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Treasure Hunting On The Beach With GPZ 7000


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The only detector I've used is a GPZ 7000 chasing gold in the gold fields far from the coast with great success. Very recently we have experienced sum huge swells hitting the east coast of Oz, taking thousands of tons of sand away and possibly exposing sum lost treasures. It got me thinking can you kill two birds with one stone?

Would there be any problems with using the Zed on the beach ? 

Is it overkill ?

Should I buy a machine suitable just for detecting on the beach ?

I know I would be digging big holes and every target because it doesn't have discrimination like sum of the other machines (its the thrill of the chase & the unknown that gets me buzzing)

Any input you guys can give would be great !!

Cheers ozgold

 

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I would say go for it mate...... worse thing can happen is it doesnt suit you...... if that happens then you could get a different

detector for saltwater... beach hunting

I would definitely use it if I already had it.....

 

I will with  mine , no problem.... It may squawk on the salt water like it does here in the  desert when it rains, but i would still try it out...

 

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6 hours ago, ozgold said:

Would there be any problems with using the Zed on the beach ?

I don't have a Z but I would try it on your beach if that's all I had.  I have used a 3500 at the beach a decade ago but didn't like it as our beaches here in NC are just too trashy.  Little pieces of iron, bobby pins,fish hooks,screw tabs, pull tabs, you name it it's there. The trash to treasure ration here is just too off kilter here.  Here, you want something that will at least discriminate out iron well.  But then again I have heard some say they use the discrimination successfully with a Z in the goldfields, so yea, give it a go.  I definitely plan to use my 3030 here at the beach soon and see how that goes.

Good luck,

Terry

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Funny you mention it since I plan on doing some fresh water beach detecting with the GPZ very soon.

No issues around fresh water but you are very likely going to have problems with wet salt sand, and due to the power of the GPZ no telling how far up the beach you may need to be from water before that wold not be a problem. The answer for me in the salt and the moans and groans the detector makes is to slow way, way down. You will probably find that hunting straight towards water and straight away from it will minimize the problem.

If you are after rings do not be afraid to try the Severe ground mode to try and alleviate the salt effect, but it has not proven to be a magic bullet for salt effects unfortunately.

Almost all jewelry and small trash with give a hi-lo tone. Coins except for nickels and possibly zinc pennies will give a lo-hi tone. It would be easy to cherry pick coins but no easy answer on jewelry and small aluminum or small ferrous. The GPZ should really love bobby pins!

I would be very interested in a report back from you if you give it a go. If you do get into beach detecting you will probably want another machine but since you have the Zed it is worth a try. Do fill in the big pits you will have to dig.

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Thanks Paul for your encouragement. The Zed is just sitting in my bedroom hounding me to take it out on another mission. so I will take it out and give it a go when the swell drops off a bit more. in about 4-5 days time

12 hours ago, Roughwater said:

The trash to treasure ration here is just too off kilter here. 

I'm quietly confident there's going to be lots of trash on our beach here in Oz as well. Our local council here still don't think its necessary to have rubbish bins ON the beach so the rubbish just gets buried in the sand (sad there's still people like that)  I've got a 3030 as well Terry that would convince them to put there rubbish in the bin but its not the same as yours. LOL

 

12 hours ago, Roughwater said:

I have heard some say they use the discrimination successfully with a Z in the goldfields,

That's interesting you say that Terry as I was all but convinced I had the discrimination mastered on the Zed until I decided to leave a steel sounding target in the ground. I thought about it all that night so I went back the next day and dug down and it was a 5 gram yellow rock. so I have decided from then on I will still dig EVERY target

8 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

The answer for me in the salt and the moans and groans the detector makes is to slow way, way down. You will probably find that hunting straight towards water and straight away from it will minimize the problem.

If you are after rings do not be afraid to try the Severe ground mode to try and alleviate the salt effect, but it had not proven to be a magic bullet for salt effects unfortunately

Thanks for your input Steve there's not much beach left to choose the direction to walk but will give all directions a go. I am pretty sure I am  going to use totally opposite setting to the gold fields

 

8 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

The GPZ should really love bobby pins!

I would be very interested in a report back from you if you give it a go. If you do get into beach detecting you will probably want another machine but since you have the Zed it is worth a try. Do fill in the big pits you will have to dig.

I will be taking my kids along and my dog to help dig the huge holes I am expecting .My daughters will make good use of the extra bobby pins for their hair. LOL

Cheers ozgold

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1 hour ago, ozgold said:

I thought about it all that night so I went back the next day and dug down and it was a 5 gram yellow rock. so I have decided from then on I will still dig EVERY target

 I heard someone recently make that statement at our forum concerning using the discrimination on the Zed.  I don't recall who, but I wondered myself about it. No one seemed to question that statement at the time.  When I heard it said, it made me wonder if the discrimination on the Zed was somehow improved over the GP detectors but per your statement maybe not that improved?  Still for me, It would have a lot to do with the trash to treasure ratio to decide to use discrimination especially at the beach.  In the goldfields it might be different especially where there is a history of large nuggets.  

Once when I was at Rye patch years ago I talked with an old timer who mentioned how he had gone through digging buckets of trash at the site of a long torn down prospectors shack with the knowledge large nuggets had been found near there.  He was eventually successful and found a very large nugget for his labor.  In those cases all the digging of trash might be worth the labor.  But at my beach I'll just go with the 3030.  

 

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THere is no discrimination setting on the GPZ. There is a variable setting on the 5000 down to the 2200 pi's.

There are those using the gpz that make a calculated/educated guess about an undug target based on tone or hi/lo vrs lo/hi...

I always try to guess what a target is before I dig it...that iron/nail/bullet/trash target has become gold just often enough to convince me to dig it all.

fred

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I'm with Fred on this as well.  There is no discrimination save that of the operators opinion.  Even that variable setting was not true discrimination on the PI's, just a cut out.  Steve's observation on the signal response of the Zed is a good example of operators discrimination.  Hehh, there is a certain trebly warble signal I just adore on the Zed and PI's that for all intents is trash to anyone else ;)

Wish you luck and look forward to what you get at the beach :)  Me I love the parks there... lots of lost abo's and kangaroo's amidst the bottle caps and pull tabs.  Beaches have a good view to.  Hahh!

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33 minutes ago, DDancer said:

lots of lost abo's and kangaroo's amidst the bottle caps and pull tabs.  Beaches have a good view to.  Hahh!

For those that don't know the one and 2 dollar coins have aboriginal and animal images stamped into them...I sure wish we had them here!

fred

DSC00833 002.JPG

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