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Just received my Steve's Detector Rods Deus 2 shaft and all I can say is WOW, I love it! It's light and tight and even better than I imagined. Excellent work, @steveg ! This allowed me to complete my 2 from 1 conversion and now I have full D2 and WS6 Master rigs. The force is strong with SteveG! 😎

No it's not illegal to pan for gold or metal detect for gold in California unless you are doing it where you should not. I locked the thread temporarily as it was veering into politics. Open again now. Please people, remember the prime directive on these forums. Zero politics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And be decent to your fellow forum members. It does not seem like too much to ask. Thanks.

I was in a location (former school) and detecting in MultiFrequency. No problems most of the day. An older guy (older than I ) came up and said he had been a student at that school some 70 years prior. He told me a good spot to hunt, where he and others used to play. It was along the property edge, next to a street and close to some houses. When I got there the EMI was unbearable so I checked some single freqs. I was hoping for high conductor coins so started at the low end. 5 kHz was terrible but 4 kHz was dead quiet. Began searching and found some Lincolns and an Indian Head cent -- best find of the day. I wondered if the EMI had chased away other detectorists, but without hearing from them (don't know who they are...) I'll never know. Consistent with phrunt, the VDI's drifted pretty badly as depth increased so I was just digging non-ferrous, but it was better than walking away. 5 kHz minus 4 kHz = 1 kHz doesn't sound like a lot. But maybe some EMI sources have a spread of frequencies that doesn't follow such a simple relationship. I.e. suppose it's a more complicated function (logarithm, exponential,...) or depend upon the ratio (i.e. division, not subtraction) or ?? Anyway, in some EMI cases there is a big advantage of 4 kHz vs. 5 kHz on the Eqx 800. As to why, IDK.

I did like his video...prolonged suffering?...maybe a tiny bit...you need to put the hours on the machine just as with any other. The 800 popped and farted on tiny objects just like the M-core does..neither were a beginners machine in my opinion. The graph on the M-core may be a little more confusing to those not used to using a detector such as the CTX. The one place where I wanted to use the M-core the most is one of the places where I have had the most annoyances with it. It's a fresh water beach loaded with black sand and bottle caps of all varieties. I'm thinking this will change when we get the small coil cuz sometimes there are multiple targets under the large coil. There has been some talk of wide range of TID's on the M-core...I think this has a lot to do with depth and high soil mineralization. Very deep targets over 10 inches mild soil inches like where @phrunt hunts are probably the reason. I can usually accurately predict targets in the parks that I hunt even though the numbers may vary 2-3 digits so I've not found that to be too much of a problem. I've not picked up a detector in a couple months due to other projects but will get back to it soon...there are two kinds of serious treasure hunters those that have a M-Core and those that are gonna get one...😊 strick

I have a site that's another example of EMI reduction by moving from 5kHz to 4kHz. Electric dog fence around the perimeter of a yard. Neither Impact or Equinox can run at 5kHz. Completely unusable. Regardless of frequency shift, noise cancel, or coil size. I can run the Equinox at 4 though if I noise cancel.

Jim, I guess you could say it was price, as the owners considered the company worth way more than it actually was. In the end, the owners (& dependents) didn't want to give up the cash cow. Joe, I'll not rehash old history, other than to say in all my 50 years of work experience, the 6 years at White's has been my favorite. I wish things had turned out differently. I have no idea why Garrett bought White's, but I suspect we've seen the last of White's tech from Garrett.

Another vote from me the 4kHz option was a great option to mitigate EMI, 5kHz is pretty terrible around here, 4 runs like a dream. The Manticore in some of it's modes gets lower than 4kHz so perhaps they worked out 5 was quite troublesome around the world and shifted a bit lower. It was interesting they pointed to Asia's customers as being the reason for 4kHz, if it was their EMI causing it of it the targets they chase are better in 4kHz. I found 4kHz great for deep silver coins, the Target ID wasn't ideal in single frequency but the tones and ID range still gave the coins away nicely.

Some people on this forum get tired of being argued with and talked down to. I am one of them. Most of us would rather detect than argue about the efficacy or not of EMI noise reduction vs EMI noise cancel vs EMI noise elimination. EMI exists. That is a fact. Most detectors have some form of EMI mitigation related to slight frequency shifts. That is also a fact. From my experience and the experience of some others who have responded repeatedly to this controversy, sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn’t. Anything else that anyone believes, hopes, speculates, imagines or just wants to argue about is going off on a wild goose chase tangent. The topic of this thread was “What Difference Does 1 kHz Have On The Equinox” Some of us who actually own and use an Equinox responded with some valid experience and knowledge concerning the 4 kHz and 5 kHz options on the Equinox. Anything else is hijacking this topic. Start another topic about the F75 and DST (it’s not DSP by the way) and have at it. Maybe somebody will be dumb enough to join in. Can we get back to 4 kHz vs 5 kHz now if anyone is still interested? We could start with, why does the Legend have a 4 kHz choice and not a 5 kHz choice?

I get tired of seeing this every couple of years. I have never known gold replenish except fly specs. I agree it is the 100 to 500 year flood when the water is 20-30 feet above normal that really has a chance of moving gold. The only real bonanza is removal of overburden making new areas accessible.

I've been trying out the Treasure Mate v3.2 with my WM08 using the Equinox 1/4'' adapter cable.. It works great! I've been after an audio amplifier with an adjustable tone dial for a while now and recently came across a bloke in the Northern Territory who makes boosters and audio amps for PI detectors.. He trades as VKTEK Solutions.. https://www.vkteksolutions.com/ He also exports to the USA.. The audio amp comes in very handy when exploring more remote places away from the public or when headphones are too hot to wear.. This version of the Treasure Mate recharges with an USB cable (included).. Sorry about the lousy video but it'll give you an idea of how the whole thing fits together..

June 3 2002 Part Two After a long discussion, Jim made the decision to stay with the crew and continue to mine. Jacob said the only thing we needed to worry about was sabotage. He didn’t think the hooligans would actually harm anyone and neither did I. When we convinced Jim of this he was ok with things. We all just want to mine our claims. If only things could be that simple. Since we had moved our camp and were working close to it, we didn’t have to worry about anything there. Jacob set his gold cleaning operation up in a nice, shady spot and Vern would now be the pump tender and guard during the day. We will split up night duties to guard the pump and water line at night. With a plan in place, we got back to washing gold bearing gravel. We had a quick lunch and worked straight through until nearly dark. We had processed 60 yards of pay by day’s end. We cleaned out the tom and hauled the tub of concentrates over to Jacob who was only 200 feet from the dig site. The moving of camp turned out to be a good idea. Now Jacob will have himself a busy day tomorrow and show us what today’s labor produced. TO BE CONTINUED .................

June 3 2002 Part One Evidently I wasn’t the only one on the crew thinking if the new dangers were worth the risk to mine gold. I was sitting in Jacob’s camper having coffee at dawn when Jim came in. He had a funny look on his face. He told me he was thinking of going home and leaving the crew. I was shocked and Jacob was angry. Jim said he didn’t like being the target of gunfire and trouble makers. I told him not to let the creeps win. I said we needed to keep our team together for not only safety but production as well. Jim said he just wanted his cut and would be on his way. This wasn’t sitting well with Jacob. Then Vern came in to see what was going on. It was looking like a rough start to the morning. TO BE CONTINUED ..............

Recently my old RTG sand scoop started to fall apart. Served me well but I put the bugger through hell and then some. I have a regular scoop but it's big, wide and I prefer the basket type as they shake out easier. There was a thread about scoops and Michael pointed out Boarderline Engineering so thought I would give them a try. The scoop is absolutely built to last with impecable quality and attention to detail. It should work well around the lakes and rivers here as well as the beach. I bought the heavier duty all stainless as the lightweight ones can bend too easy getting rocks and gravel out of the way. Probably be the last scoop I'll need to buy.

I think my T2 video perfectly demonstrates small shifts in frequency can cause big differences in EMI problems. This is shifting .1 of a kHz, the jump on the Nox between 5 and 4 is big compared to this and for me at least fixes any EMI issues I may experience in 5kHz by going to 4kGz. This first 50 seconds of the video are in disc mode which is filtering some EMI then I switch to all metal to let it really show its ugly face. FREQUENCY SHIFTING One disadvantage of a highly sensitive metal detector is its susceptibility to electrical interference from other electronic devices. If the detector chatters while the search coil is not in motion, the cause is either electrical interference or internal circuit noise due to a high sensitivity setting. If the detector chatters or emits intermittent false signals in the field, you are also probably experiencing electrical interference. If you suspect electrical interference, you may change the T2’s operating frequency. This is a trial and error method to try to find a frequency different from the suspected source. Each actuation will shift the frequency by one value. The LCD will display the frequency, from F1 to F7. The default frequency is F4. The T2 will default back to F4 when the power is switched off

Gold Mining - where do I start? It's a cut throat business where people will screw you for an ounce of gold or less. People get gold fever which means they go bat sh.. crazy sometimes. You can't reason with them when they have the fever. I have been in fights with mining crews both on & off my claims. I've watched people make extremely poor decisions that cost them everything including their wives and all their money. I've seen people hit nice gold and it was fantastic. I saw a little crew pull over 50 ounces in 5 days with the gold being less than 8 feet under their feet. I happened to be on their crew helping out when it happened & it was great fun. Mining is an emotional roller coaster. That's why my little company is now more into exploration & leasing than actual mining although with gold now sitting at $2060/OZ & showing no signs of stopping I may need to jump back into one of those old dig sites from 1936 soon.

River streams have a large body of water compared to the river bed (floor), so the moving mass is mostly water. In alluvial fans, you have a much higher ratio of solid matter that moves along with the water, hence the overall density that moves in these fans is much higher. This also results in heavier rocks (including gold) being pushed up as the mass is moving. This is what makes alluvial fans so attractive for prospecting, in particular at the Apex widening, because the heavier stuff moves up and not down. You can easily see that yourself when you walk up alluvial fans and you notice that larger rocks and heavy material is often "floating" on top of lighter material and sand underneath. There is a lot of studies done about mass movements in alluvial fans, you can also find some of this on youtube. Hope this helps. GC

I'm keen on metal detecting for nuggets and specimens in the southern Arizona area. I'd like to find another who wants to detect in some of the more remote areas. I like to hike into areas that are not so easily accessed and search mine dumps and areas of known gold. I also reconnoiter other remote areas that may have quartz or mineralization. If you are interested and capable of day trips that include 3 or 4 miles of hiking over hillsides cross-country please PM me. I'm retired so trips are often during the week when traffic is reduced. Weekends are also possible. I have a Jeep that can access most roads except the roughest. Summer outings start before dawn and shut-down at about 95 degrees. Send me a private message if interested and we'll discuss possible field trips. Az_Ed, Tucson

Gotta be locals. Who would drive miles, hike in, and start shooting miners. It's someone who thinks it's their back yard and someone's messing with it. There's not enough paying material to hire security. So, like Jacob said, it's best to handle it themselves. Maybe get creative with scare tactics. That's what the locals are doing as they have the home advantage. They aren't trying to steal the gold. They are just causing problems. Maybe follow one of them home. Take a picture of their house and post it on the water pump. See how they like it then... Them, "Hey, that's my house.. oh oh..."

I already have it, in fact I liked the first one I ordered so much which was the original X Pointer max that I ended up purchasing the new 2023 model that comes with what Quest calls the Magic Holster also, which I like even more than the first one I purchased, if you do decide to order one make sure you get the 2023 model that comes with the magic Holster as it does not false as much as the original version, I can actually run the 2023 model on boost sensitivity where the original model I have to set the sensitivity to medium to high no way can I use the original set on the Boost sensitivity, both models I run the volume at 3 and they are both plenty loud enough at 3 if I take the volume to 5 they both are blaringly loud I do like both models but the 2023 X Pointer Max model is my favorite pin pointer of all I have used, just a great pin pointer all together in my opinion

I read it. Didn't see a lot of "other good reasons", rather a lot of speculation like (paraphrased) "EMI can't be alleviated so they must just be toning things down to fool us into thinking they are" and people pretending that a one-size-fits-all oversimplification of EMI is the whole story. How about a spectrum (intensity vs. frequency) graph/plot of just one example of EMI let alone the different spectra from multiple sources. Hand waving is cheap. Evidence takes effort. It's one thing to consider possibilities but to dogmatically then jump to unfounded conclusions -- that's what annoys me. There's a difference between "it could be possible" and "it can't be done because I say so." I'm tired of conspiracy theories about why things in the real world don't conform to someone's preconceived, oversimplified views and AFAIC that's how that thread quickly evolved, and this one has been turning into. EMI is not one-size-fits-all and solving the problems it causes isn't something we can just theorize about and then conclude we are right. (When did Descarte's "I think, therefore I am" devolve into "I think, therefore I'm right"?) And then conclude that since the problem is insolvable the detector engineers are resorting to behind-the-back slight-of-hand. When my Manticore shows I'm operating at a gain that's displayed on the screen (two digits on the left side when in search mode) and I do a Noise Cancel and it doesn't change, the Occam's Razor conclusion is that it didn't change. When the screen simultaneously shows me the mode I'm in (top of screen) and that icon doesn't change after a noise cancel then I'm not going to assume that the weighting of received&utilized frequencies has been altered past what the manual has indicated -- "...slightly shifts the ...transmit frequency".

Sorry for your loss...... So far in my 5 seasons looking for AU I've found 2 scoops (1 belonged to Reese), 3 Estwing rock hammers, and following the drill crew around I've found a #2 shovel, 1 lock, and yesterday I found a real nice heavy duty tow chain the boys left laying around, all returned......lol

I clipped the band of my bone phones and glued the noisy bits inside a cheap set of shooting muffs I had. One of these days I’ll buy a good setup but this works pretty darn well for the little bit of water detecting I do.

When I was there, an employee buy-out was proposed but the owners had no interest.

I started detecting 53 years ago and was a big White's fan for many many years. That said, your statement that the 5000 (or 5900 or 6000di Pro for that matter) can "run any day with today's detectors" is only true if the targets are relatively shallow, the ground mild, and we're not talking wet salt water sand or ocean. Like the analogy of the '64 Mustang compared with today's vehicles.....sure the Mustang will get you the looks, and it may be fun to drive....at least in fair weather, and nobody stops suddenly in front of you, and you don't have to make emergency turns, and you don't mind the less reliability and extra maintenance, and you don't mind the poorer gas mileage, and the lesser performance, etc. Does that make the '64 Mustang a better overall car than a 2023 Mustang? Not hardly....in any area you wish to choose....except maybe looks! 😁 Would I still drive the '64? Sure, for fun, not as a daily driver or a trip where I wanted reliability, safety, and comfort.

I think one of the things missed in the "reasons" for Whites going out of business is that Whites was a privately held company. The owner, and chief engineer was at, or beyond retirement age. Apparently he had no descendant able, or interested in running the company. I assume Ken White had been aware of all this long before the company closed, and stopped putting money into product development. I can completely understand that. He accomplished an enormous amount, and led the industry in new product ideas for decades. He just finally decided it was time. I refuse to look at this as a "failure" of any sort. I spent my entire life self-employed, and I understand this. Jim

Its nonsense, there cannot be any goldrush if you are not allowed to prospect or mine.

Came across a small circuit for relaying the frequency of a coil to a computer using a microphone jack and some software. I have a scope which will do the same thing but has to be hard wired to the coil or control board of the detector. What I liked about the circuit is it didn't need to be wired to the scope but the scope doesn't supply power to a circuit so I added a battery and then a couple leads to hook to the scope. I printed the little coil on my fdm printer and wound the coil on it. Layed out the part in pcb software and printed the circuit on some silicone transfer paper then transferred and etched my own pcb. Soldered in the parts and tested it. Lastly I was happy how accurate it was with just a small 2hz when powered on which could be the capacitor tolerance. What also is pretty cool is I can move the sensor away from the coil and physically measure the signal drop off. Surprisingly the signal will drop off pretty sharp. This is doesn't necessarily tell you how deep a detector will report an object it senses, just how far the coil goes. On my Multi Kruzer it showed the Superfly coil being a little out of frequency as the frequency was high which means I probably have a bad connection in the cable. The other coils tested fine and between 5,14, and 19khz there was little difference in range. On the Tejon I tested stock coil that came in spot on 17.5khz but the Cors Shrew came in at 16khz not that it matters that much on that machine. Apex was interesting. The Ultimate 9" was 12" and the Reaper 10x14 coil was 14", only 2" more. Now between frequencies and modes. The 20khz was the most followed by MF and MF and range dropped down as frequency was dropped in single freq modes. If I get my hands on a Nox and Legend would like to test those just for kicks. Anyways whole purpose was to make a little test device so I can keep working on my coils and test coils that maybe faulty. Just enjoying other aspects of the hobby. Enjoy!

The remains of Whisky Jack's old cabin on the mine as it appears now.

I respect the way that Minelab says Noise Cancel reduces the effects of EMI by using slight shifts of the transmit frequency to be less responsive to the effects of the noise. Words like eliminate, stop, eradicate, prevent, filter out EMI are not included in their description of this function. EMI is never "gone" unless it was not there in the first place. Whether it seems to be gone because I can't hear it due to the way I have setup my detector does not mean that EMI is gone.

Somewhat cryptic explanation from the Equinox manual about Noise Cancel..... Noise Cancel Noise Cancel reduces the effect of environmental electromagnetic noise from sources such as power lines, mobile phone towers, and other metal detectors. Detectors may become noisy due to electrical interference from power lines, electrical equipment or other detectors operating close by. The detector interprets this interference as inconsistent, erratic detections. The Noise Cancel setting allows you to change the noise cancel channel. This slightly shifts the detector transmit frequency to be less responsive to the source of the noise. Noise Cancel affects both the audible detection noise level and pinpointing performance. The Noise Cancel setting has 19 channels with a range from -9 to 9 with a default setting of 0 for all Detect Mode Search Profiles.

The Equinox 800 and 900 have 19 different increments within each SMF or selectable single frequency setting that can be automatically or manually shifted. On the 600 (don't know about the 700) automatic small incremental shifting of frequencies was the only option.

First comment - chill out folks. Like seriously take a chill pill. It's just metal detecting. Of course just changing base frequency can reduce EMI by shifting away from what caused the EMI. And no, there is not and will not be any magical fix short of basic trade offs. The detector is just a dumb machine and can't tell signal generated from a target by that caused by spurious EMI. Reducing a particular EMI problem can also reduce a certain target signal because they are identical as far as the detector is concerned. The engineers can shift frequencies or use frequency comparison tricks to try and sort this from that, but the bottom line is any filtering always comes at a cost. A trade off where you gain something but lose something else. I'm not just speculating here - I was very involved in working on EMI mitigation with Equinox and it is not ignored at all. The solutions are just not as simple as people think. Well it is I guess. Go back to using a lower gain 1980s detector that will be nice and well behaved. It's the fact we are pushing the tech to the limit and running extremely high gains that are the source of the issue here. The solution is simply turn down the sensitivity until the EMI goes away. Happy?

Thanks for sharing.. nice little tool to have around.. years ago I used a audiosears 2463 earphone/speaker as a quick tester for the Minelab BBS machines, to see if the machine was working, when the headphones were in question. Also I could trace out the shape of the send field, its reach and if the coil was working correct. This all came about when I was making head phones and I got a message from a customer telling me he could unplug his head phones and still hear his Sovereign GT.

To bring everything forward - I have a partner who was run out of the area of the original digsite of 1936 by gunfire. This happened last year. Some things never seem to change. He sent me the video but doesn't want it put out on any media outlets. He had his young son with him when it happened. He didn't think the goons were firinig at him but just trying to scare him.

Thanks RVP, This place was surprisingly cheap for a 9-day stay. We got there 2 days after spring break ended 😅 Heard it was a nightmare. Despite excessive prices for fuel, the park was only $60 a night. It's the largest campground on the East Coast. It has everything you could imagine and more, and is pretty quiet before Memorial Day. My wife and I like to hit someplace with palm trees and sunshine in April, been doing it every year for the last 15 or so. We used to go to Tybee Island, but kinda wore the place out. This was an 8 hour drive as opposed to 12, and a heck of a lot more friendly, with much more going on. Easy to get in and out with my huge RV. It was certainly a blast for me, and my wife enjoyed it too, she even told me to go out detecting when she was tired of going out. I've definitely done better on a camping trip but at least got a bit of just about everything. It was fun talking to other detectorists, I usually don't meet as many as I did there, and did way better than them as far as I know 🙂 I was really pleased with my Deus 2 program, and will be trying others in future exploits.

What we are reading right now guys is all history, happened in 2002. Unfortunately we can't go back and "fix" whatever happened back then. It's nice to speculate, kind of fun though. Mike

... Or maybe set some trip wires that alert the day crew so they can continue to work. In any event ALL crew members must be armed and ready to defend at any time night or day. The plot thickens as the old movie saying goes.

ffs...wasn't going to watch cause the dudes wearing a fur hat...indoors... that said, shame on me. I give it a very rare "yes, good video", first thanks for not talking for 3 minutes about getting us to like, follow, subscribe. Over all good explanation and really a reminder of my initial struggle with the 3030. the entire section about stfu and go into it knowing its going to complicated was a gentle reminder to deal with it, and realize by 100 hours, the equinox will be a paperweight, or sold to finance coils....and I would LOVE to see a 4" round coil, not a compromise. back to the vid, that narrow separation of good targets and crap...did it with my 3030, looking forward to getting overmyself and finish the learning curve the vid is just how nice the 3030 could separate targets, looking forward to getting off my highhorse, and ignoring those facebook goofs whining about falsing 😄 I'm guessing a bit of patience and staring at the menu we'll arrive at similar discrimination(s)

Welcome to the forum and glad to have you with us. I will be looking forward to some of your posts and the pictures of your finds. Good luck and stay safe out there.

Thanks Carl, That's good enough for me! 👍I'm very happy to hear that those were good years for you! I appreciate the response! I had a big gap in my detecting years; 83-2014, and wish I had continued through them!😔 So probably why I've gone backwards on a "few"🙄 detectors from a couple companies to fill in some gaps, etc! I really enjoy them!🍀👍👍

thanks for everybody's interest...and yes...I am showing off. Some may have noticed my long absence from the forums. Thankfully it was not that I was deceased or even seriously ill. Some things interfered with my enjoyment of the whole scene a few years ago and now, I am over it. Just bought the 1236X2, a Perfect early MXT, and planning my battery to attack Norway for two months this summer...details of the machines to be revealed later!

Large coils are on the back burner for now. Below is the second one 58" x 28" that I put together. The electrical specifications are the same as standard coils. I wound both the transmitter and receiver with wide spacing between turns. This cuts down the coil capacitance and improves the Q (quality) of the coils. It started out to be a drag coil but since I don’t have a ATV and Northern Nevada has so much sage brush it became a large push and pull coil. It weights approximately nine pounds. It has some serious problems that prevent it from being a good coil. My pick, the detector body and other stuff are too close to the coil. Going over rising and falling ground sounds similar to swinging over damp salty ground. The coil cable sounds off when it is moved up and down. The windings are glued down and the foam board is rigid so it doesn’t have any bumping noise. It picks up shallow .22 bullets as double hits as each receiver coil passes over them. Air testing above the coil; one ounce gold coin around two feet; coke can approximately seven feet. Since coke can size nuggets are so rare I am working on 25 to 30 inch coils. Improving depth on one ounce and below is the goal.

On the new Gray Ghost Amphibian II's for the Deus II there is no cup mounted volume control. Those old volume controls were nothing but a liability and I removed and by-passed any I had. In these new ones there isn't really much inside to go wrong, as you can see in the picture, and they are advertised as "100% waterproof and totally submersible to a maximum of 200 feet" with a 2 year warranty. There's still ice on the water in my neck of the woods for another couple weeks or I'd flood them and test them out for you.

just my 2 cents In August 1812, two of the largest armies ever assembled clashed in Smolensk. During the hard-fought battle, described by Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace (Book Three Part Two Chapter 4), Napoleon entered the city. Total losses were estimated at 30,000 men. Apart from other military monuments, central Smolensk features the Eagles monument, unveiled in 1912 to mark the centenary of Napoleon's Russian campaign. https://www.google.com/search?q=aigle+napoleonien&sxsrf=APwXEdcrAwRObtLskZXV99HbmR-KyuhSuw:1683138746371&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwif2da45Nn-AhWKhFwKHQmABjkQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1440&bih=820&dpr=1 RR

That's hard to guess without more information, but If I had to take a blind guess, I would imagine it is a WWII German eagle broken off of a staff car, small flagpole topper, desk ornament, or something like that since the Smolensk area was occupied by the Nazis from 1941-1943.

I haven't been keeping up with Minelab's progress now I'm no longer a share holder, fortunately I did get out at a good time, so this is a month or so late but interesting none the less. I took a few tidbits from the documents which can be read in full here: https://codan.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2512906.pdf https://codan.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2512925.pdf Starting with the Chief Executives introduction message. It's surprising to see how much Communications has taken over metal detection as the better part of their business, even in R&D they're spending far more on communications now reflecting that market performance I guess. Some bad news for dealers, they're investing more in e-commerse, we all know what they means, there will be more buying direct from Minelab and cutting out middle men smaller dealers like they've recently done in Malaysia and Indonesia with their own buy direct website - https://minelab.co.id/ You'll likely need to click on the images to see them in a readable form depending on your screen size. It's interesting the key markets for Gold Detectors are Asia Pacific, yep that includes me 🙂, not the USA though. The USA is in the treasure detectors category as a key market. Latin America is a key market for the Gold Detectors though. I guess not many Americans look for gold anymore by comparison to other countries. The near term strategy is just to focus on marketing and selling the new Manticore and Nox 700/900, so it doesn't look like we'll see another detector out of Minelab this year, the long awaited CTX and GPZ replacements are a long way away yet, although this was also interesting. See smaller dealers, increase E-Commerse penetration, they're wanting to do that into more markets! It will eventually be big box stores and E-Commerse (Minelab direct sales) They didn't consider the Equinox to be a high end machine, more of a mid range and this Manticore is considered a CTX level machine, maybe there never will be a CTX 4040. The best coin and treasure detector on the market they say, more accurate discrimination at depth they say....... not sure I can agree with that statement. Now lets have a look at performance..... Not looking too crash hot, it shows that gold detectors and Africa were vital to their good figures. Africa then.... and now A massive drop in sales to Africa. The USA is making up some of that slack with the treasure detectors, the Americans must be buying up Manticores and Nox's in big numbers. Not looking good at all, no matter how it's spun. So, I guess we won't see anymore new detectors this year, it's very unlikely, surprising the X-Terra didn't even get a mention although it's not a high profit detector, it's to remain competitive at that end of the market and won't be a big money maker regardless of sales I would think. Engineering investment is now favouring communcations where the money is being made more so than metal detection. Lucky for me I'm in no rush to buy any new detectors, in fact I may not buy another Minelab in quite some time, I can't see me buying their new GPZ when it comes out unless it's significantly better than my GPZ with X-coils and I have my doubts especially when I don't care about ergonomics, I'm not paying a massive amount of money for a GPZ on a diet. I doubt I'd even buy the new CTX unless there was some dramatic improvement in performance and the Manticore which I did buy isn't really that great big jump over the Equinox, and in many ways for my needs still well behind the CTX that's a decade old. Maybe their engineers have finally hit the wall when it comes to performance.

Minelab introduced 4 khz as a feature "upgrade" a few years after release. Minelab stated that it was at the request of Asian "horde hunters". Yes, most were skeptical and scratching their heads regarding the additional frequency given that it was so close to the existing 5 khz setting. I am pretty sure ML was experimenting with SF noise mitigation, ground handling, and signal processing algorithms as many users noted that 4 khz was incrementally more stable and perhaps had incremental improvements in detection depth on high conductors vs. 5 khz. In hindsight, it was probably a stealth field test of single frequency enhancements that ML was considering for incorporation into future detectors such as the Manticore, but more likely, this was a test case for enhancements that were eventually incoporated into the X-Terrra Pro.

All gold rushes eventually end, and it looks like the metal detector driven part of the African Gold Rush has collapsed. That's normal. Easy surface finds by individual prospectors always play out quickly, and then the big boys come in and consolidate the business of mining the harder to find gold. For Minelab though this means real trouble, as it will be very hard if not impossible to generate the kind of numbers that they saw with 6000 and 7000 machines. High price detectors with huge margins. No doubt the market there is flooded with used detectors and Chinese knockoffs making it even worse. Then add in the fact that anyone ignoring the goldfields playing out in Oz and the U.S. is just whistling past the graveyard. Add it all up and the gold prospecting juggernaut that Minelab rode for so long is now over, and no new whiz bang nugget machine is going to change that. They are instead trying hard to fill the gap with coin and relic, but $1500 detector sales will not replace $8000 sales. They face growing competition in coin and relic and so can't just name the price, but instead are pumping out low cost machines to compete. The real answer for Codan will be to continue to diversify away from detectors into other areas. The future is not bright for growth in metal detecting, more like a hard fight for lower margin sales with stiffer competition. There very well might not be a CTX 4040 as the ability to sell very high priced detectors may be at an end. What could another $2500 model realistically do that would get people to shell out the bucks? Will people really line up for a $8000 GPZ 8000 like they might have done in the past? I won't be in that line personally, and I'm not sure I'll be alone standing on the sidelines when the time comes. It's just too much money to dump into what I am sure will be a very marginal improvement at best. More ergonomic? Sure. Better on small gold? I doubt it. Maybe another inch on a 6 ounce nugget? Maybe. But are there really that many of those at depth that have been missed as people imagine? Not in my locations. I'm glad I'm not in the metal detecting business anymore, and sure won't be buying Codan stock.

This is a good question, but there is no single answer. If you think that the channel alone can affect only the type of target, you fall into error. I dwell on the fact that by activating the saltwater function, suddenly the ctx becomes super stable, necessarily cutting off the higher frequencies. Then it is not just one particular frequency, but a pair that compares on the signal. The channel in my opinion, shifts the kHz slightly for the purpose of not having wave interference and false signal, but it acts little on the size of the detected 🎯

Well, now I had to try!