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Minelab Eureka Gold


nugget65

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Nugget, i had a eureka gold and it was a good machine in fact it was the first true gold detector i owned it found many times it's cost in gold even trained several friends how to detect with it, just this past spring a buddy who owns a 18000 that has seen better days  bought it off me to use when his 18000 does give up for good.

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Steve's quote....

****Here is a sad little story. Coiltek came out with a 6" coil to work with the Eureka at the 60 khz frequency. The machine had always lacked a small high frequency coil which held it back from ever getting mentioned in the same breath as the Gold Bug 2 or GMT. I made noise about the need for one for years.

Last year when Coiltek came out with the coil they offered to send me one free to try out. I had to inform them that neither I nor anybody that I know had a Eureka to try it on! To this day I am curious how the Eureka with that coil stands up next to the Bug2 or the GMT ****

While I lost my interest to small gold many years ago, when I'm tired and need a spell I still like to take light VLF units out and hit shallow ground, or simply run them on a 'test bed day'.

As NVChris mentioned, it was mad of Minelab to discontinue the 6" white coil made for the old 5 pins. Jeez they used to pull some small gold for us with the Dual Ace and the GT/FT even in 8kHz. That was the best small coil made by anyone at that time!

Here's a direct comparison to that Coiltek 6" coil on a Eureka Gold running in 60 kHz (and an early model XT18000, not a late model 18000 as the 60kHz was a touch dull on them) to a Gold Bug 2 with stock and small coil, and a GMT with 5"x10" coil (I never liked the smaller 6x4 on the GMT so never bothered with it)

To be fair, because the Bug2 wasn't made for fair dinkum hot ground and the Eureka platform was, (it doesn't matter for the GMT as it can be set up to cruise on hot ground) this is on nice Mild gold bearing ground in the Central Vic Goldfield's, firstly on a southern piece of flat natural ground adjacent to a surfaced area, secondly on a quiet surfaced area 3 miles away, and in a quiet dry not running old creek bed nice and moist after heavy rain.

The Eureka and early 18000 and Coiltek 6"coil, when run with the correct Enhancer/Amp to hear the internal tracking working, will hit on flake gold, you know, speck gold we pan. The stock 10"x5" does it too. But don't use the signal settings Boost or Fine, they are both silly and upset the Tracking. Normal is cool.

Very slow coil movement needed. But who really wants to detect speck gold, you can pan 10 times the amount in the same time.

The Eureka's internal workings are far different than both the Bug and GMT. The Eureka in 60kHz with it's auto balancing/tracking (neither the 18000 or Eureka will ever track out a metallic signal, no matter how small) and full 'True' threshold 'tickles' it's signal into the ground, around every grain of sand and tiny speck of stone.

As everyone knows both the Bug2 and GMT operate at a much higher gain output and with a less "truer" threshold. They like to 'spark off' at tiny metallic signals and can be swung at a slightly faster speed than the Eureka. They can both hit on tiny gold, the best being the Bug2, but neither can hit on speck gold an inch into the ground like the Eureka.

So the Eureka hits smaller gold, that's fact, But, both the Bug2 and GMT will hit small gold deeper than the Eureka can, and hit it with more spark to boot, on these types of ground.

I kinda like swinging a Bug2 mounted on a straight shaft in front of the handgrip, with the 14" elliptical coil on it, running noisy, swinging quick and riding the ground balance knob.

Like the GMT, on hot ground too, but detest the unergernomic shaft that leaves me with a sore forefinger and tight lower back.

Love the Eureka, but only on hot ground, there are far too many VLF's out now, both the above two and more American and Euro units that can really push a high amount of gain through them, especially when running a large coil, only over very mild ground, that they put both the Eureka and our PI 's to shame.

On hot ground, real hot ground, the Eureka will still hit on the speck gold one inch under. The Bug2 won't operate here, the GMT can be made to cruise and will hit on pretty much all small gold the SDC can touch to the 4" mark. The GMT tapers off at this mark, that's its limit when the correlation of gain, threshold height and SAT speed are set to work this ground type ( Warning,, the GMT will and does track out small metallic targets, better to use that lovely manual GroundGrab and keep tracking off, it cannot track through hot ground anyway, gets confused and falses extremely often)

To get off track a bit, the Eureka starts shining at depth when hooked to an 11" round in 20kHz, and sticks with all SD's in 6.4kHz with the equivalent 14"DD coils on both on any ground type, fingernail size gold and up. The three in the GP range kick it up a notch then on in, both on small and deep gold.

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Lol, Chevy chase. I guess were two of a kind when it comes to naked women in a pool. Lol. Sorry couldn't help the comparison.. Any way no takers, my GMT doesn't have a scratch on it. Will trade for Eureka Gold in semi similar condition !!

stealth1214@gmail.com

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I use my Fisher Gold Strike almost every weekend. This is my second GMT. I would trade for a Sovereign GT as well. I have never owned a Minelab. I Live in Alabama and I think either of the minelab Eureks gold or Sov GT will be handy ?!!?

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