximum sensitivity was 13".
Headphones
I used Sprite headphones for my tests, although I didn't get the impression the Vista Mini relied on a specialist set.
If you are on a budget a cheap set of stereo backphones with a 6.5mm jack plug will work perfectly well on this machine.
Tip
The Vista is wired to accept stereo type headphones, such as Minelab or Fisher... machines such as Tesoro, Laser, Teknetics are wired for a Mono signal so make sure your metal detector headphones have a facility to accept a stereo configuration namely a reversible lead or stereo mono switch.
Battery Pack
The Mini uses 8AA batteries, good quality re chargeable units will be fine, there is no on board charger facility on this model.
To gain access to the battery compartment simply remove the small cross head screw and slide the base down, here you will find the battery pod and the PP3 clip. During my tests the cross head screw was left out without any problems I think it is just an extra security measure.


Summary
"For Under £300 the DeepTech Vista Mini is great value for money", I found using this machine on 2 different pasture site's really showed it's true potential.... I had a nice selection of targets and over 20 coins mostly Victorian. It's depth capabilities are way up there with some of the big boy's, I would even stick my neck out and say the Vista Mini is one of the best entry level machines I have used in a long time.
Running at around 9Khz it will find most targets at ease and is ideal for general inland searching, don't expect to pay £280 and think this machine will find tiny fragments of coins on an iron contaminated Roman Villa site because you will be disappointed...What the Vista Mini will do is give you a great inexpensive introduction to a fantastic hobby.
You may not be familiar with the Deeptech name, and feel more comfortable buying one of the more popular machines seen in magazines and talked about on forums, if you are new to the hobby I would suggest you start thinking about what you really want from a metal detector, ask experienced users... they will probably tell you performance and iron rejection are the 2 key features to look out for. I can honestly say from experience these Eastern European machines are sledge hammers...purely designed with depth in mind, sometimes it's good to step out of the box and see what the rest of the world have to offer.

I would like to thank Deeptech for sending the machine so quickly and well packaged, I am really looking forward to testing other machines in the Deeptech range.



This above coin gave a very clear audio signal at a depth of just over 9" (23cm) as you can see by the pictures it was virtually laying on edge.
To me this is proof that the Vista Mini has excellent depth capabilities.



Deeptech Vista Mini video
Here is a link to a short video clip, it shows how to set up the Vista Mini and will give you a good idea about it's audio sound and overall performance.

Watch video >>>

Or drop me a line if you have any questions about the Deeptech range
garysdetecting@gmail.com

How to assemble your new Deeptech Mini for the first time

Watch assembly video >>>

Deeptech vista user review by Martin Goodearl

I am writing this review as a complete novice, so please forgive me if some of the terms I refer to are a little un detector like, 3 weeks ago I had never used a machine so here is my short story based on my own introduction into metal detecting.

I have been e mailing Gary from Gary's detecting over the past weeks picking his brains as to what machine I should look for without spending a fortune my initial interest was spured on when I visited an electrical store to buy computer parts, metal detectors were on display ranging from £50 up to £150 so I figured £80 would buy me a good starter machine.
 Gary explained to me briefly about why these machines should be avoided although the information just washed over me, on my fourth e mail I could sense that I was becoming a nuisance and for my own sanity wanted to put an end to my dithering once and for all (sorry Gary).
 The final e mail said something like OK Gary tell me what machine to buy I am at your mercy, Gary explained he does not sell machines but would consider helping me out with one of his field test machines providing I wrote an honest short review about my first experiences with a metal detector.
The deal was simple I gave Gary the full retail price for the machine as a deposit just in case I vanished, after using it for 2 weeks write a review, return the machine undamaged and have my full payment refunded a free metal detector for 2 weeks what could be better.
I called in to see Gary and was offered a choice of 2 machines, the Deeptech Vista Mini and the Vista Gold, I chose the Mini as it appeared simple to operate. The detector had 3 setting controls, having a metal detector in your hand and having the features explained makes it far easier to understand the controls and their individual function. The choice between discrimination and all metal confused my slightly as my initial vision of metal detecting was to simply detect all metals. Gary commented on the subject and said if you go out and operate any machine all metal I will give you 15 minutes until you're fed up with iron then you will see how important the discrimination is.

 Up until now detecting jargon has been just cloudy information, now it was simple to understand once the machine was in my command.
After an evenings testing at home my first solo flight was in my garden as the light was fading, my concentration was limited because I could see my wife laughing at me from behind the patio windows. The machine in all metal indicated hundreds possibly thousands of audio sounds most of which all sounded the same, switching into discriminate mode cut out at least half of them so I assumed my garden had a lot of iron buried beneath the grass. This is when I learned about another valuable feature the sensitivity, as I lowered the control anti clockwise the machine became easier to interoperate with much less forced sounds and more smooth tones, that evening I uncovered my very first coin a 1926 sixpence and my very first artefact a small WWII lead toy Spitfire, I remember thinking this is fun surely metal detecting is not this easy.

It took an age for the weekend to arrive, along with 2 days of heavy rain, I already had the machine for 1 week out of our 2 week agreement I just wanted to go out and detect, thankfully the following weekend my prayers had been answered I did go out. A chap from the local pub had a small holding and paddock, he granted me permission to try the Deeptech Vista in anger for the first time.
Setting up the machine was simple, switch on,  turn the sensitivity up, hold the GND switch down with your thumb, raise and lower the coil until the signal stopped, place the GND switch to the Disc position and start searching. The machine did spit and pop so I lowered the sensitivity setting something I had learned earlier in my garden test. The hardest part of the procedure was keeping the coil parallel to the ground to maintain an even sweep technique, as the day progressed my mind was made up metal detecting was going to be my new hobby. I had a great day and found over 15 coins ranging from 1760 to modern day also some nice items, one was a silver hallmarked spoon and an engraved round cow bell the size of a golf ball.

The Vista Mini was unbelievably easy to use even for a complete novice, being my first attempt I have no idea how other machines operate, I will say to anyone reading this article and sitting on the metal detecting fence is I would highly recommend the deeptech vista mini, I can only describe this machine as a safe bet ! Metal detecting appears to be as easy or hard as you wish to make it, if in doubt don't be afraid to seek professional advice choose a machine that you can operate comfortably realistically set a minimum budget of around £300 for a machine and headphones, I used a garden trowel to dig with which was inadequate, a cut down garden spade or something with a long handle would have been better.
I now have a mountain of knowledge to gain, the video's online are very helpful, for me the Vista Mini was a fantastic companion and very eager to please.
And finally a massive thanks to Gary for allowing me the use of this machine my mind is made up Deeptech !.
Martin.