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I'm late getting out week 4, but unfortunately there wasn't much to report. We've had wind, then some wind & rain, then some really fine days. We lost a day here and there between weather, then the meeting with Dave on the X-Coil. We had 2 long days at the very southern end of the lease and did a great deal of exploring. We found a few crumbs. Dennis actually found 12 nuggets that weighed a total of 1.2 grams. It was enough to keep us busy and always thinking we were one coil swing away from a really good strike. We just couldn't get that coil over the big stuff. I'm using our backup GPX5000 with the 14X9 Coiltek Elite coil while I'm waiting for my Patch Lead to be completed. I was amazed at how quiet that machine can be. I cranked up the RX and cranked down the Stabilizer just so I could hear some noise. I found 3 tiny crumbs, 1 of them in one of my own boot scrapes from last week. Clearly, the 5000 can find tiny gold. My Patch Lead is delayed for another week, apparently one of the 5-pin connecter screws twisted off during reassembly. I'm satisfied I'm not missing much if anything with the 5000, but I really want to get that 17" X-Coil in motion. We're making our move to a new lease tomorrow so we've got a full day of packing and hauling Camp Yank. The flies remain a constant distraction during midday. I bring out the bug hood the minute one dive bombs my eyes or nose. They are persistent little buggers, Dennis is a lot more tolerant. Paul made it back safe and sound. He's chomping at the bit to get some of this $1400 an oz gold out of the ground. Their backhoe is up and running again, so good things should start happening soon for their team. Sorry for the short and relatively uneventful report. Maybe next week, it's all about the possibilities not the probabilities that keeps us swinging those detectors.

Found another nice bit in one of my flogged spots today, beside a little patch in State forest. Went 3.6 grams. Also got an 0.2 gram crumb. Rough reef gold, as were all the bits from here. Only out for a couple of hours today, going to put a full day in tomorrow ! How well do these new Russian coils go ! Still had none of the problems that JP was talking about, and it balanced fine over the ferrite ! Ground here is bloody noisy in patches, but was still able to run Normal HY over most of it, which I could NEVER do with the GPZ14 or GPZ19. Rick

Here’s the inside of my coil.

the silence is golden lol, it's a French expression, but I do not know, if it is well translated ... in short, some news AQ production must "normally" start on July / August there was some change on the machine new sticker a setting mode add and performance in reject mode significantly improved (result of the first research on Terra) + for the Terra first tests were performed with a new 8 inch coils same design as the 12.5 '/ at manta technology it starts less than 7us !!! (the delay in series is not yet fixed ...) with identque coil diameter (8 ') / facing the competition I'm just telling you, that the results are excellent ? still a little patience and I guarantee you that the level of performace will surprise many people extreme sensitivity on small jewels = gold possibility of finding gold on a zone full of iron (even of 24 carats) and in all-metal mode a depth on a gold ring that you have never seen and all that = in perfect silence the others can get out all the machines they want I think that AQ at least 5 years ahead of the competition (minimum) """so in my opinion""" it's worth it to wait a bit ?

"Proof of the pudding" Rick. Nice lil' colour too. ? In the final analysis, that's all that matters - - PS: Hate those one colour patches!

I used an AQ prototype last October under huge transmission lines - quiet as a mouse in all metal.

Klunker I am surprised you don’t know the answer to that one...or are you being rhetorical? 40% more depth would be my quess......?

Something I've been wanting to do for a while now..I got another x ray generator couple weeks ago and wanted to try it out on my DR System.. Heres most but not all of the coils I have. 1. CTX 6" 2. TDI Pro 12" double mono 3. CTX 17' 4. XP Deus 9" 5. Miner John 8x12" mono 6. x cal 8" 7. Gold Monster 6" 8. Fisher Gold Bug two 6" 9. Nox 6" 10. Nox 11" 11-14 GPZ 7000 stock coil

he should not have a problem with EMI in the month of May I tested the production version on this beach https://www.google.fr/maps/search/saint+jouin+bruneval+plage/@49.6648426,0.1088492,3522a,35y,124.65h,44.13t/data=!3m1!1e3 if you can do a zome we see a refinery a radar antenna (marine protection) and on the hill two big antennas phone and other wireless stuff ... plus the high voltage line feeding the refinery the beach was chosen specifically for its conditions and its black sand the silence was perfect / even at full power I did not have gold on this test but a stainless steel ring (same sound as gold) at 15/20 ' Of course, there will certainly be in the world areas where EMI are stronger or different but AQ is really very stable everything has been thought about the design to limit noise the plans of masses and the used components are far superior to other detectors the best proof is the 7us if others never proposed such a low delay it's only because of the noise ..........

You may want to snag a book by Chris Ralph called Fists Full of Gold on Amazon. Well worth a read and should be very useful. I snagged a copy and about halfway through and find it incredibly informative beyond what I plan to do.

To prepare 7bar BlackSand use 75kg sand and of 3 Kg=6x 0.5kg bottles technical Magnetite. But I will still check it on Teknetick G2 and 11 "DD Coil, and also on the Whites SpectraV3 detector, there is a Ground probe on 3F multifrequency to set the minimum RxGain-1 = from 13% -26% mineralization according to the type coils.. I will add a few more comments from the test: In medium and high 4bar mineralization enough to forgive the setting of discrimination and the movement of the coil, At the extreme high 7Bar fe3O4 blacksand mineralization : the best results you get by setting the discrimination on I-Iron... and also adequately reduce the speed of sweeping coil.

I hear you AG and agree the X coils have added to the Zs magic. I believe it is the X coils ability to handle the ground smoothly set in normal rather then difficult that has made the difference. Heh whatever it works, gets the gold. I`m off again tomorrow a days patch hunting is the go, found a smooth scrap at base of a slope other day, now find the source, or pull my hair out "another one piece patch" nah can`t be.

Hmmmmm ???? ?❓

I bet that would bring out the details on worn out coins. No more guessing what your worn out slug is!

I've fixed the links in my post, which was hard work. I'm going to have to practice if I'm going to post any more links in the future. The GoldBug2 has a few recognisable features: The fans of 6 or 7 wires are where connection is made to the graphite paint finish on the shell inner surface - one for the top, one for the bottom, I assume. The wires are bare tinned copper, possibly melted into the plastic, possibly taped down. Then the graphite is painted over the top of everything. There's a capacitor in there, the rectangular thing on two wires, typically a wound polypropylene type, in a little plastic box. This will tune the transmit coil. The excess of spare wire is what would be used to get the correct null, where there's very little output from the coil when nothing metallic is nearby. This could be moved around, formed into small loops, etc, in addition to moving the location of the central ( RX and bucking ) coil assembly about a bit.

I am always interested in something new, especially if it is beach related, or EMI mitigation related. But honestly I am tired of waiting on machines that never seem to come to market. Maybe if they would just let us know what is going on instead of silence, that would help. Minelab is always silent on their machines and never gives you more than a small glimpse of their new releases, but at least they do release them. My money is not everlasting by any means ?, so if I buy something today while waiting for the promised machine, I will not have the funds to buy it if it does come out! That happened with White's one time. I waited and waited and then the E Trac came out, so I bought it. They lost my sale, and helped Minelab get into my main line of machines used. Hard to knock them from that now, especially with just promises. I think it really hurts the credibility of a manufacturer to cry wolf too many times.

Hi Folks I have been busy making quite a few finds recently. After more than a year with the Equinox, it continues to impress me with it's capabilities. Some of my recent finds include some early 1630's Kettle Points and Turtle Effigy, Spanish Silver, KG's and more. I even have had it scuba diving. Unfortunately I wasn't impressed with the volume with the Grey Ghost headphones. I have a new pair of Tony Eisenhower headphones ready to try out with the hopes that the volume is better. We shall see. HH Everyone...

Not to forget to evaluate the 7 "CC Precision coil: It's also a great coil for the Mojave .. it still finds and separates the good things from the iron. From the sensitivity set to max,.. its range in the airtest: is almost the same with the 6x8" SEF coil set to Sensitivity 5 ... Therefore, even the Sef coil when set to Max sensitivity has a 1-2cm better reach even in the mild and heavily mineralized ground. But if you detect in a very strong mineralization.... still use the Tesoro mojave some DD coil - will allow you to effectively and reliably detect under heavy conditions.

Yesterday my buddy stumbled onto another hot spot at the 1850's site we've been hunting since the beginning of the year and found a Dragoon and an R button along with a really nice rosette. He wasn't able to go out today, but he gave me his blessing to head over and hunt it today. I'm sure he's not to happy about that now ? I got there at 05:30 this morning and right away period items began to come to light, dropped musket ball, pistol ball, percussion cap and a trouser button on the first pass. That's always a good sign when you start to pull some keepers right from the get go. On the next pass, a percussion cap, 2 pulltabs, a pistol ball and then I get a 21-22 on the Nox 800. We seldom get very many items that hit in the 20's except aluminum slaw or deeply buried aluminum cans, most hits are in the 9 to 19 range. I fully expected to dig a piece of trash and was totally unprepared for what came out, when I saw what it was, I just threw it back onto the dirt pile, stood up and started walking around stunned. A major bucket lister that I always wanted to dig, but just never figured I'd ever see come outta the hole, my first Spanish Reale. My goal for the day was to at least dig a Dragoon or maybe another R button. This was the last thing I thought would ever come from this site, I'm still in awe that I was privileged to find such an awesome coin. Somehow I was able to compose myself and continue hunting for another 9 hours and ended up with some excellent relics to add to my display case once I finish hunting this site. I did dig a lead, 1 piece button, my 3rd from here, anyone have any idea if it's period and what it's from? Once again my settings on the Nox 11" coil Sens 23 Recovery 4 Iron bias 0 No disc GB at 3-6 Park 1 2-tones Tone break -9 to +8

I was having a relatively slow morning detecting at La Jolla Shores Beach in San Diego today, about $1 in clad and a euro coin when a young woman came up asking for help finding a ring. She was frantic and her husband was second guessing, saying it must be at home and asking when was the last time she saw it? She kept insisting it was here right here, next to the seawall. With just a couple swipes of my Equinox 800/15" coil I had it in the scoop. She was ecstatic and gave me a big hug. I've always dreamt of finding a big expensive engagement ring whilst detecting. I've gotten a few gold bands but nothing like this! I obviously didn't get to keep it, but it seemed to bring some good karma to the day and I found two large silver rings shortly afterward. She insisted on getting my info and address so I might be getting a reward or thank you letter later. Here's a couple pics of the expensive ring, the happy owner and the two silvers I got afterward.

LE.JAG ... I would have one question .. is it possible to market AQUA-Pulse and TERRA-Pulse in the same time period ..? Another question would be when will I start pre-orders for AQUA-Pulse and TERRA-Pulse detectors? I admit to TERRA-pulse is a detector that is personally interested in me ...

Just keep at it, Steve...you and Dennis are worthy of some big nuggets! Detecting is a manic/depressive activity. The days I found gold I was happy and the days I didn't I was sad. But through it all were flies, flies, flies... fred

I hope that it works out that way in my style of hunting. If it performs that way on a beach, I will buy one. My fear is that EMI will kill most of those advantages.

La parole est d'argent, mais le silence est d'or Thanks Denis for sharing and been persistent ? RR

Yes. Most of the points we have found were made from brass trade kettles, most likely Dutch.

Hello! Everyone! I'm back from my first site(s). The Hayden claim site indeed did have way too many hot rocks. I had a crash course in learning my detector lol. Got there about 6pm and wasn't hot at all about 97f. First thing i want to say i felt like i was in heavan! i wanted to scan everything and do it now! lol but in reality I only stayed near the car and only dug 3 holes...depressing i know but the first item i found was a 1980 penny at 3 inches! i was so happy!! lol. Next two holes i dug i found a 9mm casing in each hole. I left the site at 8pm. The next day (Sun) i left at 12pm for another claim site in Bumble Bee. Lol yes i was hungry for more! Sadly I only dug one hole and found another 9mm casing at 4in. Had to leave early because it was way too hot and I didn't bring enough water. I didn't account for the effort it took to actually walk up hills and actually get to the site which was 2400 ft walk from the car. A huge lesson i have learned, google map's satellite view is very deceiving about hills and mountain height's. I can't wait to go back to Bumble Bee in October. (sorry about the last pic it came from a screenshot from a video)

Hit the spot on Sunday for a couple hours...This place just keeps on givin.... lots of fun even though nothing valuable a wheat penny here and there a lucky silver dime now and then. The World War II relics are my favorite finds. A cop stopped and asked how I was doing lol said he was an infantry man in the army I gave him 3 of my best buttons...Nice to have an acquaintance out there... Strick

I advertise that mine is 8 in shorter. But the drop Riffels are exactly the same. If you look at most of the pictures out there, the gold is caught in the top part of the riffles. Other than that being a few inches shorter at the exit end, it doesn't change the way the sluice box works at all. My response to was just to make sure that everybody had the real story and there was no misunderstanding of how mine came about. If somebody wants a longer one then buy the longer one. If someone wants the shorter one or my mini Trap, which catches gold amazingly too, then mine is available. Just want to be fair to everyone and have an honest understanding of how the le trap works.

You're a heck of a photographer Mr. Strick. Could you bring that thing up with you on your next trip. I would like to play with it and see if it could be adapted to field use. How much depth do you think we could get with it?

There seems to be a lot going on inside the GB2 coil. Could this be part of its magic? I love that detector.

Ben died several years ago, knew him when he would summer around Brandy City and Eureka diggings near Indian Valley in Sierra Co. Calif. For the Winter he would head south to Yuma area to dry wash, and get some free lodging courtesy of the Yuma Police Dept.. Ausome

You can go to smaller DD coils but that kind of negates why you use a GPX - the power. Basically, no, you can’t reduce sensitivity without reducing depth.

The trick is to get new models when they come out so you get the full ride. After several years you just never know when a new model may.. or may not, come out. And no matter what the new machine costs existing units always take a price hit as many people dump the older model to get the newer one. Since Minelab owns the high end market with no competition in sight there is no business reason to replace the GPZ any time soon. For a long time now the only company competing with Minelab on the high end gold detectors has been Minelab. Not saying it won’t happen, but people counting X number of years between releases forget what happened when the GPX 4500 came out. The release time between it and the final GPX 5000 doubled over previous release intervals. I know because I sold my GPX 4500 anticipating a new model.... and then had to buy another one when the 4800/5000 release was delayed.

I'm with you Steve. For some strange reason I'm thinking they will wait until someone released a detector that grabs our interest. I know 1st Texas wants to release a perfect machine (nothing is perfect) out of the gate but there will be a point where people will quit waiting and move on. As I recall a couple years ago they, (presumably a leak of 2 new detectors under development, "CZX" well I waited until the Equinox was released and jumped on board. And I'm glad I did. If they wait too long, it will cost them. You know, Minelab listens to what is going on and it wouldn't surprise me if they don't release something to pickup part of that market before 1st Texas.

One Should not be fooled by its looks, but the SDC is a weapon when it comes to small gold These days I run the 2300 before I break out the Z , if there is small color larger pieces won't be far away I gave it a thought about buying a larger coil for the SDC but why bother when the std Z coil will get those pieces anyway The other day I got this super faint target on an ants nest , Australian Meat Ants are aggressive and are a real pain in the Arss as they just keep biting until you kill them not much fun on the inside of your pants leg , this target was the smallest I had ever found and blew my mind once I had recovered it 0.04 of a gram or for you US guys 0.6172943 of a grain and it was found with the SDC, mind you it took 20 mins to retrieve it, all in good fun but I would not want to do that every time I got a faint signal I'm not entering the Public debate of X coils, thanks Marty

Thanks for the post JP. Although it seems like some of the early issues may have been ironed out is always nice for a potential consumer to know the teething problems a new product has had and potential issues that may still arise for some purchasers depending on ground conditions or if the patch lead, etc aren't quite up to scratch. Although I no longer own the Z, if it were still in my hands I know I couldn't bring myself to 'cut the cord' as it were. The risk versus the reward would be just too big for me at the present time. I think you mentioned in one of your earlier posts about the possibility of "coil not connected" being too scary to contemplate - I am definitely in that category ? This is also not a slight on the X coils, their manufacturer or Davsgold. Obviously there are many happy purchasers experiencing little or no issues and finding good quantities of gold in flogged patches. But there are 2 sides to every coin and it is good for potential purchasers to see the flip side so they can make a fully informed decision. Cheers, NE.

Hi JP. Been watching a lot your work out in the scrub during the years. Thanks for your time very helpful. I`m over in the WA side and need to put my bit in. Even though new to this forum I have gone through the 4500 to 5000 to 7000 series over the years. I look at the posts from persons telling me how good the new x coils work but to me over here I work over old grounds flogged over the years full of hot rocks and minerals. Most areas have been scraped by blades to flatten the ground and get the coils as close as possible to the ground. I am picking up small nuggets usually within 50mm from the surface. The average size is 0.1 grams. I will include a photo of some pieces collected from the Leonora area four weeks ago. So it may take all day to get a gram but I enjoy the struggle, then every now and then out pops a beauty. I use the ML14" coil with the skid plate bouncing on the ground (carefully). I have to run in difficult all the time, high yield, sensitivity 20, threshold 1, vol 12 with the VM12 unit, ground balance auto, all smoothing off. The coil works nice and quiet as long as you balance properly at the start and take your time. I have picked up a lot of small stuff that people and machines have left behind. Any nuggets greater that 1 gram set the machine off so loud that it wakes you up with a fright. In high mineral ground give it a try. All in all the ML14" suits me to a tee. Okay a bit heavy, but I swing without needing a harness and the coil takes a lot of punishment from me. Enjoy the bush out there all, cheers Sturt.

I agree - it's rare to see something really different on the forums and this is one of those posts for sure!

The X coils are DOD wound (SuperD is the name Minelab give for that configuration), you need that style of coil for ZVT to work properly. The Spiral wound X coils have a flat Tx and a traditional Rx, because of the spiral they seem to behave a bit like a monoloop with a signal kind of coming off the side edges of the coils as well as the traditional receive points where the windings cross each other. Electronically they are flawed with what Minelab would consider to be too much saturation signal (Tx is most likely too close to the ground relative to the Rx in an attempt to save weight and simplify design and expense), the windings also allow too much knock and rub energy through the windings causing noise especially in General Difficult. Because they are hand made there will also be discrepancies and inconsistencies between coils which I also noticed with my coils. If Minelab made such a coil they would be constantly having to replace them under warranty. I gave all this advice when I was testing them to both the manufacturer and the importer. JP

Thanks Folks... An update on those Tony Eisenhower headphones.. I was able to hear the detector while scuba diving with them. Not sure how many others are trying the Equinox in this type of environment but if you are I would recommend these headhphones over the Grey Ghost.

Hi All, We will be releasing our new Master Class videos on our youtube page over the coming weeks/months and just thought I would share the link to the first one if anyone is interested to watch it. The first 5 or so will be on the new Gold Extreme coils for the SDC and what to expect when using the coils. They are a panel discussion type video and aimed to help educate more on what coils do and where to use them. We will also be recording more on topics like coin and treasure hunting coils and the gold coil range. We aim to talk to prospectors from around the globe and ask for their experiences using the Coiltek coils and hints and comments on coils in general. The more we can help people understand about coils and their performance characteristics the better. Thanks and if you do watch the video I hope you enjoy it and happy hunting whatever you swing! Trevor @ Coiltek.

What a cool hunt! You guys are playing up in my neck of the woods ?

For more photos of the hunt see Gerry's "Idaho Mining Town Finds" in the "Metal Detecting for Coins and Relics" Forum. On YouTube the Tough Run Metal Detecting" channel the first of a four part series on the Diamondville hunt appears. James is one of the two hunters who found their first natural gold. On the "Park Rat Metal Detecting" channel under "The Last Day at Diamondville" video, the latter portion shows the wrap up and awards ceremony. HH Jim

Hi, we have one of the first 18" X coils and also smaller 10×9" coil. This is what we have found so far with the 18". The first time we used it was at a test patch that nenad met us at to test against 14" and 19" at euchunga, near adelaide in south australia. First thing we did was to use factory settings. Then we ground balanced using ferite. The 18" did have trouble balancing out ferite. We then went over various targets with all coils to see various results. Moving on, since then we have used this coil on various areas in the adelaide hills region and sometimes we ground balanced with ferite, other times just normal without it. While detecting in all these spots we found that ground balance was as if had 14" minelab coil on machine. I could tell no decernable difference. Re hot rocks it reacted no different to the 14" minelab as always had others with who had 7000's. We constantly ran the machines over same area to see if the xcoil was picking up signals that minelab coil didnt and visa versa. In one area in particular there was a lot of iron stone which seemed heavier than lead and was as magnetic as steel. Naturally both machines were the same response. We purchased the 18" coil for depth and that has found gold and targets deeper than any other machine on a particular area that had been methodically hammered by various good detector operators with various machines including nenad. (PhaseTech) We wanted to go to WA to detect a spot where we know there is deeper gold as we found gold every foot to meter in this spot. Lots more there but to deep for current setups and the xcoil was the next step. Due to cancer and on chemo daily that is out of the question. We however are hoping to be in Tibooburra in the next week and will try both coils there to see there performance. After the ferite came out we used for a while but then never used until the x coil came and really thought there was no decernable difference. I know JP has explained why we should use it, i will use it now to try and balance as best as machine will let it, but saying that, we are really happy with purchase and in our opinion is a great step forward in detecting technology. WAif we got to the one particular spot we would have liked to get back to would have shown plus or negatives for the xcoil as was in very highly mineralised ground, almost all iron stone. TG

Hey there Glazed Tofu. 600 here also. I run primarily in Park 1, high sens as long as it is stable, 0 IB, 0 disc, 7 threshold, recovery 3, iron volume on 3, 50 tones. I've hunted in all modes but keep going back to Park 1, most likely out of habit. I haven't noticed digging anything better or worse in either mode. I hunt in high trashy parks and lot sites in L.A. & burbs and I love this machine in 50 tones. I have hundreds of hours on this machine and my coin/relic finds have been awesome. I'll have to show off my 2019 collection at years end.

This website is one of the best for learning about machines. Do a search and you will find a guide giving pros and cons of each. Then read through what others are having success using. When you decide on a machine, see if you can get a used one for starters. I have never paid full price for a machine.

Is that Maple frosting??? Yummmmm. I should do that since I am on the beach all winter long. What did you use?

Interesting thread, and lots of good ideas expressed so far, especially the comments on why spend a gazillion dollars on a machine as a rookie when there are excellent VLF's out there that will still sniff out a lot of gold in good gold areas where you're not dealing with extreme mineralization or extra-deep gold. I love hunting with VLF's for the same reasons others do; it's not a tiring process in any way to swing the machine, and I have a lot more fun. Having said that, when I need my PI, I'm glad I've got it, but looking back on when I started, I wouldn't want to have started with a heavy machine vs. a lightweight machine. Moreover, today's VLF's are a lot better equipped to handle the ground and are able to "think" with their computer brains about what's going on in the ground with tracking, etc., etc. I'd cut my teeth on a new generation VLF dedicated gold machine, then move up if you really develop a love for nugget hunting. Chasing nuggets is often a lonesome pursuit with many barren stretches between nuggets, and it requires a lot of serious dedication to keep at it let alone the dedication required to research ground and the dedication to learn every nuance of your detector. On a different note, one that Steve and others have reflected on before, I'd love Minelab to figure out how to get their new-gen GPZ tech. into a much lighter package if at all possible. Sometimes I get tired of dragging around what sometimes feels like a garage door on the end of the shaft, so I'll take a sporty little VLF for a spin whenever possible instead . . . All the best, and good luck with whatever your decision is, Lanny

Nope, the Walco goes nowhere! I am flattered by your portrayal - I am pretty good with a detector but there are many far better than I. Jason, I like your thinking. I am selling the GPZ for no other reason than I have other things I want to pursue other than heavy prospecting this year. For a lot of the reasons you mention I am perfectly content using a VLF to look for gold so going awhile without a "big gun" does not worry me at all. The thought of going and chasing gold with a "VLF only" sounds quite refreshing right now. Honestly the way I run the GPZ is just grunt work. Days on end of careful gridding of "hunted out" locations. I have a hankering to do more of the just wandering around and exploring thing this summer, and a VLF stuffed in a rucksack as you noted can often serve better than a ton of theoretically more powerful gear. But mainly I have my focus set on goals that are completely unrelated to gold prospecting or metal detecting this year. I decided to use the opportunity to clean house and start fresh again in 2020.

I spent a lot of time hoping for a GPZ update or new model but this last year I've found myself almost only using a VLF, in my case a GB2 and a Deus. I started in the "King PI" times and never really looked at VLF's as more than a relic from the past or a tool to clean up the little bits. But after my GPZ went to the shop I realized that I really enjoyed exploring with my GB2 and Deus because they were so light and easy to swing. When I'm exploring for new places it's a almost a better tool because finding those tiny bits are the best way to find new patches since they are so much more numerous and its easier to sniff out by tracing them. They are also the best way to find "new old" patches that have been forgotten because so many people only used PI's for so many years and those are the only indicators left behind now. The reality of today is that a lot of the guys who found these patches in the 70's, 80's, and 90's are gone and with them the knowledge and information is dying too so its up to the new guys to rediscover them. I think the era of taking the big guns to old gold fields and finding success is now also dying or dead, at least for me, I'm sure there will always be some producing nuggets from them though and saying "its still out there". But mostly, I just remembered how fun detecting and exploring can be when you aren't tethered to a giant anchor and I can swing fast, all day, and still concentrate on looking at everything around me more. On the experience, on the geology, on the history around me, on life. Light and packable just feels right, it's how it should be today in 2019, it's how it should have been 10 years ago. In a way I guess we are going back in time. I hope Minelab can find some way to bring this experience to the big guns like the GPZ but it doesn't seem likely due to physical limitations on the coil design and lack of competition. I'll always keep a PI or GPZ to clean up patches, but in the future I see a lot more exploration happening with the VLF's for me personally, like 25 years ago I guess we are going back to the future or maybe back to the past. I'll probably still buy a GPZ update if it's significantly deeper and hit old patches, but I don't see it (or a PI) as my main machine anymore for the first time in my detecting career unless they make it far lighter or really advance it's ability to find deeper gold while reducing sensitivity to salt, minerals, and EMI. I'm curious, after seeing Steve selling his GPZ, are you doing something similar with prospecting or are you mostly leaning towards coins and relics these days? Anyone else thinking along these same lines recently?