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You are probably wondering why I haven’t been sharing experiences of using the AQ here in Gold Canyon. Good question. After New Years, it became clear that some relatively minor modifications to the production configuration of the AQ were going to be made in order for it to meet all the certification tests required to meet the requirements of each of the required agencies. In conversation with Tim Mallory, I agreed that the best course of action was for my AQ to be retuned to El Paso and returned to me when it was identical to the final production configuration. Add to that, the fact that I spent last weekend and a good part of this week in a local hospital enjoying “bowel rest” after an intestinal blockage, and I have been pretty “non-productive” - lol - (that was the problem, anyway!!!). Everything is fine now with me but my AQ is still with the crew in El Paso. Meanwhile, the days are sunny, but the evenings are chilly - I’m enjoying Long walks in the sunny mornings and relaxing evenings watching the fire warm the living room, burning the dead palo verde, mesquite and Ironwood that I gather in the desert. Most of it was cut years ago by the power company when they removed trees from under their transmission lines.

Hello everybody yesterday was the best beach handing day so far. Why? Because I chose the right place. What was the right place? The beach in front of a close for winter beach bar. The result was 38.40 euros and a silver cross. Think that I search only the half beach (I didn’t have enough time) looking only for coins and silver with discrimination -10 to +17. If I can make it, I will go soon at the same place and I will tell you the results.

Tesoros 3 3/4 turn 100k pots where custom bulk made. That's why no one has them in stock. Will be very hard to even find. You can find other values of them. Easier to get a 10 turn. Plenty of room in the Tejon case as its larger than the umax cases. If you go with a 10 turn pot, you may find that actual usable range for GB is only a few turns. And the 3 3/4 turns is plenty good enough for fine adjustment. In some older Tesoros they had 100K GB trimpots on the circuit board for adjusting GB, as they were fixed GB units. It would be a mistake to replace it with an external GB 100k control. As actual GB usable range was from 20-40K. Best to use a 50K. See Tesoro used 100k trimpots as that is what they had on hand and were set at around 24-28K to handle most ground conditions. If replacing a current external control, replace it with the same value that is printed on it. Pictured are 10 turn pots I used to be able to buy off ebay from China, they take up no more room than a standard 1 turn pot. I would use them on my PI's.

Now that would cause me to dig everything, no matter what it sounded like.

During the winter here in the Chesapeake bay my main goal is to watch for the best conditions, then try put and myself in the right location to find gold. I seen a Opp coming Monday mornings lowtide, No winds and calm water. Perfect conditions and I knew where to go, a spot that has been very good to me since July 2019. First target of the day a Nice 14k cigar band, 45 minutes later gold ring number two for the day. A Victorian ladies gold ring, no fineness mark. Ring was badly stained. Third and final gold came as water was starting to get rough. Cutting across in the water and headed in I got a strong signal, two scoops and out came a badly stained gold band. Unmarked / No fineness mark which is very common for this beach since it opened in the 1880's. Not many targets this hunt, 3 gold rings, 2 coins, several sinkers and a few pieces of brass in a little over 3.5 hours. Water temps are now in the low 40's, a month from now should really be some great hunting with constant lowtides and NW winds......water will be in the lower 30's but I can do about 4 good hours with my drysuit setup....Thanks for looking...Joe

Chuck, The thing is depth is never the issue anymore with detectors built within the last 5 to 10 years. Depth is driven mainly by coil size and transmit power not by the detector electronics and signal processing capability as far as vlf ib detectors are concerned. An ACE 250 will punch as deep as an Equinox. The question is (for experienced detectorists) how does it perform in thick junk (recovery speed), how well does it mitigate ferrous falsing, how accurate does it ID non-ferrous at the limits of detection depth, how versatile is it for varying site conditions (salt and mineralization), and how well does it do over the entire range of target types, conductivities, shapes, and sizes (mainly driven by the capability to operate at more than one discrete frequency). That is what separates the value units from the the more expensive "pro" detectors that serous detectorists are seeking out. That being said, are the Simplex and the Vanquish decent detectors? You bet and they perform better than their similarly priced competion (e.g., the Ace series) as far as some of the other performance parameters (beyond depth) that I mentioned above. Are they as versatile as an Equinox 600, Anfibio, or ORX? Nope. So I don't think detectorists who know their stuff are overlooking these new value offerings, they simply understand the limitations of these new detectors and realize that regardless of their attractive price point, they don't add anything to their existing detector arsenals so why bother acquiring them. Therefore, ML is focusing on the newbie/novice and those folks don't even know they are looking for a detector until they run across one at Dicks and see this shiny box on the shelf that says "Multi IQ" and they think - wow that must be some new magic technology that will net me some instant treasure at a rock bottom price just like those guys on TV. Sold!

My GPX 4800 and TDI SL had the same coil connections. I recently sold my GPX 4800 with stock coils, kept the TDI SL, did a battery mod for more voltage and also kept the Nugget Finder Sadie 8X6" and Nugget Finder 17 X 11" mono coils for the TDI SL . They work great, way better than the TDI stock coils on gold. I mostly use the Miner John's 12X8" that came with the TDI SL for general detecting and relic hunting, not impressed with that coil on small gold. Jeff

That half sine patent has been discussed here as far back as six years ago and still no product in sight. Various prototypes have been developed at White’s over the ensuing years, but so far getting something to work well enough to bring to market has obviously not happened. I keep hoping for a surprise out of left field from White’s based on this patent that somehow turns the market upside down. White’s certainly needs a real winner at this point if they want to remain relevant. The truth is however many patents and great ideas just don’t work out in the real world. The Fisher CZX/Mosca was just one of many, and the Pulse Devil an even better example of a great idea that never happened. An ironic name in retrospect. The devil is, as they say, in the details.

And since the GPZ is not a PI it would not be a new ZVT replacement....

I was gone part of the morning but when I got home it was a pleasant surprise at my door. My I believe new Simplex was waiting for me. It came on a two day priority mail that I believe that Dilek had something to do with. It came back double boxed like I sent it . Life is great when you’re dealing with great people and a great company. You know up front who you want to spend your money with. Dilek I sent you a personal message but let me say it again. Thank you so much ! Chuck

The new White's Electronics GMX Sport is now available for pre-order. It is the extremely popular Goldmaster 24k fitted into the waterproof MX Sport housing. Introductory offer for the GMX Sport includes TWO searchcoils, the round 6.5" concentric, and the 4 x 6 Double D oval, plus Whites waterproof headphones, plus adapter for standard headphones. MSRP is $899.95. I am already accepting pre-orders NOW, and will have them at the upcoming GPAA Gold Shows. Check out the YouTube video "GMX Sport intro”.....

MAP price for the GMX Sport and above-mentioned accessories is $827.95. As usual, my customers also receive my MAP-approved accessory pack. When filming the introduction, we also filmed some really detailed comparisons which will appear in an upcoming Spud Diggers video.

You bet Fred.... if I come down I will surely stop in. Meantime I need to give Mitch some lessons 🤓

Have you tried another search coil?? Also try another battery cable? If you know someone that has another battery,try it too. I always like to eliminate the easy stuff first.

I found this 1946 $2 gold coin in a pendant today. Found with a kruzer in 3 tone mode, disc3,notch 4, gain 92, pp 8 inches, GB 81, range up 25 to 27. Thanks for looking!

You mean, that this are two sides of the same coin ? this coins does not exist ... I think there are two coins in the medallion it would have to be dismantled to see / it would be interesting on the Dos Pesos, the date of 1945 does not mean anything I found one a few years ago do some research, between 1951 and 1972 a large number of coins was re-struck in the 1945 vintage ... Nice find, all the same :))

Gary has a video on the non-motion modes. Notice he first says "get a threshold." (TUNE is the same as Threshold) He is using Non Motion Audio DISC but there is a Non Motion AM (All Metal) which I use for checking targets.The idea is to listen for the short, sharp response of a non-ferrous. Sometimes the aluminum alloys will show themselves, too.

You can't fool me, Chuck, I bet you don't limp but leap like a Gazelle as you gracefully detect your secret honey holes and show your grandkids just how it should be done.

Chase Go write this down wherever you like that Chuck totally agree with you. After it’s all said and done the first question they ask on a new detector is how deep will it detect . I guess I’ll just have to limp through life with my ORX, Simplex and my one day Vanquish. That’s unless something new that catches my eye 👁 I can’t live without. The Best! Chuck

The situation is no different over here in Oz, no immediate availability from regular detector shops or even Minelab's main outlets (probably only covering pre-orders). Though we have large camping shops here like Anaconda which do actually have stock, so obviously marketing them to the wider public hoping to get them interested in the hobby vs those that already own a more advanced detector.

Popcorn ready .....

The GPZ IS an evolution of a Pulse Induction detector, just with extra bells and whistles. Just coz Minelab prefer to use another acronym, (ZVT) don't mean it aint a PI.

#16 bought used from a forum member. I use it exclusively for wet sand. Deal to good to pass up but had intended to buy new. I have issues with getting my salt # correct so that it balances in the wet. I think it's going to be a great machine going forward but we definitely need more videos on the wet sand to help others like myself with the settings. I'm able to use it and am successful with it but I'm probably only getting 65-70% out of it.

Welcome to the forum! Short answer is yes, most Minelab SD/GP/GPX compatible coils will work on the TDI series. Previously discussed at Minelab PI Coil On White's TDI And Minelab Coil On Whites Tdi? There is a search function in upper right. Also, clicking a "tag" for any post, like the "whites tdi" tag I added to this thread, will bring up a list of all related threads.

With the Equinox being such a versatile detector, I have used it in many different detecting situations. Lately I have been helping a local municipality try to find the exact location of a 19th century narrow gauge railroad right of way on some of their city land. The rails and cross ties were removed long ago and the terrain has been altered. So I’m looking for the iron relic debris along the railway roadbed for their museum and to trace the railroad’s location and any other period non ferrous targets too. I get to keep the non- ferrous ones!!!! One easy way to selectively find deep big iron targets with the Equinox like spikes, bolts and nuts, fish plates, etc. in Park or Field modes is to locate an iron target and then size it in pinpoint mode. We all know that the pinpoint feature can be a bit wonky sometimes. A friend of mine is helping me with this project and he is new to the Equinox (longtime CTX user). I was helping him setup his Nox in Park 2 and Field 1 and showing him how to ground balance and pinpoint. He didn’t know about the global and local settings difference so he just assumed that what he set in Field 1 applied to Park 2. He manually ground balanced Field 1 at 5 while Park 2 was unknowingly left on 0. The ground balance here can change from -2 to + 10 rapidly. I was trying to help him hear the difference between what to me sounded like a short 6” or so piece of barbed wire (correct assumption btw) still in the ground and what sounded to me like a much more dense piece of iron (turned out to be a spike). The pinpoint audio “halos” were very different on my Nox 600 and clearly outlined a long, thin target as opposed to a target whose audio halo was at least as big as my 11” coil. His Nox 800 was in Park 2 and in pinpoint mode it responded with a loud, long cats meow that lasted for his entire 4’ coil sweep over what turned out to be the barbed wire strand at 8” depth. He tried several times with the same result. I just figured he was continuing to press his pinpoint button but after checking he wasn’t. I tried his Nox and got the same result. I switched to Field 1 and his 800 pinpoint mode worked just like my Nox had. I switched back to Park 2 on his Nox and checked his settings and fixed the ground balance discrepancy by doing a ground grab which set at 4. I then went back into pinpoint mode on his Nox in Park 2 and it pinpointed just like his Field 2 and my similarly setup Nox 600. It appears that obtaining a good ground balance reading may improve pinpoint mode function on the Nox. I sure don’t remember seeing anything about that in the manual. So, I have always wondered what pinpoint mode was on the Nox since there is no classic All Metal mode. I have also wondered how smart (or not) it was to just simplify things and leave a Nox on 0 ground balance. This experience has reinforced my belief that taking the 30 seconds or less to do a ground grab now and then on this internally complex high gain detector during a hunt is definitely a smart idea. Jeff

Glad you got it back,Chuck. Good deal. Hope you can keep it out of the detector hospital for keeps now.

I let this 2 1/4 ozer sit in a paddock for two years once, thinking it was another of many shallow shotgun shells. I'll bet I've left a few more "junk" signals for someone else to find as well:

Thanks Joe ! That's a great help and appreciated. I would never have guessed the base was a bread tray. LOL Very clever. Rich

I almost got this scoop from Deeptech but the handle is too short for me as I don't want to squat down. The scoop part looks effective but holse might be too big for the small stuff. Other option is a mud shovel but need to see if the holes are small enough on those too.

Doubt it. Big difference knocking together a coil and building a detector.

Thanks, for comments on my video for AQ, I don't have the final product Rick stole it from me :)) I have the last pcb of series but in a ventral case / and not the last sticker it's not very good for videos .... 3 days ago I found a big gold ring really very deep I'm still going to make a short video of this hunt the depth of the ring is clearly visible on the film, and should surprise many of you :)

Yes it is. I took it to my jeweler today and the coin tested 18k and the benzel 10k. The picture doesn't do it justice. Also the date was 1945, mis Id the date.

The common test is to crush the rocks and pan the material to look for gold. This means you need to know the difference between mica, gold, and sulphides like pyrite when seen in the pan. From the HANDBOOK FOR GOLD PROSPECTORS IN WASHINGTON By WAYNE S. MOEN and MARSHALL T. HUNTTING 1975: "Many times the novice prospector is undecided whether the "yellow stuff" he is looking at is really gold or is something else. The yellow minerals that are most commonly mistaken for gold are pyrite, chalcopyrite, and golden-colored mica flakes. Pyrite, or "fool's gold," is heavy, but not as heavy as gold; it is hard and brittle and crushes to a black powder when hammered, whereas gold is soft (almost as soft as lead) and malleable and can be easily beaten into very thin sheets that are flexible (can be bent a number of times without breaking). Pyrite is soluble in concentrated nitric acid; gold is insoluble. Chalcopyrite, also sometimes mistaken for gold, is similar to pyrite in these properties. Pyrite commonly occurs as cubic crystals, but gold almost always is found in irregular shapes, and in those rare places where it does occur as crystals the crystals are always in intergrown masses. Tiny golden-colored mica flakes sometimes look deceptively like gold, but the luster of mica is different from that of gold; mica has laminations that can be split with a knife; and mica flakes, like gold, are flexible, but, unlike gold, the flakes are elastic, so that when bent they tend to return to their original shape. Gold is malleable, but mica is not; when mica is hammered it breaks up into numerous tiny flakes. Gold is heavy,· but mica is light. Thus, when panned, gold becomes concentrated in the very lowest part of the pan, but mica will be washed out of the pan, although because of its flakiness, it does tend to segregate somewhat from other light minerals. Mica fuses with difficulty; gold, pyrite, and chalcopyrite fuse easily in a blowpipe flame (gold at 1063° C.); and gold when roasted is odorless, but the sulfides, pyrite and chalcopyrite yield sharp-smelling sulfur dioxide fumes." Not super professional but that is why I like this video.... kind of how a lot of us might do it.... If the quartz has a lot of sulphides it was common in the old days to roast the material first to vaporize off the sulfur and other volatiles before panning. From Gold From Pyrites & Other Sulphides By E.H. HILL 1890: "Test for a Perfect Roast.—The object of roasting is to get rid of all the sulphur, arsenic, antimony, &c., that can be removed by the agency of heat, and to convert the iron, copper, &c., into oxides, thus freeing a portion of the gold and fitting the remainder for chlorination. A practical test of roasting can easily be made in an ordinary frying-pan, first coating the inside with a mixture of chalk and water and well drying. Mix the finely powdered ore with about its own bulk of fine charcoal; this is needful only when arsenic and antimony are present; still it helps to get rid of the sulphur and can do no possible harm. If the ore contains much sulphide of lead (galena) or sulphide of antimony (stibnite, antimony glance), add some fine sand, as without this addition the mineral while roasting would soon fuse, cake together, adhere to the pan, and ruin the assay. When all is thoroughly mixed, put the pan on the fire; stir well with an iron wire till the glowing ceases and no more sparks are given off; the assay will then appear of one colour, yielding to the stirrer like dry sand. Guard against too high a heat at first. If the roasted mineral is then examined with a magnifying glass or panned off in the usual way, a quantity of gold will be found free, ready for amalgamation." Note the process above may produce hazardous fumes. Use appropriate caution!

This is what my first gold ring looks like up close under a magnifying glass.. bit of a shaky shot but it does show the little diamonds.. this and the little sixpence have more than paid for the Equinox 600 many times over.. if only in the sheer joy of finding them.. The Equinox is far out-performing its high expectations.. i've taken to calling it 'Foxy Noxy' (i'm sure i'm not the first)..

Hey Manny, I have to agree with some of the others, if you are leaving targets, there is a chance that a small percentage could be gold nuggets. I used the SD2000, SD2100 and SD2200d for about a 8 year span in the mid 90's to early 2000's. I dug thousands of targets, many nuggets sounded like wire, nails and such. I'm confident if you are leaving any targets behind with the SD's, you have a chance to leave gold. I haven't met anyone in the last 25 years that can just dig lead and nuggets with the Minelab SD, GP or GPX detectors and leave all the rubbish in the ground. Like I mentioned above, the shape of the nugget, size of the nugget, orientation of the nugget in the ground (laying flat, sideways, at an angle), nature of the gold (solid, porous like a sponge or cystalline) will in fact effect the signal response. In closing, if you can still ID these targets without error, you have something over the majority of us on this forum. Rob

I made a decision to replace my F19/G2+ detector slot with the Impact. I only run it in 20 kHz frequency and I find it to have the same hots as the F19/G2+ but with a lot more options, including a deep (boost) mode. Ground cancelling appears to be very good and it is working well. If you don't need waterproofing (the supplied covers are very nice) I recommend you take a look at the Impact. The pricing is very good right now. That said, the new BH Time Ranger Pro should be showing up soon and it may be a cheaper alternative to the F19/G2+. Love the V3 but the learning curve is long. HH Mike

The Garrett A2B was typical of machines available at the time. They had a meter, operated as VLF/TR, ten turn ground balance made it easier in hot ground. Solid metal construction, lots of batteries and a bit of weigh. Lucky if it balanced well and more often than not the handle blocked the meter. We have come a long way folks. I take the old girl out when I feel nostalgic and when I know other detectorists will be around. A great conversation piece and it does not go unnoticed.. It has brought back a lot of memories and made me new friends..

Have you detected for gold in the Africa Continent, if so I and i'm sure others, would like to hear about your adventures. Best of luck in Arizona and get plenty of gold on your trip.🤞

Nordic, I had just the opposite experience from you concerning the pinpoint function and the firmware updates. My Equinox 600 and 800 have much better pinpoint function after the ver. 1.75 and ver. 2 firmware updates. Jeff

indeed, it will be the same with AQ the ground effect / due to seawater / is too strong to see a link the detectors, does not see the chain / only one link at a time or more often the clasp which is larger, or plated the Bipolar by removing the ground effect will be // probably // better, but it will bring other problem if we go down to 5us that we remove the ground effect Ok, let's see the very fine gold chain but also the millions of aluminum particles that are in the sand ............ something going crazy it is better to dig deeper to go get big gold rings more profitable and quieter for the ears 🙂

It's all bedrock with 3-4 inches of red beautiful soil and black sand covering and upstream it's beautiful to move boulders and snipe .......... Happy New Prospecting Year 2020 !!!!

I like running mixed mode with 3 frequency Correlate on my V3. I get to hear everything in the ground in the all metal channel but only hear the targets that correlate in the Disc mode. Another way I like Mixed mode is to reject the targets I'm after so that that they are only reported by the all metal channel.....reverse mixed mode is how its referred to I think. Mixed mode is very handy sometimes. I wish more models offered it. Sure you can hunt in the AM mode of the F75 but you have to watch the screen. With an audio mixed mode you do it all by ear. HH Mike

The earlier Rutus model, the 'Jupiter' , also had mixed-mode audio.

Get the Whites. The fewer Equinox users I run into out there the better, at least that is what my Equinox 800 tells me in my wireless headphones.

Although i dont own a VX3 i did borrow one for 6 months from someone who worked on the rigs,but i do own a Equinox,so can give some opinion,i always have been a Whites owner and still own 4 of them.Possibly the same performance if setup right,but setting them up is totally different,one is very very easy ie the Equinox but the VX3 can be a nightmare with so many variations and just that one single factor i feel stopped that top of the range from becoming a stellar selling machine. Folks want some control of the setting to get the maximum performance out of a detector but saying that who really want to spend so much time on all the variables of the VX3 which is the easier of the top of the range Whites machine in setting up. Of course loyal supporters will always rally around and support the various brands that they use,but the bottom line is Minelab have set the benchmark and going from strength to strength and Whites are basically fighting for survival and going the same way as Tesoro. How many folks use one of the Minelab Equinox machines and how many use a VX3,it certainly tells me alot.

Whites MX Sport and MX7 have Relic mode which is a mixed mode. Jeff