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GPX Help For A Beginner Please?


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Please help me out with some GPX experiences. Living in the eastern US I don`t have the opportunity to use the 5000 much. I try to do two or three trips a year in gold country, so my actual time on the machine is limited compared to those who can get out more often, so any advice or helpful hints are much appreciated to shorten the learning curve.

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Hi Steve

I think you did a pretty good job on your guide for beginners as the GPX can be a rabbit hole for the casual user.

My first advice is always;

READ THE MANUAL, then read it again, then read it some more! seriously you cannot read the manual enough!

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Thanks Gold Hound, any suggestions appreciated. The problem is there is always more to talk about with the GPX. Just trying to explain that the Special Switch is really just selecting something else set somewhere else gets confusing. The big fail on the GPX was in not allowing the custom modes to be fully custom. You can only save some settings and not others so most people ignored them. If I could have had just one simple change though it would be to swap the threshold setting from the knob into the menu and put the RX Gain on the knob. I almost never messed with my threshold setting but was always wanting to tweak the gain.

I once talked to the engineers and suggested they develop a system of "automatic timings". The GPX knows enough to sense and adjust the ground balance. So it knows when the ground is bad. Why not just suggest to the operator based on what it is seeing what timing to use, or even have that adjust automatically on the fly? He thought it a great concept, but I think even then the GPZ was already on the drawing board so it went nowhere.

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I like the Auto timing Idea a lot Steve.

I recon they could expand on your Idea and have a mineralization line graph on the screen telling us what the current and past ground conditions are doing under the coil and the suggested timing.

You could use this to identify and follow a particular ground anomaly.

And wouldn't it be cool if they had a visual threshold display that acts like an oscilloscope and visually shows you the threshold and target response!

They could easily with some work incorporate these in to the next generation ZVT detector!

Just imagine how this would open up the gold fields again!

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 Rege-PA;

There is no other detecting forum that I have seen that would give you that much excellent information in such an understandable way.

I would like to add that when you get comfortable with what the settings do, then Fiddle with it, especially over a likely gold target.

  Our thanks again to Steve.

 I would like to cross breed a 5000 with a Z- but it would probably be sterile.

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:) I agree, alot to digest, just got to wait for some warmer weather and start experimenting.

As to your idea about cross breeding, I think it would be a good idea, I don`t care if it can`t have kids but it better find nuggets!

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:) Hi JW,

Good to hear from you and hope you are on the gold.  I`m savoring each bit of info and appreciate all the advice, at some point in time I have to man up and get this show on the road, just have to learn the basics then move to the finer points. I do have good technique, learned from one of the best in WA in 2012, because of my injuries low and slow is my only way, so I am blessed in that respect. I am thinking heavily of a test garden using mineralized soil to a depth of a meter, that way I could experiment with settings and coils. Do you know of any way I could get an average of WA or mineralized ground in your area? I can get some pretty mean ground from Virginia and adding black sand should give me the mineralization I need, but don`t know what iron/ground number to use. I do have an MXT that would give me a reading in the prospect mode.

Any thoughts appreciated.

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Hi all, I too would love some advice, have owned my GPX 5000 for 18 months, in that time have only ever founds dozens of bullets, bottle tops, fine wire, nails, lead slugs smaller than match heads; you name it I've dug it up, including a cast iron wheel off a mine trolley? When I purchased off the Minelab outlet here in bendigo, they suggested putting a nugget finder coil on instead of the factory coil, however after 18 months I still love getting out there but I'm starting to think something isn't right and it all points to me? Please assist? Mathew

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Hello Mathew,

Welcome to the forum!

Sounds like as far as the detector goes you have it figured out. It is simply a metal detector and you have it detecting metal. Bullets and lead are the best indicator of your detecting skill. The smaller the bullets you find and the deeper they are, then the better you are doing. Lead and gold read approximately the same.

Now you just need to put the detector coil over some gold. Buying a detector is easy, getting it to work is actually pretty easy. Getting the coil over detectable gold - not so easy. Like buying real estate it is all about location, and that knowledge is gained through research. The easiest solution for beginners is to go where gold has already been found. Most any decent gold location will usually give up at least one more gold nugget if hunted patiently. In order to do more than find just a few nuggets you have to get off the beaten path and explore hard to reach locations. This involves more research and a willingness to take risks in the form of time spent detecting places where good has not been found before by many others. Learning as much about gold geology as possible, including reading geologic maps, is very key to success.

Bottom line? Metal detecting is easy. Prospecting is not. Most people can become reasonably good with a detector. Becoming a good prospector is a totally different thing in that what you are learning is where and how to place yourself over shallow detectable gold. In the U.S. I usually recommend joining a club to meet others whole may be able to act as guides and mentors. I am not sure if the equivalent resource exists in Australia?

Gold Fossicking Australia http://www.gold-net.com.au/fossicking1.html

Gold Prospecting U.S. http://geology.com/articles/gold-prospecting-tools/

Patch Hunting http://www.minelab.com/emea/treasure-talk/so-you-want-to-find-a-patch

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