Steve Herschbach

That’s some really nice looking gold JP. People get all excited over the larger nuggets but I have found it easier to sell gold like that at higher prices simply because they are more affordable for more people. Long story short that’s the kind of gold I love having piles of - good for you! 👍🏼

I can get a VLF to work anywhere, but the reality in bad ground is you are getting 50% or less of their possible depth in milder ground. You also have to really know your machine well to work halfway effectively in the worst ground. Or you can get a SDC 2300 and just turn it on and go detecting, almost no knowledge or expertise required. It will cut though hot rocks and mineralization that will stop the best VLF, and will get small gold under those conditions better than possibly any other PI made. The SDC will detect gold as small as most 19 kHz VLF gold detectors but under conditions where those detectors are ineffective. And though it has the reputation as a small gold machine, it will punch quite deep in larger gold, as deep as an 8” mono coil will allow. If it was not for the expense the SDC 2300 is the perfect beginners machine for nugget detecting. Easy to operate, and although it makes you dig everything, many people would say you should be doing exactly that anyway on any decent gold location.

https://www.smartcycleguide.com/motorcycles-for-sale/rokon

I‘ve not run into ground yet where I have not been able to get my Equinox to make me as happy as a VLF can. Truly though once you get used to something like the SDC a VLF seems a waste of time. The SDC will have you digging every bit of trash though so no perfect answers. Hopefully we will get SDC type performance in a regular detector housing someday. A SDC configured like the 24K with coil set to match... there I go, dreaming again!

Welcome to the forum!

Really ground for a SDC 2300 as there are places where a VLF simply will not satisfy. You have to dumb them down so much to deal with the ground you end up spitting in the wind. I can't help you with the 24K tone question, but in ground like that first thing I'd do is ditch the concentric for a DD, preferably the small one.

Many “real” metal detectors run an 8” coil or less, making this more a handheld metal detector than a pinpointer.

I toyed with setting up my own server but poor internet connection at home was first problem, the other is my not wanting to deal with it. My hosted server is someplace on the east coast I think. I’ve not even bothered to look where Pair has it after the last move. The sad part is many website owners are paying for link spam! When you pay that outfit promising to boost your Google ranking, some do it by trying to place links to your site. Too much bother to ask or negotiate so that sometimes gets farmed out to the spammers, especially if you are paying some bottom dollar outfit who contacted you via email.

Yup, Equinox or Vanquish.

No, it is not Minelab’s issue, because this thread is not about the Minelab included headphones, it is about Miccus aftermarket headphones. The current Miccus version is different than what Minelab includes with Equinox or sells separately. There is no problem with the Minelab supplied headphone. Not in the slightest, life is good in my world, thanks for asking. Best wishes for you and yours.

It can’t work. Vanquish is Bluetooth only, and WM08 is Minelab proprietary WiStream technology, not Bluetooth.

Thanks, but it’s the members that make the place what it is, not me. The main goal on these forums is not volume, but quality. All I do is insist on keeping discussions on topic and respectful. Members attracted by those ground rules in turn produce a higher level of discussion, or so it would appear from results so far.

There are solutions for that being a problem, including letting people who can’t read pay the price. If that’s Whites excuse for failing to innovate then all hope for them is lost.

There has to be more to it than that because the official Bluetooth spec is backwards compatible. The difference between 4.2 and 5.0 is not enough alone to be the cause of the issue. More perplexing is it works for some people and not others. Don't know, but as with many new technologies some of this stuff is a bit of a crapshoot. I'm still just using my Minelab supplied phones with no issues.

Absolutely! The forum volume is such I don’t watch every post, just the newer members. Bottom line if anybody sees a post with a link to a site totally unrelated to the thread, please use the report post button. You kind of have to look for it and on some devices have to click on the post to get it to appear. Thanks! Edit: the Report function has moved to the post menu in upper right, denoted by “ ... “

I was disappointed when White’s passed on the opportunity to boost the battery power on the TDI SL Special Edition back up to what it used to be on the TDI Pro. It was considered but apparently they feel the higher power results in an unacceptably higher failure rate. The old 14.4 volt TDIs did have a lot of returns under warranty as I took advantage of a near endless supply of factory refurbished units when I was a dealer. You would think the solution would be to upgrade whatever components were needed to alleviate that issue, but apparently White’s does not think it worth the investment. Can’t take that much as plenty of people do the power boost on their own and you almost never hear of ill effects by doing so. Don’t know, but it is a shame White’s decided to go safe with TDI and downgrade it from what it used to be instead of taking it to the next level. Kudos though for keeping it light and affordable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gila_monster “The Gila monster (Heloderma suspectum, /ˈhiːlə/ HEE-lə) is a species of venomous lizard native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexican state of Sonora. A heavy, typically slow-moving lizard, up to 60 cm (2.0 ft) long, the Gila monster is the only venomous lizard native to the United States and one of only two known species of venomous lizards in North America, the other being its close relative, the Mexican beaded lizard (H. horridum). Although the Gila monster is venomous, its sluggish nature means it represents little threat to humans. However, it has acquired a fearsome reputation, and is sometimes killed despite being protected by state law in Arizona.”

Rokon is a two wheel drive off-road vehicle, I used to be a dealer for them in Alaska. https://www.rokon.com

Hard lesson Steve but I’m glad you did not break something or worse to learn it. No matter how we try to ignore age it does sneak up, requiring a downshift in expectations about what can be expected of our once young bodies. I’ve come to accept my hardcore prospecting days are behind me but that’s just fine, I got my best shots in. A two seater for you and more time with your girlfriend seems a better option than broken bones!

If the weight is an issue and you don’t need waterproof go 24K. At 3.3 lbs perfectly balanced I’d rather swing it than the lighter but nose heavy Deus. White’s is missing a bet not even mentioning jewelry detecting in their promo material, especially for freshwater detecting.

It used to be blocking spammers was easy since most were automated bots. Unfortunately most now are real people. They used to be easy to spot due to poor English. So they took to copying real posts and posting them as their own. The tip off always comes in the form of links to some totally unrelated site. They now try and get overlooked by joining and posting for a week or two, usually innocuous posts. Then, they later take advantage of the forum edit function that allows you to edit your own posts to modify their old posts to include the stupid spam links. What they unfortunately do not know is I am always lurking and have a nose for this sort of stuff, so their efforts always go to waste. I not only ban them and delete all their content but add them to the Invision distributed spam list so they get nailed elsewhere. But there is always another one who does not know they are wasting their time here so it never ends. Long story short I have limited the edit function to 30 days after posting, so you can edit your own posts now for a month, which I think is good enough, but no more after that. Be aware though these people are hitting the forum weekly, and I do catch them, so don't be surprised if every now and then an entire thread or portion of thread disappears as I nuke these people. At this time however they are only a mild annoyance so I don't think I have to do anything more about the issue for now.

I have a Falcon and it will detect tinier gold than any of my detectors, but only at about an inch and in a vary narrow area. It is more a probe than a detector. If the gold gets any size to it the detectors pull ahead rapidly.

The ability of a detector to find gold is based on the size of a single mass of gold. A lot of dispersed small gold is hard or impossible to detect. Depending on what you mean by “very small gold veins that are inside the quartz rocks” there may be no metal detector that will do the job. At best, the range will be inches or fractions of inches. There is no substantial difference between the ability of the White’s 24K or Gold Monster to detect small gold veins in quartz rock. Pick one and it will do the job about as well as the other. In general the Gold Monster is for people who want as few controls as possible, while the 24K offers more controls and a larger selection of accessory coils for advanced detectorists.

I apologize for running this Apex thread off the rails pontificating about business. It was what I did and I was good at it, but I’m not here to teach business 101.