GEN 1 Night Vision

[workinwifdakids]

Bushnelll has what looks to be a good thing going for <$300 in their Equinox line. Anyone tempted to get into the NV game just for the GEN 1 equipment? What's your opinion and experience?

[Yogimus]

Gen 1 is trash. Too much bloom, too heavy, and eats batteries. Not bad for a novelty, but would not use it for business.

[Termite]

What Yogi said. Get at least Gen II.

[Yogimus]

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/ga ... ision4.htm

[Jericho941]

Gen 1 is trash. Too much bloom, too heavy, and eats batteries. Not bad for a novelty, but would not use it for business.

Relevant?

[Kommander]

Gen 1 is trash. Too much bloom, too heavy, and eats batteries. Not bad for a novelty, but would not use it for business.

Relevant?

To be fair the stuff given to Sam Fisher isn't going to be the same as what is generally issued to the military.

[Cybrludite]

Buddy of mine got his hands on a set of Soviet-issue Gen-1 NVGs, and reported the toy ones he got at Wal-Mart worked better, and that the illuminator for the active IR side of the device glowed very visibly in the red spectrum.

[Aesop]

I bought a similar item back in the day for use down on the border, notably devoid of outside illumination, and also from Bushnell.

Absolute and utter P.O.S., and waste of money!
Returned for full refund within 48 hours.
(Full disclosure: it worked pretty well, almost as good as nothing other than eyes, when one used a 10,000,000 CP visible-spectrum floodlight. No, really, true fact. I deduced the best way to see at night with it would be to wrap it in gasoline-soaked rags, light it, and hurl it towards what you want to see. Personally, I wanted to do that with the product development team from Bushnell too, at that point. Naturally, it's of limited - one use - utility, and rather hard on the brush thereabouts, but it was the best use of the product I could deduce, other than ramming up the @$$ of the president of Bushnell on the end of a rhinoceros horn helpfully still attached to the charging rhino. Would that such wishes could come true.)

I can't remember anything else I've taken back for a refund in the last 30 years. It was that bad.

For anyone inclined, write this down on your hand: $300 night vision will be every bit the equal of a $30 handgun, in every parameter of performance.
What you're getting is exactly that extra "0" at the end of the price you're not paying.
Business Economics 101 FTW.

There is therefore no such thing as "Gen 1", official definitions be damned.

There is Gen II and better, which denotes stuff that actually works to some militarily useful modicum of utility (I've used milspec Gen II, II+, and III for real), and there is what, in a sane world, would be described as "obnoxious assrapery of customers, to a level of sheer fleecing that would stupefy P.T. Barnum, awe gypsy fortune-tellers, and should occasion tarring and feathering, death by bufu, and being drawn and quartered whilst still alive, in that order, and then soul-searching community town meetings on whether or not to do the same to the manufacturers' and sellers' immediate family, just on general principles".

That phrase is abbreviated in product descriptions as "Gen I night vision".

That is all.

[workinwifdakids]

(Full disclosure: it worked pretty well, almost as good as nothing other than eyes, when one used a 10,000,000 CP visible-spectrum floodlight. No, really, true fact. I deduced the best way to see at night with it would be to wrap it in gasoline-soaked rags, light it, and hurl it towards what you want to see. Personally, I wanted to do that with the product development team from Bushnell too, at that point. Naturally, it's of limited - one use - utility, and rather hard on the brush thereabouts, but it was the best use of the product I could deduce, other than ramming up the @$$ of the president of Bushnell on the end of a rhinoceros horn helpfully still attached to the charging rhino. Would that such wishes could come true.)

I can't remember anything else I've taken back for a refund in the last 30 years. It was that bad.

You missed your calling writing Hallmark cards.

I wanted it for much the same reason you bought yours. I don't need any more than "movement of human-like figure at 100 yards," but it sounds like it won't even do that! If so, how do they get away with it? Ugh - I am NOT spending $1k or more, but I'm not going to buy trash, either.

I can only imagine your scenario, though: "Jesucristo, amigos! Estan hasta AQUI con los coyotes!" "Como sabes?" "Pues..." /ironically-timed volley of shitty gear engulfed in flames lights up the night sky like a scene from Monty Python/

[tcourtplayer]

So as a follow up, what manufacturers out there are worth looking at for ndv scopes?