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We don't need an 8000 to find a few more tiny dinks at Rye Patch. But there is a solid need for a lighter, faster, more powerful GPZ for actual prospecting. Real prospecting - as in straight up cold exploration reading the local geology and going out into new places and doing actual work, not just revisiting old historic placer reports in known areas. The 7000 sucks for this kind of exploration still, even with X Coils, it's just too slow and too heavy. I'm pretty curious to see what a new GPZ would look like. If it's barely lighter, and no better than a 7000 with X Coils then I'm uninterested. But if it's significantly lighter, much better with EMI, much better with ground, and deeper on 1+ gram stuff than a 7000 with a 15" CC X Coil, and has a (working) speaker, then I'm interested. Add decent discrim in and I might even think it's worth the obscene price they ask, for the first time in my life.

Just about the time Steve was writing this post I was finishing up a day of detecting with my wife at a spot in Southern California where I've found many nuggets in the past. Half of our day was spent hunting for new gold near old gold spots and half of our day was spent on patches where many small nuggets (under 1g) had been found. This was a reliable spot for several of us for a number of years. My wife used our updated 2300 with the battery pack which made it much better than the loose batteries of the past. She had used this effectively in this area in the past. I used my 7000 with X-Coil for about half the time and the other half I used my 800/11. We started about 9 AM and hit 4 different spots. We didn't overlap. I went to at least 2 spots where I had placed FINDS on my GPZ map. I took extra care to go under bushes and that is where I found most of my bullet trash. It is where we didn't look or had thrown it in the past. Somewhere about 3:30 to 4:00 PM I came to the realization that a new detector was not going to change my outcome measurably. I need to find a new location with detectable nuggets. I think I have a better chance in Rye Patch right now than going back to that spot. Dashed in my mind was the thought of a Axiom purchase for nuggets at this location. Dashed also was the thought of a 6000 with Gold Monster. I know the GM has been used all over this patch by others. The 6000 may have a little chance but is IT worth it? This isn't my first skunk at this location after finding a couple hundred over the years. Deep nuggets are rare. When I got back to the car at our last location my wife had the only nugget of the day. It took her over 6 hours with the 2300 to find a .15g nugget. I give her credit and the 2300 which is a machine I find hard to enjoy. But that is our technology and I think it is good enough to find gold in most patches. I just 'discovered' this thread after my revelation, but it dovetails with everything that comes after Steve's post. What technology I will buy in the near future is less important than where I look for gold. I've said it in different ways before but now I have to remind myself. Days of .15gs will not get me very motivated.

Who enjoy's digging holes besides me? Using an excavator is lots of fun but sometimes it can be even better if you use a pick and shovel. There is something exciting about hole digging. You never know what is lying just below your feet. I'm always looking for gold but sometimes you fing unexpected treasures. Old coins, nails, buckets, tuttle tooth saws, jewelry, cans, bottles, gems, etc, etc. Besides the possibility of finding interesting and forgotten items it's also great exercise. So I say, if you are feeling bored, go dig a hole. You just might find something cool. Happy digging!

I hit the hills with the Axiom again early this morning. After a 1 hour hike I arrived several ridges higher above my main patch from last trip. There are faint old-timer workings here and the plan was to make the spot "pay" up. Well, no luck again, skunked for the 5th time. But, I had my aces in the hole, a mini patch and medium patch on the way back to rework to hopefully end the day with some gold. Things turned out ok and I did manage 3 nuggets, the first 2 with the 11x7 mono and last with the 13x11DD. The first was a .33g I missed 10ft. from where my ML SDC 2300 got a 1.62g nugget at the mini patch and later a .14g nugget 3in. down at the medium patch. I swapped in the 13x11DD and got the final nugget a .13g that came out after the first scrape with the pick. The takeaways are gold sources aren't necessarily higher up from patches, the Axiom is very sturdy and nugget #1 was found smashing short bushes where the SDC had been. And the 13x11DD hot spot in the center of the coil found the smallest nugget of the day. I definitely agree with Steve H.'s warning to not try to overdo the sensitivity on the Axiom. I did a factory reset today and repaired my headphones, but ended up using my Sunray Pro Golds. I had the same issues as my first trip with the connection. I kept sensitivity at factory 4 with headphones. Higher is a bit loud on the ears and you start to get ground noises if the ground is highly-mineralized. I ran a bit noiser than I usually do, but all in the name of science. Related to the sensitivity control, I noticed I had to "juggle" settings for threshold, sensitivity and volume to get things sounding smooth and not over-driven. My settings for speaker use and headphone use differ greatly. I used way lower settings for headphones so watch out for that. One nice surprise that I might be imagining is the overload response to targets is shorter than for other PI machines I've used. Nice to get the blaring over with quicker. Maybe the Axiom has a faster recovery speed doing that. Spot #1 today had a part of it burn in a wildfire. I run across spots of carbon from burnt stumps or roots there and they've sounded off using my ML GP3000 and SDC. I did get some noise today too, so the Axiom responds to charcoal like the other PI. However, I ran all day in automatic ground tracking and it smoothed things out a lot so most burn spots weren't an issue. I tried a manual balance for a brief time and those charcoal spots got really noisy, so back to auto ground tracking for me. At times spots of ground get a bit noisy. A few pumps with the ground balance button pressed and back to quiet operation. Very quick and easy to do and works great. The Axiom likes certain hot rocks, but I get the same response to them on my ML GPX 6000 here. I get some occasional extremely heavy, dark magnetite of good size in the area. The larger ones deeper got me excited with faint signals and I dug several. It seems the golf-ball sized ones fooled me. At least those are easy to spot once out of the hole. I know you can tune out hot rocks with the Axiom, but since I only ran across half a dozen there was no need. I'll possibly add more as thoughts occur to me and try to answer any questions people have. I didn't do any empirical testing today, just beep and dig.

Here's my entry. I always like to show my appreciation to landowners, for giving me permission, by giving them a display of stuff I found. Just gave this one to a guy this morning.

I don't like digging holes, but I've always found it relaxing to sit down and watch other people dig holes. So for that reason I liked your photo.

This forum has been running for ten years now. I have never done anything to weed the database down in all those years, and it is getting way too full of stuff that does not need to be there. A big one is people who have registered over the years, but never posted. The so-called Lurkers. That's fine I guess but the reality is there is almost no reason to join the forum if you are not going to post. The content is free for anyone to view without an account, so you are free to lurk all you want, without taking up database space. The only area that is off limits to non-members is in the Downloads area, where I have limited the ability to download the large files to members only. I'm just trying to keep a lid on the bandwidth by keeping outside sites from linking directly to the resources there. Long story short a quick review shows that fully half the members database is comprised of non-posting accounts, going back ten years. I am going to delete all those accounts before the end of the year, except any created in the last 90 days. If you have one of those accounts, and do not want it deleted, you need to make at least one post before the end of the year. This thread will work. Just post anything at all here, and your account will not get deleted. You only need to do this if you have never posted on this website before. If any accounts are being held by spammers, it’s likely to be in this group, so it helps clean that up also. The end result will be invisible to current users, except that the site may get a tiny bit faster once I clear out all the deadwood. These people have never posted, so no actual content gets lost.

See this video starting at the 1:40 mark. Hold the ground balance down for a full ten seconds. That is done to make sure nobody engages the window mode by accident. Keep in mind that normally when you push the ground balance button, the machine resets each time to whatever new conditions you are programming in. If you go ten seconds and open up the GB window, the machine is now in an accumulative mode. This can be useful for more than just hot rocks. Like those hot patches in burn areas, or clay patches, whatever. It broadens the ground balance system to work on multiple items. It is wise to use it with care and only when needed, but can also work miracles if properly used. The video shows a simple L type balance where you pump over the ground then wave over the hot rock. In reality I just play with the ground and the hot rock or hot patch until both mellow out. It may take waving or pumping or both. You can choose how aggressive you want to be by how you do it. Anytime you think you have dialed in too much, just reset the system by releasing the button, and then pressing again, to engage the regular simple ground balance. Very important to know! If you have a perfect window set into the machine, pressing the ground balance button again after that will clear the window, and start you over with regular ground balance. It's quick and easy, but every once in a while leads to an "oops" wish I had not pressed that, and you have to start over. Once people learn the ground balance system it will prove to be a real weapon for areas where other detectors drive you out due to too many hot rocks and hot spots in the ground. Now here is some really crazy stuff to experiment with. I only did this once, but now it is out there for people to explore and share. The ground balance window works on almost anything. I tried it by ground balancing on a nail, it knocked it out completely, and it still picked up coins!! Now, I have no idea where the limits are on this yet, and what gets eliminated when you do this, but the fact is you can use the ground balance window to tune out most anything, and still find other stuff. This may blow the relic market for the detector wide open. Or not. Just depends at what cost in lost targets comes with this method. But right off hand it looked to me like I could tune out some common ferrous targets and still have at least some response left on many coins, so you can bet I'll be playing more with this in the future. You can use the tones on the Axiom to separate small/low conductive (hi-lo tone) from large/high conductive (lo-hi tone). You have the iron check grunt for shallow ferrous. And now you have a fully capable ability to block out single target response areas with the ground balance, just like with the TDI, but in a dual ground balance machine. This should help alleviate the severe "hole" that developed when you used the ground balance as a disc control on the TDI. With the TDI out of production, we now have an even more powerful alternative available with a similar capability via the Axiom. Lots to look forward to and experiment with in this detector for sure.

Have always liked digging holes. Probably why I became an archaeologist. Also probably why both shoulders are shot!

Of course the technology can be improved, and people are working on improving it right now. What won't improve is the amount of gold in the ground available to most people. If people really want more gold, they have to get off the known patches and find new ground. But anyone that has done that knows it's no magic bullet either. You have to find something good eventually, because the cost is weeks if not months of finding nothing. Most of us are not full time prospectors, with endless time to spend looking for gold in places where it has never been found before. Another reality there is most of the good stuff relaims on land that needs special access, permission of some sort, and is beyond the reach of the average person who can't get that permission. So quit waiting for and dreaming of a new detector, and just do more research, find better areas. That is how a person will find more gold, not some detector that gives us another 1/2 inch of depth.

People who can't read manuals or learn how to operate detectors with lots of options have lots of other options to choose from in metal detectors. Some people want all those operating options, for others it just gets in the way. How much is too much? That's a wholly subjective thing, and depends on the person involved. The battle I have fought recently is with metal detector companies that want to cater to the lowest common denominator. I've heard it - "people who buy metal detectors are not smart enough to figure this out" or "if we make this too powerful it will be unstable, hard to operate, so we better tone it back." Why is it so many detectors can be operated at full sensitivity in all locations at all times? It's because the detector was dumbed down for the masses. So while I get where you are coming from George, I have to say I'm one of those people who wants lots of options available to me. Whether I use them, or even learn what they are, is up to me. But ultimately I am never satisfied with detectors that leave me just one control short, like no threshold control, or no ability to turn off ground tracking. Everything preset - "no iron bias for you sir!" Things done to eliminate a control to keep things simple, or things done to keep detectors "safe." That is the general way most detectors are designed. The only thing that makes the Legend different is you are getting all these options in a detector priced like it is a entry level detector, making it more affordable to people that maybe are better off with a Vanquish. In general in metal detector land, every control means a higher price. For decades you could calculate the price of a machine by the number of controls it had. The price was a barrier that kept people who should be buying a Compadre from buying a V3i. Legend has removed that barrier, and so it will no doubt get into the hands of people who would be better off with turn on and go detectors. Oh well, buyer beware, that's on them. I personally applaud Nokta/Makro for putting this much power, with this many options, out there, for those of us who really want detector like this, but never could afford them in the past. So the real question is whether this is too much detector, or too low a price for what it has? Somebody is selling a sports car for family sedan prices, but it's too hard to drive.

People may be surprised to learn just how much 'noise' there is within a PI circuit, especially when dealing with mineralized ground. This 'noise' detracts a lot from the circuits ability to pluck a real target from the overall signal received from the coil. Couple this with the ability to increase the coil's power, pumping more energy into the soil and you have a very large window of electronic opportunity to improve upon. The improvements in circuitry and components which can function faster and more efficiently also add even more to the picture. Add a final couple of additions in coding (a-la Geo-sense) and coil type/s (CC and DOD etc) and.....you get the picture. Electronics boffins like Eric Foster (RIP), Bruce Candy, Don McCall and Dave Emery all had visions of just how incredible the apex of PI tech for gold prospecting could become, given further, incremental advances in technology. We all know that there is a lot of gold outside our reach, its always been the dream that a detector will come along one day that matches the huge 50% Advance that the SD2000 gave us back in 1995. Holding breath......

There is an "Impulse Gold" in development. I field tested it in June and it works pretty well, sees sub-grainers about the same as the SDC. There were some minor issues that needed addressing and FTP moves at glacial speeds so that's still in the works. Otherwise, there are other developments on the VLF/MF side but I have no exposure to those.

Great to hear unbiased reports from regular purchasers, with hopefully more to come. Thanks for the early reporting in particular. And do try the hot rock window balance method sometime even if you really don’t need it, just to see how good it works. I also tend to not use it if the rocks are few and far between, but it can work some real magic on most hot rocks. Others might still respond, but it will be in a vastly reduced manner. One of the better features on the Axiom in my opinion, one that really made a difference for me in a few locations. https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/20373-the-axiom-ground-balance-window-with-notes-for-relic-and-coin-hunters/

Please don't delete me, yes I know I am dead but I still help my grandson from time to time with the 800 I left him.

We use to have a One Ounce Club…you had to have found a 1-Ouncer within our group. One of our members was gold smith and made us a ring with the gold we found to suit our fancy(s). There where many made but this one is mine and use as my Wedding Ring! Rick

A 19 minute UTube.

And don't forget to fill the hole back in when finished.

I DO! And thanks for bringing up this topic and discussion about a very important but often overlooked aspect of being a true relic and artifact hunter.The only thing that I would add is the use of a well made 1/4 inch mesh sifter for the more rich and productive sites.But I'm sure that you are aware of this happy digging too you.

Ridge Runner (Chuck) thanks for sharing a nugget of pic. I realize the old days and pics were nothing like we have today. My most memorable times are on 8MM reel when I was a sprout running around on weekends with family and detector in hand. I have no issues with you pic as it brings back memories and that's exactly what this holiday is about, being thankful for so many things, including the early prospects and hard work for the color earned. You name is in the hat my friend. Purplehays69 Now that nugget pic has so many twists and or stories to tell. Oh my I would love to hear just half of the history it could speak. I'll have to look up the mention. Yes there's way more history across that Black Rock desert than many who travel through each day have no clue. Did they happen to fit?🤣.Your name is in the hat my friend. LuckyLundy, (Rick) I have to agree 100% and that's why I used the term "nugget" as there's so many ways to use it. Friends and stories made on gold collecting journeys is most valuable to the soul. The beautiful yellow stuff is just the icing on the cake. Your name is in the hat my friend. HotSauce I can see you have put some time on your coils and the adventures have a golden shine at the end of the road. You've done well my friend. I used to think I would remember all my nicer finds and I probably did for 15 to 25 yrs, but I think the sharp tack mind is starting to wear on me a little. Now I have to use notes and cheat on occasion. The hunt for the next big o gold is always on our minds. Thanks for sharing and your name is in the hat my friend. mn90403 (Mitchel), Gold finds like that can leave an everlasting highs/lows in the soul. There's usually great joy and pride but for some reason a few sour grapes seem to surface as well. I'll check out your story later on. Hopefully those great times and memories with the ones around at the time will last forever. Thanks for sharing and your name is in the hat my friend. geof_junk Silly me.... I have never seen a guys hand so small.🤫 Or could it be your stones are so big? Well either way those memories will last forever my friend. Thanks for sharing and your name is in the hat my friend. Glenn in CO My gosh Glenn, that golden dove is just amazing. You are so lucky to have a nugget beside you on every trip and willing to take part. I wish you 2 many more golden years to come. Thanks for sharing and your name is in the hat my friend. Arky (Mike) Good to see you and your best find still out there swinging and learning. Each site is different and something to learn all the time. That’s a fine chunky nugget there and most would think around the heavily pounded Quartzsite area, it should have been picked up already. Maybe it was me who boot scraped it and walked, as I have done so many times before. I especially do that in known trashy areas. If site was new to me or if a lot of surface trash, then yes I probably walked and left one for those more determined. Good to see you again last month and hopefully seeing you more down the road. Thanks for sharing and your name is in the hat my friend. oneguy (Scott) that pic is certainly a golden pan full. Many hours and memories to be thankful there. A few really chunky ones as well. Be sure to ask Santa for a new pair of gloves for X-Mas., as I’m sure you need them. Thanks for sharing and your name is in the hat my friend. Norvic Finding that virgin site is something most of us dream of and especially when you are finding golden slugs and fist size sunbakers. You certainly have many hunts and memories to be thankful. I imagine there are a few of those such sites left, but they are certainly getting harder each year. Thanks for sharing and your name is in the hat my friend. deathray I love the shoe plate and to get a complete one if even more rare. The display of Au and the plate is stunning. To hand it over to the landowner is most advantageous in so many ways. I do it quite a bit myself and it usually brings back the “come back any time” comment. Well done and thanks for sharing. Your name is in the hat my friend.

The only accounts that will be deleted are those that have never had a post, ever. As long as there was one post in the last ten years, the account will be fine. But if you want to be double sure, posting something won’t hurt.

They have a base circuit to build a quite capable gold prospecting PI, in the AQ.....but they simply don't give a sh*t about anything in the real, metal detector competition world. They're (apparently) quite comfy sitting on their hands letting the other 'real' company's slug it out. Very sad really, that icon brands like Fisher, Teknetics and Bounty Hunter are left to wither away. They all seriously need to be divested from FTP and allow them to become proper brands again. The only company actively creating a new prospecting PI aside from ML and Garrett is Nokta-Makro. We'll hear from them next year no doubt. So the answer you were looking for from Fisher is........

Yes they can. As in somebody "Go find a Manticore".

Not at all. It just depends on the control you have over the database as to how hard it is. Here, it's do a sort, hit delete, done. It's just really never been an issue for me, but I figure a guy should do some house cleaning at least once a decade.

The previous occupants of that place sure did lose a lot of stuff ! I can't wait till you find their jar of gold coins ! 🤩

The best idea I've heard yet! Yes, a lot of us have gone the carbon fiber shaft route, have reinforced our coil ears and that leaves the control pod leakage unsolved, although with many hours of submerged use, thankfully, my pod has remained dry. I'd sure like to go from 50 VDI segments to 100 like my AT Pro has. My 800 is doing just fine though. I'm not ready to chase rainbows as I'm very comfortable on land and in water with it.

Bolivian 1/4 Reale. 👍 This is what the other side looks like: Nice find! Probably "takes the cake" for small coins on this side of the pond.

We get lots of spammers, but they are blocked, and the few that get through…. Hugh and I have fun nuking them asap, so most people never see them. My thanks to members that use the report function when they see spam posts - it helps a lot. But yeah, getting rid of these accounts does help with that, as spammers like to open sleeper accounts they can act on down the road.

Stick with the companies discussed by the thousands of successful users on forums. Avoid anything making excessive claims.

Haha, thanks NC. 🤣 Finding old relics is as much a thrill as finding coins for me. I found it! It's part of the handle end of an old scissor candle snuffer. 🥳 This one is very close. Picture this way totally nails it.

"Don't Sweat The Small Stuff" You are probably dialed in.

Jason sounds like a Caltrans RE to me…😂 Arky - who the heck digs perfectly square holes?! 😉. Just kidding, I’ve done it also as a shovel bum! And Ghostminer- hope you weren’t using a 6000 for that cause you long dug up and reburied the target if you were! 🤣 I do have to admit, digging holes can be a lot of things. It can be fun, sad, entertaining, maddening, exciting, frustrating, and educational. But if you ever find yourself in the wrong hole, stop digging!

Seems like a few are convinced all the gold is gone from their patches but everybody goes back finds at least one where you think how did I miss that. What if current technology only sees 80% of the gold (mineralisation and other factors). Would people be happy finding another 20% from their multi ounce patches with a newer technology? The 6000 is a great example where people thought that all the shallow gold was found with the SDC and smaller coils on other machines.

Another excellent and thorough explanation from Steve. I have my Manticore ordered and paid for already. I'm coming from a Nox800 as the only machine I've used to date so while in waiting mode I've been trying to educate myself a bit and understand exactly what the additional info given to us on the 2D screen actually means in real world hunting... your explanation is one of the more concise and understandable explanations I've read to date. Thanks Steve! btw... repeat customer here 🙂

I tend to agree with you Steve, but those areas I was describing also have a lot of trash, meaning not many people are detecting there due to the challenges with the ground. I suspect there is plenty of gold still there that is currently difficult to recover. But for most other areas I agree, and the Motherlode is a great example for that. However, I also think hunting gold where gold was found before remains a winning strategy, perhaps not the only one though. GC

Better ground processing in difficult soil would allow for greater depth, without the gold actually being physically deeper than in normal soil. This is exactly where I believe technology can improve. I get your point that for mild soil this does not matter much, but in other parts of the world this would be a game changer. In many areas I have no choice but to hunt in general/difficult (volcanic tuff). Switching to HY in either normal or difficult would make the detector completely useless, even general/normal would not work. Here is where a lot of improvements can be done, so I completely agree with you. BTW, for those areas I don't even bother to take the 6000 or the SDC. Another reason why a high-end top line gold detector needs settings options (!), and I think the current GPZ strives a good balance by having just the right settings menu to choose from. What would make me not want to buy the GPZ8? A "smart" machine that would do the thinking for me, ala 6000, with only little settings options to choose from. I love the 6000, but it has serious limitations to a point where it is unusable, i.e. in the areas that I was describing, where literally every rock is a screamer (6/14 makes no difference). With all the greatness of the 6000, it kind of sucks to have a $6000 machine, and you can't adjust any settings to make it usable for these specific tough grounds. Half of the Mojave Desert is littered with volcanic hot rocks, and that is right where the gold bearing areas are. And I am not just saying areas with hot rocks here and there that you can kick away, I mean large areas with shallow and deep hot rocks and that's all there is. Go and take a swing with the 6k in these areas, and you know what I mean. Just for that reason, I would be very interested in the Axiom, had I not the GPZ that would come to my rescue (in general/difficult). However, the Axiom could even have an edge over the GPZ in those specific circumstances. I would love to make a head-to-head comparison to see which detector would recover better small gold that is stuck to serious hot rocks. That is how you find most of the gold there. GC

I am a long time reader. My current metal detectors are, Equinox, Whites TDI pro, TDI SL, and MXT all pro. Been detecting for 13 years, although I've taken the last year off due to a shoulder injury. Should be repaired in mid December, may be able to start detecting in 4 to 6 months, if health permits. Love to coin hunt, and occasionally pretend to be looking for gold. Although I'm an expert at finding a lot of lead. I've learned a lot by reading this Forum.

When I found the 2 trimes that I have, it was with the Nox 800 and had no problem when I got over them. They both rang out loud and clear, but with saying that the NOX always hit the silver loud and clear. I know something smaller than the trime would be harder to find, but if it was under the coil just right it would ring out loud also. Good luck and stay safe.

Thank you for the update about this purge, I want to keep my grandfathers account open for a while longer so I will also post something from there if that is alright. Thanks for all you do Steve with this great place to learn something that so many enjoy.

Aye MN, prospecting's the go, using methods to locate possible areas that have not been used before, geological methods might sound the most obvious and they have been by actual professional geologists but that`s been done by detector operating geologists for 50 years. Most of us are just amateurs with only a very basic understanding of geology. Au, the 6K and now the Axiom have refined PI further, Geo Sense works for me, I use the 6K almost always on Auto+, its obviously handling that circuitry noise better than those before, but still a trade off between noise and sensitivity. I am positively excited about running the Axiom with its refinements that have impressed both Steve and Gerry, in a future PI that trade off between noise and sensitivity will be conquered.

Thanks for postings your review and thoughts on the Axiom. It good to know that I'll have to watch the settings with headphones once I get my hands on one. Any gold day is a great day!

yep what simon posted is the current new updater tool V1-6 is the version of the update tool the 1.09 software is inside that V1-6 tool

Great run-down video on the capabiles of this machine for anyone wanting to learn more. ton of information here--thanks Alexandre! cjc

I considered myself a "lurker" for many years. But I never actually had an account & made no posts until last year. I have always appreciated your detector knowledge & your sharing of it Steve. Thanks for all you have done. D4G

I've been out again with my new Nokta Legend on the hunt for some gold jewelry. So far the gold is still eluding me, but I did manage another men's silver ring as a consolation prize for digging countless pull tabs along with other trash and clad. This time its the ring on my middle finger in the picture (the other 2 I got a couple of days ago) and its a large ring size, as it still too big even for my average sized hands. I got an ID# of 94 on the Legend and I was nearly positive by the locked on number and sweet-sounding tone it would be silver and likely a ring. I dug it about 3 inches down on the outskirts of a softball field where spectators sit in the shade of a tree. In case anybody is interested to know, my settings were Park, M2, 28sens, G(round) disc mode, 6 recovery, 4IF/3stab, 4 audio gain, using 60 tones. I had the 6in. coil attached. It works great for pinpointing the smaller targets and still gets the big ones.

Handle part of safety razors, double edge blade.

OZ eye candy. The big one was a sunbaker, I was detecting down a dry creek, got massive "biscuit tin" signal at top of about 1m waterfall, looked over and could see it wedged in towards top of rock waterfall. Out in fringe country that had no old fellas working, others from same virgin area.

Thankful for the 2022 season with my beloved Goldmonster....4.177ozt. Most thankful for being invited back once again for the upcoming 2023 season!!!!!!!

I think there are many people who would (have to) choose the Nox over a Manticore - even if it's just for the price. And even that is a tough one .. at the moment, Nokta cranks out the Legend for 499€, 599€ with headphones, 699€ for the pro pack with headphones, 11" + 6" coil, extra battery - while the Nox 800 is on sale for 899€.. For the brand-unbiased users, that's pretty much a no-brainer imho.

mcjtom -- The ferrous numbers on a CTX run from 0 to 35, along the "y-axis," with "0" at the top, and increasing to "35" at the bottom. HOWEVER, unlike what might seem "logical," a non-ferrous target does NOT register near zero, for its ferrous number, on the CTX, but instead, will read roughly "12." For whatever reason, Minelab chose to "normalize" the FE number of most non-ferrous targets to read "12." So, a "good" target on a CTX will generally plot about 1/3 of the way down the screen, at 12 FE -- along what folks call the "12 line" (the horizontal line running left and right across the screen, at the "12" location on the y-axis). SO, "good" targets will generally NOT be at the "top" of the screen, as you thought. Instead, since the FE number of "good" targets is "normalized" to "12" on the CTX, these targets (as noted above) will appear about 1/3 of the way down the screen, on or near the "12" line. Meanwhile, typically, targets which appear well above the "12" line, near the top of the screen (i.e. ferrous numbers in the single digits), will generally be iron targets. Silmiliarly, targets well below the "12" line (i.e. ferrous numbers in the upper teens, 20s, and 30s), will also generally be iron targets. THEREFORE, things will not be entirely different on the Manticore. Like on the CTX, targets registering near the top of the screen will generally be iron, and targets registering low on the screen will also generally be iron (dependent of course on the accuracy of the discrimination algorithms). The "middle" of the screen, similar to the "12" line on the CTX, will be where "good" (non-ferrous) targets will usually register (again, depending upon the accuracy of the discrimination algorithms). Now, on BOTH the CTX AND the Manticore, conductive numbers increase from left to right along the x-axis (as you noted). This will be easier for most users to interpret. Low CO numbers (and those with "non-ferrous" indication, thus plotting roughly "centered," from a top to bottom sense, AND near the left-hand side of the screen due to low CO number) will likely be foil-type targets, as one would expect, and high CO numbers (and those with "non-ferrous" indication, thus plotting roughly "centered," from a top to bottom sense, AND near the right-hand side of the screen due to high CO number), will be targets like big silver coins, etc. -- again, as would be expected. Make sense? Steve