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Made trip out from PA, met up with Lucky who was nice enough to show us around. Great time and a gold fix that was badly needed.

I find it kind of funny myself that its taken this long for this kind of info to have come up in topic. In 2015 I made the same observation with Target Volume and sensitivity. Combined with Threshold it really kicks target id up a notch especially with depth on small stuff~ .5 grams or less~ however it does lend to higher incidents of the howlies in salt and high iron grounds. Backing off sensitivity does not overly effect any change in high saturation grounds but Target volume and Threshold do. Part of the combination I learned only this year by swapping info with another (read on). I only ever shared the observation with a few others and it generally fell on deaf ears at the caravan parks. However with novices to the Zed I do share the info as I set them up ~ pitty I never get any feed back there :( as they are pretty much one time events. This pretty much why I've never really talked about settings here. I also figured others knew but kept it under wraps as its hard to demonstrate easily. Something that comes with experience. That said I did have one success in passing the information, even got feed back when I met the guy again at the same park, this last season *2016*. His issue was a bit different though. Seems he had purchased one of the first batch of Zeds that came out and was impressed with its sensitivity to his pick among other things. He'd damaged his Zed and sent it back to have it replaced by another unit~ standard operating procedure by ML and one I disagree with~ only to find the new unit did not perform like the original~ could not hear his pick. Apparently he made some video with his new unit and a friends original unit and sent the complaint in to his dealer along with the replacement unit. Got another new unit and same results. Another complaint and another unit and again same result. When I met him he had his latest unit and while we talked he was about to scrap it as well thats when I shared my settings and information. Couple of weeks later we met again and he was most pleased. The new unit now worked like the original and I even learned a bit as we traded observations on combinations of Target Volume, Threshold and Sensitivity. As to his original machine I suspect he messed with the settings initially but forgot them and for whatever reason he and his friend did not set their units up exactly when they made the complaint video but that's my thought. Thanks for reading. DD

That's the one....amazing after all these years they still make the same model....sales must be good for valve and box locators :)

Detectron is indeed still out there as a part of Tinker and Rasor parent company and the 7-T looks almost identical to your 1980s Detectron detector, it's billed as a "Valve and Box Locator" the price is $325. http://tinker-rasor.com/products/detectron-instruments/7-t/

Minelab just updated the October 26 blog entry at http://www.minelab.com/usa/go-minelabbing/treasure-talk/the-gpz-19-coil-does-it-really-detect-30-deeper to add the following information at the end of the entry. Note that to get good coverage it is the smaller receive windings that matter, not the larger center transmit winding.

Initial run with the 19" coil over two days: 1. The weight is massive. Within the first hour we were already redesigning our harnesses. It is a brute of a thing and needs far better weight distribution through the harness. Tried both the minelab bra and hipstick. The bra worked better for me as the hipstick just pushed straight down into my thigh. The machine is not balanced like it is with the 14" coil. If you plan on using it all day as your standard coil, harness engineering will be a growth industry ...... 2. Coverage is king. Huge leap forward in ground covered at same pace as 14" coil. Big tick. 3. Minelab have to do something about the salt interference especially over here in WA. It is crippling...... Hot rocks are handled better which was expected. 4. Be prepared to dig. Sounds obvious ........ but take everything you've got (mattock, axe, crowbar, long handle shovel, genset (unnamed things used when using a genset...). I had what I thought was a signal right next to a pretty big tree (diff/general). I know that the creek line had big gold come off it (13oz, 7oz, 4oz and a few 2oz plusses so it was in the right area). No sounds around it so I was reasonably confident. Got stuck in and before long it was an archaeological dig site with shit strewn everywhere. Got through 2" roots and down about 1.5 foot. The hole was wide enough to get a small swing of the 19" coil - so it was sizable. Not much change in signal with the 19", maybe slightly louder. Got sdc 2300 as pinpointer - nothing. Chucked the 14" coil on and thought it was like swinging the 2300 it was so light in comparison - no signal at all in diff/general 1.5 foot down. Started crying and it is now known as the mystery hole ...... walked away but it will bug me until I get an excavator. I predict I will not be alone. 5. JP is right - in diff/general you get false signals when it gets knocked around. Far less in other modes. 6. For those who enjoy staples and small pieces of wire, fear not. Your 19" coil will not let you down. Sadly I didn't get any gold with the elephant gun 19" coil. Got 11g with the pea shooter so paid for the trip.... Cheers BB

Excellent point Steven. Usually a larger coil does cover more ground in a given period of time and that alone can result in more gold. However, for myself at least the GPZ 19 would not be a general hunt coil but one intended for hunting specific areas very carefully looking for suspected deep, large nuggets. When used like that I would very likely slow way down, especially given the extra weight of the coil and need to keep it under careful control for best performance. There may be those who can swing that big coil all day long just as fast as they can swing the GPZ 14 but I am not one of them.

This talks about sweep length, but doesn't take into account sweep speed. Now I haven't done a direct comparison on sweep speed in a technical way, but I believe you would lose all of that advantage and maybe a bit more on the loss of sweep speed. Of course sweep speed is not solely dictated by coil size, other factors come into play, like ground depth and type or the likelihood of gold at depth, but all of that comes down to the detectors response and the operators ability to hear.

The Lobo ST still hunts fine with lower sensitivity settings. Don't hunt the chain, hunt the clasps and the little loops the clasps connect to. Tiny, solid signals. Chains in turf are not 'easy' for any machine. But with that little coil, you could probably find some in the right location if you turn you Lobo St's sensitivity down close to minimum and focus on the tiny solid signals. The Lobo ST doesn't lose its "hots" with lower sensitivity settings. That makes it a better chain hunter in turf locations than the Xterra. The Xterra's iron mask feature isn't that helpful in turf. HH Mike

Hi Dave, Actually the disclaimer has been out there since day one though now it is more detailed, as can be seen in the post of the materials originally at http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/2584-minelab-gpz-19-coil-full-official-information-release/ Not that it matters. Either you are happy with the coil or you are not - I hope things improve for you on that score.

Like all machines, it is the operator that makes it, early on in my use I used the reset function a bit because I`d get it out of "wack" ie my fiddling would produce results that lead me to believe the Z had a fault. Returning to the factory default taught me I was the fault, once this is accepted by a operator, the machines potential can be exploited. The Z has a ability that is still amazing me, and I suspect that will be so for many more years. My message to new chums is leave it in its default if it is not getting you gold, your simply either not putting it over gold or not hearing what it is telling you plus of course not going slow and low. Detecting gold is a mental exercise, if your not feeling positive are frustrated and lost your patience better to sit under a shady tree and drink, but for the new chum it is very hard to get this and even harder to get this message across to them. Not necessarily to just the new chum either, I`ve learnt a lot from my son who hasn`t got a 1,000th or more of the time I`ve had behind a detector. He kills me consistently.

Talked with a customer yesterday who ordered a Detech 8in DD for Gold Basin, he has been using the 15in Ultimate Spiral DD GPX coil and has been ( killing it ), his words, on nuggets and meteorites. Said he follows after others and picks up missed gold.

Good machine....solid crisp signal on non ferrous targets going left and right with swing. You Have a good machine , use it and dig....dig..dig...Happy Hunting. If you don't like it, sell it on Steve's Classified section...should sell fast.

Could be really good. They are based in San Diego. I will contact them and try to get a demo. http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapid=272639583

Some more pics of gold found during the development of the GPZ 7000 and GPZ19 coil.