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No, nothing to do with anything you said here Steve. I'm just a guy who looks at detectors as a tool to do a job I love. I have to look at it like a job because I can't afford to do it as a hobby, so it's in my best interest to insure I understand how they work as accurately as possible. So I ask lots of questions and do lots of digging and as a result I've seen some take offense to asking the "wrong" questions in the past. Also I'm a total gearhead, I just like figuring out how stuff works and talking to others with the same philosophy who see things I miss, and forums are great for discussing stuff like that. Doesn't work if people stay silent though. Happy Thanksgiving!

That diagram with the winding measurements was added later, when I first noticed the blog post was updated there wasn't a second diagram showing winding measurements. They keep changing the literature. I'm not sure if you noticed the initial change to this blog post because of my post on 4umer which I posted a day before you did, but it was definitely editted again after I noticed the first edit. As I stated "if these numbers are correct and there isn't another piece missing"... I noticed the second part on your post but the numbers were too small to read. The thing is, it's easy to brush aside marketing claims as unimportant, but there are laws in the US (and Australia) regulating this sort of thing, so it's not taken lightly. This industry has history of deceptive marketing and dealers operating under less than moral circumstances, things being said just to make sales. And ML chose to up to stakes by selling at such high prices, these are huge purchases for some of us, it's a responsibility of the customer to do the research. I understand there are lots of people maybe close to retirement or in retirement and with savings who can talk about how $10k detectors and $1500 coils are no big deal, but I'm not one of them and neither are a lot of other detectorists. These are huge deals to us, not something we can simply write off as a loss or lesson learned. It's incumbent on the customer to test, not just for their benefit to improve field performance due to understanding their machine, but to determine if the product they purchased is even working as stated. Otherwise always we have to base purchasing decisions on is marketing material, which again, has a history of being deceptive in this industry. I promise you that for every frustration you have regarding forum posters repeating history and their distrust of Minelab, I have equal frustations as being made feel guilty for asking basic questions that I feel are legitimate and should be asked but that I'll offend people if I do. I understand a lot of people here are also dealers/friends with dealers/friends with Minelab employees/otherwise related to Minelab and as such take people's general discussion about products a bit more personally than do those of use to which these detectors are simply tools. But the customers have to look out for themselves in this climate that the manufacturers and dealers created. That is just the reality of the situation. There is, and always be testing and discussion. This happens on forums for any other similar product. There will always be trolls, and always be cheerleaders, and always be the people in the middle who are just trying to determine if a tool is worth buying, there will always be techies and gearheads who are interested in the tech and trying to figure out how it works. No one has at any point stated that they expect a coil to be magical, that I'm aware of.

Hi Jason, You are using the outside diameter of the coils to figure area of an ellipse, whereas the blog entry referenced is using a best fit at the outer edge of the TX and RX windings. This makes the 19" x 18" coil closer to 18.68" x 16.65" and the 145" x 13" coil closer to 13.27" x 11.96". These measurements in turn deliver the 96% (95.8%) larger area as referred to in the blog entry. See the diagram below. I think the basic premise that the coil is underperforming is flawed and so attempting to figure out why that may be is an exercise in futility. Again, I think this all comes from Minelab trying to get all scientific about things and put numbers on relative performance. It gets them in trouble every time, but here we go again. Same story, different act. New Minelab item comes out, much pulling of hair commences, product deemed deficient compared to people's expectations. Then time passes and item praised later as best thing ever as expectations adjust to reality. Most recent examples, GPZ 7000 itself and SDC 2300, and earlier virtually every SD, GP, and GPX model. I never thought a larger coil was going to be magical myself as every oversized coil I ever got in the past came with too many expectations that quickly were dashed on reality. Reality is those big deep nuggets just out of reach are far rarer than people think. Oh well, I should just let it all settle out without comment as I come off sounding like I am making excuses for Minelab. It is just all so predictable however.

"Reality is those big deep nuggets just out of reach are far rarer than people think" So true Steve It is just a matter of time before someone swinging a 19" walks over a thumper and things will settle in the realm of hypothetical comparisons. But as per normal there will be those who will still disbelieve no matter the evidence and those who believe without any convincing at all. For me the proof is in the pudding and that will have to wait until cooler days.

Hi Steve and good members I took the 19 in coil out for its maiden swing yesterday, it was supposed to be a 10 day camping trip but my start battery on my car dropped a cell and I had to come back to town to get a replacement. So lucky for you guy's you get to see this 66g specimen with about 50g Au content that I pulled out of a deep rock crack at a measured 890mm. The 14 could not pick it up until about 250mm was removed and the 5k 14 elite could not pick it up until a further 120mm was removed. My pick handle is 1150mm long to give you a reference point and im holding my hand where the top of the ground was before I excavated the hole.

Although not the show Tom tried out for (this one likely already in the works before that), it appears to have all the components: cameras following seasoned(?) prospectors/miners into dangerous locations to strike it rich: http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/legend-of-croc-gold/ http://www.monstersandcritics.com/smallscreen/alaskan-miner-searches-for-gold-in-papua-new-guinea-on-new-series-legend-of-croc-gold/ First episode was two days ago. I don't think I'm ruining anyone's watching pleasure to point out a couple things about that one: 1) they have yet to find a speck of gold. 2) their visas only last 6 weeks! I think it's safe to say that far more gold is made in the entertainment world with these series than is actually found/recovered by the treasure hunters / prospectors / miners (and I mean any/all of the many such shows out there).

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.

Hi Jim, Glad you liked the pictures. In my younger days before I was interested in gold I spent much time up your way hunting bear. I have been through Cobalt, Kirkland Lake, Matheson, Timmins and probably stepped on a few diamonds near Wawa, boy if I only knew what was there then. Hope to get up your way and look for some of that native silver at some time, maybe early spring before the bugs wake up. Alot of fond memories, huge walleyes, northerns, big bear and those fantastic Northern Lights shining down into your soul..........I miss it all.

Glad everything worked out well for you and that you got in a short hunt with LuckyLundy. Congratulations on the gold and thankyou for posting the beautiful scenery photos. It's so nice to see those wide-open spaces. Jim.

I've been trying HY and again I'm not a fan. Seems unstable to me as I've always been in general. Only slight irritation with general on the 19" are the false signals when you knock it around. This coil will be on for the next six months and yes I'm looking for the big stuff. Only need one ........

I have to make an amendment to what I've said. On reviewing my settings notes I have made a small misnomer on what I call Target Volume in the previous post. To me Target Volume is not one setting, Volume, but 2 settings: Volume and Volume Limit. My apologies. To be clear adjustments in Volume Limit have a strong effect on volume of a target. Limit adjusts the cut off point of all targets much like threshold based on strength of signal; this adjustment also increases ground noise at higher levels. Small targets light up louder at higher limits in my observation. Adjustment to Volume goes down a notch for various increases in Volume Limit. Touches to the Threshold occur next. Sensitivity is then adjusted for stability. For each location I go to my first few small targets are used for tweaking to that locality then I just move along in a stable configuration for the rest of my stay. In areas with large variations of ground noise, Lake Austin mainland is a good example, I will work out where the big changes are and schedule them like a new area while sticking to the settings for areas I can work. Tortuga my actual settings generally start out thus: Volume 10, Volume Limit 16-18, Threshold 10, Sensitivity 17-19. That usually in High Yield/Difficult *Australia conditions* with low smoothing turned on after I have made a few small tweaks to Volume limit and sensitivity for environmental noise with smoothing off. I get a stable operation then I find my targets to tweak on. When I'm in an area I know nothing about and on walk about I set up in General/difficult instead. To be fair this last year I worked more in General than High Yield. My sensitivity 16-20, bad ground 8-15 Volume 10-15, bad ground 6-10 Threshold 3-10, bad ground 10-15 Volume limit 15-18, bad ground 6-14 Addressing the topic its my opinion that ZVT as explained detects targets in the transition state between field polarity shifts. Adjustments that I've put forward in effect are what I feel as best to get the most response from target signals as I am looking for the best window between the field shifts for detector response. Sensitivity, while important, does not really affect that window of detection. How loud the window is and its cut offs define the frame of the window and how much the detector can see out the window. In my opinion because ZVT does not operate on a conventional PI base window of send and listen ( a sensitivity based system) but on a basis of continuous read looking for the best view does get better results with lower sensitivities. Again thanks for reading.

I can't stand using a bungee as they impede my swing too much and I would have to wear a backpack or harness. I hate wearing backbacks and harnesses as I overheat! Its bloody hot most of the year where I work it easily gets over 43degc in the shade. And I like to have no shirt on for part of the day as it helps me keep my body temp down and manage myself in the extreme heat so I can work longer. Hydrolite sports in my water also helps as it replaces your tissue salts particularly magnesium as I have to drink about 6l of water per day, and if you sweat all of your salts out you will get cramps or dehydrated. The body can't hold water without any salts.

I've got my new battery so I'm heading back out tomorrow will do an air test while I'm out there. Don't worry I was as shocked as you when it was only 50g Au! I thought it was going to be 4oz+. Before someone says it fellin from the side I pinpointed it in the bottom of the rock crack with a pinpointer so it definitly didn't fall in from the side of the hole. And my mate that was with me could not hear the target at all until I dug off 150mm, I'm pretty sure that was because of our differences in our hearing.

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.