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Sorry for delay... That's not entirely accurate. Let me explain: when going from dry sand to wet sand, the first thing you have to do if you want to work calmly is to lower your sensitivity. In that case you will have lost depth in exchange for a stable machine without false signals. Good, and now you will surely start getting in and out of the water with the coil in the Surf area... The ghost signals will return every time the coil enters and leaves the water. Solution, lower the sensitivity again. Even less depth. There, the only solution is to lower the recovery speed to the minimum to be able to recover some depth. Keep in mind that your swing will be slower in water. That's what I was trying to explain. You can also use Beach 2 and play with high sensitivities, to your liking. I prefer Beach 1. 😉

If it does suck’s I hope it will suck the coins out of the ground because I’m getting tired of having to dig them up. Chuck

Geez.. Looks like I decided at the right time to buy a Double Score. My wife wanted a detector to replace the XTerra Pro (which she too did not like). The Double Score should do 95% of what the Legend I have does without much fuss. Should be here tomorrow. It will get a fresh flash too now thanks to the update.

Gold Bug 2 will scream if this test is done. It has a non-conductive lower rod for that very reason. Any White’s Goldmaster from the GM2 on and too many others to list will all do this. All good VLF nugget detectors will pick up your hand and that is why until now they all came with no-conductive lower rods. By definition if it can’t pick up your hand it can’t detect very small gold or even surprisingly large specimen gold. It’s as much a test of small gold capability as anything else. It’s why users of these models must use a plastic scoop to recover targets. Grabbing a handful of dirt and waving it over the coil will always get a signal, nugget or not. With PI models it’s usually less an issue with directly being super sensitive, though some of the newer PI nugget models like the GPX 6000 are reaching very close to VLF type sensitivity to small gold. With PI is also becomes a concern due to the sheer power involved, especially when running large coils. Having any conductive items anywhere near the coil can be a problem with large coils. My GPX 5000 with 18” coil easily picked up anything within a couple feet of the coil, and my pinpointer was so bad I had to keep in in the top pocket of my rucksack just behind and below my neck. It should be obvious that conductive lower rods are not a great idea with high power PI detectors. Prospectors tend to favor non-conductive boots, no metal in them, for a reason,

The Triple Score is not released yet. So TBD.

Thanks Steve, my GB2 will or did before I sold it, would pick up my hand when I placed it under the coil, very sensitive.

George-----Is that on the Triple Score as well?

Minelab has been the king of this market for a long time. I was a dealer back in 2009 and Minelab was the only real viable PI on the market. I think the AlgoForce E1500 is hitting the market at a great price point that will get a VLF guy looking to get into a PI to commit. A capable PI under $2k US is what the market needs. The SDC is a great machine but $3500 US is a little steep for the weekend warrior wanting to get a PI. Yes there are plenty used Minelabs available at good prices but your not going to get a warranty. I will buy one and give it a spin here in Montana. From what everyone is saying and the video I'm seeing this machine will do just a much as the SDC in my dirt. When I was a dealer I sold Minelabs and I still continue to push them even though I'm no longer a dealer. It's good to see someone else coming into the market. If the E1500 does what everyone says it does Minelab will have some competition at a price point that they currently can't match. IF Algoforce can get them in quantity to the market. Patiently waiting

There was a big blow up over the discovery that the conductive lower rods now shipping with the Equinox 700, 900, and Manticore can be problematic for gold prospectors and maybe others. The lower rods are surprisingly conductive, and can fire off when the detectors are set in gold mode or high single frequency modes. It is not really a problem for people using modes less sensitive to tiny targets. Most coin, relic, and beach hunters are just fine. However, to make it easy I have a simple test for you. If your detector passes this test, I’m not swearing a conductive rod is not an issue. The test is very conservative in that only the hottest detectors will fail. In the case of the detectors mentioned it is dependent on your settings. What I am swearing therefore is if your detector can’t pass this test, is that you really should not be using a conductive lower rod. steveg is now working on and will have a non-conductive rod option available soon for the three detector models mentioned. I will link directly to it here when he has it for sale. I want to note that this is not really a rod problem. It’s a hot detector problem. The conductive carbon fiber rods are excellent in most applications, and it’s only when you pass a certain sensitivity threshold that they might present issues. This test applies to all detectors, PI or VLF. Official Steve H Conductive Rod Test Set your detector up with your desired settings. Be sure you are not wearing a ring or a watch, cufflinks etc on your test hand. Move your open palm directly around on the bottom of the coil. If the coil signals at all to your bare palm, then I strongly recommend you do not use a conductive lower rod with the settings you are running.

It should work great for cleaning up bedrock 😄

Adds a deep mode.

Does anyone real user who's migrated from the XTP to the XTE have any thoughts on TDI stability, depth and overall performance improvements? Worth making the XTE purchase?

Mitchel, you just need to break out the ol’ pinpointer next time… when my sons dog was a pup she swallowed a few things, one the plug end of some usb c cord. The vet said to just keep an eye out for it, I took my trx and probing around her belly I could follow it for the couple days it took.

Coil sizes for gold are a trade. Larger coils get better depth on large gold but can lose sensitivity to small gold. Small coils get better results on small gold but less depth on large gold. I see no reason to expect any different with the M8 vs M9. The M9 being round actually is quite a bit bigger in coil area than the M8. I have an M9 on the way but I doubt I will use it nugget detecting as elliptical coils are better for getting into tight spots. If I am after small gold I will use the M8 and if I was hunting larger stuff I'd just jump right to the 11" coil. I suppose you could look at the M9 as being a compromise between the two. For me it is more a beach and park coil though. This chart illustrates the adnatages of small and large coils on all detectors regardless of make. The depth etc may vary but the principle is the same. Note that a small coil can get MORE depth than a large coil, something people generally don't seem to userstand in general detecting, where larger always means more depth. Not true. Another reaon I like this chart is that it illustrates a reality of coil use for me personally. Middle coils often have middle results. I tend to always be running a very small coil, or a very large coil. My middle size coils often go unused. If I am after the smallest targets I go for the smallest coil. And when I am going after big stuff, I tend to jump up at least a couple coil sizes from the smallest. The chart illustrates this as the 10" coil actually gets the best depth on nothing. It's in theory the best all around coil though, just depends how you look at it. The M9 is possibly that best all around solution while not excelling at either end of the scale. May as well mention the M15 coil here while I am at it. If I was hunting tailing piles for lost oversize nuggets, like I did for most of my nugget hunting career in Alaska, the M15 would probably be my coil of choice. Caveat being you need medium to low mineral ground. I'd not use the 15" coil on extreme mineral ground as it will magnify the ground minerals too much. The 11" coil would be the better solution for those areas and large gold. Coil Size vs Depth Fisher Gold Bug 2 Source - Field Testing the Gold Bug 2 by Gordon Zahara

I did not discover anything. All I did was drop the bomb. Bill Southern ran into it in his video but did not figure out what the cause was. As far as I know it was Gerry's crew that pinned it on the rod. The CTX is a non-issue as your pinpointer might be going off, but the CTX itself is unaffected by the rod. It's not sensitive enough to detect carbon fiber. This is actually a hot detector issue not a rod issue. It is the same reason why prospectors have to use a plastic scoop to find small nuggets. If you grab dirt with a nugget in it and wave over the coil of less sentitive detectors, the nugget will signal. If you do the same with a good nugget detector, the detector will signal on your hand, gold in it or not. The detector is picking up the conductive salt content of your hand. Same thing going on here with carbon fiber, which also reads in the salt range. If a detector will not signal on your hand, it will probably also not have a problem with carbon fiber. If the detector is such that a plastic scoop must be used to prevent detecting your hand, you probably should not be using a carbon fiber rod. Official Steve H Conductive Rod Test Set your detector up with your desired settings. Be sure you are not wearing a ring or a watch, cufflinks etc on your test hand. Move your open palm directly around on the bottom of the coil. If the coil signals at all to your bare palm, then I strongly recommend you do not use a conductive lower rod with the settings you are running. I also have a tip for nugget hunters who are having issues with this. Depending on what you are doing, consider moderating your settings. Many modes besides Gold Mode can be surprisingly effective at nugget hunting and can also reduce or eliminate the problem. It’s a trade off, sure, but one worth considering.

I use the Beast Mode for gold prospecting, using the 2nd ground over “hot rocks” or “cold rocks”. The 1st ground is preformed over the ground. Hot rocks have a higher mineralization than ground mineralization, cold rocks have a mineralization lower than ground mineralization. This will either eliminate or break up the hot/cold rock tone. Since gold is often in highly mineralized ground the TID is depressed, not reliable and small low or mid conductive target depth is reduced to an inch or two. DT has worked for me for normal size targets with depth improvement based on ground mineralization.

Me too! Having a whole new lower shaft for every coil is so unnecessary, but undoing the bolt to release the coil from the clevis then finicking around to get the next coil mounted is such a pain in the rear end. After I upload version 1.0 to downloads, I’ll design the next version to be hot-swappable.

There are new plans and restrictions for the East Fork! https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/is-biden-s-boost-enough-to-build-new-river-access-at-overused-area-of-san-gabriel-mountains/ar-BB1o7oqd?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ASTS&cvid=c4cff6bbe71347058c25744259baf300&ei=69

Hmmmm, I delayed looking at this topic as I wasn’t interested in buying any lower rods. But finally I look and see what is being discussed. I brought this up (probably on Geotech) after getting my CTX. My carrot sounds off on the CF. No one seemed to care - there was more concern about coil cable sensitivity. It all seemed hypocritical to me. Anyway that was something like 10-12 years ago so Steve’s not the first to discover it. 🙂 My carrot is a bit flakey and sometimes unresponsive to targets so I place it on the shaft to check. Have to power cycle it to fix it sometimes.

Kumbaya. Everyone hugs around the campfire, friends again. Peace settles over the land. Calm after the storm and start of a new day.

GoodAmount, Thanks for adding some great information to this thread. I really like the short adapter you made and think that’s the future adapter for my purposes because all I really have wanted is just a short adapter on all my coils that will keep me from having to buy any extra shafts and now also be able to use my current carbon fiber shafts by just adding a short non-carbon fiber adapter.

May 1 2003 Part Two Everyone used the rest of the day to get themselves unpacked and situated at our temporary camp. At supper we started to discuss the plan for tomorrow and probably the next several days or weeks. We needed to make a trail up to the canyon entrance fit for our 4 wheelers and jeeps. It was priority number one. To top it all off, we could not use any machinery. A skid steer would have gone a long way towards building a trail but we had no formal plan of operation. This exploration was clandestine in nature and we aimed to keep it that way. Everything we do will be by hand. We needed to cut brush and use picks and shovels to make a rough trail. Several miles of it. Lucky for us Paul already had the beginnings of a walking trail in place from his years of exploration there. Every Summer for the past thirty years he had come out there and lived either in or near the canyon while he explored it. Paul had gold to show us as well as beautiful quartz crystal. Some of the quartz also had gold in it and he had done some placer mining with drywashers as well. He knew of a number of areas that produced some gold when sampled but had never found the big strike that the old timers all talked about. The lone exception was the three ounce nugget he carried around with him. We all turned in early because we knew we were in for some mighty rough work starting tomorrow. TO BE CONTINUED ...............

A "vortex" Always sucks that's what it is.. it sucks everything into the hole in the center. Maybe even your $$$ if you get within its grasp. So, don't get too close 😁

I'll add one significant point they neglected to cover in that report. Within the last year or so, tons of new sand was dumped on our beaches which redefined the term "buried treasure". Until a big storm or several of them washes away that re-nourishment project, treasure from the 1715 wrecks will be much more difficult to find. 🤨

@Digalicious That is about where I am also at this point. From my observations & understanding, both bE and dt are focused on separation of the target from the Ground response. bE as a Motion based All Metal mode basis, dt as a Motion based Tone ID/Disc mode. The bE often gives stronger audio than dt, but dt gives more audio intelligence using the available tone bin options. Two different ways to skin a cat. Either way, V1.15 is a large step up in performance on difficult targets/terrain. It is more evident/useful to me working in my mineralized red dirt sites.