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About a month ago I was detecting at a school field with my Deus 2 and I found a 14K woman's ring. It has an opal stone in the middle with three diamonds on each side. It was about 4 inches down in the ground. It was in pretty bad shape from being in the ground for so long, and I think that it also got stepped on. It was missing one of the diamonds, the opal was pretty badly scratched up, it was out of round, and it had lost some of its shine. My wife liked it because she really likes opals, so I took it to a jeweler and had it repaired. It cost me $290 to have it restored to new condition, but now it is worth a lot more that that. But it is not going anywhere because it now belongs to my wife.

I don't think I will be using my 6K for awhile so I initiated the repair request and am sending mine to the US Service center this week - they just sent me the instructions for sending it in - I just recorded a short video to show the threshold stability differences between using the built in speaker and a wireless Bluetooth speaker. I never realized it until I started using the built in speaker when I forgot to charge my Bluetooth speaker one day. It is quite the difference, and as others here have said, it becomes rather unusable with the threshold doing this. I do have to thank the people at both the AU and US Minelab service centers for their help getting my repair request started. I will post a similar video showing the results of the servicing when it is returned.

Hey Jason, I'm sure your used GPX 6000 will sell. I'm still selling new ones, but it has slowed down a bit due to many waiting to see what the Axiom does. You might have taken my comment out of content when I said the GPX 6000 Coiltek coils are selling very well and you might of thought I was referring to GPX 6000 metal detectors. The Coiltek coils, mostly the small 10x5 and 14x9 are selling very well, but detectors have slowed down a bit. I have a large pre-order list for the Garrett Axiom, Nugget Finder GPX 6000 coils and Nugget Finder GPZ 17x13 coil. I don't like to take any funds in advance, I just add you to a list, first ones on the list will have first shot of what inventory I have on hand when they arrive. Some customers insist they must pay ahead to be guaranteed a item, but it's not required from us. It's going to be an interesting Winter season with new detectors and coils. I'm hoping that only means more gold for the end user. Good luck, Rob

Yes only an inch narrower, but the 12" is a full 300 grams lighter than the stock coil. When this is hanging off the end of the shaft, there is a huge difference and improves balance by a lot. I believe the 12" coil kept a lot of guys swinging a GPZ that were ready to offload them and get something lighter. I remember reading many comments early on that guys were going back to a GPX5000 or 4500 with a small'ish coil as they were much easier to swing than a stock GPZ. I'm like you Rob, the 12" has pretty much stayed glued to my GPZ recently (whenever I haven't been swinging the 6000), but I'm keen on getting onto some better gold with the 17". Only had very limited time on mine, but already dug a few deep holes to know it's going to produce if the gold is there.

Rich, very interesting, on the tones. I hadn't ever thought of "touchtone" as being "overlapping tones," but in thinking about it, I kind of know what you mean. It will be very interesting to see how Minelab accomplishes the FE and CO tones "together," if that's indeed what will be happening. Meanwhile, as far as the "histogram" thing, maybe we are defining "histogram" differently. But as I am defining it, the screen as I am imagining it, will not be a "histogram" based on the mathematical definition of a histogram. That being, something that looks a "bar chart," i.e. a series of adjacent rectangles, where the height of the rectangle is proportional to the frequency of a variable, while the width of the rectangle is proportional to a "range" of values for that variable (for instance, 1 to 10, 11 to 20, 21 to 30, etc.) Again ASSUMING that the Manticore 2-D screen will be similar to the CTX screen, and I strongly think it will, then the proper way to think of it is an x,y coordinate system, where, each time the machine "calculates" an x,y pair for a target, a point is plotted on the screen in the proper x,y location...with the plotted point's x,y location corresponding to the FE and CO ID pair of the target, as calculated by the machine's ID algorithm. The screen will be set to "keep" a plotted point visible for some set length of time (before it begins to fade away), with additional, simultaneous points plotted continually as the machine continues to calculate additional ID values for the target, with these ID (x,y) points "accumulating" over time on the screen, in their respective, proper x,y locations. Steve

Camping season is at an end, I hunted the campground a couple more times before we left. Wasn't bad for 3 days. Ended up with 100 coins, a hot wheels car, some junk jewelry, a gold ring and a silver 1949-S Roosevelt dime, a key date coin, also my first silver Roosevelt ever. The strangest dig was chasing a 30 ID, I dug the plastic rooster before getting the coin. Thought someone did a ritual burial! 😀 Over $10 more in the change jar anyway, I'm going to get the ring cleaned and polished for my wife. Here's a gratuitous photo of the red white and blue sunrise in front of my house with a full moon. 😁

Totally agree. And it's not just about the weight, the 12 NF is adding stability and sensitivity. Only 1 inch narrower but worlds apart. GC

Took the ring to a jeweler today, they verified 10k and garnet stone, they cleaned and polished the ring but said it was too old to steam the garnet to remove scratches. They said it would shatter. They didn't charge me, so I'm fine with that. 🙂 It looks great.

Hey GotAU, I agree, a lot of archived info on the forums. I still remember the first online forum ran by Ron Long (Uncle Ron) which was hosted by Yahoo, called GoldStalkers Forum I believe. This would of been back in the late 90's or early 2000's. ROb

May 30 1937 Part Six Sarge gave the signal to hold off on any shooting while he edged around the side of the opening and shined his flashlight inside. He shook his head and said there was nobody in there. There was a lantern left lit towards the back wall. It appeared that someone had been inspecting our work. John said it had to be the foreign buyer group. Sarge said they probably came to rob and kill us but saw that we might be onto more treasure. Somehow they must have captured Ben in all that fog. He probably never saw them or heard them sneaking up on him. John said that they must be close by so we looked around for clues. We saw a few fresh footprints that looked like they led up the mountain to the north. We followed them but made sure to keep under as much cover as we could. We cut out the lanterns and moved in the dark heading north. There was a quarter moon which cast a small amount of light. The footprints had vanished and we just kept heading up the mountain hoping to find them. We stopped and just listened for a minute. John said quietly that he heard something moving just up ahead. We moved forward trying to make sure we weren’t walking into a trap. As we moved higher up the mountain there was more noise. It was a rustling sound but we couldn’t quite make out where it was coming from. Then, without warning, there was a holler. There was no mistaking the voice. It was Ben. TO BE CONTINUED ................

Eliminating any amount of ground or hot rocks eliminates gold. Gold and ground and hot rocks overlap. Ground balance is discrimination. Just like multifrequency VLF gets better discrimination, dual channel PIs use the extra info to try and eliminate more ground, while reducing the famous "ground balance hole" but the reality is simple. For any particular ground balance setting, a certain class of gold is missed. Every timing on a Minelab detector targets a certain ground type, while missing a certain gold type. Or targets a certain gold type, but while continuing to signal on certain hot rocks. If there is a hot rock that is difficult for detectors to balance out, rest assured it's because doing so would come at the cost of some gold. Long story short with Axiom the "timing" is a combination of the primary ground balance, and the "hot rock window", which is a secondary, adjustable ground balance window. The more aggressive you are in combining these two ground balance systems, the greater the chance certain gold will be weaker or missed. It will be 100% dependent on where you are, and how the machine ends up set for the ground. Just like the GPX 5000, and which timing you choose. Wise operators will experiment in new areas until they are familiar with any detector, to get used to the reponses. Test targets always have been a good idea in new locations, for this very reason. Too many people get lazy with a favorite setting. Fine Gold on the GPX 5000 for example. Really gets rid of hot rocks. But really misses some nuggets if used in ground where you should be using Normal or Sharp instead. Yet a lot of people liked Fine Gold and it just became their default setting. That is a bit harder to do with the Axiom, as setting a new ground balance for new areas is much more part of the routine. I prefer to apply as little ground balance as needed for the job. If I have a shallow hot rock that I find every 15 minutes or half hour, I am not going to use the ground balance window to eliminate it. I will just dig them. If I am finding one actually under the surface, less than every 5 minutes, now I'm probably going to tune it out. I am always skeptical of detectors that are too quiet, so a little bit of ground feedback, and digging a few hot rocks, makes me feel good, not the other way around. Everything with detector tuning is a trade off, especially discriminating ground or targets of any type… never forget that. Your result surprises me Simon, not what I’d expect. That’s the problem though, expectations versus knowledge. None of us test enough while in the field really, even me. The main issue with the GPX 5000 and earlier was too many timings. Too much room for error. The 6000 goes directly away from that, as does Axiom.

Update: We spent the past week prospecting a gold area with a history of multi ounce patches and bigger nuggets. We made use of some fairly detailed geological maps and Google Earth to identify mineralized zones likely to produce gold. Those resources in fact worked all to well because most of those places ended up hunted to death over the past 10 years. We saw scrapes and dig holes in all but one of the areas we identified. The gold in these areas was shallow enough that they were cleaned out by the GPXs and the GPZs long before we showed up. We found 1 spot that was relatively untouched and found 2 very small patches in the zone that should have produced gold. One patch produced 15 or so small nuggets, nothing over a gram. The 2nd patch produced 6 nuggets for a little over 5 grams. We gridded and expanded our search out to about 1/4 mile for no joy. Every day we did a lot of walking and swinging with 1 mile loops through anything that looked like it could hold gold. Mornings we cool and breezy, afternoons warm and fly ridden. Any little cut or scrape on hands or arms was the fly's favorite dinning delight. Damned irritating for us lightweights. The quandary for anyone in our situation is whether to leave the known small gold 200 miles behind and go looking for lunkers. We hunted the small gold patch pretty hard, but we probably could have eked out another 2 or 3 grams a day with low and slow detecting with the Concentric coils. I think we made the right choice because I'd always look back and wonder what we might have done. The one bright spot was we met up with MadTuna and his faithful canine sidekick Kevin. He was a most generous host and gave us the benefit of his local knowledge and history of gold producing patches. Well another adventure coming to an end and I'm sitting in the airport dreading 23 hrs of airports and airplanes to get home. I'll get the gold cleaned up and weighed when I get home. The total is probably just over an oz total.

Hey Guys, I think this will be a great coil for the GPZ 7000. It's been a long wait for one, but I'm excited to re-visit a few old patches with this new coil once it arrives here in the US. I have kicked butt with the stock 14x13", but the last 2 years I have been using the 12" Nugget Finder round Z Search and love it. Hard to part with the GPZ, but every year I'm getting older .... Rob

May 31 1937 I headed over to the dig site before dawn. I took some beans and coffee with me for Sarge and John. When I got there they said it had remained quiet throughout the night. They had taken turns on watch and both got a little bit of sleep. All three of us were really tired. I told them Ben was sleeping and hopefully would be ok. Will and Hudson kept an eye on him and camp. John and I went to work digging while Sarge stood in the tunnel entrance with the BAR at the ready. We dug straight down and were in a hurry to see if there was anything down there. After a couple of hours we were down over ten feet and had worked up a good sweat even though the morning air was chilly. By now the pick and shovel were like a part of my own body and I had the calluses to show for all the digging I had done. It was no big deal to me anymore and there wasn’t a pound of fat on my body. Along about noon we were ready to take a break when John swung down with the pick and we both heard a thump. We looked at each other and smiled. I called over to Sarge. I told him we had just hit something that sounded like wood. Could we possibly be so lucky and find even more treasure? And if we did what would it be? That’s what I was thinking as we carefully excavated around the side of a huge chest. We weren’t finished yet. TO BE CONTINUED .................

May 30 1937 Part Seven Ben was saying he would come down towards us. When he did we could see that he was in rough shape. He said he had been struck on the head with something and dragged up the hill a ways. He had passed out and never saw who had done it. We helped him into my truck and I took him back to camp. Sarge and John stayed at the tunnel to guard it. When I got Ben back we got him a chair and told him to take it easy. I handed him the Thompson and he was mighty glad to see I had recovered it. Ben was thinking the same as everyone else, that the foreign buyer group must be trying to get their money back and is watching us. It just never seems to end out here. Sarge and John stayed at the tunnel all night and I stayed at camp. We had two places we needed to guard. Everyone is tired. I kept watch for a while until Will took over and everything stayed quiet. I heard no warning shots from the other site. Tomorrow morning I’ll get back to the site and continue digging. TO BE CONTINUED ....................

I decided to take yesterday off to get some things done. My main goal was to head to Lancaster to pick up some cabbage for homemade Sauerkraut. Bob texted me a photo of his Rosie so I gave him a call to congratulate him on his find. I wasn't planning on detecting, but now I had some motivation to head out for a couple of hours. Where to I thought. I was home and didn't feel like driving too far, so I decided to hit my spot across the street. Still experimenting with single freq's I thought it might be a good idea to run 40 for some gold targets. The first hour was foil some clad and crap. The second hour was way better. Deciding to move closer to the house I got a fringe tone that sounded to good to pass up. At the 10'' mark I almost filled the hole back in. Glad I didn't because at 12'' I hit the seam of a really nice crotal bell. Ten minutes later I got one way copper tone that rang up 20-21 which turned out odd for the coin that was in the hole. It was another deep target, and at 10'' I saw the edge of a large copper coin. At first I thought it was your typical Matron head large cent. As it turns out it was a Draped Bust, sadly no date was visible. On to more foil products. No good targets were showing up and I decided to pack it in. I was just about back to the truck swinging as I was walking. BOOM I got a good silver tone. At 6'' I pulled out a silver spoon ring. I could just make out ST on the cut end of the ring, so it's not plated. Overall my day was pretty awesome. My friends did well on their digs and I found some good stuff, AND I got cabbage!!!

That's an excellent example of one of the EMI problems GotAU. How they could ever not consider that a fault I don't know which is why I was so annoyed at their first product notice blaming it on being a sensitive detector. I'm glad they've come to the party and are fixing them all up.

I guess I'm a dinosaur as I don't think of a pinpointer as a must have. We got along without them for years. If you can get one thrown in as part of a package that's great but you could certainly get started without one. A flat blade screwdriver will be fine as a digging tool and you probably already have one. I have the Nox 800 but I know the 600 is a great detector as well. Since the beach is not a concern the Simplex may be a good value.

Sounds good, looking forward to hearing if your emi clears up. Like you said it is mainly location specific emi, and I've experience the same here in Nor Cal. Some areas good, some bad, and no rhyme or reason. Headphones dont clear up the emi on my detector, and I have just learned to deal with it over the past year. But it sure would be nice to have a smooth threshold tone, as I really enjoy the detector when its running right!

Got it back, Detector Center did a great job with fast turnaround. Original control box and original coil came back, pretty sure the original speaker is still in there too. 1.7hrs labor. As noted previously no other problems noted and just the fix was performed. So, either they missed a problem or location itself plays a part in the instability issues and we'll see if this fix address it. Not guessing - there are just no other options. Consider: I posted some videos months back showing the detector running completely unstable, and no amount of noise cancels would correct it. This phenomenon occurs in some locations and not others, and is repeatable in the same locations. So since my detector has a clean bill of health and no other problems were found/fixed (and assuming they didn't miss a problem), it's safe to say that location specific instability issue is inherent to the 6000 itself, or whatever was addressed by this fix. There is no other explanation, it's one or the other. It'll be 10 days at least until I can get away long enough to make the drive to gold country and test in the same locations. But I will put the detector together tomorrow and drive out to the prairie just to make sure it's all working, and set the detector on the ground to see if it stays stable. But it needs to be tested in locations I know were previously undetectable due to instability to see what really got fixed.

Simon, One of these days if you ever get to the US and want to take my training, you my friend get a free pass. The knowledge and gold we show is very eye opening to 99% of the folks chasing gold. They have no clue to the amount of gold their PI's are missing. Sure there are certain dealers who say "well yes you might miss that 1 piece on a rare occasion" Fact is they have no clue either. It's just easier for them to be lazy and not accept it. I find that you are the type who wants to know as much as possible and not miss gold period. There are many areas in numerous states of the US and the gold is missed by most older PI's. I get the occasional Expert who feels they know their PI better than I as they hunt gold full time. When I show multi ounces of gold they have missed, it totally blows their mind and ego as well. Heck, I've found some VLF's pull $10K+ rocks at greater depth than even the newest PI's on the market. As Steve H and I have said before, there is no "best" detector for all gold. The pic below is US Postal scale. The rock is over 2 pounds troy and there is well over $10,000 in gold in it. What's amazing is when most folks pick it up and feel the weight vs size they know it's loaded. Then when they test it with their PI, they want to cry. As I say many times over "detector knowledge is power".

Jason, it's been like this with every new detector announced for years. The only exception maybe was the Deus 2. The Axiom is nowhere close to setting records yet compared to other models. If metal detector companies told dealers they wanted payment in advance for detectors, dealers would laugh at them. Literally. Any dealers taking prepayments are getting ahead of themselves. Personally, as a dealer in the past, I never took money for detectors until I had product in hand to deliver, unless it was some kind of special order item. I created waiting lists. Why do they need your money? Make a list. When detectors arrive, call first person on list. Anyone on list not ready with credit card number, call next person. It's simple. Dealers doing anything else are using your money, and trying hard to lock you into making a purchase now, one that you might decide against later. Frankly, I never did it just because I knew very well delays happen, and I got tired of customers yelling at me because of the delay. It was funny, because there are people who practically insist you take a deposit. Well, for people like that, there are plenty of people willing to take it.

Interesting, not the result I would have expected, but not surprising either. At the time the 5000 came out, there wasn't nearly the concentration on the dinks as there is there is today. The main focus then, even here in the US from my experience anyways, was mostly the 1/2 gram+ stuff and spending a lot more time in areas with deeper big pieces as 1-2 ouncers were not uncommon (well, not exactly common either, but obtainable). So there wasn't as much concentration on optimizing for finding ultra tiny stuff as it just wasn't worth the effort at that point, especially since prior to the GPZ you could still clean up those dinks in droves with a GB2 if it came down to it, much quicker than with a 5000. This concentration on dinks with high dollar machines only feels like it came into focus after the GPZ, and then only after it was clear that a lot of bigger stuff was now gone after a year or two of it in the field. That's just my experience though, certainly not speaking for everyone.

Delay is a perception. Garrett said a new detector was on the way. Then work continued, and will continue, until they think the detector is ready to ship. It's that simple. Yeah, you can update after the fact, but first impressions also matter. I never thought it was anything but a "by the end of the year sort of thing" and have said so repeatedly. Been no delay at all from my perspective. That said, I think the pie is almost done. You will almost certainly see Axiom shipping before the end of the year. Manticore probably after the first of the year. The coils, somewhere in between. But back to delay as a perception. I think the Axiom is two years too late. Can you imagine the impact this would have had two years ago, before the 6000 existed as a known product? As good or better than any other Minelab detector except the GPZ 7000, but half its weight, and half its price? That window was wide open until Minelab largely closed it with the GPX 6000. I told everyone who would listen since the moment I held a prototype ATX that ergonomics was the low hanging fruit. A lightweight ATX a year after the ATX itself would have made waves. Axiom before GPX 6000 could have not only been a game changer, but would have beat this current strong dollar environment, that will hurt it a lot overseas. Late? Yeah, it's late. So late it will be very hard for Garrett to move the needle now, whereas two years ago it would have been a walk in the park. Timing is actually everything, and I'm frustrated beyond belief that this was not a priority ten years ago.

I was hunting in a public local park and a few time a park maintenance guy would kick me out. The police didn't care that I was in the park detecting. I had to start detecting there on Sunday when the park worker wasn't there. One person walking through asked me if I had permission to do that. I got a lot of coins out of it. IH's, Wheats and one Morgan dollar in the flowers next a walk path. 1 Fish Scale Canadian silver nickel and no more silver coins. Was using a Sovereign XS2 w/8" coil. I never went back with the newer detectors.

That's what I was thinking. If they're public fairgrounds, then ..... why subject yourself to the potential of : "no one cared UNTIL you asked psychology" ? I realize that a lot of fairground are only open (unlocked) at event times. Ok, fine then : Go the day after the fair, when the cleanup crew is there, and the gates will be open. I work in the street sweeper industry, and we do a lot of post-event cleanups . Including at our local county fairgrounds, the local race-track, etc.... And .... I never once had the notion that I "needed permission". 🤔 Since when is md'ing so dangerous or risky that it needs someone else's princely sanction ? 🤔 The mere fact of thinking you need to ask, simply cast aspersions on you or the hobby, that you thought you needed to ask, in the first place. Ie.: No one "asks" to do benign harmless things. So the moment you think you need to ask , is the moment you've already put your issue in a bad light. Ie.: as if it's harmful or dangerous or whatever . Lest .... why else would you be asking if it were benign and harmless ? I happen to consider the hobby innocuous and harmless. And I will not risk the "no one cared TILL you asked" phenomenon.

(I welcomed you and asked a couple questions in your Meet&Greet post. You've started answering my questions here.) Welcome (again)! Here are some warnings about advice for someone wanting to enter the hobby (aka 'newbie'): 1) If you really have a budget, and you seem to, then beware of people suggesting things that don't fit your budget. That seems to happen here all the time. 2) Although used detectors can be a bargain, they can also have problems. Particularly for someone new, if the detector isn't working the way it was expected then one's mind will be filled with doubt as to whether or not you got someone's lemon. Go new now until you get confidence in your abilities. 3) There are several more/less required accessories, especially a handheld pinpointer, a digging tool, and a pouch. The latter two can really be found on the cheap in a big box hardware/lumber outlet -- e.g. a garden trowel and a nail apron. In particular, though, the digging tools sold be detector outlets tend to be sturdier. Another accessory that isn't typically required (if the detector has an internal speaker) but can be quite useful is a set of headphones. Regarding this third point, some outlets provide packages that include a lot (or all) of the above mentioned accessories. SeriousDetecting is a good one. You can search for various models (e.g. Nokta Simplex, Garrett Apex, Minelab Vanquish) and see what kind of package you can get that fits your budget. You can still shop around with other dealers but the site I linked will at least give you an idea of some available, decent pricing. Example: Simplex with wireless headphones and handheld pinpointer. ($375 before sales tax) Get one of the best hand diggers. ($40 before tax -- not sure about shipping) The pouch I use. ($31 before tax) And maybe a few bucks leftover to take your wife out for fast food. 😁

Greetings Everyone, I would like to get into the hobby and the boss has generously allowed me a budget of $500 for ALL my gear. This would mean headphones, pin-pointer, trowel, and anything you all can think of. I am looking at the Garrett Ace Apex and also the Nokta Makro Simplex as my first detector. If you all can think of another model I may have overlooked please chime in. I mostly have been looking through YouTube videos to have narrowed it down to these two. Eventually I would like to own the CTX 3030 or the XP Deus/Deus II. I am not going to do any beach detecting, just yards and sides of roads, ranch land and parks. I would like to detect rings/coins. P.S. I am complete Novice, I have never detected before and so would like a detector I can grow into but not grow out of anytime soon, hence my budget. Something in the mid-range would suit me fine, right?

I use a set of ear buds that came with a Roku for the remote control with my WM08 module. They work great.

I've never used my WM08 but I wonder if something like this might help if the plugs just don't seem right? https://www.amazon.com/MyCableMart-Adapter-Female-Stereo-Connector/dp/B00U1SSLYS

As requested, it's old and worn.

Hello Ollie, Welcome aboard, and Thanks for joining up!!! You folks in the UK have a tremendous amount of history that I'm envious of. I can not wait to see some of your finds. Once again glad your here.

I was rather surprised at the difference a external speaker makes however, so if you really don't need it then yeah, I'd keep your hunt going for the remainder of your season. I don't anticipate being able to go for awhile and have a backup detector if I do get the opportunity, so I am going ahead with the update. I will post about the results when I get them.

You have to get used to it but full tones in pwm gives you a wealth of info.

Steve, Here's the difference between you and so many others. You just don't talk and dream it, like so many do. You get out there and do it and make the memories for the rest to read/dream about. No sitting in a rocking chair saying "I wish I would have done....." I don't know what it is with the majority of folks, but they seem to come up with every excuse not to. Glad my mind is not that way. I'm about making them, not dreaming them. Another adventure accomplished. Well done my friend.

Didn't the Blisstool do that also? It's a somewhat rare feature as far a detectors go.

I will suggest to beware of counterfeit detectors offered on the Internet. Make your purchase from a real dealer not someplace like Amazon.

Hi Ethan. I'm sorry that there hasn't been much response to your question here but it also might be a bit telling in that maybe many people aren't using the Gold Monster in Western Australia. As with many spots across Australia the ground in WA can be quite variable, very mineralised and have various amounts of hot rocks. However, prior to the introduction of PI machines a VLF was all that they used in WA. and they found gold so it is possible. I know with my trip to WA in June this year that on one of the little patches we found the Gold Monster would have located about half of the gold weight that we found as it was quite shallow and of decent size (multi gram). But, there were also many pieces that a VLF would not have got anywhere near. Not having used a VLF in WA myself I am loathe to give too much advice without much to back it up, but a PI would be a better option for handling WA conditions in my opinion. Travelling from SA to WA goldfields is a long way to go only to be disappointed and frustrated by ground noise and digging ghost signals. Something like an SDC would be a great beginners detector, if it is in your price range, as it is generally exceptional at handling ground noise and knocking out hot rocks. Hope that helps. Cheers, NE.

That'll be a huge IF Chase.. I won't be taking the plunge early with this one.. I'm quite happy to see what field testers have to say first about how it performs on beaches, silver coins and small gold.. Once bitten, twice shy as far as I'm concerned with being an early adapter.. I'm merrily following the bandwagon along to see where it leads me.. I reckon it'll be good, but then that's what I said about the D2.. 🙂

Couldn't agree more.. I started with a Chinese Gold Bug then upgraded to a second-hand Equinox 600.. It's still my main detector for coins and rings.. I've owned a few other detectors since then but on my local beaches it's still outperforming all of them! 😁 According to other members here, it's also great in fields and parks..

Hey Guys, There is no question once Steve created the "Detector Prospectors" forum most fell to the way side, including my forums at - https://forums.robsdetectors.com/ I'm not super active on them, but my forums date back for ever a decade or longer and some good information for anyone that wants to search for a subject. It's still online, I just haven't kept it hot. I also have no ads, so I don't generate any revenue from my forums, as the free forums that have all the ads do generate revenue (based on clicks). Personally, it's easier for everyone to visit one forum for the most part. I remember when here in the US, most dealers had a forum and you would see the same posts on 5-6 different forums. I believe Bill Southern still has a forum, but also noticed a huge decrease in post in the last 6-12 months. I think majority of the "buzz" is here, so keep it running! Rob

Hey Guys, Talked with Max (Minelab Americas Rep) today about this issue and asked what is the process here in the US. He is going to check and see, but I'm sure everything will have to go through Detector Center in PA, USA as they are the repair/warranty center for Minelab Americas. I have tried to contact Detector Center direct about it, but I'm sure they are getting calls so I haven't heard anything back from them. Hope this helps a bit, Rob

Just a note on how the journal gets written : Some readers may think that I have a complete series or season written and I post a little of it every day or so. That is not the case. When I feel like writing I sit down and write on Google Docs so it is saved. When I write I really have no idea what I will write until I write it. Nothing is pre planned or outlined. It is like I am reading the story just like the readers are except I get to read it first. The story just comes as it will without much thought process from my part. I liken it to a guitar player who is in a jam session. He doesn't know where it is going but just lets his mind and fingers do the talking. Sometimes he paints himself into a musical corner and has to work his way out. Exactly how I feel with this story sometimes. This is what makes it so much fun for me to write it. I have no clue what will happen or how this will end. Thanks to all you readers out there and hang in there with me as this journal continues to unfold. Cheers, GM.

Beach hunt #6 was a follow up hunt at the same beach. Started off using the GPX on the upper beach and soon found an area that I knew would trouble everyone’s machines (including mine). It’s right up against a rebar reinforced concrete wall. You can’t get within 2 feet of it without the iron in the wall sounding off. But there are ways to go around that if you are willing to put up with excessive noise. I wanted to see if I could squeak out low conductors. It worked and I found a huge number of nickels, including 2 Buffalo, but no gold. As the tides got lower, I wanted to switch machines and test the Equinox out in that same patch that was producing silver and gold for everyone. It is very hard digging with the packed sand and rocks, and I soon gave up using a scoop, since it would barely go 1” into the sand. Went back to the car and got my trusty shovel and abandoned the idea of hunting deeper into the waves. So, I followed the tide down as the others arrived (I love being first) 😊 One guy got a 14k earring, but it took me a long time before I struck gold. Finally, after struggling with a collapsing hole filling with water, I got it out. A nice 10K man’s initial ring. I was happy to join the crew in finding a gold ring in that area. After a while, a Mercury dime showed up along with more silver jewelry. Always nice to have a good hunt and to get some exercise at the same time! Looking forward to the next hunt already. Who says this hobby is addictive? 😄

Yes the 8" tall x 5.5" wide coil is an option for the Manticore. I have yet to confirm if it will be as an accessory or in part of a package? From 25 yrs of selling Minelabs I would think it and other size coils comes as an accessories, just like the Equinox currently does.

Hard to say since the Axiom is not in customer hands as a finished product, and I have never tested it where you are. I’d say “probably” is the best answer you can get at this time. Unless you are just all fired up to sell your 4500 now, the best bet is to wait and see.

Hi Luca , have done various mods to the ATX . To do one for your intended configuration. Dismantle stem on coil down to last section. Remove connector from cable. Splice appropriate diameter and length of straight shielded cable long enough to reach your pack an also lay down when you are down on the ground. A waterproof splice can be done by degreasing cable jacket in splice area slipping a short section of some sort of tubing over splice area and then potting with an appropriate compound . Reconnect cable end and connect to control box passing through a handle of of your own design ie- I used a piece of carbon fiber tubing same inner diameter as o.d. Of coil stem.and made a handle and cuff from my parts pile. You could alternately make a handle that worked with the existing shaft by using a piece of tubing that fits into the existing collapsible shaft and working up a handle from that platform I just didn’t because I already had parts laying around. Hope this inspires you to build. Post pics when you finish. Have fun

With the exception of educational tips and tricks type videos to better learn the settings and the new graph and whatnot, I've decided not to watch any further Manticore versus the D2 (or anything else for that matter) "test" videos as the proof will be in the pudding, and out here Minelab SMF machines have an excellent proven track record going back to the Explorers, and the D1 ended up being popular with some relic hunters as well. I have my Manticore order in, and when it comes out I'll test it myself, at my sites in my dirt. Like dogodog said most of us have multiple machines, and for good reason. I've always been of the opinion that all machines do things different, even coils, and as such they will all find things other machines may not. My hunt partner see things differently, he's of the opinion that a single machine can do it all. He's been using his Explorer2 since it was new and is so dialed into it that he just sticks with it at 99% of the sites we hunt, although he finally broke down and bought a Deus1 (sadly not too long before the D2 came out, doh!). He does fine with his Exp2, but I like to try different machines, especially when you start to see diminishing returns from an existing detector. At a particular western frontier site I've enjoyed over the years that I started hunting with the F75 LTD which did okay in the beginning but it petered out. Then I started taking the Makro Racer/Racer2/Multi Kruzer there and it really opened up, but after a few years started to die out again to the point that my hunt partner wouldn't even go with me anymore. The Equinox completely opened the site up for me landing a very rare $1 US gold coin, a seated dime & half dime cache (19 coins total), several semi-key date seated dimes that weren't part of the seated dime cache, Phoenix buttons, early military and civilian buttons, trade silver, and other period relics. We'll see what the Manticore brings to the table at a "hunted out" site. I look forward to it's increased depth as I've located several silver coins that were at the fringe depth of what the machines were capable of (and missed by Tom's Explorer2 🙂 So no doubt there are a few stragglers that my current detectors simply cannot locate, and there's no shortage of iron of all sorts and other stuff. Nice thing about this particular site is that the ground is pretty tame as far as mineralization goes, no EMI, so it could be the perfect recipe for the Manticores extra depth capabilities.

For me it is exactly the opposite , the Minelabs sounds are too slow and elongated especially in the irons , ... The D2 square tones are much more accurate and faster on targets . The D2 square audio is exactly what I was expecting from XP and I dont use the PWM audio . btw I use SENSITIVE 5 TONES SQUARE. From my testing I found 5 TONES to be a little deeper than FULL TONES this is why I prefer to use 5 TONES ..

It was watching what happened to Finders in particular that had me formulate the rules in place here. Politics, and members trolling/flaming other members, will destroy any forum if left unchecked. It’s the forum variation of feeding the good wolf or the bad wolf. Here, I try to feed to good wolf in all of us.