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Mitch, Testing your machine on different setting on a natural nugget (not planted) is the best! When you hunt with a Buddy or a group, have them call you over to a likely nugget before they disturb the ground over it. You’ll need to, do this several times to feel you have the right settings for your Ears to hear. Now you talk about a slow level coil swing! This is important too, lots of times you will not hear a tone of a nugget if your swinging to fast. Now, that slow swing is only for known patches...if your out and about Patch hunting your only looking for one nugget to get you dialed in to and area then slow down a little, but not a crawl...get them Ducks. When all the easy nuggets are gone then the crawl swing. Rick

I have had my QED a few weeks now. I am not a expert by any means but I have been detecting since 1980 and with minelab detectors almost exclusively since 2004. This is not a comparison, only my impressions of the QED. In short I am very pleased with the detector. I spent quite a bit of time with it on the coast where I live and had an opportunity to compare it with a 4500 belonging to a friend on 4 different afternoon hunts. We compared the two on real targets in the field and in his test garden in Virginia red clay and on relics in that same soil. I cannot say one or the other is better, but I can say on the literally dozens of targets we ran both machines over, the QED could detect all the 4500 could but 2. This could have been my lack of experience with the QED. In one area with a major power transmission line running through it the QED handled the EMI without a problem while the 4500 struggled a bit. Not counting the coils, I have less than $1250.00 in the QED. It is simple to navigate and set up. It’s lite and uses cheap batteries. For the money, the performance is remarkable. It is a deep detector by my standards. The 5 year warranty is another plus and it only costs about $30.00 to ship the control box back if necessary for repair or update. Would I buy another one? I absolutely would. Were it not for my Equinox 800, I would say it is the best bang for the buck in detectors .

PI - it will come... it is just that some projects took over priority.

All right! All right! I concede! The wind made the piles- - - - but the wind came from a dry washer.

Got this running the "Undertune" program---9 GB, Sens 19 seems to make things more orderly. 2 Tone, Non Ferrous Pitch 25, really makes the gold jump out. Jury still out on the upgrade--I run it fast 5 or 6 especially if you want to traverse parallel to shore with fast water. It's 18k 34.9 gr. cjc

I finally broke down and got serious about updating my 800, and like most people that has had problems when using Windows 7 I looked for a fix. After a short time of confusion about what was going on and not really finding any answers, I turned to YouTube and found the solution. Simply put the problem is not the program but the compatibility to Win 7. So all one has to do is the following: Before running the program, Highlight and right click on the program and scroll down to troubleshoot compatibility. Click on troubleshoot compatibility and click on Try recommended settings, click next, and then start program. That is all you need to do to get it to work. I hope that this helps someone else out there.

We already have the heavy waterproof Garrett ATX with its ridiculous coils. And besides, the big bucks is in gold prospecting. We need that dry land only light weight machine the ATX could have been but that Garrett refuses to build.

Dear Nokta/Makro: As far as coil compatibility, I hope that also includes Coiltek and Nuggetfinder. I think lightweight, balance, and battery convenience are all achievable. Please (I'm sure you have) read what Steve says about balance taking precedence over minimum weight. A variable counterbalance system (or at least the ability for a detectorist to do that himself) would be great so that different coils can be used and still allow balance. What I'd like to see in the battery area is both a rechargeable lithium pack and the ability to use standard AA's such as alkaline throw-aways and NiMH rechargeables. I'd prefer not having to tether the batteries to my person -- I'd much rather just change them out when they get low on juice. Oh, and I do hope we're talking about a dry land, native gold hunting capable detector. Now, I'm not a beach hunter so fully waterproof isn't necessary nor do I want to pay for that, if possible to avoid. I could imagine two versions, one for beach hunters (waterproof) and one for landlubbers (waterproof coil and rain resistant contol head). For the headphone sockets, why not include both (at least on the dry land version) 3.5 mm AND 1/4"? First Texas has done that in some cases and I find it extremely convenient. Hope you don't mind all this 'help' designing your detector. 😁 As usual you're not going to make everyone happy and a Swiss Army Knife approach probably won't be feasible. Most important to me are minimum weight for a truly balanced dry land capable detector with no tethers. The other stuff would be nice, but I'm sure I can live without them. As far as cost, yes that's important to me (most of us?) but you've repeatedly proven you know all about that!

With Nokta/Makro reconfirming a PI is in the works I am confident we will finally see this segment of the detector market get readjusted, much in the same way Equinox and Simplex are readjusting the VLF market. The GPZ 7000 was introduced in 2015, what’s up next for Minelab? QED is looking good and more advances being hinted at there. The Fisher Impulse is almost bound to happen in 2020. Nokta/Makro in particular is exciting due to their history of listening to and working directly with customers to deliver what they want. And you just know whatever the do will be affordable.

Chet, Hey, I forgot to Thank You! You seen me way out in the Desert looking for something and not swinging my Coil. Thanks for giving me your extra Ferrite Ring! They are a must item in my book! Somewhere out there, is mine by 3 dug Holes, 2 had nuggets and one had (which was my first hole) heavy Black Sands which I hunt for too! That’s why, I like to hear my working Threshold you can hear the minerals change. One I heard that and dug that false signal with a magnet heavy with black sands, I Retuned my machine. I swung next to that first hole to see if it mild the Minerals down and got a tone. I was about, to try another retuning trick, but swung a couple feet over and it was perfect! Slowly swung back to the tone, dug it nugget and the next one was too! Of course, I started my grid of the area and walked off and left my Ferrite. Thanks again Rick

Lunk, Best thing about them patches is “They can hide, But can’t run and I’ll track them Down”. Just to much good looking dirt...It’s all about the Hunt and enjoying yourself with our Hobby! Rick

There are few things in detecting I can say I beat Steve H. to the line, but operating a detector is one of them. I first used a metal detector (home built from an electronics mag in 1969) and had my first usable detector (Heathkit GD-48 in 1970/71). From there it's been all downhill. It would be a complete sham to pretend my detecting skills approach Steve's, or for that matter many of those who post here. However, I'm not going to admit that I don't have observations which might deserve consideration. I was out today with my EQX 800 in a school yard I've been working for 1 1/2 years. 3 1/2 hours produced two old US 'nickel' 5 cent pieces and a lot of other metal objects whose origin/usage/meaning are mostly a mystery. When I go detecting it's as much about learning as it is about finding, and today's hunt was not exception. What comes back to perception (I won't go as far to say 'realization') for me is the issue of masking. Iron is king when it comes to all metal detectors AFAIK. But any metal object, given the right size, shape, and location can be a masker. Recent detectors have made strides in unmasking desirable targets, but I sure hope they aren't finished. Although it's always true that you can't beat mother nature (physics), most of the time that doesn't prevent improvements such as speed and software 'intelligence'. There may be hardware breakthroughs out there, or not, but I'd like to think even without that we will see the biggest problem in coin and relic detecting realizing improvements in the near future. Which company will do that? I don't care, but there are several capable and here's hoping at least one cares enough about us detectorists, for whatever reason, to do so.

Anyone who has used a White’s TDI much knows that the ground balance can be manipulated to exclude certain targets. This is less about conductivity as White’s sells it, but about target size. What that means is you can exclude high conductors and large ferrous and concentrate on smaller low conductors and small ferrous. Or you can exclude small ferrous and small non-ferrous and go for higher conductors and larger ferrous. The system does not make gold hunters happy because to dig small gold you still dig small ferrous stuff. Or when you are digging larger gold you still dig nails. My guess on the Impulse is that it is using at least two “ground balance” points to bracket the most common ring responses, which tend to be lower mid-range targets. It would be quite a balancing act tuning out both the smallest stuff and the largest stuff and just hit the sweet spot. I personally think this could be a powerful method for essentially cherry picking rings while eliminating most small ferrous and large ferrous. There still will be a class of mid-range ferrous targets that read good - I promise the system can’t be perfect. The flip side however is that at least two large “holes” are going to have to exist as a result. One that misses smaller gold targets, like earrings and chains, and possibly the smaller thin rings. And then on the top end very large heavy men’s rings and silver rings, and most coins may also be lost. The solution will be to turn off the discrimination and go back to digging everything. Hopefully there will be some ability to tweak the discrimination as target / trash mixes do vary somewhat and shifting the accepted range up or down would be beneficial. I am just guessing based on what I know about how a PI works and how one could potentially discriminate out a class of targets. I could see a very acceptable trade being made, more depth at the expense of certain target classes. Yet I wonder how the general public will react to videos displaying numerous gold items, especially large ones, being completely undetectable by the Impulse in discrimination mode? The wiser among us may understand what’s going on and the trades being made, but if I know one thing about a lot of folks, the idea the machine misses good stuff won’t fly too well. Witness the silver dollar on edge fiasco with the Equinox, or the similar issue with the early Gold Bug models. Anyway, don’t take this as being more than speculation, but it is something that the more knowledgeable among us will want to find out quickly once the Impulse hits the streets. It should be easy to find out, just air test with a large range of jewelry targets running from tiny to large and check the results. And the same with ferrous. Unless a Pulse Devil miracle machine is in the works, and I am betting that’s not the case, there will be some definite caveats to deal with when employing the discrimination system. For me it’s kind of a non-issue. I’d be happy with the machine as a straight up pulse digging everything. It’s the ergonomics and price along with the finely tuned low pulse delay that have me looking more than some magic discrimination system. Anything it does there will be just a bonus. I will actually be surprised if the nugget hunting terra version has any discrimination at all due to the possible issues I am outlining. It would tune out most natural gold nuggets. Optional blocking of high end nail type signals would be of more benefit to nugget hunters in small gold areas. It would risk missing large nuggets but in some places that’s not much of a worry. Fisher Impulse AQ Data & Specifications Fisher Impulse AQ pulse induction metal detector

It was a lucky day today. I've been in a silver lust mode and wanted a ring of some sort. Well today both things seemed to crash into one another. Took the ORX out and went over a place I've been to before. This place has produced some whet pennies and clad stuff but I never expected to find this little kid's ring. It was down just a few inches and rang up 90-91 on my XP ORX. Really thought it was a dime. Inside there is a 925 marking. It's sterling silver! Brought it home applied the baking soda with a drop of water to shine her up a little. Can't figure out if a kid used this on their finger or as a toe ring. It's very small. For all of you that wonder.. YES the XP ORX will hit the goodies!

As mentioned in one of my earlier posts and as much as I love my TDIBH........the coil at 12” diameter is just too big in my generally rough ocean conditions....the swell and waves knock it around too much and with zero visibility due to stirred up sand and white water.......anyhow I have managed to secure myself an unused (outdoors) Whites’s Surf Pi Pro that a very nice person called Eric Foster currently owns. It’s had a few changes too by Eric. The unit will be outfitted with a recently hand made coil by Eric......a 10” centre mount / 3 spoke coil (Full epoxy fill so no buoyancy problems) with an inline waterproof connector to be able to swap out coils if needed. The coil is in the style of the old Aquastar detector. Centre mount coils are awesome and are very physically stable. I think the AQ will have such a coil. Eric has tweaked the internals of the detector for better gold response.....I think similar to the mods done by Mr. Bill on the Surf Pi Pro. It will be powered by a 10 cell NiMH battery pack or a 3 cell Lithium pack. I’m not going crazy with extra voltage such as the TDIBH so the standard 12v nominal will be more than adequate. I plan to keep the headphones stock.....I’ve always liked White’s 🎧 Pictures will be added as soon as possible. I was thinking if the Surf Pi Pro is good enough for Steve in Hawaiian conditions then its good enough for me 👍 Tony

Waterproofing a VLF and waterproofing a high power PI are two different things. Just ask Fisher.

Adrywasher operates by a gila monster

Definitely Gilla Monster dens. The area should only be detected by a Gilla Monster expert such as myself. Now where did you say this was?

I have already spent a bunch on a 5000 and 7000, some years apart, I would only buy another PI if it was much like Steve described and more affordable than what I have spent so far.

That is awesome, and unlike the sure grip, it doesn't interfere as much with getting your thumb up on the control panel. Great job, Dan.

Maybe natural but it is difficult to be so certain from pics....wind would not do that, I don’t see water doing that.... I vote for very old dry wash headers or pretty old raking... how you doing, Paul?

Yeah, there are a ton of good finds being masked. Aluminum masking is far more an issue in parks than iron masking.

I run into masking problems too in many areas when using a DD. I recently sweep the coil normal in one directly then back swipe at an angle. Seems to help. Of course if when there is a lot of iron I find myself setting my disc so iron just chirps as a marginal target and then approach each target at different angles. Wonder why ML doesn't make a concentric?

Good observation, schoolofhardNox, and I'll add that it's even true with IB/VLF. Anyone who thinks he's 100% sure of what's giving the coil a signal is fooling himself. That's why there are so many good find still available for those of us who search previously detected sites. I guess we should thank them.

Clark, IMO you're approaching this the right way. Nobody here (worth paying any attention to) is going to rip you for posting your results and questions. You are making good decisions and you should keep it up. Reality is that even though rare finds are just that - rare, they do happen and the worst thing anyone can do is assume finds are worthless and throw them in the trash. Please continue to post and ask questions. We all will learn from them.

If I ever get the AQ then I will “let it off it’s leash”........no discrimination or any setting that will adversely affect performance or run the slightest risk of missing any gold and that includes 24K............why...... because I regularly see large men wearing big gold nugget pendants around their neck and boy or boy that clasp looks flimsy 👍 Many Australian nuggets run over 22K in purity. Fortunately, my local beaches don’t have too much pure iron junk targets so I don’t need to worry about chasing millions of these ........bottle caps and booby pins are an acceptable problem. Tony PS........AQ has to detect my own 18K wedding ring deeper than 18”.......this is the current benchmark with my TDIBH 🏖

It was too cold yesterday to detect and the wind was blowing too. Today was different! So out we go (me and my wife) to a new elementary school. I used my trusty T2SE with the Cors Shrew. The conditions were for lack of a better word- weird. Coins were coming in much different than how they usually do on the ID. This is one of those areas where the dirt is red and filled with the golden sparkle flakes everywhere. Well onto the meat and potatoes. I found some clad quarters, dimes, a nickel and crusty pennies. Ran over the entire chip bark lot and had just told my wife "It's time to get the ORX out and sweep up". Right at that moment i got a quarter signal and out pops this pretty shiny coin at 7" in the chip and red clay. It is a 1953 Canadian Silver 25 cent piece. It looks rather worn to me and is my first Canadian Silver. I was very excited to get that. Question is, HOW did it get here in the states on a playground? I have a feeling some kid raided a coin collection and wanted to ditch the evidence maybe. After that find the ORX was deployed and found another 2 quarters a couple more dimes, a nickel and more pennies. Oh yeah, also found a "Chuck E Cheese" token. First token I've dug. First and second picture is the silver coin. Last pic is the crusty clad haul. The silver was already sort of scratched looking on the face when found. So in all today, the 1953 silver canadian, 7 clad quarters, 10 clad dimes, 2 nickels, 14 clad pennies. I threw some corroded pennies away because they had edges that was ragged. Pleased with today's silver and will not complain about coinstar clad!

Lunk, Thx for your time out at RP. Your thoughts on some of those settings seemed counterintuitive to me at first. But, after I started pulling some little pickers and seeing how Zed would find them, it was such an advantage to get some time with someone with your experience. It's so completely different than the GPX's, I would have spent so many more hours with it before getting on the right track. Very much appreciated. Beau

I love clever ideas like this Sure Grip that makes detecting life easier. This is what I did before I saw the Sure Grip. I cut a swimming noodle to a convenient thickness, cut a slit in it so I could simply slip it around the top of the handle. It buffers the control box from weighing on my hand and stays on with no problem. It's nice and comfy but easily removed when cleaning my EQX. The Sure Grip however would be better when submerged in water.

I paid good money to get those setting (and a lot more) and now he's giving it away! I wouldn't have missed it. I've had better days in Rye Patch since the training than before the training. I think I've already paid for it with my finds over the last couple of trips. Mitchel

That’s some good news! 👍🏼 If there is any area in metal detecting that needs the “Nokta/Makro touch” it is pulse induction.

Thanks. I do save all my junk targets from each beach in separate boxes until the season is over, just to see how much I dig. Then I recycle them. Here are some of the usual targets I dig from that beach. I will dig around 4x what is in that picture per 1 visit. Some people may say that you can tell the size of an object and just pass on it. It's true, I can tell the general size, but with a PI you can never be 100% sure if it's a deep big target at 20", or a large coin (our silver half dollars) at around 8". A big coin at 8" comes in very loud and wide. The added benefit of digging iron is that I remove some very nasty pointy objects. I have also found coins near or with that iron many times. If I get out soon, I will save the junk targets for a picture.

All I ask is that you take a photo of your wife's face when she sees you walking in the door with that. (But please mute the mic. This is a G-rated site.)

I recovered my hunting buddy's wedding band massive 4.5 grams red/champagne colored gold I believe it was 22K and it rang in at a solid 14 in Flield 1 recovery 6 iron4 - I will not forget....this ring was lost for almost 1.5 years and myself and other people tried to find it with different machines. As there is lots of trash in the area no one was able to locate it. When I got my Nox 800 the second time out on the pasture I found 'em. My Nox rocks!!!!!!!! Big time!!!!

Have been looking at this on Ebay and decided to order one today to try out! We will see how it functions! I currently don't have a proper shop, or else i would probably make one myself, out of an old nylon cutting board! If it works out, i may make a few for my other detectors! But for now, I'll just purchase!👍

Many, many years ago I was new to meteorite hunting. While wandering the desert I found a nice big iron...or so I thought. Turned out to have made in USA stamped on it. Apparently parts from Patton’s War Games... live and learn

Thanks, you are absolutely right it’s all about the learning, I get a wealth of information from every little mystery I find. Being new learning the geology, reading maps... and I believe I’m in good company I read frequently similar questions and concerns, I can look through the pages and pictures in my mineral guide and some of it translates for me in the field, but like anything else the devil is in the details and years of practical hands and eyes on experience or good and patient teachers are essential to read and understand the story to the right ending when comparing what I find vs my books. Thankfully the help here plays a big roll in filling that gap in knowledge with access to so many great teachers making it possible for someone new like me to have a chance at finding some success in a reasonable amount of time. so, the last mystery didn’t need XRF the experts were right as always😀 this is metal trash from mining. Before taking it any further testing by cleaning off the rust revealed an earth like man made curve not found in debris from space at least none that I know of in Pahrump, NV. My guess is they were both little chunks from the same axle or shaft that exploded under the load of mining by the shape and curve.

Just another thought to "kill two birds with one stone": For the counterbalance to accomodate heavier coils, have a way to attach spare battery packs. This allows you to carry the battery spares on your person (pocket, backpack, etc.) when not needed for counterbalancing but easily used as counterweight when a heavy coil is mounted.

Hi all, It’s been awhile since my last post, but I’ll be sharing some knowledge and anecdotes more often, now that my summer job is a thing of the past and I’m free to once again roam the desert southwest, wielding the power of the mighty Zed to unearth nature’s golden treasures. I was carefully gridding (or - in deference to Gerry in Idaho - crawling) an old nugget patch during a recent trip to the far flung reaches of Nevada’s golden triangle, when the hypnotic drone of the threshold was suddenly broken by a sharp, double “wee-ooh, wee-ooh”. This type of response typically heralds a small and shallow target, usually within six inches of the surface. “Most likely a boot tack or bird shot”, I thought to myself as I crouched down and scraped an inch or two of the dry and dusty desert soil away from the target zone with my pick. Another swing of the detector coil indicated that I had moved the target, and a quick sifting of the material with the hand scoop revealed a small yellow nugget...the first catch of the day! A few more of these shallow pickers were dug during the the next couple of hours, and then I heard a faint, single “wee-ooh”. Knowing that this meant a bit larger target at depth, I went to work hacking into the densely packed soil with my pick until...well, I’ll let this short video tell the rest of the story: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zzmm1pgdrpaswe7/Nugget dig.mov?dl=0 The actual weight of the nugget turned out to be 5.6 grams, bringing the total for the day to over a quarter of an ounce of the good stuff!

Beau, it was great working with you and your GPZ 7000 at the training class...glad you were able to dig a couple of yellow souvenirs! Rick, always good to see you in the Nevada outback...I know there’s a brand new nugget patch just waiting for you out there somewhere!

That looks like a pro job ! I actually close up my unit with the battery compartment right in front of the cars AC outlet. This way you are getting very dry air blasting into the detector as opposed to a more humid air. I thought why not, especially on those warm and humid mornings down at the beach. You cannot have too much Preventative Maintenance when it comes to the beach and saltwater detectors. Tony

Was in an old 1940 school yard that used to be a farm and got all giddy at first when I dug this up, was pretty deep about 14" or so. Thought it was a large cent in good shape but still kind of neat. Medal is bronze.

That all sounds excellent, especially the small gold results. I am in total agreement that any discrimination system has trade offs, even in the best VLF detectors. Those trades are perfectly acceptable as long as we know what they are so we can apply proper judgement on where to employ discrimination and where to dig everything. The big downfall for PI has always been its affinity for ferrous targets making it simply impractical for use in some locations. Impulse AQ addresses that issue and I expect the best places to use one initially will be exactly those locations that PI users have avoided until now. I personally have no doubt this detector will be very productive in the right locations and look forward to using one myself. I have not owned a waterproof PI since I sold my ATX and have been waiting patiently for something better to come along. For me the waterproof TDI was too little too late. I wanted one from the very first day I used a TDI but after years of being ignored in my lobby efforts I found by the time White’s finally made one better things like the Impulse were on the horizon. Very kind of you to post that information LE.JAG..... thank you! It’s especially good to hear the Terra version is in beta testing, that bodes well for a dual machine introduction.

Don’t worry Rick, your reputation as unofficial spokesman for First Texas is quite secure. You do more to promote their detectors than anyone that actually works there.

The settings I use are well suited for the current dry soil conditions. They may seem counter intuitive at first, but, as you can see, the proof is in the pudding. Gold Mode: High Yield, Ground Type: Normal, Sensitivity: 8, Volume: 20, Threshold Level: 27, Threshold Pitch: 25, Volume Limit: 3, Audio Smoothing: High, Ground Smoothing: Locate Patch.

Well one thing for sure looking at the pictures, I’m not taking very good care of my nails, lol. Grinding off a little edge on one shows nothing but metal and I’m surprised as they looked more mineral? They were found somewhere around 1/4 mile from each other and appear to be of identical material and unique from everything else recovered in the 8 hours detecting the 2 pieces one an inch or 2 down in the middle of nothing far above a wash and the other dug out of a tailing pile several inches down. They are to small to acid etch so guess I’ll XRF one and see what the percentage of Nickel is?

Like it!!

Nice find! I've gone over areas I've pounded with the 11" coil and that little 6 incher will still make a good find. If one can be patient and slow down and not worry about the coverage the 6" will find the goods.

I want what I want when I want it, lol. That being said I will wait in line like all the rest for the PI that fits my build list. My build list is about the same as Steve's. I have a Nox and it wrecks all other vlf units. If you don't care for that statement sorry, I respect your view and will add you to the list of people that prevent me from dredging in Cali. The SDC is where I expect the small gold bar set at. The deep gold needs to be better than the Zed. It does not have to be as big in gold size as the Zed, would be nice. But let's face it, the honkers are disappearing. So I will take many grammer in a day over one big one. I get bored fast lol. Weight needs to be Nox like. Let's keep it simple. Give me a PI Nox and I will buy two lol and a hat lol lol.