Leaderboard

There has been quite a bit of discussion about the Deus audio and how target TID can differ from target audio. In my effort to learn the D2 more thoroughly, I've been trying to learn the sounds and diferences between Tones vs Pitch vs Full Tones and PWM vs Square audio. I came from a square tone world so working in PWM has taken some getting use to, but I am finally starting to get the hang of it. I still like Square audio and really like Pitch tones, but have forced myself to use Full Tones in PWM to train my ears. One of the main advantages I am learning with PWM is that it gives more subtle audio information that can help with identifying targets. I was reminded of this again last weekend when I was invited by a detecting buddy to help out on a Ring Rescue mission. He is the consummate jewelry detectorist and a member of Ring Finders. So I met up with him a tiny house to look for a lost wedding ring set in a small gravel covered yard. It was a short hunt and we both covered the area with no luck. Since we still had an hour or two to kill and some sunshine to burn, we decided to hit a small park that I had never been to. This is when the D2 decided to teach me another lesson. I decided to start off in the Silver Slayer program (Fast, Notch to 40, No upper Notch, Pitch in Square audio) to cover more area in the short time we had. I had only travelled a short way across the field glancing at every good sounding TID looking for nickel and dime to quarter range signals when I noticed a recurring 57 number popping up. That's usually a junk target in my parks, but as the D2 would explain, not always. That's when I stopped and changed back to my Fast Full Tone program with PWM audio and retraced my steps. I could hear a familiar wavy/scratchy with iron bump sound with most of the 57s but one sang out hard and round. I dug all the 57s and I'm glad I did, because the really good sounding one turned out to be a 10K gold ring with a heart shaped Fire Opal two small diamonds! The D2 reminded me to stick with the lesson program and complete my training and I will, although I'll happily accept more lessons like that! 😎 To recap the lesson plan: See with Your Ears...

I admit I am getting tired of the folks that join, post a bunch of "what is this" photos, and then never respond when people take the time to answer. No thank you, nothing. I've wondered if it is some sort of scam, but I follow up and watch, and most seem to be hit and run members - one post, gone forever. And a few sleeper spammers. Maybe people posting photos here to use elsewhere, as it always seems to be a bunch of photos at once. So I'll ask the longtime members - what do you think of this forum? Is it worth having? People ok with it in general? I'm only asking because these one time posters of whatever they found in the driveway are kind of putting me off answering here. But as long as you all are happy I'm happy, so just checking in.

It is confusing so let me see if I can help. First off think as PWM and Square audio as sound types. Think of the Tones, 2, 3, 4, 5, Full, and Pitch as sound styles. PWM audio is a triangle-wave type sound that ramps up or down though a broad range and tends to have a more nuanced sound. Square audio is square-wave smoothed off sound that ramps up or down rapidily and has a more pleasant sound to many people. You can assign PWM or Square audio to any Tone style setting. The Tone styles, 2-5 Tones, you are familiar with and each tone bin can be assigned a tone break and a tone pitch. Full Tones is a full range sound that distributes the pitches (low to high) according to target conductivity with less change in volume. Target depth and size can affect the sound. Shallow and large targets tend to give a distorted or overdriven sound depending on your Sensitivity and Audio Response settings. Pitch Tones is a VCO sound that increases and decreases in amplitude according to size and depth of a target. The Audio Response setting also plays a part on the sound. It is a dynamic range control for the audio. The default is usually 4. Higher settings increase the dynamic range making smaller and deeper (weaker) targets sound louder but removing some depth perception. Lower settings give more depth perception but reduce the volume of smaller and deeper (weaker) targets. That's basically it in a large nutshell. Pick the Tone style you prefer and set the audio type (PWM or Square) you prefer. Coming from an Equinox, I used mostly Square audio because I was used to that sound, but I have been learning PWM audio more lately and really like it. Some people hate PWM, but that's the beauty of all the sound choices of the D2. You can set it up any way you like.

Well, we just had a Nigerian join and pull the classic Nigerian scam. He sent PM messages to I do not know how many members about needing help with collecting some funds, you get a lot of it for helping, blah, blah, blah. Luckily he sent me one so I shut it down in 20 minutes, but in twenty minutes he could have spammed a lot of people. If I had not caught him, in a couple days he could have really went wild. At least one new member asked that his account be deleted after getting it, as he thought getting it was a consequence of joining the forum. Over 30% of first time posters are now spammers. The worst are the "sleeper" spammers, who post, then go back and edit the post a week or two later to include a spam link. They like to quote somebody, then go back later and bury a link in the quote - makes it look like the person the quoted put in the link, not them. And a few are just burying a link in a line that looks like this: ______ just somewhere it might not be noticed. Obviously not a "click on this link" so much as trying to boost Google ranking by making it look like this site links to their site. We are getting lots of one time posters on the Rock forum who post a bunch of photos saying "what is this" and never respond to the people who take time trying to help identify the photos. I suspect they are just using this site to host photos for use elsewhere, since it's often ten photos, not one. To sum up, maybe one or two out of a hundred new members actually hangs around and posts more than once or twice. The rest are spammers or lurkers. Long story short is I am again considering creating a "New Member" account for new members, that basically only allows them to post text. No links, no photos, no PMs, no editing of posts, nothing but text, until they have made 10 posts over a 30 day period or more. That eliminates somebody just slamming out ten junk posts quick. After proving they are a person who really is interested in being a participating member, then they can have access to the other stuff. It's either that or at some point I'll just stop accepting new members unless it is by request or recommendation, which would obviously tend to suppress new membership. But oh well. Right now every day first thing I have to review all new members, plus periodically do a deep dive into older new members going back for months to catch the sleeper agents. I'm not particularly busy at the moment and it's all fine, and in a way I'm just whining a bit at the moment. But if my life does get busier for some reason, or I just get tired of the sheer volume of the nonsense, I may put some sort of brake on things. That does not affect any of you per se, other than the possibility new members do not replace members that leave fast enough, and the forum does not grow like it has been, or even starts to slow down. People might think that prospect would be something I would care about, but it's much less so than people might imagine. I'm not a social media butterfly chasing eyeballs and outside of this forum can't be found online anywhere else, and being offline entirely is more a dream than a threat.

@GotAU? The shield I have right now is passive, no ground connected. But, to do it completely right, ya gotta run a wire from the shield to the earth wire which is taped to the graphite-paint shield on the inside of the control box. To do this, ya gotta crack open the box and 'presto', your warranty is null and void . I'm gonna try and 'double up' and apply copper tape direct to the control box exterior (provided that it peels off Okay). Y axis noise is the Earths own magnetic field being detected by the coil. It runs parallel to the ground. You tilt the coil off its preferred 'X Axis' and it appears, more or less depending on the detector type and coil type.

it sure does take a lot of heat, the gas forge I have goes through the 9kg LPG refills fairly quick doing the Railroad Spike projects. And like you say heating hammering then re heating the oil quench and then the tempering, there is a fair bit going on. and for the Axe/tomahawk punching the eye for the handle when red hot also takes a few re heats to get it done then drift it out to the handle size, all while trying to keep the eye on center is a challenge in itself anyway I now have a pair of Viking axes tomahawks or camp axes, whichever you want to call them, and also a pair of crevice tools now as well, been busy forging and using gas that's for sure the pair of axes and the pair of crevice tools cheers dave

They do the same thing on my motorcycle forum all the time. A new member asks a question: How do I fix this or that… Our veteran members reply with very well though out answers, then we never hear from the OP again. Been that way as far back as I can remember. It doesn’t really bother me much anymore, since we usually get at least two or three new members who stick around and contribute for every “hit n run” poster. As for this forum, I like it a lot. Really enjoy the technical oriented atmosphere here. This one, and FMDF are the only two I participate on nowadays.

I find the forum a wealth of knowledge from a guy in Missouri that's lucky to get to Az on vacation once a year. I don't post often because well frankly most of you have forgot more about this hobby than I will ever know lol. I do enjoy reading those who do though, I learn a GREAT deal, so thanks to all of you.

As one of the "older members", I can honestly say I could care less about such antics. I mean, this particular forum kinda opens up the door to non prospectors hoping they stumbled upon some unique find leading to a pay day. Now if perhaps I was owner/moderator of this web site I could understand being a little taken back by "interlopers" mooching expertise then outta here without so much as a thanks.

You will probably never solve the "hit and run" posters problem. I just like seeing the answers to the questions myself, when a knowledgeable person answers it correctly. Ya, a Thank You would be nice. GaryC/Oregon Coast

Gosh that is not all true. I think a well tuned machine and operator can really factor out the trash equation. I think the less ferrous is the way to go and like you, digging nonferrous is where it is at. [at the beach] Yes! But lets go back to sounds and number on the D2. This is where I find BIG ISSUES! Once a target will not TID, the D2 is lousy at giving hints at what might still be in the ground. Iron wrap-around sounds identical to deep non-ferrous that will not TID. I can clearly confirm these types of targets on the Equinox but cannot do so with the D2. Different modes, different settings, nothing seems to help with deep non-ferrous. The only hint I have found if you happen to get the machine to throw a number. Even if it is only one in 5-8 swings. Other than that, if you are at a wet salt beach or working in water>FORGET IT!

Great hunt Cap'n, I really like that you retained the IDs on the comparison stuff. 👍 That ring is a beauty. 🏆 Looks like you're off to a great year! Sure has been for me but relic hunting is almost over. 😪 Hopefully they'll turn some more good stuff up for next year, but I'll get more permissions anyway. I'm not feeling the strong contrast with what most of y'all talk about with PWM vs Square. I can still hear the scratches in square/full clearly, and get more false digs in PWM. Most of the time I can leave aluminum behind. I'll see how Bobby pins sound on the beach soon! Might be a bias thing like it is on the Equinox. 😀 Thanks for the pre-game tips. I pretty much dig everything in the 40-60 range, and you're right, the more crisp the sound the better. 🙂 Heck I'll even dig the 30s if they sound good enough.

Gotta say this one freaks me out a bit, was it an exercise in assimilation (digging everything to understand the detectors' discrimination capability), or habit, because with your PI you usually dig it all? 🤔 I like the black sand advantage using gold mode. This feels like a noob question but I thought I'd go for it anyway 🤣 Interesting hunt as usual, definitely more like one would expect from a PI than the new SMF machines. 😀 I'm glad you always show the "real deal". 👍

I am looking forward to trying out the 16 X 10" Spoked when available to purchase. It will be the largest area sized non DD coil offered besides the stock 17 X 13" and it will be a lot lighter to swing also. I'm hoping they use the same wiring configuration as the 12 x 7" though for best all around performance. I have added a comparison chart to show the comparisons below.

What I would love is a 13" round coil, built like the 12x7". I'd be happy to sacrifice some performance on fly shist, in order to gain a little depth on the slightly bigger bird poo, and hopefully one or two worthy of being called a nugget haha.

Ditto that! I think we've had 3 public updates since the D2 release and the V0.71 was substantial and gave us a lot of what we had been asking for. When I bought mine it came with the second version of V0.6 and I used that for a month or so before updating to V0.71. Even for a XP noob like me, I could tell there were marked improvements. Now, after using V0.71 for almost a year and learning the D2 more, I'm really liking it and I can work with this. I still feel the D2 was the best purchase I could have made for the types of detecting I do and haven't felt the need to buy any of the other new ones. JMHO.

Snuck out to a permission nearby for couple hours and snagged some old clad and a nice silver spoon. Not shown was a couple small flat buttons and a buckle. All finds go to the owner of the property as she collects the stuff. Want to thank Valens Legacy. Took that Pentagram pendant and turned it onto a keychain. Guess it does bring good luck, who wudda thunk? :)

Just curious about how it will handle high ground minerals and how it will compare to some of my classic detector's such as my IDX Pro with Mr. Bill's mods. I also want to compare it to my Quest Q 30+.

Controled tests mean nothing unless you have two 6000's, one with the stock coil and one with the 12x7 and run each one over a real target (Gold) undug, undisturbed to see how they both fare. Anything less than this and the results won't be accurate. Some people might be ok with leaving the 12x7, 5x10, 9x14 coils on all the time, but I can't afford to make that mistake again after having done so with the 9x14. The 9x14 was missing small gold! This went on for a month before I realized it couldn't compete with the 11"stock coil on small gold. I hunt for gold for a living with a detector and will continue to take each coil over same ground to make sure I don't miss anything.

I was asked for a review on the Manticore: I'll say this: There are a lot of machines around that are promoted as having "fast process". The Manticore also has "fast process" but it also has "depth of process".--call it "thoroughness." This is what all that advertised power is doing. What this means is that it can "go around / through things" such as viscosity in ground ie black sand, fast salt water, iron or other alloyed targets, a reject block, or even it's own speed for example. Very impressive in this respect. At the same time it's still limited by simple physics so some of its Sensitivity is hard to deploy. I like Neils idea of stacking all the filters ie edge "firewalls" in the FE Limits plus segmented audio plus All Tones. The processing is certainly better than the NOX and this is evident from how it does not need that heavily digitized slightly latent response (Prospecting mode-ish) The Mcore sounds a lot more like the CTX and processes at a simiilar level with Multi IQ acting to stabilize it around iron. Also a superb iron masking "ratio" it hits small coins with a big spike in the hole --never seen that before. I have a few notes and may publish something eventually but still a lot to learn. cjc

On Thursday I hit up the beach I normally hit and found it sanded in. Even in the good spot. So I went further down and found even more nothing. Upon my return trip back to the entrance, I happened upon a target and discovered it to be a heavy and somewhat tarnished ring. Inside was stamped Mexico but it didn't have any other markings besides that. I got too ahead of myself I kept thinking it was 10k gold because it was tarnishing green and somewhat gold in color. Unfortunately when I finally did get back and ran an acid test on it, it was not 10k gold so im a bit disappointed in that. Oh well a ring is a ring. Today I hit up 6 beaches to find a beach that would produce. Went to all my regular spots, but found practically nothing except this one silvery pendant that I initially thought was a junker (due to the gemstones initially looking like plastic in the sun when I dug it out). It has the color of silver and when I looked again, the gem in the middle looked like it was cut, while the ones above and below shone like opals. I reckon that they're likely to be real. Still it was odd that it rang up as 24-26 on my legend. No luck on the beach search though, everything is pretty much sanded in for now. The last beach I did go to had a pier or something that went out towards the ruins of an old ship. Unfortunately that pier got wreaked in a storm, and so did the ship, so they tore it down recently. It would have been good to look there after they removed the pier but I was 2 days too late. Missed out on some silver but its alright. There's always new opportunities elsewhere.

May 24 2002 Part One We had a pretty good cleanup this morning with .6 ounces in the pan. We got an early start with Vern, Jim, and I going up to dig and Jacob staying down at camp. Our cut into the base of the mountain is quite wide now and we have seen some examples of rolling bedrock. Due to all the upheaval in this entire area bedrock is illusive. One day you encounter it and the next it has dived deeper. Without the necessary heavy equipment and permits we are waiting for the work continues to be slow but steady. Fortunately, the weather has remained on the cool side. At the end of the day we washed 14 yards of gravel. TO BE CONTINUED .............

😊. Good job CPT!

I learned something from this story. I never imagined. How one woman helped start the California gold rush (fox40.com)

I think what he was doing was digging real deep stuff on purpose. I'd be willing to bet that most of the trash/iron was well beyond the discrimination capabilities of most vlf's and just gave a iron false type signal. Beach guys will often dig everything in hopes of deep gold or silver turning into real signal as they get closer to it. Being the good samaritan that Hardnox is he figured out what he had once he got close enough to it but instead of just leaving the in the ground he removed from the beach. Just speculating lol. I'll be in Pismo in less then 10 days and the Manti will be first at bat but if the targets are sparse then out comes the TDI pro with clean sweep coil 🙂 strick

Thanks for the reply. And wow, the Earth’s magnetic field? That’s pretty interesting, especially as detectors become a lot more sensitive to things like that. I am thinking of trying your passive shield idea with my Doc’s cover also after your trial, so please post about the results!

I miss only a little bit better unmasking in heavy iron. Is good but I want something more 😉 But I'm talking about very hard area to hunt.

@AureousDoc could’ve put an integrated shield into his detector covers- or a user can cover the inside of it with aluminized duct tape. One question- do you ground the shield to the detector circuit board, or to yourself and eventually down to the ground? I suspect it is to the circuit ground….right? also, can you explain a little bit more about Y-axis interference?

I have not dug a Bobby Pin in 3 years with the Equinox. At the beach have put a few of these in my pouch, as with other odd iron that seems to break through discrimination. What's up with that??

Nice work Ghost...I've not been out in while and you have given me the bug so maybe later this week. As your photos show if you're not digging lots of junk you're not likely to find much gold. The sound of the tones as well as the numbers a target emits on a machine in the real world can mean nothing. Target orientation, ground mineralization, proximity to trash, how well you have tuned your machine etc can make any good target sound like crap. In the end it's really a numbers game the more you dig non ferrous the more likely you are to find good stuff. How many gold chains have we passed up because the numbers are too low...how many large gold rings did we pass up because we thought it was a zinc penny? Anyone who thinks they can hear what gold or silver sounds like is just fooling themselves. Once I met guy on the beach we were both swinging CTX's and he told me that every 12-09 he dug was gold..I don't think he hunted parks very much. Can we find good stuff by just listening and digging for sweet sounds or just digging solid ID targets? Yep we sure can and all those targets we passed up because they didn't sound right or the numbers were jumping round were just junk anyways..we were sure of it 🙂 Nice ring BTW... me likes the Opal 👍 strick

Go get 'em George!-----Give us a full report---don't hold anything back---good, bad & ugly (warts & all)!👍

On my 'Y Axis noise level score', if the stock 11" mono is a 100, then the Xceed 12x7 is a 60 and the Goldhawk 10x5 is a 25. Lower the score, the lower the noise. Hope thats indicative enough :-) The powerline EMI noise is a totally different matter....the 12x7 wins hands down.

My only ever seated is an 1854 quarter, found in Pennsylvania in 2009 I believe.

I 100% agree with CPT!

That's one of the under-rated performance advantages the Manticore has over the Equinox 800 and I would guess the 900, it's ability to handle EMI better, either by the detector itself, it's long EMI noise cancel being better with EMI which to me it seems to be, and add the FACT that it's deeper in lower sensitivity levels than the Nox, this is a big advantage to the detector over the Nox. The Manticore on 16 sensitivity seems to keep up with the Nox 800 on deep coins when the Nox is on 24 sensitivity. It's why I believe I had good luck with the Vanquish over the Nox in high EMI areas, as the Vanquish handles EMI better than the Nox, to me the reason is unknown, frequency weighting? Frequencies being different enough to the troublesome EMI frequencies or the Elliptical coils perhaps. I did very well finding coins that I had possibly missed with the Nox due to the Vanquish being able to run in higher sensitivity settings than the Nox in these areas. You can see in this video I can run the Vanquish 1 notch off full sensitivity in jewellery mode (the most sensitive) with no real EMI troubles, in the same spot I have to wind the Equinox back to about 16 to get it as stable as the Vanquish in all modes, and with the Nox I'm using discrimination to knock out some of the EMI with all the default iron blocked out, if I go to all metal it's worse, the Vanquish I can have all targets wide open. So the question is, is the Vanquish v12 12x9" coil being elliptical less prone to EMI? If that's the case it's a demonstration of why the Vanquish did better at this particular spot than the Nox with it's 11" coil as I was getting deeper coins missed by the Nox because of the Vanquish's coil being slightly smaller and elliptical being less affected by EMI so I could run my sensitivity higher thereby giving the smaller coil more depth. I had the 11" coil on the Nox at this spot as with my usual 15x12" coil EMI was even worse, so the smaller coil was the better choice but dropping back to 6" cut the depth far too far and became counter productive, better with EMI but nowhere near deep enough to find anything worthwhile. I didn't have the 10x5" at the time but it's not deep enough to find many of the coins I find in these areas, that's been well tested.

The very use of different coils on the detector with which you detect ... is a bit of rocket science ... where the physics of the size of the coil determines the following depth and separation properties. not only in various tests ... but ... which you can also notice in practical detection on certain terrain...when you change different coils on your detector...and you have at least 50-100 hours of detection on such terrain.... First of all, you can notice...that on a modern detector with an adjustable recovery speed...the 11" coil can do a lot of work.....but it cannot detect all targets...whether deeper or masked by iron.... Remember that it's an 11 coil, it's a standard coil .. and it's a compromise between good depth and pretty good separation... if you want better depth or separation ... you must have another coil ... of a different size ... And that's why, in further detections, other coil sizes come into consideration... which can really pull out other targets in the field... Many people think that the smaller the coil, the more it can unmask more targets than an 11" standard coil... but the truth is that really small coils can better unmask targets in iron only to a certain depth... and for coins masked at a greater depth already such small coils do not have enough power to unmask a deep target... Now we can ask ourselves the question,,,,, what size coil can best unmask very deeply masked targets?.... From my observations from detection...from the field.....but also specialized... 3D deep separation tests confirm one thing and that is that the 8.5-9" coil can best detect very deeply buried and camouflaged targets quite close it depends....where not even 11" standard coils but even small 5-7" coils can do it so well... In.. *Super deph 3D Separacion test: very small 14mm -0.45 gram silver hammered coin placed at a depth of 17.5 cm...in terrain.. 1.test 8.3" x 9" DDcoil /23CM DD Rutus coil/ vs. 11" Standart Rutus coil.. in 2.Test: ------------------------------------------------ But if we take into account that we have a relatively clean field with a minimum of iron.. which is little or slightly mineralized.... then the best deep results are achieved by large coils.. in this next test, I tested different coils on 3 deep targets to find out what sensitivity I need to set on my detector in order to reliably hit all 3 relatively deep targets... The first marked column of the table is the minimum sensitivity when working on multi-frequency /M/, the second marked column is the minimum sensitivity required to detect targets on 1 frequency of 15.8 khz.. .The third labeled column/M/ indicates, for some coils, what minimum sensitivity we need when shooting at multifrequency to reliably detect the deepest target on my test field, a 50 euro cent coin at a depth of 37cm... As you can see the ATrex on the big 15" coil needs only 55 sensitivity on one frequency15.8 and only 65 sensitivity on multi frequency out of.. 99 - maximum detector sensitivity .. to reliably hit all 3 deep targets... on my test field...

That's sort of the setup I have too. I bought the machine with the 9" figuring it would work the best in target rich environments, and that I'd get the 13" for beach/field use. I'll be there in England pillaging your fields starting at the end of this coming week! 😁

Depth gains are real but not dramatic unless the coil size difference is dramatic, as measured in square inches of coil size. This article below pretty much says it all. In your case if talking multi ounce nuggets, the 16" mono would be the way to go for now, until other larger options appear. But the gain will be a few inches at most, not double or some such thing. For every target there is an optimum coil size, and going to a larger or smaller coil than that optimum will get you less depth. To repeat, going to a larger coil can lose depth if the coil you have is already best for your target. People swinging super large coil sizes are losing depth on the most common targets sizes and only winning with the largest. Conversely, there is an optimum target size for each coil, and both larger and smaller targets than the optimum will lose depth compared to using a coil optimized for that size. Most detectors are optimized for coin size targets using an 11" coil. Smaller targets benefit from smaller coils, and larger targets from larger coils. I should mention mineralization and EMI also. Large coils see more of both relative to target size. These two factors work against larger coil sizes and can negate some or all of the theoretical gains. See the link below for details. Coil Size vs Detection Depth by Carl Moreland, on this website forum. A chart with notes from PI guru Eric Foster illustrates the relationship between coil size and depth.

Agree totally with Bill and Steve’s comments regarding updates. For me it’ll be years before I’m satisfied that I’ve unlocked the full potential of the D2 with the present 0.71 If they ever introduce a small elliptical coil I’ll definitely buy one ( I have the 9” and the 11”).

Got more gold today on the local North Saskatchewan River. I ran the Geo Highbanker at about 8 degrees and it worked flawlessly! I also dug up a relic, a fossil and lots of petrified wood. https://youtu.be/wagfh2yD_ao

Field Test: Garrett Axiom By Bill Paxton For those of you who are frequent readers of Western and Eastern Treasures, you may recall back in December of 2021 I did a field test on the Garrett 24K Goldmaster metal detector. An excellent VLF gold machine, the 24K was Garrett’s rebranding of the White’s 24K Goldmaster and a perfect legacy choice to honor the White’s brand that they had acquired in October of 2020. Since the 24K Goldmaster was not a Garrett-developed product, I was very curious as to what Garrett had in the works for 2022. While their competitors were literally leapfrogging each other in the hobby market, Garret was curiously quiet. What were they up to I wondered? A new detector based on the Multi-Flex technology they had introduced in the Apex? Maybe a new water machine? The months ticked by. Still Garrett was quiet. Then came October 5, 2022. That was the day that Garrett revealed to the metal detecting community that their company was all in when it came to one thing. Gold. The 24K Goldmaster was a precursor of things to come. Or to be more specific, one amazing thing to come. The Garrett Axiom. A complete from the ground up redesign of pure pulse induction technology in a package unlike anything that had ever been seen before in the gold prospecting niche of our hobby. Gone were the bulky rigs that required harnesses to swing them and car-size batteries to supply power. No more annoying nobs and confusing settings. What Garrett delivered was a genuinely new and yes, I’m going to say it, exciting metal detector. The first pictures of the Axiom looked like something out of the space age. This was a detector that I wanted to try out and I’m not even a gold prospector. When Steve Moore, the Director of Marketing for Garrett, emailed me and asked if I would like to try one out I couldn’t type the word “YES!” fast enough. Let me pause here briefly and give you a bit of a spoiler alert regarding this field test. As you can tell from the introduction I’ve written above, the Axiom got me pretty revved up even before I held one in my hand. I have used it in the gold fields and at the beach and it flat out delivers. This metal detector is a game changer and I’m genuinely excited to share this field test with our loyal readers. With that being said, let’s get to the field test. The Garrett Axiom The Garrett Axiom There is a great deal to cover on the Axiom beginning with its design. As you can see from the photos, when I describe the Axiom as looking like “something out of the space age” I wasn’t kidding. I’ve used PI detectors for many years, primarily to hunt saltwater beaches because of their inherent ability to deal with high mineralization and find targets at extreme depth. They did, and do, work but at a cost. Due to their often bulky designs, they can beat you up physically. Walking on a beach for several hours with one of those beasts takes its toll and the fatigue factor inevitably shortens your hunts. The Axiom completely negates that negative aspect by its well-balanced and relatively lightweight design. It comes in at roughly 4.5 lbs. depending on the coil you select and features a lightweight internal lithium battery encased in a molded plastic case. An open flexible and very comfortable arm cuff is mounted on the rear of the detector and can be adjusted if required. The hand grip is easy to grasp and topped by a control box modeled after the Apex. A slick carbon fiber shaft that uses innovative stem clamps for adjustment connects to a variety of lightweight coils. All of this means just one thing: you can swing this detector for hours and not suffer for it in the least. One more thing. When you are transporting the Axiom, or if you wish to shrink it down to hunt in close quarters, it easily collapses to a remarkable 25”. The stem clams work as promised and save you the hassle of pushing in those annoying little spring buttons every time that you adjust the shaft. The Axiom Package The Axiom Package Garrett provides a very impressive package of accessories with the Axiom. Along with the detector and searchcoil (this can vary by the package selected), you get: Axiom Booster Pack Soft Carry Case Quick Start Guide Warranty Card USB Charging Cable Wall Charger and Adaptors A set of MS-3 Wireless Headphones with charging cable (Yes, you get Z-Lynk with the Axiom!) A small gripe is that a copy of the full owner’s manual is only available online. I really like a printed copy for reference and wish that one was included. Axiom Coils Garrett offers a large selection of coils for the Axiom: 11” X 7” Mono AND DD 13” X 11” Mono AND DD 16” X 14” Mono AND DD Okay, you are probably thinking that the above listing of DD coils for the Axiom are typos. I can assure you they are not. Yes, Garrett has chosen to offer DD coils for the Axiom. For many PI purists this may be heresy since Mono coils have been the standard for PI detectors for many years. However, I can tell you that the DD coils are a great way to go. My test unit came with a 13” X 11” DD coil, along with Mono coils in the other two sizes. Unlike the Mono coils, which are hotter on the edges, the DD coils react to a target like a typical DD coil and are hotter toward the middle of the coil. I personally loved this because I hunt 100% of the time with DD coils on my other detectors and it made for a very easy and intuitive switchover to the Axiom. In comparing it to the mono coils I found no loss in either depth or sensitivity and the DD coil is now my coil of choice. I would not discount a DD if you are looking into purchasing an Axiom. Axiom Power Okay, say this with me. “Ahhhh.” That is what you will say when you pick up an Axiom and see that there is not any bulky battery to deal with. The detector is powered by what Garrett describes as a “2X LIFE” built-in, high-capacity lithium-ion battery that will run 16 hours on a full charge. I can confirm that the battery is exceptional in terms of holding a charge. While I didn’t hunt for 16 hours straight, I did numerous back-to-back hunts totaling over 10 hours each time and the detector always had two bars remaining on the charge indicator. For those of you who just want to play it safe, a separate booster pack battery powered by 8 – AA batteries is included that will supply an additional six hours of hunting time. Axiom Display Panel When Garrett introduced its first multi-frequency metal, the Apex, it featured a brand-new control box design that users instantly embraced. I was very happy to see that Garrett chose to utilize this same design for the Axiom. The display screen features fifteen different elements in a neatly uncluttered arrangement: Signal Strength Indicator Iron Check Mode Frequency Scan Tone Audio Type Sensitivity Battery Level Speed Ground Track Backlight Wireless Headphones Ground Balance Arrows Ground Balance Indicator Ground Balance Values These display elements will be discussed in detail where relevant later in this field test. Axiom Controls Axiom Controls As with the Apex, the six controls on the display box are located in a unique, user friendly “thumb wheel” pattern below the display. All operations and adjustments to the Axiom are easily accomplished by moving your thumb from left to right in order to press the appropriate button. The controls are: 1. Power ON/OFF and Operate a. Used to turn the Axiom on and off. Pressing and holding this button for five seconds restores factory settings. This button also can be tapped to exit the MENU settings. 2. Volume Plus/Minus Buttons a. Used to increase/decrease volume. 3. Sensitivity Plus/Minus Buttons a. Used for two functions. i. To adjust the sensitivity of the detector. ii. To adjust detector settings within the Menu settings. 4. Menu/Iron Check a. Used for two functions: i. Used to access Menu settings. ii. Engaging Iron Check function by pressing and holding this button. b. Ground Balance i. Press and hold this button to ground balance the detector. 5. Threshold Plus/Minus Buttons a. Really handy to increase or decrease the threshold on the fly as opposed to have to go into some sort of annoying settings menu. 6. Ground Balance a. A “hold and bob the coil” button for ground balancing the Axiom. With all the aforementioned features and controls you might think that the Axiom is a complicated detector to run. On the contrary, Garrett really took its time in designing the Axiom to both offer many features AND be easy to operate. After spending many hours in the field with my Axiom I can attest to this. Axiom Functions and Settings Accessing the various functions and settings is extremely intuitive. · How many times have you owned a detector that needed a factory reset and you couldn’t figure out how to do it? Not with Axiom. Press and hold the Power button for five seconds. Listen for a double beep. Done. · Frequency Scan o EMI is a constant enemy a detectorist must battle so frequency scan is a must with today’s modern metal detectors. The Axiom uses a unique system to locate the quietest operating frequency. To perform a Frequency Scan, just push the menu button until FREQSCAN is highlighted, then press the plus button. The Axion scans through 100 frequencies, rechecks the best five and automatically selects the best one. All of this in 45 seconds. This worked flawlessly for me in the field. · Detection Modes o In my humble opinion this is the Axiom’s finest feature. The Axiom provides four search mode operations, each optimized for specific types of detecting. 1. Fine Mode · The preferred search mode of the Axiom, Fine Mode offers the best sensitivity to all sized targets ranging from fine gold to large items. Fine Mode can be susceptible to ground minerals, hot rocks and salt water. 2. Normal Mode · An excellent choice if noise issues are encountered when in Fine Mode. Normal mode provides good sensitivity to most targets but can be less effective on fine gold. 3. Large Mode · For use when focusing on large targets. This mode also reduces susceptibility to hot rocks and highly mineralized ground. 4. Salt Mode · Designed to allow for use of the Axiom in wet salt environments like ocean beaches. As an avid beach hunter, I was particularly interested in how this mode performed. It delivered excellent stability even in high concentrations of black sand. o Accessing the modes was a sinch. Just press the MENU button until the word “MODE” is highlighted. Then press the “PLUS” or “MINUS“ buttons to select the mode. · Volume and Threshold Adjustment o Not much to say here. Super easy to adjust with the PLUS/MINUS buttons. · Tone and Audio Options o Another area where the Axiom shines. Via the Menu button, the user can change the audio pitch and select from two different types of audio. 1. Tone Adjustment · Pushing the Menu button until TONE is selected followed by pressing the +/- buttons allows for scrolling through 100 available tone shifts. o This feature allows the operator to pick a tone that best fits their preferences or hearing ability · Only active with VCO audio (Audio 01) o Audio type 1. The Axiom has two different and very unique audio types, Audio 00 (PWM) and Audio 01 (VCO, also default). These can be accessed by pressing the Menu button followed by the +/- buttons. Both provide continuous audio that responds proportionally to a target’s signal strength allowing the operator to judge a target’s size, depth and shape. · Audio 00 (PWM) o In PWM audio, audio pitch is fixed at either high or low and only the target’s volume increases with signal strength. Preferred by users who like an active, coarse audio response. 1. Audio 01 (VCO Audio) o The preferred mode of most users (including yours truly). Target volume and audio increase proportionately with signal strength and is a real asset in locating faint targets by changes in audio pitch. o Target Signal 1. The Axiom features a Target Signal Strength Indicator at the top of the display. Utilizing a bargraph, the indicator will display high tones proportionally toward the right of center and low tones similarly toward the left of center. · Backlight o The backlight can be activated and adjusted via the Menu button by highlighting the backlight icon. o The backlight automatically activates when scrolling through the menu, a very handy feature. · Speed o A crucial adjustment for your hunting, made easy by the Axiom’s defined speeds of SLOW, MED(IUM) and FAST. This adjustment determines coil sweep speed and also target recovery speed (often referred to as “reactivity). o As with every adjustment on the Axiom, the Menu button gets you to the Speed Settings. The operator needs to pay strict attention to choosing the proper setting in order to ensure the Axiom performs at its best. 1. SLOW · While the manual suggests using the MED setting for general purpose hunting my preference was the SLOW speed. This setting was the most stable of all three and provided excellent depth and sensitivity. However, it is vital that the user sweep slowly. I always ask the question of fast sweepers “what’s your hurry?” In the case of the Axiom, go slow and you will be rewarded. 2. MED(IUM) · The default setting and a good general-purpose selection for most users. It provides good sensitivity and depth and requires a moderate sweep speed. 3. FAST · This speed boosts reactivity to increase target separation but that comes at a cost. EMI and noise chatter can increase making it more difficult to hear faint targets. · Sensitivity o Unlike most metal detectors, the Axiom offers what I would refer to as “sensitivity on steroids.’ While many metal detectors can be run hot at max sensitivity, the Axiom for the most part cannot. Prior to its release, the previous maximum sensitivity of “8” was boosted significantly to allow certain skilled operators in unique hunting situations to push performance to the maximum. The previous maximum sensitivity now is the number 4 selection. For almost all users (including this field tester), 4 provides more than enough power to obtain excellent results from the Axiom and should not be exceeded for general hunting. · Ground Balance o The Axiom features a very sophisticated ground balancing system that is covered in detail in the manual. While offering standard options like manual ground balance and ground tracking, the Axiom has taken ground balancing to another level with several innovations not previously seen on PI metal detectors: 1. Dual ground balance values displayed with both ground tracking on AND off. · This is a terrific visual reference to monitor ground conditions. 2. Ground Balance Window Feature · After ten seconds of ground balancing, the Ground Balance Window activates and allows the operator to eliminate both mineralized soil AND a hot rock. Pumping over the soil and scanning over the hot rock will eliminate both responses (or make them much smaller). · Iron Check o One of the coolest innovations included in the Axiom. Iron check, which only works with DD coils, will generate an iron “buzz” that is easily recognized. To activate this feature just hold down the Iron Check button until it double beeps. Then scan and listen to the buzz. o While this feature worked best on shallow targets, I found it to be a huge asset for both gold prospecting and beach hunting. If I had a deep, small target all I had to do was activate Iron Check and then scan the pile to see if it was iron or not. This was a real time saver and I used it a lot in my testing. · Quickstart and Owner’s Manual o A Quickstart guide is included with that Axiom. The owner’s manual, which is very well written, is only available as a downloadable pdf. · Other references. o Once again Garrett smartly brought in renowned gold hunter Steve Hershbach to host a series of “how-to” videos explaining the Axiom and its use in great detail. Steve’s easy-going manner and excellent on camera skills, combined with his in-depth knowledge of electronic prospecting, make these videos a must see for anyone contemplating the purchase of an Axiom. I found myself going back to them many times and even after learning the Axiom found they served as a huge, free database of knowledge that made me a more skilled operator of the detector. And now on to the field test… Field Test Historically PI detectors have been at their best when it comes to gold prospecting and saltwater beach hunting. These were the two areas that I focused on for my field testing. But before we get to that, let me comment on one aspect of the Axiom that deserves more than just a passing reference. What is that aspect? Its design. I don’t mean anything specific because to focus on just one feature would be unfair. This detector is flat out one of the best designed metal detectors that I have ever had the pleasure of using. The more that I use it the more I appreciate the time that Garrett put into its design. Notice I said “more that I use it.” Having been a field tester of metal detectors for over two decades I can tell you that this is not always the case. I have never tested what I would call a “bad” detector, but on occasion certain detectors take a toll on you just to use them. For example, the grip angle is wrong. Or the balance is off. Or the menus are confusing. Not with the Axiom. Its performance was excellent as you will see shortly. But what really continues to make my day is that the Axiom is just an easy and enjoyable detector to hunt with. Now let’s get to that field test. In the Gold Fields Living in Los Angeles it is difficult to prospect for gold regardless of your method. Getting to areas to look for gold that isn’t in the form of jewelry is especially difficult, although there are certain places where you might have success that are relatively nearby. However, in my mind I wanted to really prospect for gold with the Axiom so I decided to focus on a place you might have heard of: the Mojave Desert. A few hours’ drive from Los Angeles, this massive area holds many gold claims and a ton of history. Through a fellow detectorist I was able to gain access to a mining claim that was known to still be producing gold. Six buddies and I piled into two pickup trucks and we headed out to the desert to make our fortune on a clear Friday morning. Our detecting site, high up in the Mojave Desert Mountains The site we came upon was several miles up in the hills and showed clear evidence of mining activity. Tiling piles were everywhere. We parked and unloaded out detectors. FYI, I had the only pulse machine; my buddies had both multi-frequency units and VLF’s. After having studied Steve Herschbach’s videos the night before (thank you again, Steve!) I felt pretty confident in my ability to run the Axiom so off I went into the land of tailings. Getting started with the Axiom was a breeze: Power up. Adjust threshold - I preferred a barely audible threshold although at times I went with a negative value to run totally silent. In both cases good targets rang through clear and solid. Ground Balance Run Frequency Scan Pair MS-3 Wireless Headphones (optional) - Being out by myself I liked using the speaker but if noise is an issue the MS-3 Wireless Headphones are excellent. Select Detection Mode - I ran Fine Mode exclusively and was very impressed with its sensitivity to all sizes of targets. In the area I was hunting there was no need to utilize either Normal or Large Mode. Go! Over the course of the next six hours, I covered a lot of ground with the Axiom. Targets were few but when there was something there, large or small, the Axiom found it. I really liked the Iron Reject feature in that it allowed me to locate and ignore several tiny ferrous targets in the pile once they were removed from the hole. Having never prospected for gold with a metal detector for this long a period of time I was grateful for the Axiom’s user-friendly design. The main reason? Gold prospecting is hard work! The constant digging in rock hard ground with a pickaxe kicked my butt. The author working a hillside with the Garrett Axiom For those of you who aren’t PI users, there is an audio adjustment that you have to make when using a PI in order to recognize targets. I would strongly urge you to test targets at home before going out in the field. Thankfully I did this and therefore was able for the most part to locate targets easily. Using the DD coil really helped and I was able to use my VLF skills to center and pinpoint targets with very little difficulty. The Axiom found targets of various sizes that included shell casings, bullets, wire, iron junk (ID’d easily by Iron Reject when in the pile), everything but gold. As those of you who prospect for gold know all too well, gold is tough to find and on this day I did not come home with any. The Axiom will find even the tiniest piece of gold as was evidenced by several microscopic bits of wire that hit hard with good, solid repeatable signals. The Axiom was sensitive to both large and very small targets in the heavily worked area. The irony of the day was that one of our party did find gold and he was the only guy who did not use a metal detector. He filled up two large buckets with dirt to take home and pan out and yes, he had gold in his pan when he was all finished. At the Ocean Beach As an avid beach hunter living in Southern California I was really anxious to see how the Axiom performed in a salt environment. Until the advent of multi-frequency detectors, PI’s ruled when it came to depth and performance at ocean beaches. Nowadays you don’t see a lot of PI’s at the beach but they do still have their place when the mineralization is high and causes problems for conventional detectors. There are still PI purists who will argue that a PI can beat any detector for pure depth and they may be right. I had no intention of reopening that debate. All I wanted to do was see if the Axiom could serve as a beach hunting detector. The Axiom was rock solid at ocean beaches and delivered exceptional depth on targets. A long-buried silver ring with an onyx stone was found with the Axiom after a recent storm. The verdict: yes, it can. Thanks to the SALT mode, a beach hunter can easily navigate “the wet” as we call it and punch right through troublesome black sand. In my hunts at the beach I was very pleased with how smoothly the Axiom ran. I could push the sensitivity up to “6” before I had to deal with any falsing. Targets were recovered at impressive depths of well over a foot. Being a PI, some of these were deep garbage but others were coins. That is the compromise you make when hunting with a PI. My best find was a very old, large silver ring, found at a depth of about 6” in a pocket of black sand. The Axiom hit it with no problem. I might add that the Axiom’s relatively light weight and excellent ergonomics made for easy, fatigue-free hunting, something that I have not found to be true of other bulky PI’s that I have used in the past. Another type of beach gold hunting is one that few detectorists explore, that being microgold hunting. For those of you who aren’t familiar with micro-gold hunting, it involves searching for those tiny pieces of gold that VLF metal detectors can’t find. Items like earring backs, thin chains, gold fillings, etc. Gold detectors can be used with good success when searching for microgold due to their ability to find tiny pieces of gold. This type of hunting must be done on the dry since the salt content of the wet sand will wreak havoc with these types of detectors. It requires a great deal of patience since the dry sand holds many types of small bits of metal that conventional VLF’s will not find. It is not for everyone. However, if you elect to try this type of hunting then the Axiom is a superb choice thanks to its FINE MODE. Be sure to bring your Garrett Pinpointer along because you will need it. The Axiom will hit on microscopic pieces of metal like aluminum that you will not see easily with the naked eye. I did a several hour microgold hunt at a local ocean beach and was amazed at how many small targets the Axiom located. If it had been my lucky day, I’m certain some of them would have been gold. Summary, Due to unforeseen circumstances that I will get to in a moment, I was able to spend a much longer period of time using the Axiom than normal. While its gold prospecting abilities have been well documented by many users since its release, there has not been as much focus on the detector as a general use machine, in particular at saltwater beaches where PI’s historically have always performed well. Being a beach hunter, these extra few months gave me multiple opportunities to use the Axion “in the salt” as the saying goes. Generally, I have avoided using a PI as my go-to beach detector because they can be a pain in the neck to use due to their weight, confusing adjustments (for me at least) and the requirement that you have to dig too much garbage. Not that I haven’t tried almost all of them and really tried to love them, or at least like them. The Axiom changed that for me. It is the first PI that I have ever used that was fun to hunt with and performed and felt like a normal metal detector to me. Each time I used it I came to appreciate its brilliantly designed. As a gold prospecting PI I don’t think you can match its performance and value. For saltwater beaches I found it to be a match for any detector that I encountered during my hunts, including all of the latest and greatest multi-frequency machines. If you are looking for a powerhouse saltwater beach detector don’t write of the Axiom as being just a gold prospecting detector. It is a whole lot more. I cannot recommend it more highly as a multi-use metal detector. You can learn more about the Axiom here: https://garrett.com/sport/axiom. Now let’s get to those unforeseen circumstances. This field test was requested by Garrett Electronics and was slated to be published in the January 2023 issue of Western and Eastern Treasures Magazine. I was due to deliver it for publication when the news was released that the magazine was closing its doors for good at the end of 2022. Despite all the work I had put into testing the Axiom and writing up my field test article, it just didn’t seem right for me to keep the unit. I contacted Steve Moore, Director of Marketing for Garrett Electronics, to arrange for the return of the Axiom. To my pleasant surprise, Steve insisted that I hold on to the Axiom and finish my field test in the hope we could find another method of publishing it. Enter Steve Herschbach of DetectorProspector.com Steve said he would gladly publish this field test. He also added that it would be an honor to have it be the last field test written for Western and Eastern Treasures Magazine. To say I was flattered would be an understatement. With that being said, I hope you enjoy this field test of the Garrett Axiom, the last field test written for Western and Eastern Treasures Magazine.

That's a lot of beaches . Too bad about the ring , it's a honker.🥸

With the official announcement on May 15 of the (hopefully) mid-summer release of the Garrett Apex there was considerable discussion of the (only) stock coil planned for release and its affects on depth. Within that discussion Chase gave me incentive to do some testing. This post is a result of that, but since I think my testing is applicable to more than just the Garrett Apex I'm creating this post in the general DetectorProspector forum. The gist of the topic there was how much compromise the 6" (wide) X 11" (tall/high - my choice of word) Apex stock would have on depth. As I mentioned I have quite a few coils for each of my detectors, but subsequently I realized there was one detector (Fisher Gold Bug Pro) and coil combinations (5" DD round and 5" X 10" DD elliptical) which would best address this issue. (I also have some other options -- White's TDI SPP and Minelab X-Terra 705 -- but those are a bit less ideal as will be discussed later. Since I have two other coils for the GB Pro I decided to include those for completeness although they add more variables/concerns and thus don't fit quite as neatly as the other two. I initally started with my variable depth test stand which allows me to vary the depth of small targets in 1/2 inch increments from ~ 1" down to 12" depth in the ground. However, in the midst of that part of the study I realized that I have some (likely iron) trash targets in the field-of-view which compromise the tones/measurements. Fortunately I also have two cleanly placed buried coins -- a copper alloy Lincoln Memorial USA penny buried at 5" depth and a Jefferson nickel alloy 5 cent piece at 6 inch depth. Neither of these currently suffers from nearby trash targets. I subsequently altered my study to use those targets for the coil performance tests. Unfortunately these also aren't ideal since under the conditions of testing they are too shallow to determine in-ground depth limits. What I did as a hybrid compromise is to carefully (i.e. measurably, with shims) raise the coil above the ground until the signal disappeared. For a second (more/less confirmation) test, and one that should be easily repeatable by anyone with the same/similar detector and coils, was to then perform a standard air test. Let's start with the conditions of the tests: 1) Ground conditions -- moist ground (we've had a typical wet Spring season), Fe3O4 mineralization measure of 2.5 bars on both the Fisher Gold Bug and Fisher F75 (2.5 meaning that about half the time I see 2 bars and half the time 3 bars). 2) Gold Bug Pro running in "all metal" ("motion all metal" in USA terminology which I like to call minimally filtered), max gain, threshold at 11 (which is about where Kevin Hoagland calls "mosquito buzzing in your ear"), no headphones (so detector's speaker). 3) My precision for "depth" is 1/2 inch. That coincidentally was the height of the shims I used in the hybrid test and also my ability to control the hand-held coin distance in the air test. 4) My determination of (maximum) depth limit was simple. I increased the depth until I thought I could barely detect an audio signal. I then decreased the target-->detector distance by 1/2 inch and required that I subsequently heard a clear signal. If not I reduced the depth/distance and repeated. Here are the raw data results. I'll explain the meaning of the columns shortly. You can see the four coils I tested. The first three are all Fisher manufactured and the last is the NEL Tornado. Rather than to use the nominal product quoted dimensions ('dim' short for 'dimension' in the column headings) I actually measured the coils and interpolated to account for the fact that a coil doesn't typically have a single extent but rather is a bundle, and further that the bundle obviously fits inside the housing. For the closed coils this is obviously more vague but in those cases I just used half an inch less than the housing dimension. An addition oddity is that DD coils aren't really simple ellipses but some overlap of two independent elliptical coils. 'geom mu' is the geometric mean of the two just determined transverse dimensions -- more specifically the square root of their product. Hopefully you'll see later why I calculated that quantity. It's not really relevant for the main conclusions I draw. The last two columns are the actual distances between the target and coil for the limiting distance (see item 4 above). In the case of the air test that is obvious. In the 'part ground' test that is the sum of the depth of the coin in the ground and the height of the coil above the ground for both coins. At this point I think it's worth discussing some caveats/assumptions/limitations of this test. Then if you've stayed with me I'll go a bit farther and hypothesize on how to use these data to draw conclusions for other coils. 1) Although I chose a detector/coils combination that was as consistent as I could be (same manufacturer and same 'width' coil), it has been discussed on this forum previously (sorry, no link) that the quality control of coil manufacture is a difficult task. It's certainly possible, although not necessarily likely, that my 5" x 10" elliptical coil is a high end tail performer among its peers and/or my 5" round is a low end performer. 2) With any measurement, there are in particular systematic errors and biases. I can't "double blind" my method. That is, I do know which coil I'm testing at a given time and if I have a prejudice for or against a certain coil that could show up in the results. Also, statistical uncertainties (more succinctly, how repeatable are my data) can contribute to errors. It is worth pointing out that swinging the heavy NEL 15" coil effectivly makes taking in-ground measurements with it difficult. As a result I was unable to confidently get a max depth reading for the penny using that coil, which is why that cell is blank. No problem with air tests because there, as is standard (?) I mounted the detector in a stationary horizontal position and just 'swung' the targets to determine the (max) limit distances. Again, it's really the 5" round DD and 5" x 10" elliptical DD that are most relevant. The others are include for information purposes but also to add to the plots I show later. As you can see, in these tests there is a clear and significant advantage for the 5" x 10" elliptical over the 5" round in both the hybrid test and in the air test. OK, I now go a bit deeper. Is there a mathematical relationship which can predict coil depth performance if I know the coil dimensions? Compared to above this is another leap into the unknown with additional uncertainties. However, here are a couple plots which seem to indicate relationships between the potential maximum detectable depth and the geometric mean of the coils width and height dimensions. (Sorry for the confusion but the Blue dots in both plots are for the 1 cent piece and the red dots are for the 5 cent piece.) It's better to look first at the 2nd plot -- air test. There appears to be nearly linear relationship between max depth and the geometric mean of the coil's dimensions, although it appears to trail off with the large (NEL) coil. Superimpose upon that the effects of ground noise and you see a further deterioration both in absolute depth and also in the trend which is shown in the first plot. Simply put, it is well known that mineralized ground, even moderately mineralized as in my back yard, negatively affects attainable depth. The larger the coil, the more ground it "sees", and thus the more ground interferes with performance. I'll finish by pointing out that this isn't the first study I've made. Back 3 years ago when DetectorProspector member Karelian made detailed measurements of a large collection of mono coils on a White's TDI in both ground and air, I noticed the depth vs. geometric mean relationship. However, without a theoretical (physics/engineering) reason to expect this relationship, at this point it's merely a convenient correlation. Karelian's data are further muddied by the fact that the coils studied have many manufacturers: Coiltek, White's, Miner John, Nugget Finder, Minelab,... I could show those results but I think I'll await the reactions to the above. I can also do more tests (e.g. with the X-Terra although there is not clean comparison of round vs. eliptical coils with the same width, at least in my collection) or repeat these. I await your posted reactions (including yawns 😁).

That's enough silver to break a neck. Good job on both the gold and silver. HH Jim Tn

Aureous - How is the Y axis noise of the Xceed vs the Coiltek 10x5?

To summarize: For every target there is an optimum coil size, and going to a larger or smaller coil than that optimum will get you less depth. To repeat, going to a larger coil can lose depth if the coil you have is already best for your target. People swinging super large coil sizes are losing depth on the most common targets sizes and only winning with the largest. Conversely, there is an optimum target size for each coil, and both larger and smaller targets than the optimum will lose depth compared to using a coil optimized for that size. Most detectors are optimized for coin size targets using an 11" coil. Smaller targets benefit from smaller coils, and larger targets from larger coils. I should mention mineralization and EMI also. Large coils see more of both relative to target size. These two factors work against larger coil sizes and can negate some or all of the theoretical gains.

Here in the UK we have a lot of small ancient coins hidden in iron and other trash. I have found that my D2 is particularly good at finding them - we mostly have quite benign soils here, which helps a lot for any detector, I think. 🙂

I had a QED (PL3) on loan for a while and, honestly, I was a bit disappointed with it. I considered it a little better than the TDI, but not as much as I expected. I found it to be noisy and temperamental, and the weird 2-step threshold adjustment was just awful. This particular unit didn't have the 3D printed parts I've heard about, instead I found the mechanicals to be perfectly reasonable. In any case, the Impulse Gold was clearly outperforming the QED in the tests I was able to do. Given that Garrett did a really nice job on the Axiom (way better mechanicals than we can do) I would expect to be south of the Axiom price. Some PI detectors have simpler designs that are cheaper to build. I designed the TDI-SL to sell for $999 MSRP and it could have been sold for $600 with good margins. Probably the Sea Hunter, even with that enclosure, is not expensive to build. The Impulse AQ (and Gold) are difficult to build, especially for FTP which is accustomed to mass assembly-line production. We are still struggling with the AQ, which is why it's been such a challenge to ship detectors. That's one of the key issues to address on the Gold before it goes into production.

Beach hunt #3 was the third trip to this beach, and it’s definitely time to move to another beach a bit closer to home. Finally, some cool weather to keep the crowds down. Lots of guys surfing with big waves, so not the conditions I want for digging in the water. I did get to talk to one of the guys that was hunting that small patch very hard last week. He said the group of hunters hit that area for 4 days straight. Lots of gold rings, silver chains and an unusual number of half dollars coughed up from the ocean during the storm. Half dollars at 2” deep. Normally I would not believe these stories, but I hit a patch in that same area about a year ago and found similar, although not as lucrative, results. Well done guys!!!! 👍 As for me, I worked 9 hours for mostly clad and hit all the remaining areas that I wanted to do before I change beaches. Tons of trash for just a silver ring and a silver Washington quarter. I just could not find the silver layer. Funny how on other days silver was easy, but the last 3 times out, I struggled to get to where I wanted to be. But still better than sitting home on the couch. Those gold colored nip bottle caps should be illegal. 🤬 Had me thinking gold was found at least 3 times before I caught on. I am however getting tired of seeing every single hunter using an Equinox. Hope the Manticore does not sell as well. 😄 Now time to just wait for next week’s hunt.