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Thank you very much! I think that should work perfect.

The ever so resourceful Ukrainians have them for sale on Ebay at this link.

Hmm mr @phrunt any ideas where I can get a waterproof plug from? Still struggling to find one

Thank you everyone for the advise. I ended up returning the machine altogether as there were too many issues. It was bought from a pawn shop via eBay auction. When I received it, it was nothing like the photos. Broken handle, broken screen, shredded power, rusted screws, broken coil cables, missing speaker bracket, no headphones, and missing battery cover for the amp. All was replaceable and I could still justify it for the price I paid but the screen was the tipping point.

Thank you everyone for the advise. I ended up returning the machine altogether as there were too many issues. It was bought from a pawn shop via eBay auction. When I received it, it was nothing like the photos. Broken handle, broken screen, shredded power, rusted screws, broken coil cables, missing speaker bracket, no headphones, and missing battery cover for the amp. All was replaceable and I could still justify it for the price I paid but the screen was the tipping point.

Well I spoke too soon. I tried to cut and paste about 60gb of videos from my old hard drive to my new one and it just stopped after 30gb and the other 30gb simply disappeared. Still have a couple of good days of video but there's 1 really good clip I'm sad about losing. Oh well. Another video hopefully coming out today - I've been waiting to head back there with the drone to put some footage of the area in my video 🙂

And here is the second video on V1.15 that covers be :Beast Mode",

Here is the first of 2 videos I did on the new V1.15 update. This one focuses on the dt feature.

With the coil selection, the eTrac was always my favorite coin detector on land...excluding beach hunting. The only time I preferred the CTX was for the saltwater beach. I did however, like the balance of the CTX better.

I’ve owned and liked them both. The CTX brought a few more bells and whistles to the table for sure. Though I never really used things like the GPS, I did appreciate the improved screen, Target Trace and separation modes. Even though it was still heavy, I liked the ergonomics of the 3030 better. Especially the trigger style pinpoint button. I still prefer the flutey tones of the Etrac.

I am afraid that in addition to a supply problem of the first batches, it was a clever maneuver to collect all available coils bit by bit. If you do the math right, you reach almost double the price of the detector itself, excluding the M11 with which it comes.

NOT IN THE JOURNAL : Sometimes at night on that 2003 mining season Clay would open up two beers at a time and use both hands to drink them. He'd alternate his chugs between hands and could have two beers gone in a couple of minutes. Then he'd open up two more. I saw him nearly finish off an entire case one night but usually he was ready to work the next day. As long as we kept him out of the whisky he was fine.

May 7 2003 A Hungover Crew And Beer Guzzling Clay I had a restless sleep last night. I am worried about what the crew may be getting themselves into. Last night at the campfire Paul and the crew were getting into the whisky pretty hard. Even Jacob had one too many I think. Paul started going on about how we should expect trouble this Summer. He said there would no doubt be bad people coming in and out of Dreamwind. He seemed certain and I didn’t like the sound of it. I’d seen enough trouble last year to last me a lifetime. We got a late start to working because the crew was hung over from all the heavy drinking. The temperatures today got hot and Clay and Conor got sick. They were holding their heads and puking all afternoon. We called it a day well before dusk and went back to camp. Jacob had canned stew and hotdogs cooking. Clay ate some of the stew and started hollering about it being bad. He said it tasted spoiled or overcooked. This set old Jacob off and he told Clay to shut his mouth and either eat it or get the hell away from his camper where he had everything set up on a table. Clay took his plate of food and tossed it in the garbage. Then he proceeded to do what he liked the best - drink beer. He was pounding them down and we all started to have a good laugh. Even Jacob was laughing. We told Jacob his supper tasted mighty good. Then Clay started to laugh and he apologized to Jacob saying he was just hung over and his stomach was jumpy. As soon as he had guzzled down a few ice cold beers his mood changed and he became jovial. Everyone turned in early except for Clay who must have sat up into the late hours of the night because I counted fourteen beer bottles by his camp chair and he was still sitting in it sleeping when I got up at 5:00 AM. TO BE CONTINUED ...............

ps- you can't judge the popularity or usefulness of a detector, or anything else for that matter, by how many people post on a website message board. all boards have become someone more obscure as years go by, as the younger generation only uses Facebook, Twitter, X, etc. social media. same thing is happening to Craigslist. it's dying out because everyone posts classifieds on Facebook Marketplace. if White's activity is falling off on one site, that just means that particular site is becoming more obscure with time. it's not a reflection of the detector per se. in general ALL message boards have less traffic regardless of what they cater to. '57 Chevy posts are becoming less frequent too. that doesn't mean they're not highly desirable or valuable.

I agree, White's is far from dead. the namesake just went into stealth mode, the secondary and collectors market, just like Pontiac, Olds, Plymouth, Mercury old cars, and old firearms that are no longer made. proof; the Grave Digger i.e. White's 808 on Ebay sold already. my battery of White's detectors can find anything in the range I can practically want to dig, i.e. down to a foot deep or so, I'm using the last 2 analog detectors they made 5900 and 6000 XL PRO. the depth hit comparisons being made are merely academic. it's all in the settings with a digital detector especially. what new detector can find something 6 feet down like that White's 808 that just sold ? none ! the reality is, these consumer detectors are all limited in power allowed by law, for health protection reasons. the differences between them all in the same price range are going to be very slight to none. the number of 12" and deeper relics, coins being found by any detector is the minority of items being found. most are 6" or less deep. a 50 year old Whites can find 80%-90% of the items in a virgin undetected site. especially if the user digs every hit. I had brand new XLT, MXT, DFX detectors at one time, all 3 from a dealer closeout at cost. at the time the XLT found the most stuff- using an online program someone put up, with one of the settings cranked to 100. can't remember is it was ground balance, or ? what setting. but that's the setting that nailed the mercury dime a foot down. I sold every one anyway. at the time I just could not justify the cost and investment. we don't have enough sites to detect in our area to make it worthwhile.

In my use of both the CTX (borrowed a friends) and Etrac, I didn't find any significant difference in depth or target I.D. Having come from an Explorer with compatible coils, it was an easier transition to the Etrac. CTX has a lot more bells and whistles, but, other than the target trace and extra water resistance, I didn't see the extra $1000 in value (plus the extra expense of other coils), so, I went with the Etrac. It's a wonderful machine and found me lots of goodies over the years. If it was waterproof and lighter, I might still be using it. It's target I.D. is still better than the 800 and 900. Depth is too close to call in good ground. In bad or sketchy ground the Nox's are better.

The thing that just perked up my ears about the E-Trac was no chip, and sure enough because of this you can buy the full Nel range of coils for it, and even Detech have their 13" Ultimate, one of my favourite coils ever. I'm annoyed now, I could have had an E-trac a few months ago for $368 USD, it had some damage to its coil cable with electrical tape over the splitting, but I could have fixed that, and I'd buy aftermarket coils anyway. I didn't even blink at it thinking I had the far superior CTX and the aftermarket coils I wasn't aware of either. Damn it.

Having the 6000 so automated may turn out to be a smart decision for them, it sold like hot cakes being the new kid on the block with high small gold sensitivity and now they can release a GPX 7000 in the future with all the configuration options back again and market it like it's for professional prospectors. The 6000 is very big box no dealer friendly though, that's a very good point Jason, I find these days detectors like the CTX, Equinox and Manticore are just as difficult to learn as the earlier GPX series, have plenty of options and configuration changes to enhance or reduce performance should you get it wrong. The GPZ is certainly no harder to understand all its settings than an Equinox, probably easier. They're dumbing down the gold detectors while making the general-purpose VLF's harder to use and understand, maybe they think the gold detector demographic would benefit from easier to use detectors 🙂 The reality is they were designed around the African gold rush, these people don't care about settings, they want to get out there and get the gold quick, it's not a hobby, it's an income that puts food on the table, and a table there in the first place. That's why the 6000 and GM1000 were easy to use, not a big box store plan.

Thanks for the link Steve. So per Minelab the Smart Coils and the advanced electronics in the CTX (what ever that may be) allow for more "advanced signal analysis for more accurate detection" I think "Accurate detection" are the key words there...If Minelab could make a faster and more accurate at depth CTX replacement I would put myself on that wait list...certainly the manticore is fast and deep enough it just lacks the accuracy of the CTX... Since I've never used a E-trac I'm wondering how the depth and Accuracy of that machine was compared to the CTX seems they were both operating in the same frequency range. strick

It is not impossible that competition has broken the back of Minelabs ability to charge ever higher prices. $10,000 GPZ and $2500 CTX, maybe those days are gone. Or are they? Gold prospectors in particular would probably line up to spend $12,000 for a detector that proveably goes just one inch deeper than a GPZ on sizeable gold, especially if you toss in ferrous discrimination. What will it take to get people to drop $2500 into a new coin detector now, given where we are with the Deus 2 and Manticore in particular? I'm a little more doubtful there, but there is a contingent of people that like owning stuff just because others can't afford it or refuse to spend money on it, so you never know. CTX 4040 with Multi-IQ FBS 3 would probably sell based purely on the number of people who constantly bring up wanting a replacement. If for no other reason that it is new and we do like our new stuff.

Thanks Ron, I read that thread in its entirety, So the Elite is a very old coil, and not an Elite as we now know it today, an Extra Lite coil, E-Lite. Not Elite as in modern spiral coil, and the DD Pro Elite suits the GP/SD series not ideal for the GPX really showing its age. So why on earth is a dealer selling them new this far in the future? Super old stock obviously. They should be declaring their designed purpose and detector compatibility and pointing out they're not a modern elite series coil. It's coil cables probably half broken down by now like some of the older Coiltek coils did.

I just think it's odd a top of the line detector would get coils discontinued for it, the only reason would be they're no longer selling. Checking local dealer stock and you can't even buy a CTX anymore without a special order although they have it on sale, you save an entire buck! I know nothing about the E-trac, never used one and know nothing of the debates around it, but it's always the same rodeo, the Manticore comes out the Nox owners are trying to justify the purchase and decide if its different enough to need it, the GPX 6000 came out and the GPZ and prior GPX owners are trying to justify needing it or not and comparing it to their machines, now I'm seeing modded old GPX's that appear equal to the 6000 on small gold and prickly gold so who knows, it just goes to show how close the older models really are to the newer models sometimes and like Steve did with the Etrac / CTX there with the key technologies lookup there was no real new key technologies there on the GPX's in relation to performance either. I just like the CTX works so ever well for me in my soils, as I've never used the older models I don't miss things about them, I'm probably one of the few that likes its in the GPZ housing so I can share my batteries and charger. I don't find it an awkward or heavy design; I find it nice on my arm. I like its tougher build to mow through longer grass. If the new CTX comes out and they've gone to Multi-IQ with it, they may as well call it some other name, not a CTX as without FBS (version number here) it's not a CTX. I want a new version of a CTX, and I want it's brilliant target ID's not the multi-IQ target ID's that have gone backwards between the Equinox and the Manticore. Price slots are a bit of a strange one now as the Manticore in NZ is the price of the CTX anyway, very close to it, so here at least the Manticore has already taken the CTX slot. If they go any higher priced than the Manticore they're getting up into PI territory which already the CTX is about twice the price of an Algoforce. A lot of people no longer care about the CTX, it didn't suit their soil or targets or weight requirements I suppose, and that's why it's dying a slow death, not encouraging to bring out a new model for a detector that's fading away. The Nox got the Manticore as the Nox was still riding high.

As much as I'd like to see one too, it's probably not coming. Certainly not from Minelab and there hasn't been any indication Coiltek is going to jump in and supply Manticore coils and with the M9 wedged in there, there is little incentive for a 3rd party to invest in something that is so close to the M8 and the M9. The M9 has apparently been in the works since the beginning as it showed up on an official Minelab accessory parts listing several months ago as discovered by @Gerry in Idaho in this thread. Nothing else showed up on that list that hasn't already been announced by ML now, so I think ML is done with providing any more Manticore accessory coils. It's actually surprising they had as many as 4 coils on the drawing board. I just wish they'd make it off the drawing board and into manufacture on the day the detector itself is released.

NOT IN THE JOURNAL : One of my mining partners has been testing the southern area of the faultline. Tests were done along the side of the fault just south of the old kettle area the 1936 crew worked by running water line up there. That kettle is a big pot hole in the top of the fault . The tests were taken using multiple bucket samples processed through a portable 12 Volt recirculating highbanker and the cons were run through my Gold Magic spiral wheel. Sample depths were 1 to 3 feet. Bedrock and upheaval are quite scattered in this area. So the tests were very good averaging around $90/yard. We have an approval to build a road in there in order to get a trommel set up. We are still waiting for the final plan approval for that location as well as several others 2000 feet to the east (the Upper Dig Site in the journal). Be fore warned gold, we are coming for you.

Seems like the upper end C/T detectors are getting more complicated and the last 2 gold detector releases were almost all automated. The GM-1000 automatic settings made since as it’s an entry level detector, but the GPX-6000 still makes me think they went to far on the automation side being an upper end detector.