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I returned to a site that had yielded an 1886 US V nickel and an 1876 US Seated silver dime about a month ago when I was using the Equinox 900 with 6" coil. I had Deus 2 with version 1.0 software and 9" coil along with the Nokta Legend with 6" coil. The area I was hunting is full of magnetite, square nails, tin of all sizes, all sorts of other iron and sheet lead trash and some other junk within a clearly marked roughly 20'X20' hand stacked stone foundation that is level with the surrounding ground. I was using Deus 2 version 1.0 with a modified Sensitive #2 program set on Pitch tones/Hi Square audio with sensitivity 90, disc at 6.8, silencer 1, no notch, reactivity 2.5, iron volume 7, audio filter 0, bottle cap 0, audio response 3, threshold 4. I wanted to see if I had missed a lot of non-ferrous targets using the Equinox 900 due to having only one hour to hunt this site with it at the time. This time I had 4 hours to hunt. Let me put it this way. That was an extremely unpleasant 2 hours using Deus 2 version 1.0. I struggled to find any non-ferrous targets. I did manage an 1888 S Seated Liberty dime but that was basically by accident. There were so many nails in the area where the Seated dime was recovered that were fooling me, I would have probably missed it. The nails in the photo represent the ones that were in good shape. These were falsing with good non ferrous tones and IDs from the low 70s to high 80s. I left around 40 other nails/tin shards sitting behind a boulder at the site. I had some lunch and then gave the Nokta Legend a try. This was the first time I had used the Legend in this area. I hunted the exact same area. The 6" coil let me get into spots that Deus 2 with 9" coil could not reach so I was able to hunt more thoroughly. This site has boulders, sage and aspen saplings all over it. This difference in coil size did not result in any major finds but it could have. XP....please give us a land based small elliptical coil!!!!! I was using the Field program M2, Pitch tones, disc on G which rejects most ground noise, ferrous/non ferrous tone break 10, sensitivity 23, recovery speed 5, iron filter 1, iron stability 4, bottle cap 0, ground stability 0 using the 6" coil. To my surprise, falsing was minimal, and distinguishing iron targets versus non ferrous targets was not a problem. So when I found the 1891 Seated dime about 5" away from where I recovered the other Seated dime earlier, I knew exactly what I was about to dig since it had great non-ferrous audio and great ID even though it had plenty of man-made and natural iron surrounding it and it was 4" deep in a clay ball. The other non-ferrous targets on the plate were also no problem to distinguish from all of the iron and tin trash. I did not get fooled by any smaller iron targets using the Legend. Ferro-Check was spot on and so were the target IDs. I got home from the hunt and noticed XP had put out update 1.1 to help with the Silencer. Thank God!!!!

It was so odd this morning, as I was getting ready to duck out for a few hours to get some more trigger time on the D2 with V1.0 before the afternoon storm came in to see if I could tame this beast, when @abenson posted that XP had released V1.1. What?! I read my emails this morning and didn't see anything about an update from XP. So I logged on and sure enough, there it was. I updated my gear and reloaded a couple of my slightly modded programs and hit a nearby park as there was only an hour or two before a rainstorm was coming in. The two programs I loaded up are based on Fast with the following settings: (Note that these are based on settings that have worked well in my particular mineralized soil conditions) Both programs had Max Freq at 40 kHz, Disc= 6.8, Notch= 7-30, Sensitivity= 95, Reactivity= 1.5-2, Audio Response =4, Iron Vol= 7, FE TID= On, High Sqr Audio, but one program in Full Tones with Offset FT= 5, and the other in Pitch. I set Silencer and B.Caps at 0 because I wanted to see if I could. My part of the country (US Rocky Mountains) has a lot of iron and coal in the soil plus it been raining every day for over two weeks so the ground is saturated with water, and in V1.0, the machine ran too hot with Sensitivity in the 90s so I had to use some Silencer and B.Caps just to calm down all the iron noise, and of course there was a lot of falsing. One of the things that I was going to try was running the Audio Response lower than my usual 5 as suggested by Paystreak in a video. I had no idea that Audio Response was one of the things that was beefed up in V1.0 and it turned out that was one of the major contributors to my falsing problems. Instead I was bumping up the Silencer and B.Caps to quiet the machine down and it was just making things worse in my scenarios. When I hit the park today with V1.1, I was amazed how quiet the machine ran with no Silencer and no B.Caps with Audio Response only lowered to the stock 4 setting. Also, with AR at 4, target size and depth was much easier to gauge. Running in Full Tones was glorious again. I really liked Full Tones in V0.71, but it wasn't working well in V1.0 for me (probably because I was running too hot for my conditions), but in V1.1 it's even better! I was able to hear eveything well defined and was able to call almost all of the targets before I dug them. A couple of canslaw pieces fooled me and, to my surprise, a nickel fooled me. I thought it was going to be a pull tab. Speaking of pull tabs, I was able to call almost all of them by lifting the coil and hearing the squeaks in High Sqr Full Tones. Also, checking suspect targets in Deus Mono in 17 kHz with the XY screen correctly exposed all the tabs and iron I encountered today. The two rusty nails I dug were obvious to me so I used them to test out the Silencer and B.Caps functions while still in the ground. Silencer started to break them up at 2 and almost eliminated the falsing entirely at 4-5. B.Cap handled them well at 3, after testing I set them both back to 0 to continue hunting. I didn't find anything earth-shattering today, that wasn't the mission, but I did find a silver bracelet and my first gold coin! Well gold-colored coin anyway... I almost dropped a duece when I saw that in the hole! 🤣 But I will say I'm impressed that XP managed to get these fixes out in just 10 days after releasing V1.0 and I'm sure there's more to come, but now I feel like my D2 is even a better than before, so thank you, XP!

June 12 2002 The night had remained quiet and we got to work shoveling gravel into the tom. When we broke for lunch Jacob had the concentrates all cleaned up and there were 6 ounces of gold in the pan. He grinned and told us to shovel like hell because we were in a sweet spot. If only we had our trommel we could make a real killing I figured. But we went back to work and did the best we could. The heat was relentless. By the end of the day we had processed 35 yards. I figured that to be a very good days work in the heat. We were all worn out. Jacob took a few scoops of the concentrates and told us they were loaded with gold. He said maybe we didn’t need any trommel and had himself a good laugh. The rest of us looked at him and I thought he had gone mad the way he was laughing so hard. Jacob stopped and told us we didn’t seem to understand and that we had hit a jackpot. An area of concentrated gold deposit. Sizeable tonnage. Whatever you want to call it he said. Then he began to laugh some more. He said he’d seen this kind of thing several times on these claims. We might just have ourselves a gold strike. TO BE CONTINUED ...................

That need not be the case at all. The machine is very simple to operate (basic start guide below). The issue at hand is nugget detecting. VLF discrimination in mineralized ground is unreliable at best. You should not use discrimination, but should be using all metal, digging all targets, and leaning hard on a magnet on a stick to separate ferrous from non-ferrous. It is absolutely impossible to reliably separate gold nuggets from lead, aluminum, or any other non-ferrous items from other non-ferrous items, and at a minimum you must dig all non-ferrous items. Brass, copper, and silver do tend to deliver higher probability numbers, but so will large nuggets. If you wish, I recommend using all metal, in conjunction with the meter reading, to make a dig or no-dig decision regarding ferrous. A ferrous object should bang repeatedly to far left, never bouncing above 40. You do ten sweeps, you get ten far left readings. If, on the other hand, you get one or more hits that bounce higher, especially if the bounce over 40, dig it. I've seen nuggets in bad ground read ferrous over and over, with only rare spikes to non-ferrous. But be aware that some ferrous also spiked high, and you will dig those. As you should, unless you like leaving nuggets in the ground. Look for reasons to dig, as opposed to reasons not to dig. You must dig targets, and lots of them, if you want gold. By using all metal, and using the probability meter constantly, you will learn the odds via meter readings and repetition, and can shift the odds as you please by modifying the resulting dig/no-dig decisions. How that meter responds is key, and that varies with how fast you swing, and how the coil approaches the target. Bouncy numbers are common, and the weaker the target, the less you can believe what you are being told. In truly trashy areas I get more picky, in less trashy areas I get more aggressive. The last method is go to the discriminate "beep mode" and use the actual tones and rejection settings, just like coin hunting. This makes dealing with the worst trash easier, but it also tends to miss more gold, so for me it is a last ditch approach for the trashiest locations. See my detailed review of the 24K for more on that. Goldmaster 24K Quick Start FACTORY RESET - Hold the Down button when turning on the detector. Press the Pinpoint button when “Fd” is on screen, to reset the machine to factory defaults. Just in case. VOLUME - Set the volume to your preference (tap Speaker button, use Up and Down buttons). THRESHOLD - Set the threshold to a faint hum (hold Speaker button, use Up and Down buttons). For silent search, turn the threshold down until it can’t be heard, but no farther. SENSITIVITY - Set the sensitivity to a level that ensures smooth operation (Up and Down buttons). The 24K will generate a harsh overload sound if the coil is placed on ground too mineralized for the setting. If this occurs, reduce sensitivity until the overload tone does not occur. GROUND BALANCE - The default mode is automatic XGB ground tracking. Simply raise and lower the coil over the ground a few inches, two or three times, and start detecting. Alternately, lock the ground tracking by tapping the Lock button (a Lock symbol appears on screen). While the tracking is locked, you can press the Cross Hair button to perform a Ground Grab. This updates the ground setting to what is currently under the coil. With a combination of Locked tracking and Ground Grab you can easily update the ground balance point as you swing. DIG ALL TARGETS - With an emphasis on the faintest targets. A magnet on a pick or a wand can make quick work of excavated ferrous items, while recovering all non-ferrous targets. If an operator wishes to avoid digging ferrous items, employ the meter to ignore items that repeatedly, and reliably, produce far left meter indications. However, always remember that discrimination is unreliable on weak signals, and strive whenever possible to dig all targets while nugget detecting. RETAINED SETTINGS - The Goldmaster 24K will retain your settings when powered off. Once you get the machine set for a particular area, it will be ready to go next time you power it up. When in doubt, repeat the steps above, starting fresh with a factory reset.

What do you think? Art, artifact or randomly created in the environment. I eyeballed this canoe made of what appears to be ironstone last weekend while highbanking beside a river. I am really fascinated with this find. Native peoples have been in this area for over 10,000 years.

I bought my White's 24K from Jim McCulloch and even though ti have owned a several White's and Fishers over the years one of the best thing I did was get Jim's book : Advanced Nugget Shooting with the Goldmaster 24K "

Do a noise cancel scan then choose m1 freq, park and pick out what tones you want to use and go to town swinging it. You will forget about that fisher in no time.

I simply do not understand why the company refuses to engage potential customers on any level. They create web sites that die with no activity and zero updates. They sparodically allow a couple of select users to post results of their hunting but do not follow up in any way. They create small groups of inmpressive videos on a new product and then nothing. Not that they need someone as proactive as Dilek, who is an amazing force, but there are other ways to go to engage your consumer base. Look what Garrett has done with Steve Moore. He is good on camera, ACTUALLY hunts, and posts videos from timt to time. Garrett also engaged Steve on the Axiom. Meanwhile, back at the First Texas ranch, they do...nothing...

I've been busy with some other detecting lately out in the deserts. I like those nuggets and meteorites. You can kind of target those and know what you'll get. When you go to the beach (just like a park) you can get coins, relics and jewelry. Today's best finds were a couple of rings. The first was a stainless steel ring found after a couple of hours of mostly nothing except those tent stakes. My beaches have been very stingy the last few weeks so I was glad to get it. I slowed down with the 11/800 and began to find 'patch' stuff. I like patches. I grid them and just enjoy having a few targets together rather than long walks always. My clues were that I was out on a pretty low tide and things were seemingly deep for the 11. I'm normally a 15 user but the 11 was on and I didn't expect much and was back to where I started when I got the stainless steel ring. It says 316L and weighs 6.7g. I continued on just above the black sand line and found other coins and stakes and then I heard a faint 'penny' or it could have been. I made it down a full scoop (6") and it was still in the bottom of the hole. A couple of more scoops, around 10" I got it out. It was a nice shine for the early morning. This is a 10K with lots of little diamonds. It weighs 7.8 grams. My first gold ring in quite a while and first one with the 11" in even longer. I'm ready to take the 3030 out this week with the 17" and see if I can renew a liking for it and look at some of my old find points.

The river I prospect was high today, and my usual spots were under water. So, my buddy and I shifted gears to another place, which is not as ripe as my usual spot, but, gold is gold. He used his La'Trap mini and I used my favorite river sluice, the "Itty-Bitty" sluice. Click on the photos to see today's hunt.

I've had a known gold-bearing patch stare me in the face for over 35 years, denying me any semblance of gold under my coil. I've tried my luck there dozens of times, with almost every new detector or coil combo, all to no avail. The place just thumbed its nose at me..... until Monday. I used my 6000 with the 10x5 Goldhawk mono, wound up to Auto 1 in difficult (my 'go-to' setting if soil conditions allow) and I found 2 small bits weighing just .3gm. Then yesterday I went back....just to prove it wasn't a 'fluke'. The result was the nugget in the attached pic.... 3.1gm. Another 2 small bits followed. My Nemesis is now conquered! Anyone else have a 'Nemesis' patch that defies all efforts to pluck gold from? Of all the places here in Victoria that I've tried, this one was the only patch that defied me....but no longer! Sorry but I had to tell someone....just to celebrate

Not the kind you want to find. Nowadays you can find anything and everything at the beach. I’m glad I wear gloves during my hunts. Stay safe and protected out there. HH

With all of the new updates that keep coming and wiping out my previous settings for custom programs, I have generated a form to put all of the settings for each program. It's a Google document and hope it will help you because I think it's helping me! When you click on the link, it will automatically force a copy, so that you can edit it. Hope you're able to access it. Let me know what you think. Custom Program Deus II

They sneeze or blow real hard without a tissue.

@Diggin' It @Chase Goldman's post earlier in the thread is quite literally gold, and effectively summarizes the best options on the market. I can speak from the perspective of having the Equinox 800 and the Legend and, while they have some slight differences in areas of strengths/weaknesses, I consider them almost interchangeable in terms of outcomes. They are noticeably different swings, however, and I mean that in a good way. If I had to do it all over again and go with a single detector, I'd go the Legend route if price was an issue. If price wasn't a consideration, however, I'd pony up for the Equinox 900 for all the improvements over the prior 600/800 models. And I do like the 800/900 options vs. the 600/700 ones for the higher frequency options. Even if you aren't gold prospecting, the 20 and 40 kHz settings available onthe 800 and 900 can be useful for hunting small gold jewelry. That said, the Legend has those same higher frequency options (as well as multi frequency) at a much lower price point.

Good advice VL, but the 600 is just as waterproof as the 800 🙂 I've dunked mine a lot and had no problems.

I have a question about the spoon and it is this, does it have a groove from the bowl to the end of the handle. If it does it would be 1/2 of a lead ball mold. They would be stood up and then filled from the handle end and after the would cool they would be separated. Don't really know for sure, and it could also be a simple baby spoon from a poor person.

The 11" coils have had their fair share of issues, it's not abnormal to need them replaced more than once, they have improved the plastic as people were getting cracking on the ears and the coil itself. The coils themselves have had faults causing coil errors/shutdown and general instability, I've only had mine replaced once but I've basically stopped using it and went with aftermarket coils instead, both Coiltek and Nugget Finder are making coils for it, and I trust them both to be more reliable than the standard coils. I just leave my Coiltek 10x5" on mine full time now, I have the Coiltek 14x9" but I find it not sensitive enough and worse than the 11" for sensitivity so I don't really use it. It's pretty crappy you have to buy an aftermarket coil to trust your coil though as the 11" is a really sensitive coil when it works well.

Well ... each country has its own laws and by way of the courts when a meteor hits the ground here and becomes a meteorite then it becomes a mineral according to BLM. If you find it on 'open' land then you can keep it but you would be taking the claim holder's minerals if the land was claimed. This is a cause of not exactly locating a meteorite and saying it came from a nearby location. Many fresh falls are very valuable until the quantity found reduces the price.

I think with VLF's they've accepted defeat, maybe they don't have the engineering talent to be competitive, maybe they don't have the money to invest in the R&D required or just simply don't want to do so. They seem to have taken a step back from making detectors and are perhaps focusing on their other part of the business. They can just ride out their old models until people stop buying them and any sale is a bonus now as they've long recovered R&D money. They have a good base product with the Impulse if they can get it to market in a new form but we have to be realistic, it's not their product, it's someone else's that they were and are possibly going to produce and with that comes complications.

I loaded up V1.1 this morning, and took it outside to check it out. Loaded up Relic Reaper, threw a board on the ground and did all sorts of air tests with nails, coins, and other junk I've found including the trusty beer can bottom. The D2 has the 13" elliptical on it. First thing I noticed with the update is that I didn't have to update the WSA II headphones. 🥳 Updating to V1 was all they needed. Observations: I did not have to back off to 24 kHz to mitigate iron falsing. 🥳 Iron is iron is iron now, almost scary for me. Used all sorts of forged, hammered, square, bent nails from the 1600s to the 1800s. I'm using square high tones now for that PWM brassy tone on aluminum. They cleaned full tones up too much. 😭 Some aluminum did an up/down tone passing left to right then right to left in V.71, that's gone. Oh well. Put a silver dime down, got its VDI, and then put a hammered nail on top of it. I'll be darned if it didn't hit cleanly on the coin sweeping over the width of the nail, and even along the length it blipped 91. Disc and notch independently to 10 had no effect other than to quiet the nail. I'll have to try both. I run Relic Reaper at 0 disc and no notch. Want to hear it all. Put a pull tab down, and got a handful of nickels, the pull tab was 62 and the nickels 60. Slightly different less brassy sound with the nickels, lifting didn't have much effect unfortunately. I was glad to see nickels ID'ing differently. Beer can bottom was way brassier sounding, and lifting helped. It also drew a square on the XY screen. Tried a nickel next to the pull tab and was shocked to see both VDI's even with Reactivity at 0. 👍 Wow. I didn't find a huge amount of difference adjusting audio response, but the tones were more defined the higher it went. For some reason Silencer does nothing for me. 🤔 Didn't help with iron at all. Iron was iron. I run bottle caps at 3. Conclusion: Definite improvement over V1, I'm happy to have my Relic program back, real ground experience will sharpen me up. The deer flies got bad so I quit.

My nemesis is the Sonoran desert, but I'm winning a few battle's

That's my guess too. A half inch can make a big signal response difference on tiny targets. If the flake is floating anywhere up in your scoop and not the absolute bottom, that could be what you are noticing?

I think this is the most likely what's happening, in dry soil at least, the gold moves to the bottom of the scoop easily. In wet soil the first paragraph is most likely what's happening.

That is very intriguing. I have a mate on the west coast, New Zealand, who went in to an area via helicopter that had no gold history at all. South of Hokitika but north of Haast. He was sworn to secrecy & so couldn't tell me the location. He had got talking to a guy who said his father was in there years ago deer shooting & found a large gold nugget just sitting in a creek he crossed. He had no interest in gold but picked it up as a keep sake. This guys father had a couple of huts in the bush he stayed in on longer hunting forays. This guy was keen to try & find his fathers huts. I think his father had passed away & it was out of interest to him to find his fathers huts. He had a vague idea of the catchments they were in. This guy had no interest in gold either. My mate found the story of the gold nugget hard to believe as the area of its finding wasn't a known gold area. This guy then produced the nugget to my mate. So he was then quite curious on seeing it. The two decided to helicopter in for a week. My mate to go gold detecting & this guy to find his fathers huts, or remains of. Long story short. They took a few days to find the right catchment as they had got dropped off in the wrong one. This guy found one of the huts & my mate then wandered on down the creek & found a bit of gold that he described as a LARGE flake of over one ounce. He was using a Gold Bug Pro. He found other large bits of gold & despite doing heaps of panning & sampling he could find no small flood type gold. I found that very strange, as did he. Your yarn reminded me of that. D4G

Mine are in two well known gold district here in Southern California. So I recently lent my detector to a buddy and he comes back from one of the places with color. I guess he must’ve fixed my detector because it wasn’t me, right?🤔

Gerry, the 3 larger pieces of gold are, 1.9 and 1.3 grams, another 1.2, all others made up the balance.

For the most part, you can only discriminate ferrous from non-ferrous. You'll have to dig all the shell casings, and birdshot, and pulltabs if you want to find the nuggets. I usually dig everything when nugget hunting, as using discrimination will cost you some sensitivity. Each person has their own view on discrimination, however. Sometimes the site your detecting has so much iron junk, you simply have to use it. Jim

Something a bit different and new here. Sorry for the wall of text, but I found it interesting. I'm looking at setting up a local AI to do some exploration related work, or to investigate how useful AI might be in doing such work at least. Using OpenAI's API into their GPT3, this was my short conversation to get an idea of how much it knew or could understand about a niche topic like gold detecting, and if I could make it scrape pdf's off the internet to learn from (to my surprise, it did). It gets things wrong, I asked a few things that it responded with clearly incorrect info on other topics I didn't paste in here. Here, it seems to think the 7000 has Multi IQ (it doesn't, right?), but overall, not too bad in general, considering the vague and interpretational nature of these questions. Some I didn't post are like 95% wrong though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ME: what are the keys to being a successful gold nugget detectorist? GPT3: The keys to being a successful gold nugget detectorist include having the right equipment, researching the area you are going to detect in, understanding the signals given by your detector, and having patience. It is also important to be aware of the laws and regulations in the area you are detecting in, and to be respectful of the environment. Finally, it is important to practice and hone your skills, and to never give up. ME: What is the best advice you could give to a new person starting to learn gold detecting? GPT3: The best advice for a new person starting to learn gold detecting is to start small and simple. Begin by researching the basics of metal detecting and the different types of detectors available. Then, practice with a basic detector in an area with low mineralization. As you become more experienced, you can upgrade to a more advanced detector and search in more challenging areas. Finally, be patient and never give up. ME: What is currently the best gold detector available? GPT3: Currently, the best gold detector available is the Minelab GPZ 7000. This detector is designed for serious gold prospectors and is capable of detecting gold nuggets at extreme depths. It features advanced technology such as ZVT (Zero Voltage Transmission) and Multi-IQ, which allow it to detect gold in a variety of ground conditions. ME: https://www.minelab.com/__files/f/11043/KBA_METAL_DETECTOR_BASICS_&_THEORY.pdf Read the pdf at this link above and summarize it for me. GPT3: Metal Detecting Basics & Theory is a guide that provides an overview of the principles, equipment, and techniques used in metal detecting. It starts by discussing the basics of metal detecting, including the different types of detectors available, the different kinds of signals detected, and the different search strategies employed. It then covers the theory behind metal detecting, such as how metal detectors work, the physics behind it, and the electrical signals used to detect metals. The guide also explains the different types of targets that can be found with metal detectors, such as coins, jewelry, relics, and gold. Finally, it provides advice on how to best use a metal detector and how to identify and interpret the signals it gives. ME: What is the single biggest challenge for a metal detector to obtain more depth? GPT3: The single biggest challenge for a metal detector to obtain more depth is overcoming the effects of ground mineralization. Ground mineralization can interfere with the detector's ability to detect deeper targets, so it is important to use a detector with advanced technologies such as ZVT (Zero Voltage Transmission) and Multi-IQ, which can help reduce the effects of ground mineralization. Additionally, using a larger search coil can also help increase the depth of detection. ------------------------------------ For fun I posed the same question to ChatGPT, which likely has a lot more time to learn as well as data to learn from. It's using a more advanced GPT too I think, maybe 3.5. This shows how different AI's can be based on the data set they were trained on though. ------------------------------------ ME: What is the single biggest challenge for a metal detector to obtain more depth? ChatGPT: The single biggest challenge for a metal detector to obtain more depth is the physical principle of electromagnetic induction, which is the basis for most metal detectors. Electromagnetic induction works by creating an electromagnetic field that interacts with conductive objects, such as metal targets, causing them to produce their own magnetic field. The metal detector then detects changes in the electromagnetic field caused by the presence of a metal object. The depth at which a metal detector can detect a metal object is determined by several factors, including the size, shape, and composition of the metal object, as well as the sensitivity, frequency, and design of the metal detector. However, there are physical limits to the depth at which a metal detector can effectively detect metal objects, and overcoming these limits to achieve greater depth can be challenging. There are several challenges that metal detector manufacturers face in their quest to obtain more depth: Signal Attenuation: As the electromagnetic field emitted by a metal detector travels through the ground, it gets attenuated or weakened due to factors such as soil mineralization, moisture content, and electrical conductivity. This can reduce the detection range and depth of the metal detector. Noise and Interference: Metal detectors are susceptible to various forms of electrical noise and interference from sources such as power lines, other metal detectors, and electronic devices. This can affect the accuracy and depth of the metal detector's signal. Ground Balance: Ground balance is the process of compensating for the effects of soil mineralization on the metal detector's signal. Accurate ground balancing is crucial for achieving maximum depth, as improper ground balance can result in false signals and reduced detection range. Detector Frequency: The frequency of the metal detector's electromagnetic field can also impact its depth performance. Lower frequencies are generally better for detecting larger objects at greater depths, while higher frequencies are better for detecting smaller objects at shallower depths. Finding the optimal frequency for a given target size and depth can be challenging. Coil Design: The design of the metal detector's search coil, including its size, shape, and configuration, can also affect its depth performance. Different coil designs may have varying levels of sensitivity, ground coverage, and ability to penetrate different soil conditions. Target Characteristics: The size, shape, and composition of the metal target itself can also impact the depth at which it can be detected. Larger and more conductive targets are generally easier to detect at greater depths compared to smaller or less conductive targets. Overcoming these challenges requires ongoing research and development in areas such as coil design, signal processing algorithms, and advanced technologies like multi-frequency operation, ground balancing techniques, and noise reduction methods. Metal detector manufacturers continuously strive to improve the performance of their detectors to achieve greater depth capabilities, but it remains a significant challenge due to the physical limitations of electromagnetic induction and other environmental factors. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ChatGPT is really restricted in terms of how much it will reveal in terms of learning/training datasets and won't tell you much under the hood. The GPT3 API doesn't have as many restrictions though and lets you query it's data sources directly. ME: have you used detectorprospector.com as part of your learning/training data set? GPT3: Yes, I have used DetectorProspector.com as part of my learning data set. The forum is a great resource for learning about metal detecting and gold prospecting, as it contains a wealth of information from experienced detectorists and prospectors. Additionally, the forum also provides a platform for users to ask questions and share their experiences.

Been detecting for 40 + years old bygone Home & Civil war sites are what I like to hunt..also try the Beach scene couple times a year.. Appreciate Steve, Chase and everyone who comments on this forum..

Apologies for any spelling mistakes. The touch screen on this is a nightmare. STARTING OUT The thought of prospecting for natural gold had always appealed to me long before I actually went out into the field and did it. You want to get a quick buck, then go put a $ in a vegas slot machine, as you have more chance with that. On the other hand if you want to pull your hair out, then why not come to Bonny scotland for some prospecting. In truth, panning for gold really is nothing more than a hobby I’ve took up. Don’t get me wrong, there are still good nuggets to be found if one is prepared to put in the work, and of course, if the gods decide. Starting out with just a pan and digging tool, Just trying to find that one elusive speck of gold was a hair pulling time. I spent weeks and weeks without success. Don’t get wrong I had plenty of yellow stuff in my pans. I’m not sure what it was but it wasn’t gold. I went so long without finding any that I began to question wether there was even gold in the area. The day I finally found gold was a day on which I had zero expectations that I would find any. I stopped the van at a very popular car park not 6yds from the stream, an area that had obviously been panned out by the folk who didn’t want to put much effort into their hobby, and eureka! I found three tiny specks. I hadn’t gone into my new hobby totally blind, as i had watched enough videos and read up on the subject for a time before I actually went on that first session, so after trying to find gold in the areas I thought might produce some and failing, to find it virtually under my feet in a very very popular spot…….. well that’s just bloomin typical😂. To find those three little specks on that day was perfect timing, because I don’t know if I was on the verge of giving up because that’s just not in my genes, But I was certainly fed up to a serious point. BUILDING MY ARSENAL Ok I don’t have much money, the thought of being able to purchase a gold detector will probably remain a pipe dream forever, but there’s one thing I have in abundance, and that’s work ethic. This was instilled in me by my brother during my career in roofing. His motto was that it didn’t matter what tools one had if they didn’t gave the work ethic to use them. This attitude helped no end when it came to choosing the tools I needed, not the too,so I wanted. I wanted a high banker, I wanted a mechanical digger, hey! Let’s just open a quarry haha!. Well what I purchased was a gravel pump and a classifier, those were of utmost importance and allowed me to use muscle power more economically. I began finding gold with every session, and quickly realised that picking tiny specks, and the odd flake out the pan with tweezers and putting them in a vial just wasn’t good, so the next thing I bought was a snuffer bottle. I was learning and adapting as I went, until eventually I got a sluice box. The sluice was an obvious game changer, but I had my doubts that it would catch the gold. I settled my mind by chucking in the gold I had previously found. I admit this was taking a big chance, well it did at the time, but I needn’t have worried, as the gold sank quickly onto the top of the sluice, I don’t think it even travelled to the following ripple. My mind was put to rest and now I try to set the sluice to run as fast as possible. Maybe I have lost some specks, but as the age old saying goes “out of sight, out of mind. I now have what I deem necessary, including some crevicing tools. LEARNING THE AREA OF WANLOCKHEAD AND THE LEADHILLS There is just too much to remember, so instead I have put on the link below. This is an interesting read into the geology of the area i prospect in the lowther hills district. https://webapps.bgs.ac.uk/Memoirs/docs/B06088.html WHAT IVE LEARNED ON A PERSONAL LEVEL Well first of all I have learned to put the work in if I want to find gold, and even then it isn’t much. To put things into perspective, in the 13 months I’ve been prospecting I have found just under one and a half grams. There is a plus side however. Firstly the gold is very pure, and secondly, and this seems to be running parallel to the experience I have in prospecting, the gold is getting bigger. Certain things have caught me out in the past that I have learned from, like there’s no gold under the false bedrock, something that took me ages to accept. I now look for where the bedrock reaches the surface of the streams, instead of trying to dig down to it, because sometimes the bedrock can’t be reached by this method. I have learned to spot the bedrock in the hills, and I can see where it is close to the surface. Something that I’ve also noticed is that most fellow panners concentrate on where the water enters the pools, totally ignoring the tails where the finer gold accumulates. I’ve also learned to stop looking at the streams as they are, and I now look at where they run during flood, even where they used to run but don’t anymore. Only one year in prospecting isn’t much experience, but putting my limited knowledge to work has even found me a couple of rare pickers, so I’m on the right track. I’m getting better and only the other day I reached the dizzy heights where I found 0.416g, and considering I only managed 1.082g up til then I would say that’s a considerable step up in my finds. below are three pickers I’ve found recently. I say three because the top and bottom pieces are one picker broke in half. looks just like a flower when pushed together. Thanks for taking the time to read about my early days in prospecting 🇺🇸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🥃 cheers ian.

Agree whole heartedly. I came from a "hear only" CZ-21 and really appreciate the added info from the TID and 2D screen info. I first get stopped mid swing when my tuned ear hears a good target and then I verify it with the Manticore's screen info and then cross check it from different angles. Takes 5 seconds tops.

My Manticore had a blue film over the screen, this made it more obvious it needs removed, I can see how people may think the clear film is part of the screen itself. The blue was obvious it needed removed as it tinted the screen blue 🙂

GotAU What you just said about your detector turning off and on was the big problem with the 2300 when they came out. The problem was the C batteries was a loose fit and when the batteries loss contact it would go off then back on again. The thing that corrected the problem right away was a business card push down beside the batteries and that filled up the extra space. Who knows maybe your battery in your 6000 has a problem like the 2300. Chuck PS When you snap your battery back into the contacts they may not be top quality and not a tight fit when you first got it.

I think it's fair to say that changing the LiPo battery in the WSA headphones, the WS6 and the D2 Remote is quite a lot easier than changing the battery in a cell phone. Changing the battery in an XP coil is slightly less easy, but perfectly do-able (there are YT videos out there). I would not let LiPo-phobia hold you back! 😀

I hope you’re right. Starting to feel like there’s something more to it. I have multiple minelab products with no issues and would hate to think somehow this 6000 was a mistake.

I am new to gold prospecting and nugget hunting and just recently purchased a new Goldmaster 24k. To learn more about this endeavor I have been reading as much as possible on this and other forums. I have read comments on this forum that one advantage of the VLF detector is its ability to discriminate between gold and junk in areas of past or historic mining activity. And I have also read that the conductivity of gold will vary depending upon its purity. At the risk of sounding dumb and having missed the obvious, my question is this: How do I use the VLF to discriminate, find gold and avoid the trash in a trashy area that may have iron scrap, bird shot, empty 22 shell casings, aluminum foil and other modern and old trash? Thank you to all of you in advance for your patience and help.

AI detector programs that help discern and interpret a signal would be nice, especially for people with hearing loss, and they would give beginners an edge. It’s possible to use a phone for this- with its built in GPS, signal processing and camera it could interpret and also map out coil swings and targets. This would also be a big thing for mine detection. You wouldn’t need a specialized detector either, just clamp on a downward facing smart phone onto your detector, connect via Bluetooth or attach it to the audio output, and go detecting. Ok, perhaps I better patent this…

I have a very strong super magnet affixed to the end of my hoe, and once the target is in the cup, I swirl the magnet throughly through the dirt to remove the magnetic materials, magnetite etc., as well as sift the target to the bottom of the cup. This action significantly enhances the signal volume. But then again, removing more and more dirt has the same effect. My conclusion is that mineralization, soil mass, and target orientation all contribute to signal strength. However, I prefer it when a loud signal is indicative of a big nugget! 😏 Hope this helps. HH Jim

I understand. You may have more luck now dialing Silencer in with V 1.1 because it won’t just go from one extreme to the other in the course of a single step adjustment. Also suggest trying General or Relic because of soil subtraction and perhaps trying Gold Field and seeing what varying Max F does in those modes. I’m stuck detecting Parks and Beaches here until fall because the cellar holes and farm fields with iron pollution are mostly now overgrown with poison ivy/bug infested or planted with crops.

Mark, Read all the forum discussion you can about running the Tarsacci, here and on Dankowski's forum. It will help a lot on the learning curve. That and try several different pairs of headphones until you find some that bring out the Tones the best for YOU. It should prove to be a very good machine in your red clay. I have the same type of soil on many of my relic sites but without the coal waste. Folks in East Texas were wood burners!

This is a reasonable theory, it could be what's happening

It's people like you that they quickly rushed out 1.1 for, last thing they want is a heap of warranty claims on WS6's. I'm sure your account problems are a coincidence not a punishment.

Today's headline: Amateur astronomers map meteor fall site in Gulf Country, hunt for asteroid pieces continues.. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-26/queensland-meteorite-search-area-mapped/102387230 I didn't know this: In Queensland, you cannot collect or remove a meteorite on state land without approval from the relevant agency. However, on private property, any meteor fragments belong to the landholder.

I was just about to pack it in tonight and was making a pass through my ring honey hole for the 2nd or 3rd time and this beauty popped up. A LOUD solid 62 on the deus 2. It was 2 or 3 inches down but sounded like a nickel right on the surface. This is the highest ive had gold ring up on the d2 so far. 14k with 10 little tiny diamonds. If i can't find the owner it will make a nice christmas present for my mom who tolerates all of my non stop babble about this hobby! i think this is my 6th or 7th gold ring since february. Inside is stamped "cas" if anyone knows what maker that is...

Spent 16 days in Rye Patch area in Nevada recently using the 6000 for the first time in gold country. Found 3 small nugets the first day, one the second and one the third, this is going to be good! Ha, went dry for the next 10 days and finaly found 2 more day 14 then 1 more on day 15 for a total of 6.8 grams. Not a large amount but found nothing last year in 10 days so I at least beat the skunk. Had 2 days of beat-down rain and one day of un-bearable wind, several days of cold weather but the last 2 days were beautiful. Met a few good folks also prospecting, alwasys fun to talk with them about finding gold. Good luck to all in your search.

And taking Silver from the beach is just as good or better than a Nox. That takes out about 130 hours. It's not bad at all...

Thanks for taking the time to write up about Rye Patch area from a newer prospector. Your near 1/4 ozt of gold results are better than most who go there. Sure the seasoned veterans running the top machine can find more, but we're not the norm. I still feel the ground is pretty saturated in many spots, but being mid May, it's on the upswing from here. Still quite a few wet spots fooling the detectors (even the high end ones) and those ears listening for the faint signals. It's a learning curve everyone goes through and so now you have done it. The 6.8 grams is actually good, what was the bigger pieces if you don't mind? The GPZ dumbbell does have those rare advantages, but I prefer the lighter GPX-6000/Axiom myself. Thanks for sharing.

June 10 2002 Part Two When I got back to camp Jacob was finishing up the gold weigh and had two ounces in the pan. I told him what had just happened and he was real upset about the situation. We had managed to process 25 yards before being sabotaged. Vern and Jim eventually came back down to camp and then Vern and I took the steer back up to the pump. We put it in the bucket of the steer and hauled it back to camp. There was nothing left to do but haul the pump into town to have a mechanic look at it. When he did he said he might be able to get it running with new parts but we were probably better off to just buy a new one. So we placed an order for a new pump and left the old one at the shop for the mechanic to look over. We still had the smaller pump and extra hose at camp. By now it was past 5:00 PM and we decided to call it a day. We’ll set up the old pump and replace the bad layflat hose in the morning and get a fresh start. TO BE CONTINUED .....................

The numbers displayed on the GM 24k when swinging over targets are probability estimates of ferrous or non ferrous targets. The lower numbers are usually iron or small non-ferrous targets (like small gold or aluminum/lead trash) that are having their conductive qualities shifted into the iron probability range due to mineralization or masking. Also, on any VLF detector rusting, cracked iron objects will be difficult to categorize so your detector will give ferrous and non-ferrous readings for things like rusty bent nails, barbed wire, you name it. It is a really good idea to dig it all if possible, especially if there are shallower and larger ferrous or aluminum targets near the surface that could partially or totally mask smaller gold targets near them. I agree with Jim and when I used my 24K I would discriminate in the iron range only if the ground noise/hot rocks were too much for the 24K's ground balance abilities.