Question For J. P. - Zed 19" Skidplate & The GPS

[Steve Herschbach]

Nobody would believe them if they did. There are still people that think the GPS beams the nugget coordinates straight to Minelab HQ.

[Jonathan Porter]

20 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Looks like I will be the only person using that built in GPS from here on out! 

Hi Steve, I still use my inbuilt GPS and at times I also use the bread crumb trail. In the past if I've left the bread crumb trail on I've noticed a sluggishness to the menu selections which I've attributed with memory usage and as you have noticed sometimes you need to offload data once the memory becomes full. Perhaps a dedicated regime of data dumping before the memory gets too full should become a part of our work flow?

I'm not saying for one second users should not use the inbuilt GPS but instead pay attention to detector behavior and offload your data periodically. I don't think the memory usage affects performance other than perhaps causing the GUI to slow down a little once memory resources start to approach the full mark. Keep in mind my role is to fine tooth comb these sorts of things, most people would most likely not even notice and call it nit picking.

For perspective in terms of impact on your detecting, the GPS has a lot less of an impact than when the WM 12 audio drops out.

Hope this helps clarify my meaning.

JP

[Steve Herschbach]

I certainly would not notice menu sluggishness. Most of my GPZ detecting boils down to turn detector on, start GPS tracking, go detecting, turn detector off. I love it when detectors save settings!

[madtuna]

What advantage does the inbuilt GPS have over a normal stand alone GPS like the little Garmins etc that most of us probably carry?

I've never used the inbuilt one

[Steve Herschbach]

The big difference for me is I use the screen and tracking function in lieu of chaining. Chaining is not practical or does not work at all in some places I detect. I just use the screen and build a pattern, filling in the pixels on screen. I of course eyeball and walk a line as best I can, but the screen alerts me to missed areas.

More importantly, I can reload an area I hunted two years ago, and just take up where I left off.

The system does let you also not only mark finds but record weight and depth.

It is far from a perfect system but it works for me.

GPS and GPZ

[madtuna]

many thanks! Might have a play with it and probably should RTFM

[Mike54]

G'day guys,

I used mine for the first time in WA last year, as I was working a patch that I had just discovered and I was using it as Steve said as a gridding device as I don't use a chain. I was marking each find and then trying to fill in the gaps as I slowly gridded the area.  I mainly use a small GPS/Backtracker in case I get disoriented to find my way back to camp/vehicle.     I did find the built in GPS handy for the above gridding ect. 

Cheers. 

Mike. 

[Steve Herschbach]

It is interesting watching a pattern develop on screen as I mark finds. I never chain myself - very few people do in the U.S. I mentioned that more as an Aussie reference. If anything I just scuff the ground with my boot. In the high Sierra country in particular the mountainous terrain makes it very easy to miss places. The only problem up there is the tall tree canopy in some places will cause a lot of GPS drop outs. It still works well enough in most places to be an aid.

[flakmagnet]

Opinion only of course, but I simply do not understand Minelab's decision to put such a clunky gps into the 7000. Why bother? It would not have taken much more engineering to include a really good gps system, but barring that, it seems so haphazard and almost lazy to go half 'way. I love the 7000 but the gps is silly. 

[mn90403]

1 minute ago, flakmagnet said:

Opinion only of course, but I simply do not understand Minelab's decision to put such a clunky gps into the 7000. Why bother? It would not have taken much more engineering to include a really good gps system, but barring that, it seems so haphazard and almost lazy to go half 'way. I love the 7000 but the gps is silly. 

I'm not familiar with a lot of GPSs.  Which one do you prefer?

Mitchel