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I would like to place an "item wanted" in the classified add section but it is requested that you have 10 posts within the last 30 days to use the classifieds. Well, there isn't much going on here in the Northern Sierras. The ground is mostly covered with snow, the Jeep is out back full of fallen leaves and ice and I haven't gotten Sourdough Scott into any trouble for a couple of months. So to make an interesting post I would have to cross that fuzzy grey line that squiggles between a good prospecting story and a blatant lie. So I'm going to try to sneak my "item wanted" add in here. Wanted; 1 plastic Groucho Marks. disguise. You know, The the one with the big bushy eyebrows, the oversized spectacles and huge nose with the push-broom mustache. Please contact Klunker. Thank you. This item is Detector Prospector related. We had a 1 million acre (yup, that's 1,000,000) fire burn through here last summer and it exposed unlimited shallow bedrock that would be perfect for detecting with a VLF detector so I bought one from a DP forum member (thanks John) but I don't want to get caught using a VLF detector for nugget hunting and loose my local status as Exalted Grand Wizard Poobah of Nugget Hunting by not using a PI detector. Thus the need for a disguise.

I haven’t posted anything significant in a while. I moved mid year and changed role at work. It has been busy getting settled in and sorting out some things at the house, getting up to speed at work, life. It has been tough getting away to detect. But I also just walk to my detecting spot now. Anyway, wanted to post my more notable finds this year from my new to me 1920 house and neighborhood 1800s park. These were found with my Equinox 600 and Vanquish 440. Hope to have more time to detect this year now that we are more settled. From my front yard and part of backyard I found wheats from 30s-50s, a 40s Merc, an old clock winding key, and lots of nails. The house has been mostly renovated and has probably had a few roofs over the years, so lots more nails to remove. It also has had two additions on crawl space so some of the back yard was lost to that and the 2 car garage. Work has been done on sewer line and buried gutter drains so a lot of the yard has been disturbed over the years. I’m hopeful there are more goodies in rest of yard and masked by the nails. We’ll see what next year brings. These finds show some potential. From the park, I’ve only hunted some areas scouting for potential and only gridded one area mostly for surface finds where a festival was held. I had better luck than I expected. Found a modern silver ring, a modern token, random clad and spills not shown. But what was interesting were a few signals I could not ignore that were good and deeper than surface. So I took the time to dig those. I also can’t resist a good nickel signal so I often dig those as well. I managed to pull a no date Buffalo about 6” or so and an old watch fob, slightly damaged with typical of early 1900s designs. This was a higher tone about 8”. Wasn’t a silver coin like I hoped but I’ll take it. Anyway, there is lots of trash typical of a park and plenty of acreage so hopefully more interesting finds to come after thoroughly gridding and cleaning up areas. Oh, the old religious pin I found in a different area a while back just digging all signals. Never know what you will find in those hunted out spots.

I attempted to capitalize on my success from our New Years Day hunt where my first coin of 2022 was a beautiful 1825 reale ( https://youtu.be/EFZ5Wf3cy2I). On that trip I removed a large section of brush that low and behold gave up several good targets once cleared. This general area produced several Phoenix buttons, a reale, green copper, flat buttons, relics, etc. This trip I tried removing more brush right in what was previously a hot zone, but I was shocked after busting my hump that the thicket of bushes wasn't hiding a single target. Tom likewise cleared out a large swath of overgrowth and after he went through with his Deus and got nothing (camp lead and shotgun butts perhaps), I went though it with the EQX and I did get what sounded like a good chance to be a deep coin, but it ended up being a deep shotgun shell. I don't recall shotgun shell being punishing on previous hunts there, but they were on this one, and I see that Tom also got an equally larger number of them. Then I moved to the area that I had cleared out on the last trip and thought it made good sense to continue expanding my pocket and aside from a couple pieces of large iron, it was devoid of targets. While I was bushwhacking Tom decided to freestyle it on the deer trails. This would prove to be a good move, as he soon started having success. Finally after Tom had bagged TWO Phoenix buttons and a flat button, I started working my way to where I thought he was, but the bottom line is I spent the majority of the hunt either bushwhacking dud areas, or exploring an entirely different area from where Tom was that ended up being practically devoid of targets. Tom kept texting me, hey I got another flat button, hey another phoenix button, hey a small birdcage button. Geesh he was killing it. I ended up with a single flat button way out in the bush, and when I finally returned closer to the "zone", BAM I landed a neat button! How it got there is completely beyond me?? I researched it and it's what's commonly referred to as a War of 1812 Royal Navy Officer 15mm gilt brass flat button. This Royal Navy Officers one piece button was manufactured between 1798-1812. What's that doing in Alta California?? Anyone in California ever find one of these? I know when Spain wasn't looking the British were trading there, and when Alta California was under Mexican authority, the British could trade there. On our way out we wanted to check an area that I sampled last trip and it produced a flat button or two. We were more thorough this time and hit an interesting little patch. Tom pulled a flat button and some big bronze foot to a candlestick or chalice or? Not far from him I got these two little silver buckles. Funky signal, silver screamer with other signals mixed in, pulled several targets out of this little area mixed in with junk. Got the little silver D buckle first, then the larger silver buckle second. Then I waded through some (gasp) clad and got a screaming flutey silver tone, and saw a little silver disc fly out of the hole!! Ended up being a seated half dime, a nice early one too from 1838. To bad it wasn't an Orleans mint mark, it'd be a high dollar little coin then, but it's still a killer find from early Alta California. Nothing else too exciting to be honest, Tom was on fire! I believe he ended up with something like nine period flat buttons, and 2 Phoenix buttons, and a bunch of period green copper. Hopefully he'll post his finds here. This was the maiden voyage for my new Coiltek 10x5 on the EQX800. My overall impressions: I was concerned about depth, but now I think without an A/B stock 11" vs the 10x5, I think it would be hard to notice in the field. I don't think it was any easier maneuvering through the brush, maybe it was, but in reality it seemed like the coil was getting hung up just as much haha When I got the seated half dime, the area was junky and it did really well separating each target in the mix when going slow , the 11" coil probably would've smeared some of the targets together. I didn't find the balance to be any different, it didn't feel lighter, I guess I'm used to slogging the stock 11" around. Thanks for looking! GL&HH, Cal

“An amateur metal detectorist who discovered what is thought to be one of England's first gold coins could soon see a payday of nearly half a million dollars. The "Henry III gold penny," which was unearthed on farmland in Devon, in the country's southwest, was minted in about 1257 and depicts the former English king sitting on an ornate throne, holding an orb and scepter. It is one of only eight such coins known to exist, many of which are in museums.” Rest of the story here

Gold Catcher posted a week or so back about his trip to the El Paso mountains..a place I go to all the time. I have detected here in the past with a GPX5000 which I said wasted my gas, resources and worst of all TIME! I know a lot of people have had LOTS of success with that detector but I have witnessed with my own eyes a large(small potato size) specimen "sprinkled with gold NOT set off a GPX5000! I've been out with my EQ800 less than 6 times and have numerous "small" pieces of gold as well as a 4.3 gram nugget and a 1.71 ounce nugget just this past weekend. The larger nugget is a conglomerate and I plan to take it to one of my friends, Pat K. and have him fire up his 5000 to see what response he gets with it. Anyway, now I am enjoying prospecting again and I hope to be able to test out a GPX6000 next month in the same area.

If the Deus 2 leaks like the Equinox, and XP does not back it without question, as Minelab has done, then you can kiss XPs reputation and D2 water sales goodbye. It’s really that simple, and XP knows it. All warranties have exclusions, and cover manufacturer defects in manufacturing, not wear and tear, or abuse. Anyone with doubts, sit it out. Wait a year for the dust to settle. Nobody here cares if you buy a Deus 2 now, or ever. At least I don’t.

OK, new forum is done, threads moved. https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/forum/61-xp-deus-ii-forum/ I normally keep detector comparison stuff in a separate forum to stop detector wars. But the Deus II versus whatever videos have been pretty favorable, and not much dissension, so I have moved them all here also. Just seemed like one stop shopping is best. As long as people keep acting like adults it will work. Thanks in advance for that. 1700 posts on day one - that's cheating! By another measure, main Deus/Orx forum is 13 pages of threads, Dues II already at 6 pages; very impressive start for XP on this one.

And here's some age indicators, which we don't mind . Green copper slag, pistol ball, etc....

And I listened to every single word in each of your sentences, paragraphs and phone calls. I also took advice and doubled down on my order. That was the 1st detector in all my 25 years of being a multi line dealer that I blew past 100+ units in a year. And YES, Yes, yes even to this day, there are a few dealers who do not talk the Equinox 800 as a Gold Detector. So sorry for the customers who talk with such unknowledgeable dealers as it really does not leave the customers with as many options and or give them the same opportunities as the Multi Use Equinox 800. Here's the kicker and even to this day. Minelab Marketing folks are clueless as to what their detectors can do. If I was in charge, they'd certainly have a different job. Go to their website and type in Gold Detector. No mention of Equinox 800? I've told them so many times, but yea like they really listen to what one of their best dealers selling gold detectors who has been with them 25 yrs actually knows. Oh well. https://www.minelab.com/usa/metal-detectors/strike-gold And don't tell me it's because it's not a genuine gold detector. Heck it will walk up and down the back of an X-terra 705 Gold and they have it up there. Just totally clueless so many wasted minds. Hey, I'm just a stupid guy from Idaho who likes sticking rocks in my mouth. Yea, big flipping heavy rocks and I love heavy metal too.

This is correct. As you go up in frequency the R response increases, then decreases. The X response always increases. And the composite vector response always increases. The reason the R response matters is because in VLF detectors the R response is what we look at to determine when a target is under the coil. When the detector is ground balanced the R channel has no ground signal at all but the X channel does. A target shows up in both the R channel and the X channel but it is the R channel that is target-only. High conductors tend to have a fairly weak R signal at higher frequencies but a very strong X signal. If you have really good differentiators then you can probably get enough ground suppression in the X channel to separate out big silver. Back when VLF was first introduced there was only one demodulator. In TR-Disc mode you would tune the demod phase to discriminate. In VLF mode you would tune it to ground balance. There was no separate X channel which is why the early VLFs ran at such low frequencies: 1-3kHz. It was the only way to get the R response of silver out of the mud.

It's funny nomenclature, but that's what it is. It may be how they were known in Medieval times, ie. a silver penny and a gold penny ( worth 20 silver pennies ) . They did keep detailed written records back then of coin production, how many they made, how many were withdrawn, who funded the production, who was the mint manager responsible etc etc., so I'm sure there's some reference to "the stryking of ten thousand golde pennys" in some old ledger in the Royal Mint's archives. The term 'penny' goes back a long long way, it's from the Germanic 'pfennig', from 500 AD or earlier, and we Brits adopted it along with their coins in the 600's. It's meaning was essentially 'coin' or 'money' , the concept of 'twopenny coin' or 'sixpence coin' didn't exist. Later coins, in the 800's, were cut in half or in 4 to make halfpennies and fourthings ( modern 'farthing' ), but it's rather blatant that half a coin is half a penny, no-one is going to be confused or tricked.

I tell You a story... A day like dozens of others, I was searching again the same spot overworked to the death, with no signals at all and rocks barely exposed... I was with a 14x9" Coiltek and found One signal worth to dig...The chunky monster bracelet heavier than any other piece I ever found. The second day, with scarce hope after the miracle, with the 6", same place, two signals, I found thinner stuff, waiting for me ti dig them...Another slim bracelet and an ear ring🤔 Notice the difference by yourself.... Guess what coil missed the small and what was the best choice to pick up all of It the same day...

Great to get out for a hunt Saturday. Expanding the picture of history at the site. Are you sure those buckles are silver ? And as for the British navy button : There's been plenty of British Navy 1-piece buttons found in CA. But I don't recall that exact one (with the crown on both sides). Very interesting. And good sleuthing ID work. Here's my buttons. 11 total, of which 2 were phoenix buttons.

Personally, I don't mind the delay, if in NM's opinion, (and bank account) they are adding value! I like the format they have used so far; actually listening to their customer base! What a novel idea!! I, like many, don't do "bookface" as it's just too much! Fine for the wife though, to keep up with distant family! I've never been one to jump on the new detector release bandwagon anyway! There are always people better suited for the next "cutting edge" model, that have that covered! Many of which, who make a nice bit of coin doing so! To each their own!!👍👍

I don't think I'd look at it as a work in progress as much as an opportunity to stuff in a few more bells and whistles to increase it's value add based on field tester feedback (which ultimately increase sales). Was the EQX also a work in progress when they did likewise? People seem to forget that the same issue occurred with the Equinox, which delayed it from announcement at Detectival to shipped in about a six month window of limbo. Major changes were made that greatly benefited the end users. I appreciate that Nokta provides status updates (do not believe Minelab did while the EQX was delayed). The updates were more then just software as Dilek mentioned on her update. Hopefully they send the testers the updated units so they can complete their testing and share their findings and comparisons. A lot of whining about the lack of adjustable iron bias. I don't think it would be a bad idea to have an "Advanced" menu that unlocks some of these user configurable settings. They should do something like the did on the MMK in the 3-Tone mode, whereas if you kept your sensitivity at 89 or less it was in a hyper fast iron bias setting, at the loss of depth of course. If you went above 90 sensitivity, you gained depth but lost the hyper-speed. It was great for hunting in sea of nails. The 89 sensitivity 3-Tone easter egg setting was also great at mitigating sites with heavy EMI. Another feature that would be interesting would be a customizable mode whereas you could run SMF and pick what 2-3 frequencies from the stock frequencies that this custom mode would run. IIRC you could do that with the White's V3i.

I think if I lived in the UK you'd never see me on forums, I'd be too busy wandering the fields. I'd have one of these hats with an energy drink on one side, and a can of soup on the other so I'd be able to pull full days without stopping. The targets they can find are incredible, and even if the chance is one in a million your dig would be something like that, that's still one in a hundred billion higher than my chances here 😉 This coin will hopefully end up on display somewhere for the people to enjoy, so he gets a cash windfall and the public hopefully get the gift of being able to see this coin for eternity. It was his first day metal detecting in years, I wonder if he'll keep at it or just kick back and enjoy his new found wealth, having a find like that would be hard to top, every other find will feel rather insignificant now 🙂

The Equinox isn't a gold detector on their website because they still want to sell the Gold Monster which they probably have 10000 units of sitting in their warehouses and many more thousands on dealers shelves around the world. It's also a better money maker for them, cheaper to produce and far less warranty issues, if you drown your Gold Monster too bad, if your drown your Equinox they have to replace it. I don't think it's they don't know what the Equinox is capable of, they've seen all the photos and stories on Forums and other social media, they know exactly what the Equinox is doing on gold for people. It's no different to the rest of their Minelab Sales rule book, don't let one detector step into another detectors line. Do anything possible to keep them different to get the most sales of each model possible. As long as they don't pull a stunt of removing the gold modes of the Equinox 1000 so they can make their Gold Monster 2000 with Multi-IQ. Sure I'd likely buy both anyway but I'd be very upset if they removed the Gold Modes off the next Equinox.

Except by yours truly, who was finding nuggets with it in the U.S. before anyone else in the country so much as laid hands on one, and wrote articles trying to get the word out. I can’t help it if people don’t listen. Here are the first gold nuggets below ever found in the U.S. with Equinox in January 2018. Equinox 800, Gold Mode, MF, relatively mild ground and so I was pushing sensitivity levels high, 22 - 25. Three nuggets, two only 0.6 grain each (480 grains per ounce) and one 9.8 grains (0.6 gram). The 0.6 grain nuggets are one smaller, fatter one plus one thin flake. The kicker? I found these with the 11” DD coil!! The Equinox did not even start shipping until February of that year, and I had yet to lay hands on the 6” coil. So yeah, I knew this dog could hunt on my first nugget outing with it. I also knew it was different, and prospectors don’t like different, so I expected an uphill battle. The lack of 6” coil caused me to soft pedal my report at the time, but I ramped it up after running the 6” coil finally. All while screaming bloody murder for the 6x10 that would end up taking 3 years more appear, and still was not the Monster coil clone I craved. The thing is, nugget detecting was last on the priority list in Equinox design. Imagine a multi-iq detector designed with only nugget prospecting in mind, with coils made just for that task. That will be a detector worth having, and will probably put the last of the single frequency designs in their graves. Just so people know, the article I wrote for Minelab was updated with new experiences on my part, and better advice, in the version posted on this website.

For those that don't use Facebook here is the latest legend update from Dilek, she's been absent recently as she caught Covid pretty bad, but she's OK now. It sounds like the Legend is still very much a work in progress. I always thought USB updating was so you could do updates after release also, but it seems they want to do as much as possible before releasing it at the cost of annoying those waiting on it. Which strategy is best is anyone's guess. Perhaps announcing it a couple of years ago and then setting a date and never meeting that is starting to bite them, no longer will they set a date, it will be ready when it's ready. One thing a bit odd is they've recalled all the testers units, so now there will be no more tester videos, they've all been sent back to Nokta and some of the testers will be getting given a new detector with the updates on it, however they've repeatedly said the only updates are software, so why not just let them update the new software on their test detector rather than waste time and money shipping them all back to Nokta and shipping out new units? Doesn't make much sense does it? I find the lack of iron bias setting explanation to be ridiculous, I'd rather decide myself how I want to deal with that, and I'm not even what I'd consider a power user, but I like to have that level of control.

But there's a difference between putting in language to create wiggle room for a company to deny what they think is a meritless warranty claim, and putting in language that seemingly excludes an otherwise covered loss. If you sell a waterproof device and give it a warranty, yet one of the exclusions of the warranty is water damage, it kinda makes you scratch your head. Instead of saying, "Corrosion of electronic circuits, due to water ingress" XP could have said, "water damage of electronic circuits that are the result of improper use." This gives them plenty of wiggle room to protect them from claims that they suspect are due to misuse (like taking the Deus II deeper than it's supposed to go or forgetting to insert the red plug when going SCUBA diving). But it also makes it clear that if there's a leakage due to a reason that's not the fault of the user, it'll most likely be covered. My guess is that there was something lost in translation and/or there are other applicable laws that apply to EU member states that don't apply in the US.

Yes, congratulations on your nugget by the way. As far as hot rocks go the 7000 and I assume 6000 should be better overall than any VLF however from what I've seen so far my 24k handles the common hot rocks in my area better than any other VLF detector I've tried. This was my first test run video when my 24k arrived, I knew nothing about it then but filmed a video of it passing over hot rocks and filmed the Equinox doing the same. Both detectors were ground balanced. The Equinox I could individually ground balance out some of the hot rocks but others still showed up, the 24k took out most of them just by running with XGB (ground tracking) enabled for a bit then locking it. Obviously with the Equinox I could then notch out the -8 -9 Target ID's and the Target ID's of about 10 and up to 15 to mask a lot of the hot rocks and so on but I'd still get broken audio as often the ID's bounce around so I'd need to notch all the way to 0 to keep it more quiet, but in my experience small gold can and will bounce ID's from -4 up to 2 so it's possible I may miss small gold by notching out up to 0 and obviously those higher numbers like 10 to 15 can easily be decent size gold of a gram or so. There are concerns I don't have with the 24k as I'm not discriminating anything. You'll see the 24k still picks up a number of hot rocks but it's ID is very stable on them, you know they're a hot rock, with the bouncy numbers on the Nox you need to investigate a lot of hot rocks to see if they're gold, they behave the same way. For the particular types of hot rocks we have here, the 24k have proven to be a good performer.

We grab our discriminating VLF machines and leave the 6000's in the truck, especially if there is lots of ferrous trash, but even then, you still have to dig the non-ferrous trash like lead, shell casings, aluminum and copper targets, etc. If the majority of the nuggets in an area hit a certain conductivity range, then they can be cherry-picked by just going after targets that fall within that range; you'll leave gold behind that falls outside of that range, but it's a good compromise and increases the gold to trash ratio, which is handy when you don't have much time to detect.

To leave wiggle room? Question for the lawyers, not me. It's complicated, because you also have implied warranties for stated use. And it actually varies by state in the U.S. Point being, it is their reputation on the line. That is your insurance, not some warranty. I've seen major companies flat out deny valid warranty just to boost the numbers for the quarter. It's as much about the quality of the company as the product, maybe more so. I've never seen anything to make me think XP is anything but a class act.

It's a very good sign for XP that the forum went from being a relatively quiet backwater, to on fire about D2. I have no issues with creating more forums, as this software is immensely flexible when it comes to moving stuff around. I mainly just want forums to be active. So my main consideration is not to move active content to a new forum, and then leave the old one to die. But I think there is enough ongoing interest in Deus 1 and ORX for that not to happen. And if it did, well, I can always just roll it all back together later. I spend a lot of time tagging every thread, and this is where that pays off. Otherwise it really would be a huge effort to sort out which is which, but all I will do is basically take everything tagged as Deus 2, and move it to a separate forum. Kind of makes the tag redundant at that point, but you never know down the road when it might be handy, so I am glad I have put the effort into the tag system over time. I think we can all agree Equinox has been the number one machine in our circles for several years. It looks like XP came up with a formula to challenge that perch. I do not think it replaces Equinox due to the price, but it sure gives people waiting for Equinox II a good reason to leap to XP instead. Minelab has not even a wisp of a good rumor going, so there is little standing in the way of XP grabbing a little market and mindshare from Minelab right now. I really think healthy competition is good for all of us, and whatever heat this puts under Minelab can only make whatever they are working on better in the end. Win win for all involved, so thanks XP!

Using a VLF to get gold???? Disguises???? Hang your head down, you fellows are a shame to our game..........

I gave the Tarsacci 2 chances about a year apart from each other. Used it at the beach maybe 10 hours, no complaints there. But most of my hours (200 or so) spent with the Tarsacci was relic hunting bad dirt. I compared it to the Deus, Equinox and GPX quite a bit. It absolutely spanked the Deus for depth in my dirt and had the Equinox beat by maybe an inch. But the GPX with a 14" coil left the Tarsacci in the dust for depth. So in the end if I need depth I grab the GPX. Why screw around with a machine that is maybe an inch deeper than the Equinox and is like Steve said a nightmare to get it tuned right. I too could never mesh with the tones and the constant high tone chirp of falsing on mineralization. I ran it in Culpeper 10 hours one day in the rain and fought it the whole time adjusting the ground and salt balance to keep it quiet. I did find stuff down to about 9 inches and struggled to tell if it was ferrous or nonferrous at that depth. The GPX will push 14 plus inches in that dirt no problem and IMO is easier to ID iron. So for me that's why the Tarsacci was quietly sold.

Here's a few pics of last years finds. All were found in public places, mainly parks in Texas. I did hunt 1 school and 1 baseball field. My specialty is, hard hit, given up on places. I love the challenge of finding what was left behind. I use the Nox 800 and have it set up to cherry pick copper and silver 90% of the time. If I get into a really old place or around water, I'll open it up a bit. I use my tones as a discrimination , I run wide open . Total silver coin take was 117 and a 287 wheaties, total silver finds 144. Not sure how much clad I found, I cashed it in 3 different times during the year. I'm going on my 4th year with the Nox and have done very well relic, coin and water hunting during that time. Here's my settings. Park 1 Iron Bias F2-0 Ground balance 0 Recovery speed 3 2 tones... pitch on -9 to 17 at 3 from 18 and up at 25 Tone break at 18, unless in older places or around water. No discrimination Sensitivity as high as the site allows. Coil scrubbing the ground and a slow sweep. I know what a lot of people are thinking, just think of all the stuff you left behind. I was having to drive 1 to 2 hours one way to get to some of these places. I have to maximize my time because of the time factor.

Lots of options

From my standpoint NM is being very prudent in their approach. If their diligence results in a (delivered) machine that works correctly, without the need for updates to correct an issue, then both the company and the customer are well served. I like the additional park and field modes and look forward to other enhancements not mentioned by Dilek. As mentioned by another member, I’d like to see the addition of a mineralization bar as well as a relic mode. As things stand, I will be purchasing a Legend at some point in the near future. Having read several comments throughout my internet travels (some of which have been quite unflattering) regarding the lack of an “iron bias” feature, I am a bit confused about the concern some have expressed. Perhaps my confusion stems from the fact that I’ve never used the competitor’s machine (featuring that option) but it (iron bias) doesn’t seem like a feature that I’d desire. My understanding is that “iron bias” is a filter that weights (ferrous or non-ferrous) the signal given for a target that has both characteristics (ferrous and non-ferrous) and that the degree of weighting chosen can make an “iffy” target signal as ferrous, or non-ferrous (depending upon the degree of weighting chosen by the user). (Please correct me if my understanding is not correct) I’ve seen several experienced users caution others to use “iron bias” very sparingly, or not at all, since its use can result in good targets being passed by. If my understanding (of iron bias) is correct, and there is a good chance that my understanding is not correct, then it seems (to me anyway) that the best way use iron bias is to leave it off and make the dig decision based on the signal received and user inclination. In fact, it seems that the use of iron bias would muddle the signal - making a dig decision more apt to be one of pure chance. I much prefer the fe-check and the ability to set tone breaks, notch volume, etc...

Prayers are with you. Be Blessed.

Let's use some common sense. This is the problem with using general language that also covers the the non-watertight components such as the wireless headphones which are not designed for submerged water usage. Furthermore, the user is responsible for using and properly installing the dive sealing plug and rinsing components with fresh water following submerged use as stated in the manual. Presumably, the non-watertight components and water intrusion resulting from user error, would not be covered. But obviously, if there is a case or plug manufacturing defect, XP would cover that.

And , with the the tune of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly playing on a Spaghetti western, and Clint Eastwood comes riding in from stage right, here's the obligatory modern junk. Some of these shotgun butts were from zones where hardly ANY new stuff is found. Ie.: most everything is "interesting". So you can imagine the heart-stopper signals, in an area where it's *supposed* to be a button or a coin, haha The rest of the junk was where we knew full well we'd have to tolerate some clad and tabs.

The official record of the find: https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/1039261 ..and a 'just dug' shot, that was posted to Facebook:

I’m not saying the MDT 8000 does not perform well on the beach, and it obviously makes some people very happy in that environment. I just think that it was a happy accident of design, kind of like Equinox and nugget detecting. Just my opinion. But not only does Tarsacci not sell waterproof headphones for the detector, they clearly state this on the website: “The MDT 8000 is IP68 rated. This means you can submerge the detector in the water up to 1.5m for up to 30 minutes.” If you are looking to actually submerge the detector, there is simply no comparison between 1.5 meters and 18 month warranty, or 60 meters and 5 years. I’ve long noted a reluctance in the part of those who sell the MDT to ever say why. People want to bend over backwards for the small guy putting out a detector as opposed to the big manufacturers. I get that. But I do think a lot of these machines get sold on the quiet with no explanation. It gives a false one sided view, and I’d feel like I’m being less than honest if I did not at least try and articulate what the other side is, since it's being asked for specifically on this thread. The MDT 8000 is very much a niche detector, that in my opinion will only truly suit small numbers of people. Somebody has to say it, and I guess I’m the guy. I’ll leave it there, take or leave it for what it’s worth.

This may help. Two carrots is 112 grams. I'm not good at maths but you maybe able to work it out? 🙂

'Masses' and 'Facebook' -- isn't that redundant? 😄 Just one of the many reasons to appreciate the high level of information here on DetectorProspector.com.

No worries, Andy is the smart one, I’m the pretty one! I will leave the deep dive into frequency tech to others. I have a good layman’s grasp of it all, but I’m no wizard. I do know there is way more to things than just frequency, and focusing too much on it now does not necessarily serve anyone but engineers all that well. For example, you can study specs all day long on, for instance, Apex vs Vanquish or Legend, or even my old DFX. Yet it is only actually using the detectors side by side that tells you anything real, and what you learn fast is that what looks perfect on paper, may not be so in actual use. Apex is a good example of a detector that was created just to say “we have a multi”, but which in actual use will not have many people ditching their Garrett AT models. Other than possibly saltwater, it would be a step down, not up, as is evidenced by Garrett placing it as an Ace, rather than at a higher price than the AT models. Long story short, for regular folks like me, things under the hood are getting way more complicated than appears on the surface, with hybrid processes moving us past the world of simple explanations. And at the end of the day, while I told myself I needed those single frequency options on Equinox to get best performance options under all conditions, reality is I am in multi 99% of the time. Single frequency is only rarely helpful, maybe for a certain hot rock or target, or an EMI situation. Anyway, I did my best to put some basic information out there for the lay people amongst us, but from my perspective I have little interest in delving into the subject any deeper, and will leave it to brighter minds than mine. I’m pretty satisfied right now to just grab what we have got and go use it, and trust that the squirrel running on the wheel under the hood is doing it’s job.

It's only a delay as they made it a delay, that's been my point, revealing too much information and engaging too much with the customers hasn't worked out so well this time. It's also caused personal verbal attacks on Dilek where people have been outright mean which is just not acceptable. We seem to live in a world where people must have everything now, so when they announced it people wanted it in their hands, as time went by anger built people didn't have it. The good bit about this for Nokta is what company doesn't want people so desperately wanting their product they get angry they can't have it? I'm sure there was a lot learnt with this release and mistakes won't be repeated. For all we know the Deus 2 could have been delayed by a year or more, they only let us know it existed when it was a completed product ready to market, even then it had logistics delays but who doesn't now? We expect that 🙂 We are right at the pointy end of the Legend release now, and its great even at this point they're doing improvements, and with Nokta's track record there will be many more improvements to come after its release, not just fixes for bugs but more actual improvements. I just really hope Nel and or Detech end up being able to make coils for it, that's my decision maker.

I'm thinking the disguise is less for us not recognizing you but for the gold not recognizing you. It's obvious that the gold is the party that fears your attention....... and the detectors don't care,,,they are just all about getting you to "turn 'em on !

I don't mind detectors coming with the standard 11" general purpose size, I assume we're talking about VLF detectors, that seems reasonable to me, as long as there is a good selection of other coils on offer to purchase separately I'm happy. I personally mostly use opposite ends of the scale on my VLF's, very small coils for gold and very large coils for coins and jewellery. The standard coil doesn't get used all that much. What bugs me is detectors with a small range of coils. I like the freedom to choose what coil I want and a large part of my decision with buying detectors is based on what coils I can use on it.

We don't need no stinkin PI's...... one little ol redundant Monster is all ya need.....

I think this is true, and also why it took three years for a 6x10 to appear.

I wish they would take the Goldfield Mode and split it with a Relic Mode that uses a lower weighted kHz SMF & optional full range single kHz, Keep the VCO & add 2 tone as an audio option,

Sounds like a fun time. I often clear brush or mow hoping to find some goods. Sometimes it works out. You gotta try what you can on a good history site.

The full article (which Steve linked) says it goes up for auction this week. It states 'Sunday' so I assume that means 23 January. BTW, I think that contraption shown in your post is patented so if you're going to modify it with soup and energy drink you might need to get permission.

Just a side note, but DFX was derived from a Minelab patent that has to be long expired. BBS has all got to be expired, maybe even FBS. To my knowledge V3i had no frequency patents. And even Equinox I think they relied more on encoding the software in a hard to break fashion than a patent, which by nature reveals processes. A lot if the stuff was blocked by patents for some time, but may be the case that firewall around Minelab is finally breaking. Or so it would appear.

All I can say is after having a Tarsacci for two years I’d recommend getting the Deus II. While the Tarsacci can be made to perform, there are various things about it that make a lot of people just quietly let it go after giving it a spin. In my case I really did not like the tones, and the inability to adjust them at all. There is what I consider to be a poor menu structure, that makes adjusting the detector an exercise in frustration. In bad ground there is almost no way to quiet spurious high tone false signals without employing undocumented salt balance and notch tricks, which frankly are just workarounds. Getting it tuned properly in different locations requires different tricks, is not easy, and leaves one never 100% confident the detector is set up correctly. Despite being marketed as a beach detector, the MDT 8000 strikes me more as a ferrous/non-ferrous relic detector. The manufacturer does not even make or supply waterproof headphones for the machine. The 18 month warranty is kind of the nail in the coffin. There are some people who love the MDT 8000, and more power to them, but in my opinion, if given the opportunity to try both, most people would choose the Deus II as the one to keep. I say that having never laid hands on the Deus II, so that might indicate I’ve got pretty strong feelings on that.

The thing is- to my knowledge XGB was not patented. Was it even trademarked? I would love to see this technique implemented in other detectors as well. One thing I ran into when I took over product dev was that the engineers were used to testing detectors in very controlled situations. Makes sense for controlling for variables. But the real world is uncontrolled. Swinging a detector over planted targets in familiar ground is not the same as sleeping with the detector in the bush while trying to bring home some natural gold. I too hope Garrett continues with some of the tech in the 24k, and I hope they also licensed the hybrid half sine tech as well.

It has to do with the way the XGB ground balance works. When we were designing it I paid special attention to variable ground since that’s where most detectors struggle. And also where a lot of specimen gold lives! So I came up with the idea of a ground balance that had a variable Q (similar to a parametric audio equalizer). The 24k tracks multiple ground points simultaneously and is able to open up the ground point to include a range of VDI’s instead of it being just one number. Luckily Jacob the engineer had some audio background like me and was able to make this happen. I made a special pit at White’s to test this that was a mixture of black sand (Low ground point) and red cinder (high). I should have taken some pics of me out there in the noon sun with a shovel playing ground chef. None of the other vlfs on the market worked in that pit! The engineers made me several dev units where I could tweak the ground balance speed and Q width. I took the machine to dozens of locations across the Western Hemisphere to make sure it was dialed in right. Might be interesting to develop that further and allow advanced users to do the same. Even though I was only working in the industry for 3 years I’m really glad this detector kept going after I got out. Couldnt save Whites but at least there are people out there finding gold with a detector that wouldn’t have gotten made without me pushing for it. Everybody else wanted to make more MX Sport variations. Since I’m not under NDA anymore let me know if you have any more questions.

Actually for the Minelab F3 Compact, from which the SDC physical design was derived. Part numbers galore! Check it out: https://www.minelab.com/__files/f/264523/4904-0005-1 Service Manual, F3 Compact.pdf