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Yes, that little rubber door constantly opens, letting dirt in. I tried sawing the little protruding lip off, but it still opens. I never use plug in phones now anyway, so I came up with this fix. The GPX 6000 port is the same as the port on the Equinox. A small 1/8" jack can insert directly, though it must be the proper type to cut the main speaker out. Otherwise the headphones and speaker both run. Or you can use the official Minelab adapter dongle that both keeps the connection watertight, while converting to 1/4" jack size. Headphone Adaptor Cable 3.5mm (1/8-inch) to 6.35mm (1/4-inch) Part No. 3011-0369 The Equinox plastic port plug will also plug the GPX 6000 port - Part No. 0703-0348 - Cap, M12x1 Headphone Connector. I cut a hole to fit right through the rubber door, and screwed the cap in. Problem fixed, and if I do want to plug in headphones, I only have to take the plug back out.

It’s just my opinion, thats all. Not a right or wrong thing, or a test with a correct answer and an incorrect answer. It’s incredibly frustrating to see X Coil make dozens of coils in all sizes and shapes, while anyone wanting plug and play is left with basically nothing by comparison. As an end user and consumer, all excuses as to why that might be fall on my ears as just that - excuses. I miss the old SD/GP/GPX days when we got new coils every year like clockwork, in every size and shape imaginable. Now we don’t. Are there valid reasons for that? No doubt, but frankly I just don’t care, and I suspect I’m not alone in that sentiment.

(Lesser Stripetail Scorpion) Please tell us your stories!

Same here my friend, I am absolutely in love with the 17. But then I love the 14 and 11 as well. At times, I have a hard time choosing which one to mount as some terrain could use all three. And with all my previous praise of the NF-Zsearch I have to admit that I haven't used it much lately. The 6000 is just a bomb! GC

I’m only bringing the GPZ up due to all that I hear from faithful GPZ owners. The ones who stood by Minelab and Nugget Finder and Coiltek, loyally waiting for the coils they craved. They endured being made fun of by X Coil owners, who got the coils that they themselves wished they had. What has been their reward for being loyal, extremely patient customers? Not much, in my estimation. Is the 11” only an inch smaller than the 12” which is an inch smaller than the narrow width of the GPZ stock coil? Yes, that’s a fact, and if you want to talk weight differences, it’s far lighter than the NF 12, which alone costs a full quarter of the purchase price of a GPX 6000 with two coils! So consider me well satisfied to have ditched the GPZ and replaced it with the GPX 6000. The three coils I already have suit me just fine were there to be no more 6000 coils at all, simply because I do think an 11” coil is a sweet spot of sorts. A even smaller coil is something I desire, but the 11” is still just fine for the majority of my use. Minelab must agree, since every PI they ever made came with an 11” coil. The 17” mono is a dream coil that will probably be my most used coil next year. I still honestly believe that in the U.S., on most ground, and most gold we encounter, the GPX 6000 is the optimum detector choice at this time. That being the case the GPZ situation is moot to me personally, but I truly feel the pain of those who have waited, and continue to wait, for a plug and play coil selection befitting the worlds most expensive consumer level metal detector ever produced.

Detecting the property where my grandparents,aunt and father grew up found a 4H pin, or award for poultry. BTW my grandfather was a large producer of chickens and dairy, some sheep too. Trying to find details on it is like, well...pulling chicken teeth. Found a website with some historical info that shows this particular pin as a national award starting 1946(?) and they had a sponsor name on the back. This pin has nothing on the back except "sterling". The website says "not to be confused with the "generic poultry medal 1932" so suspect it might be that one but they seem to have no info on it. Sent an email to that website but nothing heard yet. My internet search has run dry, not a lot of historical info out there. approx 5/8" X 1/2"

IMHO, the NF-Zsearch coil is a quantum leap away from the 14 stock. It is not only smaller and hence more amenable for both open field as well as difficult terrain applications, it also weighs less, handles better, is much more sensitive to fast timing gold but without loosing depth at all. Ever since I mounted it I never took it off. Yes, it's a steep price tag but it elevates the Z where it has not been before (not to mention the X-coils which certainly have had a huge impact as well). As for the 6000, I don't see how new coils would outperform the existing 6000 stock coils, like what happened to the Z with the X-coils and NF-Zsearch. New 6000 coils will add more size options and perhaps add some nuances for certain applications, but the current 6000 coils are so great and so perfectly synchronized with the detector that I have a hard time believing that any new coil would add a significant performance advantage. GC

Definitely not trying to defend ML here or ruffle your feathers Steve, I agree in a large part with you fully. My point however is that at least now there’s a start to accessory coil options for the GPZ which although only a bit smaller is a lot lighter. Those faithful loyal GPZ customers who have been patiently waiting unfortunately only represent a small part of the overall GPZ market (of course I empathise with them I’m one of them😞), whereas the GPX6000 will demographically sell a lot differently hence the announcement of more coil options so soon after the release. The main market where the bulk of GPZ’s are sold are not interested in the Zsearch 12, they have a totally different approach to their search for gold, its all about big deep nuggets which for them is mostly in virgin ground and the GPZ 7000 with its 14 inch coil still largely fits that bill. Also for those interested, a Zsearch 12 inch with lower shaft costs $1295 here in Australia whereas a GPX6000 costs approx 6 times more at $7999 (with 2 coils), I’m not sure of the comparative prices in US dollars. Prior to the release of the 6000 the GPZ 7000 was the only real choice for depth and small target sensitivity compared to a GPX 5000, the ZVT tech will always be a heavy unit due to the requirement of 3 windings in the coil so I seriously doubt we will ever see a sub 1 kilogram coil or small coils on any future ZVT models if ML develop anything going forward, it’s just not possible and TBH not required now we have the amazing GPX6000. 😊 ZVT is all about max depth. Just my opinion from my own perspective. JP

The NF coil is a whole 1” narrower Rob - consider me entirely underwhelmed, and why I basically ignore it. It’s too close to the stock coil as far as I’m concerned, to be worth the money. I like coils to be widely different in size and shape. The NF coil was a huge disappointment to me after waiting so long for a small coil, small being 11” round or smaller in my book. The draft Minelab manual for the GPZ 7000, page 39, showed an 11” coil as a future option. That set my expectation, and I'm still grumpy it never happened.

Today I was invited by a friend for an outing on a 1st WW hospital in a plowed field. After a few weeks testing the Apex , I decided to use my trusty XP Deus WS4 , this time with a brand new elliptical 9X5 HF coil instead of the 9 HF round coil that I have been using since several years now ... Normally this elliptical coil is more designed for searching very small targets in the high iron trash and !I was curious to see how it will work for mili hunting ... Long story short , I spent around 2 hours in the field and I found 8 1st WW buttons , German and French including a very nice French Marine button with an anchor. Very happy with these finds 🙂 😹, it is unusual to find so many buttons during an outing here ... The 9 elliptical HF coil is excellent , it has a very good ground coverage because of its length and it is very easy to pinpoint the targets because of its narrow size. May be it is not the most powerful for depth but this has no real importance in a plowed field where the targets are mostly near the surface. This little coil is really a beast for field hunting , for me it is even better than the round HF coil and I wonder why I have never tried it before ... As usual the Deus audio is perfect , the iron filtering is great and the signals on targets are excellent . Definitely the best machine I have ever used for plowed field hunting 👍 ... My settings were DEUS FAST nr 3 factory mode , 14khz , 5 tones A few 1st WW buttons ... : The trash : The Deus WS4 wireless headphones , the elliptical 9X5 HF and the round 9 HF :

I enjoy bright Full Moon hunts, seems the gravitational pull of the Moon moves me to the Goldfields. You’d think I’d park my rig to avoid the big spot light in the sky to sleep better. But, it gives me a half sleeping moment to pounder the mornings gold location. This hunt I was accompanied by and old Buddy from California. Steve, was tutored on some of our hot and old patches in California, with his GPX 5000. He quickly learned from us the many ins and outs of his machines and the fine techniques of putting nuggets into his poke. He moved with us as Minelab Technology advanced to keep a smile and rattle in the poke. He now owns a very nice stash of nuggets. This Hunt we set our eyes on the outlaying areas of Rye Patch! I had my RZR for mobility as we have many patches close by to just scoot to with it. It’s still warm out in the High Plains, but very doable compared to my last visit there. I pulled into the first location and ran into and old Buddy and his friend calling it a day. They showed me their poke and I recognized the gold same area as I wanted to hunt! Well, I arrived and unloaded and went for a short hunt and nailed one amongst the many footprints and dig holes. Still color left and no one gets them all. I rode around in my RZR after that till dark as Steve hadn’t pulled into camp yet! Next, morning I gave Steve the pointy finger to the patch and I set sights to a nearby spot I had luck on several years prior. Still within eyesight we waved at each other with a pumping fist to indicate a score of a nugget at the same time! At the end of the day we had several nuggets for our efforts. Now, I’m still hitting old haunts with the new 6000. So next morning after a couple more nuggets each. We load up and off to more old haunts. Next spot, didn’t disappoint us either! Only problem was I didn’t fill up my RZR and that prior days joy riding looking at Antelope and Wild Horses and new spots eat more fuel than expected! So we had to stay within eye sights of our camp just in case my Buggy ran out of fuel. We hit the old patches and found nuggets and then hit a new spot. The new spot, Steve was in the sweet spot and as you know the 6000 doesn’t play well with other 6000’s nearby. To end this trip, Steve out shot the Sensei and well done by him as we ended with plenty to cover expenses and another memory of a Harvest Moon Hunt! LuckyLundy

Stev H can move this if it doesn't belong here! That weekend there R no less than 4 outings for gold prospectors! OC49ers(as "guests") of LDMA, Taft Club, Pat Keene's group and where I'll be at Rocky Road (160 acre claim) for Antelope Valley Treasure Club chili cook out. One viewer mentioned he was interested in going out and that he had also joined Taft but had not yet gone on an outing with them. You may look these clubs up and contact them for directions or I can also direct you as I have been out with all of them. This nugget was found on a OC49er claim this year with an EQ800. I will be going back there another time as I am committed to the AV club outing for that weekend.

I had a bit more luck than normal today, found $46.50 and a little gold ring with what looks like a diamond.. These were found at Horseshoe Bay after the Sunday markets.. On Monday mornings this beach usually yields a few dollars but today it was feeling especially generous.. It seems like they had a competition to see who could drop the most coins..

Scorpions almost every trip here in AZ. I haven't been stung by one ....they are just part of detecting here. Rattlesnakes are common as well but my detecting buddies and I haven't had any real close calls while detecting. I believe the reason is because while detecting you are moving slow and making lots of noise (coil scraping the ground) which alerts the snake that potential danger is near and they slither off. We've had much more scary encounters with Rattlers while hunting quail or deer because you are moving faster increasing the odds for a surprise encounter. As for lions, we have a large population here in AZ. They stay away from people. In fact, there is only one recorded unprovoked lion attack in the state's history! I've hunted lions or been on other guys lion hunts numerous times. Very tough hunts usually requiring the use of dogs to be successful. Seeing a lion in the wild is a rare privilege. I've talked to guys that claim that they have had close encounters with lions while detecting....I call BS everytime. Anybody that thinks carrying a side arm as lion protection is just being, to put it mildly, silly. For one the odds of it happening are close to nil and even if a lion did attack you you wouldn't have time to draw your weapon. Side arms are for the two legged predators. Having an accident on a quad or side by side poses a bigger danger than any of the creatures mentioned while detecting.

Unfortunately, they are not. I couldn’t scoop up the crawly without also getting some sand. Today was only one sub-grain piece, but a lovely day.

Thanks, Went out last night with the CTX 3030 and found four coins and a woman's ring with a few small diamonds. Could be fake have to clean it up. I only hunted for about 45mins until it got dark. I'm liking the CTX! Sold the GPZ 7000 with the 19 inch coil yesterday. I will take $400 of the proceeds and pick up a 17 inch coil for the Ctx 3030.

You have very valid reasons for being frustrated Steve so no argument from me. The X coil thing is a ‘no checks and measures’ freedom all aftermarket coil makers used to enjoy but alas NF have to pay the price for ‘plug and play’ freedom by being required to jump through a lot of hoops which is very time consuming, I presume Coiltek will also be jumping through those very same hoops and would likely explain the mid 2022 advised release dates. Trying to develop a smaller coil for the GPZ when the rumours of a better GPX being in the works would have been a nightmare to try and crystal ball. As it is our Zsearch sales have dropped right off since the release of the 6000 so those fears have been to a pretty large extent realised (you do however need to take into consideration our season is about to end with summer coming on). I would like to see a smaller Zsearch and also a larger one but if I have three Zsearch coils that’s a lot of coin invested, for a lot of people that would be prohibitive and I would say NF are very aware of that. Do they invest R&D time into a smaller coil when the GPX6000 is doing such a good job on the smaller gold or do they invest in a larger coil that might have a smaller sales volume instead? I’d say ML did not deliver on more coils for the GPZ for the very same reasons with the added development disincentive of the GPZ 7000 still continuing to sell well in its current guise. JP

JP - I think Steve was coming at it from the perspective of value and cost based on what you have already invested in the machine. He explicitly stated that. If you already have a coil of a certain dimension, it is not necessarily a great value to invest in a coil that has only incremental differences in weight, dimensions, or performance than the coil you already have. If you are starting from scratch with no money invested in any coil and were able to choose one or the other, than that is a whole different situation. You are looking at the NF coil from a standalone basis or from a comparison basis as if the subject did not already own the reference coil. I think that was point Steve was trying to make, not that the NF is underwhelming in its own right but compared to what is already owned. Anyway, that's how I interpreted Steve's response. I might be off base.

Beach hunt # 3 is done. I tried a location I have not visited for about 3 years now. A newer, small beach that I was hoping would have been ripped up a bit from previous storms. It was fairly sanded in, as the 1980’s coin layer was sitting at about 15”. This beach did not fair well for the Equinox, since targets were out of its range. I used it for only about 1 hour. Another long hunt, 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM and a 2-hour ride home. Used the GPX 5000 for most of the hunt. A bit more EMI here and the 5000 was a little noisier than I would have liked it to be. A decent amount of clad, a 1937 British three pence coin, a small .925/CZ ring from China and that’s about it. As always, still good to be digging and walking the beach. I did my fair duty of cleaning up some beach trash…… So, now where is my GOLD ring???

I was hiking to a patch in Norcal when a "yellow dog" ran across the trail a short ways in front of me. I thought that's weird, a lost dog out here in the forest, but then my dog theory quickly changed as a big cat returned to the trail for a better look at me, I suppose. I remember he was big and his tail was twitching about.. We stared eyes for about 10 seconds and then I raised my pick, let out a yell, and off he went, stealthy as a cat. I never heard him run. Nothing like a bear crashing through the woods. I can imagine if one were to attach, you probably wouldnt hear it coming, especially with headphones on. Also had a small scorpion bite when I was brushing away dead oak leaves with my hand. Felt like a bee sting and pain was gone in 15 min.

That is a shame to hear how bad the CTX can be in the water, I've not used mine in the water and never intend to, it's the new model with the gray washers obviously but now I just don't trust it. I can't be bothered dealing with warranty if it drowns. I'm not a big water person anyway and I can use the Nox for that when I do want to get a detector wet as I know my Nox handles water well, it spent two days and two nights in the bottom of my Spa being tested for leaks when I first heard about Nox leaks 🙂

Pretty excited about having more coil choices for the 6.

You are not ruffling my feathers at all JP, and I hope I don’t ruffle yours when I say that yes, you are defending Minelab. You put yourself out there as their default spokesperson, when they never speak for themselves. If anything is ever said that is critical of Minelab, you are there running defense. The GPZ sold in huge numbers worldwide, generating record profits for Minelab. To say that market has no interest in accessory coils just flies in the face of common sense. People want these coils so bad they will cut up coils to make adapters to get the coils made by X Coil. X Coil has long since proven that small coils, and large coils, can be made for the GPZ that suit people just fine. The only requirements here are ones artificially imposed by Minelab, along with this idea that coils must work well in all locations. This has never been true, as all Minelab PI detectors had mono, DD, and figure 8 windings, for varying performance in different soil types. ZVT is only all about max depth? Yes, including max depth on small gold, something X Coil proves can be done with ZVT, with superb results. More likely Minelab saw a small hot GPZ coil as competing with its soon to be released GPX 6000, and squashed the release. Minelab very much appears to enforce differentiation of detector performance by artificially limiting coil selections, keeping each model distinct, aimed at certain tasks. Enough. I’ve said all I have to say about all this. Interesting discussion though, and thanks for the alternate perspectives JP. Now go out and find some gold!

I also had a water hunt kill one my 3030's but it was not due to to the leaky o ring..the head/control box is what went out. repaired under warranty. I've been using the Grey seals even with my newer machine. No problems yet but I would not trust the machine for extended deep water hunts. I change the gasket the beginning of every summer. Don't be afraid to use it in the water especially if its under warranty your gonna want to know if you got a leaker! strick

Great one. I’ll add that to the list.

Monte said: Realistic or conceivable? Yes, but less likely. But using a lower Disc. setting helps a detector process targets better when you have a lot of very close-by Iron trash that causes good-target masking. The more Discrimination or rejection you use, the more negative behavior you'll have from the unwonted junk and that can often make it more difficult for a detector's circuitry to recover and process a good or higher-conductive target. mh9162013 said: That makes a lot of sense; thank you for the explanation. As for relying more on sounds and less on VDI, are you referring to the decision to give a target a second look or the decision to dig? When it comes to a potential target, I always rely on sound first. Only when I get the high tone (or mid time, if I'm willing to dig for nickels or gold), do I look at my VDI. However, even with a high tone, if it's in the 70s (or really jumpy and all over the place) and I don't feel like digging a penny, I'll let it go. So are you suggesting that if my goal is to get silver coins I should dig all high tones, no matter what the VDI is doing? Thanks again! I go by an audio response most of all because that's how I started in early '65. We didn't get visual Target ID until '83 from the original Teknetics, but that's also the same year we got an excellent slow-motion detector with a quick-response and fast-recovery that handled common ferrous trash quite well with the Tesoro Inca. I concentrated most of my detecting time back then to hunting renovation work, old building tear-down sites, and such in urban applications, and mostly trying to get out of town to work homesteads, pioneer and military encampments and fort sites, signally-located school, church and dance hall sites, ghost towns, etc., etc. Initially, most visual TID detectors required a very fast-motion sweep speed that didn't work that well in heavily littered and densely brushed-up old sites or dealing with building rubble. The new slow-motion detectors handled it better, and they could isolate non-ferrous targets in places with masking ferrous debris much better, so I used them the most. Also, the visual TID that detectors feature is going to be more challenged when there are a lot of different sizes, shapes and types of metal objects very close together, and that also makes a Target ID unit less accurate when it comes to producing a good, functional visual response. Therefore, it is more important to rely on hearing a good audio response. Also, depending upon the particular make and model detector and how the circuity processes the audio response from various targets, you can learn to listen closely to a detector's response and learn its language. But, not all detectors speak the same language or have the same accent or characteristics. For example. here in the USA we all (should) speak American English. But then you have the drawls or other accents or pronunciations associated with different regions, such as some folks from Texas or Wisconsin or localized areas of the NE or SE, and sometime others don't quite hear it right or understand it. Same with some detector audio responses. Many of the more modern detectors with a digitally-based circuitry design also don't "speak the same language" of some of the better analog detectors we had. And most detectors used to produce a single-tone audio response with a language all their own that users could learn, whereas most of the newer models the past couple of decades use a digitally-processed multi-tone audio. It might be a 2-Tone or 3-Tone, maybe a 4-Tone, 5-Tone or many, many more audio tones. And those individual Tone pitches are based on the target's conductivity range and how the detector's circuitry is designed and the cut-off audio break-points for the different tones. An individual coin, laying flat-to-the-coil and within maybe 2" to 4" or so with no other metal objects close by, just might produce a 'proper' audio tone pitch. However, if a desired target is in a canted or odd orientation, and especially if there is one or more other metal objects too close to it, you will get a "blended' signal based of the different types of metal within in the detection field, and that might produce a very different audio Tone ID. Mix some higher-conductive and lower-conductive targets together and you can get a mid-range response, and that makes using audio Tone ID even less reliable, if you are trying to rely on it for a dig or no-dig decision. The same applies to the visual Target ID, too. Yes, I have visual Target ID on my Garrett Apex devices, Nokta CoRe and Relic units, and I do glance at it from time-to-time just to get an idea or hint as to what I might be about to recover. I do the same with the audio Tone, if using a 3-Tone on the Nokta models or 5-Tone of the Apex units. However, I listen mainly for the audio information from a target, just as I do with my single-Tone, non-display Tesoro Bandido II microMAX and Silver Sabre microMAX models. Depending on the make & model detector I am hunting with, I use one of three Discrimination levels. With my Tesoro's I have the control always set at minimum because that's very close to the Ferrous / Non-Ferrous break-point and for the most part I am just barely rejecting most Iron Nails. On my Nokta CoRe and Relic have have the Disc. set just low enough to barely accept Iron Nails. Then there are times with very little trash that I set a Disc. level at or close to Zero / '0' to find both types of metal targets. Although I do have and use some very good modern detectors with Visual Target-ID and Audio Tone-ID, I have enjoyed this great sport for over fifty-six years relying on audio responses, and for over a thirty-eight years making a lot of great finds in challenging sites using slow-motion / slow-sweep detectors with a Quick-Response / Fast-Recovery, and either barely accepting or just barely rejecting common Iron Nails. No reason for me to change a successful approach. Just listen and learn what a detector & coil combo are telling me. Monte

If I lived close to a beach, it would change how I detected as well. I would be more inclined to scout out a section longer instead of just wandering, knowing I could go back tomorrow. Driving 2 hours puts some pressure (self inflicted 😄) on me to find an area that produces or go home empty handed. The long ride back is much more palatable if there is at least some silver kicking around my finds pouch. Last year Joe, I had the same situation when a patch for silver opened up. Lucky for me it was in an area that did not get covered up fast. I enjoyed it for many return visits, but each visit was a week apart. If I lived close, I would have hit it every day for a couple of hours and really cleaned up.

Not much here on that list , black bears but I've only seen them at the dump and that was 150 miles north of my 20 and I wasn't detecting. Just went to the dump to see the bears ! Mtn Lions are around and some have seen one but they keep away from "hoomins". Now the ticks , those are everywhere and I have picked off a couple from time to time. The deadliest beast in my neck of the woods is the moose , NO they won't bite. But if you hit one with a car or truck ,it just takes out their legs and their body lands on top of you ...all 1500# or so ......not pretty. Seen a lot of 'em hiking in the woods some really close but not THAT close ! Oh , there was an incident with a Great White and a lady in the ocean but she was doing a seal imitation in a wetsuit and not detecting.......arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Check this out though,,,,the warden service found a moose that was killed by about a million ticks it was "hosting" !!!!

Cute little guy!🦂👍👍

A 300 gram weight reduction is no small thing on a GPZ, that fact alone is why they’ve sold so well in Australia, then we also need to consider the very obvious improvement in sensitivity and then there’s the EMI and Saturation signal reduction. I suppose if you think of the Zsearch as ’’It’s only an inch smaller” the GPX11 mono on the 6000 is underwhelming also as it’s only 1 inch smaller than the 12” Zsearch. 🤔 😬 Continuing to be a bit cheeky here it was not that long ago it seemed the GPX17 elliptical was being talked up as the ultimate US combination, now that’s a horse of a coil compared to the 12” Zsearch. 😮 I do not mean to offend or get personal and I truly do understand where the frustration is coming from, so I hope my tongue in cheek but still serious counter argument is seen as me just offering a different perspective on the subject. 😬🥺 The GPX6000 should be a lot easier to make a variety of coils for, retail cost alone is way less than a GPZ so it should not break the bank to own a few different sizes, this will also mean the developers can take the risk of investing in a range of shapes and sizes that do not have to top the charts sales wise to recover their investment. Hopefully this will mean that ‘all of us’ will finally get our wish lists fulfilled. I’ve had many discussions with Nugget Finder over the past 2 years about what coil sizes to build and what would sell well, clearly there is demand for a smaller more manoeuvrable coil but at the same time there is a lot of pressure for a larger coil (probably even greater than the demand for a smaller one) but overwhelmingly there is/was a huge demand for a lot lighter coil to be developed that would make the GPZ much more user friendly to a lot more people, to that end I think NF nailed it. Now that the GPX6000 has been released I think retrospectively NF made a good call on the 12” size range, that size still has merit for a GPZ user who also owns or is contemplating owing a GPX6000. JP

That's always the way it is.....how's that Tesoro lifetime warranty on a detector working for you lately? The detector and the warranty are only as good as the company who makes them.

DirtFisher, Hopefully the CTX 3030 issues are behind you now and you can think positive about the detector. $1500 for a used one with extra 6" coil and battery is a pretty decent deal, especially if it's the never version CTX 3030 with better seals. From experience I can tell you the old version 3030 has quite a bit of leaking issues, so do your so diligence when detecting in water. Yes, I too feel a 3030 a little better than my NOX for deep silver and deep gold rings (I've pulled some 12 to 16" deep coins and jewelry). I also like the tones on the 3030 better than the NOX. But as soon as I get in heavy trash areas and or decide to hunt for micro gold jewelry and or chasing gold nuggets, the NOX all the way to the bank. If you do decide to sell the GPZ-7000 or trade it towards something different (GPX-6000), reach out to me and maybe we can work a deal. Deepest silver coins and gold rings, as mentioned I prefer the FBS technology (1st pic) and prospecting (2nd pic) I'll grab the Multi IQ as the FBS does not see this and many other kinds of gold. The bottom line of any detector is to learn it's capabilities and what it does best at. I also recommend never try to use it for a task you know it doesn't do well (usually wasting your time/energy). Have faith and confidence in your detector and your own abilities. As Simon said, "get the best one for that task". Either direction you lean for the detector choice, be sure to think positive each time you go.

Another nice day today. Cold this morn so no big hurry to get going. Todays plan was to detect a couple test trenches for the Co. and a new area in another drainage. Spent first half of day prospecting with no luck so in order to bust a potential skunk I headed into another drainage/area I call "skunk buster" where I've been getting the tinys with some digging. Just get started there and the excavator operator tracks me down and we chew the fat and I get advised of the future game plan, etc. So I didn't get much done but busted the skunk and enjoyed the beautiful day along with a couple more tinys. SOOOO nice to not have all that damn smoke for a change! Took the scenic snap while coming off the mtn today....

For the last few months, I've been detecting with Atrex .. and .. I'm also testing ... But lately I've also used XP ORX, Equinox 800, AKA Signum, .. Rutus Alter71, Etrac ... and Whites for detection. Spectra Vision .., As part of a serious and direct comparison and .. however, I use a much larger number of detectors, especially to compare certain specific detection properties .... for different detectors .... I take the detector as a detection tool ... for various detection situations ... and in this case I put my trust and experience in a given model that may be the best in the given situation .. In the end, Rutus ATREX himself did not disappoint me at noon ... and he brought really nice finds ....ATREX ..software 1.0.2 whit Multifilter.. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ps: Alain......Eliptical coil "HF" in ORX will be good for 2D separation..as also for work ... as well as good content in red hematite soil for low-conductivity targets ..

The detection capabilities of Rutus ATREX are definitely interesting ... MULTIFILTER works really well .... I had the opportunity to work and detect with Rutus ATREX for some time ...

I figured I'd try and keep my beach hunts in one thread if I can remember 😶Beach hunt # 2 is in the books. Headed to my heavy EMI beach to try the 6000 there. This is actually my better gold beach too. There were too many people there to try the dry sand, so the 6000 and 5000 stayed in the car. I figured I would spend some needed time with the Equinox. It did fairly well last hunt and I really needed to get some settings down. So, from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM, I ran the 800. I was in the digging mood, so I dug a lot of junk targets. Not much change on this beach, as there are a lot of regulars hunting it. I was not alone, there was another guy with the Equinox giving me the stink eye for detecting his beach 😄. Every season I break my spade and yesterday was the day, so I am good for a while now. Not much of a low tide, but it did expose 3 rings. Each one looked good for a short while, but that mother’s ring was deep, and I really thought it was going to be 9K. So, 3 junk rings to add to the collection. I finally hit silver with a nice 925 bracelet. Another odd find was one that was going to burn a hole in someone’s pocket. A BMW car fob. That can’t be cheap to replace. Since everything is sanded in, I may just run the Equinox until I see some erosion happening. This also gives me time to try some new beaches to see what I can turn up. It’s always great to get out and exercise the old legs for the day. Weather was perfect, light breeze, cloudy, and warm – the perfect detecting weather!!!

Had a repeat of yesterdays BEAUTIFUL day today! Took this snap of a gorgeous Montana morn on the way to harvest more yellow tiddlers!!!! Love this time of year.....

To top this story off the 6" Concentric coil and coil cover I ordered from the USA never arrived, it passed the Ebay delivery date whereby buyer protection starts to run out so I contacted Ebay and said it never arrived, they did their checks with USPS and refunded me the money, so it's Ebay and Ebays Pitney Bowes shipping company that loses out, not the dealer in the US as they were only responsible for getting it to Pitney Bowes and they did that, then Pitney Bowes is responsible for getting it to me. The things I go through to try buy products that for others are easily accessible... 🙂 In a way it's a good thing as I ended up not needing it anyway after buying one from Australia, I only bought the US one as I thought the Australian one was never going to arrive which I explained earlier in this thread What a nightmare this process has turned into. Shipping with any courier other than DHL is terrible at the moment with Covid going on for parcels to New Zealand. With DHL I would have had either coil order in around a week at the most. Who knows, maybe the coil and cover will arrive in 3 or so months like happened with the Sampson T Handle I had shipped from the US, it was considered lost and over 3 months later arrived at my door but it's tracking showed it made it to Australia then went back to the USA and a couple of months passed and then it's tracking number came alive again and eventually arrived in NZ 🙂

I like the noise level preview screen. The Rutus Alter71 has always been a keeper. Maybe the user interface facelift to symbology will refresh it. HH Mike

Love the Franklin Half. HH Mike

Glad you found the sand and it's working now. Selling a seldom used 7000 sounds like a good idea and keeping the Nox another. Now get that coil over some targets and happy hunting !

Vive Equinox... in my testing I focused on Atrex ground detection as well as Testing .... I will definitely test it on sea beaches as well as on salty inland lakes ... which have good detection potential...👍 Atrex has a multifrequency Beach program ... in which you can detect in the Sea and on a wet beach ... In addition, it has a separate program for the Mud environment ... which also has conductive properties ..

I'm usually swinging a T2se, but I also have a simplex and vanquish 340 ... as far as the tilling goes, I was a landscaper through the 80s and 90s, there were a few yards I leveled with a rototiller and the amount of things that were tilled up was amazing ..if only I was a THer back then .. those lawns are a good 3 hours from me now, but I think of that often. but that would depend on how much dirt was brought in. .. for the most part it moves thing from deeper towards the surface and visa versa ..much like plowed fields. in your yard, try digging every signal, including iron, and see what happens .. try and make it so the detector is quite when it goes over your lawn .. it doesn't need to be the whole lawn, just pick an area that is easy to define, so you can hit the same place over and over .. I think you'd be surprised on what is down there masked by something you normally wouldn't dig. .. I gridded the area four ways twice and things got deeper as I went .. I wish that I kept records of how that experiment went, in hindsight I should have .. I might do the same next year at a different location and record it all. .. I still get hits that are shallower than some, in the layer I considered cleaned, but for the most part any good targets now are coming from the 8inch plus layer and some as deep as 15 inches. .. though this is not exact measuring, I am using the 7 inch blade of my digger and 9 inch rule on my pin pointer along with the pinpoint function on my machine which gives a real close depth reading, but it is real close.

I dig way more than I need to. I could have spent more time on the iron targets and probably not dug the larger targets. But those small pieces of lobster traps can fool you almost always when they are at depth. I do it mostly to see what this beach is made of. This beach is different from my other beaches. It has a lot more lobster trap pieces, a lot of small melted aluminum globs, and some kind of zinc remnants. I need to know what's there before I pick and choose my targets on sanded in beaches. In prime areas I dig it all, even knowing the iron targets. 15" in some areas, but the EQ was having a rough time even on dry sand. Not sure why, maybe I had the sensitivity up too high at 22. I can relate to seeing a gold chain dangling. The same thing happened to me while digging a deep iron target with the CTX a couple of years ago. Mine partially fell out of the sidewall when I was digging. Takes a minute for the brain to catch up with the eyes 😍 Who knows how long any of us get to detect before we can't do it anymore. I just started to use a scoop when I dig close to the water's edge. I always use a small spade and dig from my knees. That's either building my muscles around my knees or ruining them. I'm betting on the first part, but if they go, I'll be cleaning all the crap I have found for over 50 years 😬

Were going to have to start calling you superman with all that digging...and looks like your living up to your name as well At least you can get lucky once in a while and I think some might be heading your way...I was at a small swimming hole last week digging like a mad man anything that made the slightest peep on my excal when I got a nice high tone... I lifted my scoop out of the water and there dangling out of the scoop is a nice women's thin 14 k gold chain! I said myself wait a minute those don't make high tones and thats when I seen the dime in the scoop 😄 strick

Usually if the 950 mark is with 18k it is a 2 tone ring using platinum and gold. Can be confusing to see 950 also used for silver but considering there is an 18k mark I would expect them to use platinum over silver. Acid test would be the best way to check on a stone.

The amount of inclusions and their size is one factor. Star sapphires have very tiny inclusions which are not visible to the naked eye. The ones in your specimen are very large. The gray color and very opaque condition is another factor. As you can see in the photo above, the basal and rhombic parting is clearly visible along with color zoning. Your specimen is too opaque to see those characteristics if they are present. If you want to perform a hardness test your easiest option is to try and scratch your specimen with a piece of known quartz. Quartz will scratch quartz. Quartz will not scratch corundum.

...Cipher... I got this cover for RC panel..for ORX / Deus as a gift from my colleague Mike ..z Top Digin ... I will return to ATREX .... .. this detector offers another unique feature ..... namely the ability to choose what software oftwer experienced detectors will load into ATREX Pro software Advance .... and a beginner or less experienced detector can choose to begin with upload software BASIC -... and from later on it can go to Pro software ADVANCE .. Pro Software ADVANCE ... it offers more options for setting up the detector .. but it also has more power.

Iron.........really practice with some of those iron targets you recovered. The bigger ones may be impossible to improve response wise with adjusting the iron bias. The same goes for bent, crooked, misshaped iron/nails. They may always give some non-iron higher tone responses. So practice with them a lot to really get to know where they give high tones on your coil and where the response is correct. Practice swinging over them in different directions to see how the numbers change. If you switch to a program with iron rejected there may be audio drop outs and no number responses in some directions with non-ferrous numbers and even really high 39s and 40s in a different direction. Also, if you dug some really big iron objects that are way larger than your biggest coin denomination, you can lift the coil while swinging over them and see how high you can still detect them and compare that height to your biggest coins or relics that you are after. The same process works with large aluminum targets. Larger iron targets or bent/damaged iron targets can be difficult to pinpoint also. When you get more experience you can also use the pinpoint function to accurately size targets by their audio response circumference. Lead and aluminum........lead targets are different shapes and sizes. So are aluminum pull tabs, etc. Then there are damaged pull tabs too. Each one may read slightly differently. Most coin sized and smaller aluminum and lead will stay in the 8/10 (22 caliber fired lead round nose bullets for example) to the low 20s (aluminum screw caps) so if your coins or other desired targets are not between 8 and 23 or so, notching out that entire range of target IDs is a possibility. I have often been out just hunting for silver coins with a pattern that includes 12/13 (for US war nickels 40% silver and I like nickels......and gold rings that sometimes fall in that area) and 24 to 38 for silver objects. That might notch out small roman and medieval partial silver coins and objects in your area. Deeper coin sized targets may have their target IDs slightly skewed higher especially if they are poorly oriented in the ground for optimum detecting or are slightly masked by other nearby targets or by the ground itself. So a US mercury dime (90% silver) may read 27 to 30 on or near the surface but may read 30 to 33 or even 38 if it is deeper than 8" or so. If iron is nearby or if you are hunting in iron mineralized soil or black sand beach conditions all non-ferrous targets may have their numbers dragged downward. That same Mercury dime that reads 27 to 30 might read in the 13 to 20 range or lower depending on how deep it is and how much iron is present. Luckily for you, you purchased the Equinox which is known for having much better target ID stability than most other detectors. For me that means except in the worst possible saltwater beach black sand.......your Equinox should ID silver targets as silver and bronze, brass, lead, gold and unfortunately aluminum as at least non-ferrous targets in badly mineralized dirt and will usually identify them correctly by tone and even give numerical target IDs that are in their corresponding conductivity range no matter how deep they are. Iron, steel, steel core coins and zinc core coin target responses are not as accurate and are the ones that I really had to learn carefully. Keep asking questions and welcome to this forum.