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Nokta Impact Versus Minelab Gold Monster In Australia


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Editors Note - this thread was split off from a previously existing topic.

I already knew your comments were for your own personal use but if you did not want people to comment on them why post them in the first place? That Aussie guy on youtube also had a sdc 2300 so he was no dunce with Minelabs but it just did not work for him or just had too high expectations.I also respect his right to express his feelings publically as we live in a free society- in Australia anyway. I would quickly have criticised the Impact on any forum if it did not meet my expectations,but there is nothing to criticise except the headphone jack which protrudes too far out from the main housing and can be easily stepped on and the cord is too long.Maybe Minelab could have made the GM 1000 easier to use on goldfields just like my Impact.In my experience there is no smoke without fire.There has not been one post on how the Impact performs on goldfields except mine on any forum and I feel that is a real shame as that is where it excels. I am sure the Impact not only works for me but for plenty of other people too.I found it a little heavy to start with but after a few days with my new arm muscles it seemed light and very well balanced for me anyway and I am getting on, so it would also suit other novices and retirees.There is certainly a lot of resistance towards the Impact in Australia. eg. no Impact tests in the world or Australia in 2 months on goldfields since it came out, but when the GM 1000 came out there were posts about it in goldfields that week.

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On 8/15/2017 at 6:18 PM, auminesweeper said:

I don't think anyone in their right mind would use a VLF/LF machine in hot ground like in the GT, and if they did they would have to reduce the Gain, ML already made machines to deal with that kind of dirt, even people who have never been there have heard about the GT.

J.

auminesweeper. Sorry but I cant afford a PI Minelab. I spent all my money travelling around Europe in the last 4 years-around $180,000 and also built a house there.I am now in OZ in Ballarat and my new wife wanted to go out looking for nuggets as she is from Europe and they just don't find them there. I decided on a new Nokta Impact because a dealer said it was better than the Nokta Gold+. Initially I was looking at the Eureka but that was discontinued. I had not expected it to perform very well in the GT as many years ago I used a Whites 5000D and had major problems with ground noise and hot rocks but it found a total of 6 ounces for me over 4 years.But much to my surprise the Impact was stable on the first day and the auto GB was so easy to perform and needed infrequent adjustment.I have never had to lower the gain below 70,its default setting to make it work. It is also very sensitive as I dug up a 0.1 gram target at 4 inches.So for a AUD 1300 machine it offers excellent value for money.Sure it wont go down 2 feet on a smaller item but then I couldn't dig that far down anyway.

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I still don't see why all the fuss about a machine that is "not" designed for extreme conditions, I can understand people taking there to see how it does but there is no point in complaining about it when it behaves just as they thought it would all along, when a lower KHz machine might be the better option with a hotter Coil If a VLF has to be used, I can understand taking it along as and when it is needed if the ground is full of junk but in hot soil conditions I would be more concerned about how the GPX or SDC would run.

A VLF/LF will run there but at a reduced Gain setting so depth will be lost and sensitivity to small gold will be out the window and the only way to regain some of those losses is to use a very small concentric or DD coil , This is detecting 101 and the type of stuff people learn in their first year of the hobby, Seasoned prospectors should not be making such a mistake.

John.

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39 minutes ago, Mike Dawson said:

auminesweeper. Sorry but I cant afford a PI Minelab. I spent all my money travelling around Europe in the last 4 years-around $180,000 and also built a house there.I am now in OZ in Ballarat and my new wife wanted to go out looking for nuggets as she is from Europe and they just don't find them there. I decided on a new Nokta Impact because a dealer said it was better than the Nokta Gold+. Initially I was looking at the Eureka but that was discontinued. I had not expected it to perform very well in the GT as many years ago I used a Whites 5000D and had major problems with ground noise and hot rocks but it found a total of 6 ounces for me over 4 years.But much to my surprise the Impact was stable on the first day and the auto GB was so easy to perform and needed infrequent adjustment.I have never had to lower the gain below 70,its default setting to make it work. It is also very sensitive as I dug up a 0.1 gram target at 4 inches.So for a AUD 1300 machine it offers excellent value for money.Sure it wont go down 2 feet on a smaller item but then I couldn't dig that far down anyway.

Mike I can understand where you are coming from but I think either you bought the machine with your heart or someone was less than honest with you at the time of purchase, A higher KHz machine will suffer more than a normal VLF in such conditions because they are so sensitive, where the Relic or the Fors Core etc might be the better option, Although LF machines are hot on tiny Gold they also have an adverse side to them as well.

I can make my VLF work in most soil conditions because of the amount of coils I have but if I added the cost of the 8 coils to the price of the machine then it would most likely equal the cost of a GPX/SDC but because my detecting covers many facets a GPX would not suit my needs at present.

I use another brand but the Nokta's are great machines and it will serve you well, you also need to remember that not all of Australian soil is like the hotspots in the GT and your machines and the GM will work fine and produce good quality nuggets, The biggest nugget ever found with a detector was found with an old Garrett ADS and PI's and ML were still in limbo back then. You need to remember that some of the people here have been doing this man and boy and although their comments might seem a little harsh at times, Their list of demands differ from the person who only goes out once every 3 or 4 months if that, But saying that there is nothing stopping you from putting your coil over a retirement nugget and end up being rich enough to buy 30 GPX's, That's down to fate and the Nugget does not care what brand or detector found it. I think you are worrying too much about peoples views about certain machines than what your results have proven, You have found Gold with yours so you already know it is good, what more proof do you need, sounds to me like you already have a winner.  

hope that helps.

John.

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auminesweeper. Thanks for your  comments but I don't know if you are referring to the Impact or another machine. The Impact is a low freq. machine but I always run it at the highest 20 Khz. for gold. I don't have a heart as I have been trained as a professional engineer to use my brain only and worry a lot to make sure things don't fail.I took early retirement to go travelling and being able to go camping and detecting is an extension of all that when the money runs out. We planned to go out camping and detecting in the GT all winter with my wife,but the frosty nights put an end to all that as we sleep in a Mitsubishi van and a tent without heating and LPG or butane for heating is a killer in confined spaces.WA. may be less cold at nights but not much less and is an option for 2018. Only other alternative is Queensland where it is hot in winter.There are places South of Buninyong near Ballarat where there is the richest gully in Australia which scored the greatest number of entries for big nuggets in the nugget book,where we go on daily forays and also the soil is low mineralised and the Impact goes deeper. There are some higher ground diggings which are fenced off with gates yet classified as Crown Land so I am twisting the Council offices arm about them for legality and permission. All the creek diggings are completely bogged at the moment and impossible to walk on.We are heading up to Inglewood for a week when it gets warmer in early September with a rake.To summarize,the Impact had to earn my trust on the goldfields first before I would accept it as an inexpensive nugget hunter , but I am sure Nokta may bring out something better next year and give Minelab ( which is an Australian company) quiet a stir judging from the quality and performance of the Impact, only Minelab loyalty will put up the barricades for them.

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Last year I bought a very old machine and a couple of things that stood out is the signal of trash / good targets was a bit on the slow side, In it's favour the depth/power is unrivalled but one of the best features is that I can ground balance it and then use the Disc to either fine tune the GB or wipe out hot rocks where modern machines use S.A.T. smooth out the ground the hot rocks still remain and this feature of using the disc is new to me but it is missing on all newer machine and sadly so is the raw power,  Having two GB pots (stacked) is a bonus being fine and coarse with addition of the Disc allows the machine to work in all but the worst conditions,

Large Iron does not seem to worry it either, I can't help feeling that over the last 2 or 3 decades although the newer machines have some great features that they have somehow let the important ones fall by the wayside.

John.

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14 hours ago, Mike Dawson said:

auminesweeper. Thanks for your  comments but I don't know if you are referring to the Impact or another machine. The Impact is a low freq. machine but I always run it at the highest 20 Khz. for gold. I don't have a heart as I have been trained as a professional engineer to use my brain only and worry a lot to make sure things don't fail.I took early retirement to go travelling and being able to go camping and detecting is an extension of all that when the money runs out. We planned to go out camping and detecting in the GT all winter with my wife,but the frosty nights put an end to all that as we sleep in a Mitsubishi van and a tent without heating and LPG or butane for heating is a killer in confined spaces.WA. may be less cold at nights but not much less and is an option for 2018. Only other alternative is Queensland where it is hot in winter.There are places South of Buninyong near Ballarat where there is the richest gully in Australia which scored the greatest number of entries for big nuggets in the nugget book,where we go on daily forays and also the soil is low mineralised and the Impact goes deeper. There are some higher ground diggings which are fenced off with gates yet classified as Crown Land so I am twisting the Council offices arm about them for legality and permission. All the creek diggings are completely bogged at the moment and impossible to walk on.We are heading up to Inglewood for a week when it gets warmer in early September with a rake.To summarize,the Impact had to earn my trust on the goldfields first before I would accept it as an inexpensive nugget hunter , but I am sure Nokta may bring out something better next year and give Minelab ( which is an Australian company) quiet a stir judging from the quality and performance of the Impact, only Minelab loyalty will put up the barricades for them.

Well both of them really because the lower the frequency the better they run in hotter ground, If your impact is noisy in 20khz then try and work the next frequency down, But there are limits to what they can do, and if that don't work then try a smaller coil, If your ground is low mineralized then a small concentric might be just what you need to find the tiny stuff,

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Hi Mike 

Having used all types and brands of detectors for well over 40 years . I have noted not by chance that the most successful electronic prospectors are the ones who research gold bearing areas and who have confidence in whatever machine they choose to utilise.As others have said ,it's only splitting hairs as to what vlf machine suits one person over  another . The Nokia impact runs at a frequency similar to the Mine lab  x terra machines and I know quite a few people who have had success prospecting with these ,and thousands of nuggets where found with vlf detectors before Pi units emerged.The abundance of reports on the GM 1000 are simply due to the fact that minelab has  not released a purpose built prospecting vlf  detector since the Eureka many years ago ,and the fact that it is the first fully automatic machine on the market .One thing that has changed in 40 years are my expectations knowing that the ground has been covered by people using sophisticated PI machines and so naturally gold is harder to find and I now have to concentrate at using higher frequencies in a vlf to find the smaller bits left behind , you will notice a lot of people using the GM and Gold Bugs to snipe bedrock gold that is shallow , Rather than search general ground where the PI machines fair much better at deeper larger nuggets .Take little notice of the you tube videos pitching vlf against Pi machines.its a non contest especially in highly mineralised soil .My advice would be to learn where your unit excels and then find gold deposits that match the machines abilities  to locate them . You really do have to target your efforts these days to have a fair chance of success. I am quite sure there are numerous people on this and other forums who will tell you are wasting your time with a vlf detector in Australia in 2017 and in some respects and in some areas they may well be right. However we all have budgets and time restrictions as part time prospectors and the Nokta is no slouch and I,m sure can hold its own amongst others of the same ilk .ignore the knockers and get out and enjoy your hobbie ,learn your machine until your confident in what it's telling you ,the Aussie bush is just a wonderfull place to be gold or no gold.

Regards Paul

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3 hours ago, Mike Dawson said:

Well if you can,t accept my tests on goldfields theres little I can do. I repeat the Impact is not noisy at 20 Khz.

I never said I did not accept you findings, but I did mention a couple of other things to try ?,  But 20khz is not a low frequency I am talking about frequencies at 12khz and lower, because they will handle higher mineralization better.

J.

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