Steve Herschbach

Congratulations Hugh on a well earned and very skillful find! I suspect most coils that pass over a $1 gold coin and just keep going.

If you mean can you open it and charge them separately.... not normally. It’s a sealed pack. However, it can be opened... see the video below about the NiCad pack. It does use separate cells internally, but they are wired together. Doing anything with them would require some cutting and soldering.

The carbon fiber rod is a vast improvement over the one that comes with the Simplex, and I’d consider it almost a necessity for anyone running larger coils on the Simplex. Or any coil for that matter. I am not a fan of any wiggle or flex in a rod assembly. It has to be rock solid, and the stock lower rod has a little too much flex for my liking.

For others who might be reading, you do have to plug the Z-Lynk transmitter into whatever detector you are using. Minelab does not make the Garrett system, and there is no reason they would sell Garrett accessories. Garrett themselves sells the appropriate cable to connect to a 1/4” headphone outlet. You would then need the proper 1/8” to 1/4” adapter to plug into the Equinox. The wrong adapter will provide no sound in one or both ears. Minelab sells an expensive Equinox to 1/4” adapter cable. There are inexpensive adapters that might work, but they must fit into the recessed 1/8” socket on the Equinox, and must be wired properly so that the external speaker will shut off and sound delivers properly to both ears. Garrett WRT to 1/4” cable.... Minelab Equinox to 1/4” cable 3.5mm (1/8-inch) to 6.35mm (1/4-inch) Part No. 3011-0369

The coils on the 24K and GMX are very knock resistant. If it is not a loose cable or some other issue like EMI, then service may be required. Though having two coils that do it is concerning. Usually its just the coil, but the odds of having two bad coils is low, so there may be an issue with the detector itself.

Well, in my case it's more about my future than the future of detecting. The old body is going to wear out before I run out of gold nuggets, coins, and jewelry to dig. I do think we have hit a sort of "peak detecting" phase, but I am sure there will be no lack of detecting opportunities in the future. It will probably be a smaller, more hard core group than we have now, however, as easy finds will deplete to the point that only the truly dedicated will stick with it.

Please do not worry about stuff like that or whether threads say on topic, etc. That's all just forum housecleaning and on me due to a desire to have the subjects be searchable in the future. Single topics with descriptive titles go a long way to making that work well, but it's not something I want anyone but me to worry about. It's easy to rename threads, move them, split them.... whatever. Main thing is this is a great thread, so don't let housekeeping get in the way! In my opinion a specialized induction balance detector running at a single frequency can be optimized to do as well as an Equinox for depth on a specific range of targets. The best example being the high frequency dedicated gold nugget units. The beauty of multi is the across-the-board performance on all targets. Multi will also always have to edge for target id however due to more information being available that single frequency detectors simply do not have at their disposal. But when the going gets really rough, a high power PI or ZVT will outperform both Multi-IQ and single frequency to the point where if discrimination is not required, they are the obvious choice. Though this is a good place to mention the Tarsacci MDT 8000 as another option for those who need discrimination for the worst ground, as it may provide a good compromise for some people in those circumstances. What I have found though is that if I want maximum depth, I go straight to PI or ZVT, as intermediate steps always leave me going to a PI type unit eventually anyway. Assuming the location warrants it. I've never owned a detector that I can't get from a dealer in the U.S., which is very much because I often buy my detectors at cost from my old dealership. And I want U.S. service availability. The only reason I've not already tried a QED is a lack of U.S. support, combined with the feeling that I will get what I am looking for from Fisher or Minelab in 2021, so I am holding off. Another issue with the QED is it seems a work in progress still so waiting has benefits as the unit gets closer to some stage of completion. If for some reason both FT and ML disappoint, then QED is always there as a fallback position. When there is an official Fisher Impulse Gold and a Minelab GPX 6000 to compare to whatever the QED looks like at the time, I'll look the three over and chose one.

A few old models had a feature called “surface blanking.” It basically filtered out the strong signals, leaving the weak. It never found favor, perhaps because of how it worked or did not work. I never used one so I do not know how effective it was. But I’ve always had a desire to try one as it seems like it might be of some use. The only model I can think of off the top of my head that still has the feature is the Garrett GTI 2500. Garrett calls it “surface elimination.” From the GTI manual, page 43 - 44: Surface Elimination This Search Aid is for use where quantities of metallic trash are present on the surface or at shallow depths. This function eliminates detection of objects of all sizes to the specified depth. Use the MENU touchpad to display Surface Elim on the screen to turn on. It will be turned OFF at the factory settings. If you desire to use this Search Aid, press the (+) and (-) touchpads to set the desired elimination depth. This depth (to 4 inches beneath the coil) will be shown on the Upper Scale and on the Imaging Grid.

If somebody is so close to me that they can hear a pinpointer vibrate - they are way too close! I only ever use my pinpointer in vibrate mode, and have never had a person say they can hear it, let alone that it was too loud. It’s therefore a non-issue for me. But it’s not a bad idea either.

Multi-IQ has ground balancing algorithms built in, and so is more forgiving than most detectors. A lot of ground is mild enough the default setting works fine. However, a proper ground balance will always offer the best possible performance on any detector that offers the control. Both depth and target id may suffer from an improper ground balance.

I hope so - the Gold Monster could use a makeover. But I doubt it.

You say you wanted a GMZ but you bought a counterfeit instead, which means you do not have a GMZ. All you have a copy that may or may not perform as well as an original. Putting all the legal and moral questions aside, the reason for buying genuine product is to get genuine performance, and most counterfeiters don’t worry much about getting that part right. You are lucky it works at all.

Or just a weakness in a sourced component that quits randomly if you are unlucky enough to have one.

The less you invest in the hobby, the easier it is to quit. Most first time detectorists find out the hobby is boring for a lot of people. They got a cheap detector, gave it a go, and decided digging bottle caps is not as fun as it’s made out to be. This is doubly true when the detector is a gift, as is often the case with these inexpensive big box deals. Detectorists are a rare breed. You could probably give everyone in the country a free detector, and you’d not really see that much more activity out there.

There are no U.S. states that make detecting impossible, though within any state many areas are off limits. There are plenty of countries where metal detecting could land you in prison, but it’s not on my radar. I spend all my time thinking about where I can go, not where I can’t go. http://www.mdhtalk.org/articles/legal-to-detect/legal-to-detect.htm

It’s by design. I use as light a touch as possible, and I do not consider hardly anyone on this forum to be a griper. More like demanding users who in many cases are better detectorists than you or I. People reporting their honest experiences are not griping, and I value thoughtful critical commentary over salesmanship. What I see elsewhere is significant pushback against anyone saying anything remotely negative about the Apex. I think people should be listening to it, instead of being so intent on rebutting it. There is a balance to be had, and I do not want to suppress critical commentary. It just needs to be constructive and in the right place. It’s a balancing act, one I’ll never get right, but long story short, I’ll take a few “gripers” over none at all. I personally think the Apex is better than some users have made it out to be, but not as good as dealer interests would have us believe. I’m glad to hear you are feeling better! I have to admit age is slowing me down also.

PI detectors are like shotguns when it comes to frequency, and transmitted frequencies is a meaningless number. The 96 frequency thing was actually an in joke, with Garrett tweaking Minelab over it's reliance on transmitted frequency claims in it's marketing. The ATX does have ground tracking, and the TDI does not, but the ATX tracking is no big deal - I always left it off. But it is nice to have available as a fallback position for truly extreme ground. Personally I have lobbied for many years for an ATX circuit in a light weight, less expensive, dry land prospecting version. The ATX is actually the newer, more advanced circuit over the TDI, and has far more room to grow. The main improvement would simply be upgrading the circuit and battery to allow for more power. But the current housing is a fail for most gold prospectors. I'm not holding my breath, but the shakeup does offer me a glimmer of hope. The easier path for Garrett unfortunately is to just leave the ATX as is, and slide the TDI SL into the lineup as the lighter, less expensive PI.

thanks Jim, very kind of you! PM sent.

That's the challenge, getting the Equinox to mount to a larger diameter rod. Good job on the workaround!

When I did my review the AT Gold was very unique - a waterproof nugget detector! Now that’s not so rare, but Garrett did it first. It’s still a solid little detector though, and not surprising to me many prefer it over the AT Pro, as that’s the way I’d go also between the two.

Any attempt to go to the https://www.whiteselectronics.com/ website is now redirected to the Garrett website. We do not know if Garrett will maintain White's as a separate product lineup, but this is a tiny bit of evidence they may not. On the other hand, it may simply be that a redesign of the White's website is underway. But for now, the old White's website is gone.

This is a Garrett forum for people who like Garrett detectors, so they can learn about how to get the best out of them. If you want to compare brands, or just state your negative opinion of Garrett or it's products, please use the appropriate forums, like the Advice & Comparisons Forum. Thanks.

This forum allows threads to be tagged as a way to group and find similar threads cross multiple forums. Since the forum started, there have been numerous threads by people asking what the "best detector" is for various situations. Yet there was no tag linking all these opinions together. So I created the new "best detector" tag for these threads, hunted them down, and tagged them. All told we ended up with over four pages of links to these types of threads. There is lots of good info that gets brought up in these threads, so check it out..... best detector After this thread runs out of steam I will pin it to the top so new people will be able to see all that info before asking their own version of the question.

I'm sorry nobody replied.... I try to make sure that never happens, but some how this got past me. Probably because there is not much info here to go by. argyle seems to be advocating for a louder threshold sound. Most people run it faint. Not really anything different here other than an opinion on the volume of the threshold level. I run mine as faint as I can set it and still hear it. Turning it up higher tends to add a smoothing effect. That might or might not be beneficial depending on the ground. Long story short the question is a little vague so there is not much to say.

We get continual requests about advice on the "best detector" for various purposes. I have therefore created a new tag "best detector" that links all these together for easy review. Click below for a list. It is not relic specific, just any time a person asks about the "best detector for...." question. best detector