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VLF Detector Wars In Gold Canyon (Where There Is No Gold)


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Through a bunch of "horse trading" I ended up with a flock of VLF gold detectors and have played with them extensively on my property here. The soil is moderately mineralized and well supplied with hot rocks, cold rocks, nails, bottle caps, cartridge cases, shotgun shell bases, air rifle pellets, lead and jacketed bullets and countless fragments of both.

I claim no objective truths arrived at, just relating what I liked and had confidence in and what I didn't.

An original Lobo went early, the audio was just too week and the depth in discriminate was pretty poor, spoiling it as a dual purpose detector.

A GMT was the next victim, it wasn't as sensitive as my Goldmaster 4b and I just couldn't warm up to it.

A Lobo Super Trac was tempting but the auto only GB and weak discriminate function made it a gold only machine. A friend admired it and it has a new home.

I'm now down to four finalists.

The GM 4b is a chest mount and I like its sensitivity to both 1 grain and below fragments and it's depth on larger stuff. I have the regular 6x10 and the large GoldMax coils (both concentric). I will probably hang on to it for meteorites at least because it is easy to swing.

My Gold Bug 2 has amazing sensitivity and I am convinced that it will find crumbs better than anything else - besides, I got a smoking deal on it from a Pawn Shop and think I'd better keep it.

My MXT is a great machine and I am impressed with it's depth with the 6x10 DD coil. It seems to be smoother and just as deep in discriminate as in All Metal (although it doesn't ID to anywhere near that depth). It is much heavier than the next detector however and I probably will sell it on soon.

Last of all, I got a GB Pro, mainly after reading TrinityAU's posts about it. I think if I had to keep only one VLF for gold, it would be this one. I was confused at first why the main display in all metal was the continuous GB reading, but I am now understanding how that helps me know when to grab a GB fix and also how hot and cold rocks affect the GB reading vs how metallic targets like gold, lead, etc do so.

The next phase of detector wars - Pulse Induction - starts next week when the ML SD2100 I just bought shows up. I was looking for a GP 3000 when a deal too good to pass up on a hardly used SD2100 with 3 coils popped up. It will face off with my Whites TDI which I have had for a while. That part of the program will have to be done somewhere else since the EMI here is really bad and the TDI hates it here - the Sd2100 no doubt will as well.

Of course any sensible person would ask why I'm not out looking for gold instead of digging up my 3 acres
here in Gold Canyon (where there is no gold). Good question. I hope to remedy that deficiency in a week or so since I just joined a local club with many claims here in AZ.

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Interesting that you are having problems with EMI on the TDI.  That's the one thing I noticed right off the bat when using it, that it hardly ever has problems with that.  I can use it anywhere in town with no problems, whereas with the Minelab, I have to go 5 miles out of town before it begins to settle down.

 

Digger Bob

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The TDI problem is the warble threshold. Since it is worse sometimes than others! I chalk it up to EMI.

Our neighborhood has all electric lines underground - don't know if that is part of it or not, also a cluster of cell towers nearby. All the VLF machines have problems at high gain as well. I really need to head into the desert a few miles and check it out. I am not carrying my cell phone or anything like that!

Twenty detectors have come and gone in 2013 and there are nine still in the herd. My goal is to get down to four or five, but it's tough!!! My transactions have been guided by some advice that a guy on 60 minutes got decades ago when interviewing an 87 year old woman who was the "Furniture Quuen of Omaha" or some such thing. She said "You gotta buy good and you gotta sell cheap". She also said "...and never forgive and forget" - but I ignore that part of the advice.

Here's a list of the "transients"

Tesoro

Inca

Sidewinder (nice little machine - the instruction book included how to open it up and set the GB and Threshold trimmers - Rusty Henry at Tesoro didn't believe me when I told him that)

Eldorado

Lobo

Lobo ST

Golden Saber (original - used this in Norway for a few years, then sat in the closet)

Whites

Classic II SL

IDX Pro (with Mr. bill's mods for threshold and GB- kept a similar Classic III)

XL Pro (neat, but just too heavy)

Goldmaster 3 (got talked out of this one, should have kept it)

Goldmaster 4b (pole mount)

GMT

Coinmaster GT (bought it to have something to hook a Prizm Bigfoot coil up to)

Compass

AU-52 (bad coil)

Gold Scanner Pro (this one recovered a $15,000 antique ring at a beach in Oman - the owners were very pleased - a kiss from the lovely lady and a bottle of excellent single-malt Scotch from the husband)

x-100 (hip mount)

77b

Pirate Pro

Gold Bug 2 (bought two and kept the one Imliked the best)

Fisher 1235X (had it for years and gave it to my brother in law)

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