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Steve Herschbach

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  1. The DX-1 and it's siblings differ from regular pinpointers in that it they are actually a mini coil for the detector, with all the functions of the large coil... including target id. They work great and were pretty popular back in the day. Sun Ray Detector Electronics is proud to announce our new Invader™ series of aftermarket accessories for White's metal detectors! The new Sun Ray Invader DX-1 Target Probe has been developed to satisfy the pinpointing and retrieval needs of DFX/MXT and Matrix M-6 users. We have received many requests for in-line target probes by White's and other detector brand users for several years due to the popularity of our quality in-line probes for the Minelab Explorer and Sovereign/Elite. Now White's owners can enjoy the same benefits a quality Sun Ray in-line probe has to offer! FEATURES: Fully compatible with both DFX, MXT and Matrix M-6 models! The DX-1 is precision built to ensure peak performance on either model! Accurate "bulls eye" pinpointing on coin size targets up to 3"+ deep depending on detector used, settings, ground and moisture conditions! Light weight, waterproof/submersible 9" X 1" diameter probe mounts on top of upper shaft (which has been very popular among Explorer users). DX-1 probe and cable weigh approx. 6 oz. DX-1 switch box, connectors, cable and two probe clips, etc. weigh approx. 5 oz. - approx. 11 oz total! Optional box mount probe clip attachment available for those wishing to mount probe along side of detector control housing. While the DX-1 probe is waterproof the switch box is water resistant and must not be submersed. We use the same connectors as White's. DX-1 incorporates all of the same functions as the stock coil including accurate visual and audible target ID along with identical pinpoint functions! High quality custom made, durable probe and connector cable used for precision performance. Probe incorporates a very flexible heavy duty custom 30" straight cable with strain relief for "tangle free" operation. Quality high performance toggle switch used for peak performance! (Minimum 100,000 mechanical life operation-as described in manufacturer's specs) Toggle switch shuts off coil as it turns probe on and vise versa. Coil and probe are never on at the same time. DX-1 switch box is conveniently mounted on detector pole attachment in a neutral position (for both right and left hand users) and to prevent toggle from being accidentally switched or bumped by user or damaged by tree limbs, brush, etc. if switch box is brushed or hit during detecting. No external buzzers, vibrators or lights are needed as all target responses are heard clearly through your detector headphones! No extra batteries required as the DX-1 utilizes the detectors power source. Complete installation & operation instructions included. FULL 12 MONTH WARRANTY!!
  2. Looking at the way she is dressed I was figuring yeah, right. But every step of what she is doing is absolutely authentic, in fact this is one of the better videos I have ever seen that shows the hardrock process from beginning to end. Many a stamp mill in this country was doing the same thing in 1900, just on a larger scale. The lack of eye protection though is one thing but by far not the real problem. That ore looks like the real deal, almost pure sulphides, I'd say very high in arsenopyrite content. Breathing both the dust and fumes produced in smelting will mean that pretty lady is facing an early death from lung disease or heavy metal poisoning if she in reality is doing it like that without breathing protection. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt that both the dress and lack of safety equipment is predicated on the demands of looking pretty for the video. If she is the pro she appears to be, and something about the way she is going about the business kind of tells me she is, she is also probably wise enough to be outfitted more appropriately when off camera. A genuinely pleasant surprise from what I expected. Thanks for posting John.
  3. Actually to be covered by U.S. law in most jurisdictions you never need to register any product for warranty. In almost all cases proof of original purchase date is all you need, receipt, credit card slip, copy of online billing. Outfits that imply you need to fill out registration information are at root usually looking for marketing information. So frankly no matter what anyone says, in the U.S. at least always keep the purchase receipt for any product you buy where you might want warranty. I ran a warranty department so I am not just giving a general opinion on this, these are facts. And if Nokta tried to deny me six months of warranty because the unit sat on a dealer shelf for six months before sale after date of manufacture, I promise you they would be honoring the warranty based on my purchase date as confirmed by the purchase receipt. To flip this what Nokta is really trying to say is that they will not deny you warranty just because you do not have a receipt, and most good companies would not either. If the manufacture date is obviously within limits, they would be crazy not to. In fact I have seen numerous instance of companies covering out of warranty product under warranty if the issue is glaringly a defect of manufacture. But again, and I can't overemphasize this enough, always keep a copy of or get a copy of the original proof of purchase. Finally, in the case of transferable warranty, if you want it, you had better get a copy of the original purchase receipt from the seller whenever possible. If it is a new model only made in the last year they will probably cover it anyway, but good habits are good habits. Again, I ran a warranty department. If you came in with the purchase receipt we were on track in minutes. Lack of that receipt results in delays at best and possible stonewalling at worst.
  4. I found over a pound of gold in three days running a Gold Bug 2 with a 14" coil. I did it by running in disc mode exclusively and covering ground fast swinging like a demon. The absolute epitome of cherry picking the ground and it worked. There are still places in Alaska at least where such a strategy would pay off though I have to admit these days it would be an Equinox 800 with 15"x12" coil as my weapon of choice. Steve shows off gold found at Ganes Creek over Memorial Day weekend Close up of the gold nuggets and specimens from Ganes Creek
  5. Of course the 10" has its place as does the 14” coil. It just depends on the ground mineralization and the miles to be covered. Try covering 5 miles in a day with a 6” coil looking for large gold. Use the right tool for the job at hand, and that chart is a good guide as to what to use depending on what you are looking for. You really want to give up 40% of your depth on 1 ounce nuggets using a 6” coil when you should be running a 14”? And before anyone says they would be running a PI if they were looking for 1 ounce nuggets - that was not the question. The question is how to get the best use out of a Gold Bug 2, and fact is all the coils have a time and place. The Gold Bug 2 only finds small gold kind of like the GPX 6000 only finds small gold. Is the 10" worth it depends on the ground you are going to hunt and nothing else. If you are looking to cover some ground and there is any chance at all of 1 gram or larger nuggets, than absolutely, yes, I'd be running the 10" coil. Or larger...... Steve with 4.95 ounce nugget found with GB2 14" Steve with 14 dwt nugget Another nugget Jeff Reed using Gold Bug 2 14" at Ganes Creek John Pulling with gold found at Ganes Creek Steve with "Bulldog Nugget" Steve with 3 ounce specimen
  6. Oh, you are going to pull the main housing apart? I’ll check that also. https://fccid.io/DBDZLYNK23533X/Internal-Photos/Internal-Photos-6263691 Edit - yes, they are the same size as the external battery pack screws.
  7. I know a lot of what I call "real miners." Alaska still has plenty of small placer mining operations, many of them family operations. Or serious gold dredgers. Almost to a person they consider metal detecting for a gold a complete waste of time. They have a family to feed and bills to pay and no time for toys. In the world of gold mining metal detectors are toys. Useful toys at times perhaps, but still toys. Me on my favorite mining tool....
  8. It just depends on the rock type. There are no magic settings - the ones referenced at the start of this thread are a best starting place. But in the end the detector can only do what it can do and to be honest treasure hunters tend to expect too much. A better coil would no doubt help as coil tech advanced a lot after the 5000 came out. And hopefully you did not buy one of the counterfeit GPX 5000 detectors that are extremely common these days. Minelab GPX 5000 Advanced Settings Guide
  9. The MS-3 has integrated WR1 and looks like swapping to a better speaker set would be pretty easy for anyone with minimal electronics skill. https://md-hunter.com/opening-the-garrett-ms-3-wireless-headphones/ Of course the other issue with the MS-3 is intermittent drop out which is largely alleviated with the WR1 module since you can place the WR1 for best reception. So now we pull module and battery out of MS-3 and make our own WR1.
  10. OK I remembered I got a set of screwdrivers for eyeglasses and there is a tiny torx in the set that works - but it has no size marked on it. I'm trying to find where I ordered them now to see if I can figure it out. Edit - found it. This is the driver I got and it is the T5 bit that works: https://amzn.to/430OzNA
  11. What is interesting is I get the same sound quality plugged into the WR1 as I do plugged in directly, so Z-Lynk itself has the bandwidth to carry high quality audio. I assume the Ms-2 and Ms-3 are simply using a lower quality speaker than the Sun Ray, Gray Ghost, Killer Bee etc but then those all do cost twice as much or more.
  12. You mean for the external battery pack? Mine was still in the wrapper as I never have needed it, but pulled it out to look. OMG Garrett, could you not find a smaller torx screw? I have a set of jewelers screwdrivers but it has no torx in it. My torx set sure does not go that small. Must measure in microns! Sorry, I tried.
  13. Like Andy said rain resistant and fully submersible to pod if you want to wade, but not fully dunkable. I'd use mine in pouring rain with no cover without concern. I'm not a fan of the Garrett phones - too spoiled by high end models. The Garrett are ok and probably fine for lots of people but I have hearing loss and really need high quality sound and dual volume controls. So while the Axiom does come with wireless phones I use either my Sun Ray Pro Gold directly plugged in or with the WR-1 receiver. But even better news is the external speaker is so good and with enough volume that in most locations these days I use no headphones at all. The Sun Rays only come out if it gets windy or I'm real close to other people.
  14. There is actually something satisfying about recovering an incredibly tiny bit of gold, kind of a "I can't believe I found something that small" sort of thing. It does take some proficiency to be good at it. Efficiency of recovery with a scoop is as important as the finding - many people leave little bits after they find them because they can't find them! "It's not worth it" really means "I've been trying to find that bit for ten minutes now - I give up!" It is not worth ten minutes but if you get it down to a minute now we are talking. There are 480 grains per Troy ounce and at US$2082.00 right now that is $4.38 gold. If you are hot you can hit gold to 1/10th grain (0.0064 gram) and even 1/10th grain is worth almost a half dollar. Would you leave a half dollar lay if you saw one? No? Me either. Some Gold Bug 2 gold 28 little guys. The largest bit, in the lower right hand corner, weighs 6 grains. The smallest is about 1/10th grain. The total weight is 41.7 grains, or 2.7 grams.
  15. Oh, there is plenty of that here!! 2019 GPZ 8000 Rumors People predicting with certainty it was coming in 2020 2024 And Still Waiting For GPZ 8000 Every new detector.... "it's not a GPZ 7000 replacement so it's junk" Lots of people just barely hanging on waiting for the next magic wand. Leaked photo of GPZ 8000 prototype:
  16. You register your Nokta detector online. All you really need is the receipt, but lacking that or registration you could lose a lot of warranty if you buy a detector that has been on a dealer shelf for a long time. So do take the time to register. https://www.noktadetectors.com/product-registration/ From https://destinationgolddetectors.com/blogs/news/nokta-warranty-update: OCTOBER 9, 2020 Register Your New Nokta Detector Dear Makro Nokta Customer, this is to inform you that we are no longer including warranty cards in the Nokta Makro product packages. As a customers you do not need the warranty card to make a claim. You can register their product online at: https://www.noktadetectors.com/product-registration/ If the product is not registered, the warranty starts with the purchase date if you have the receipt. If not, the warranty starts from the date of shipment from factory given that the serial number is provided. Nokta Makro Warranty Policy can be found through the link below: https://www.noktadetectors.com/warranty-policy/
  17. Wow Ron, we have the exact opposite outlook on that. My goal my whole life was to work super hard and be super frugal to hasten the day when I no longer had to do either. I was the hardest working lazy person you would have ever met. Now I'm just lazy and loving it.
  18. I have been detecting with people who claim that small gold is too small for them. Yet if I am digging small bits with a detector and their detector can’t find those bits, I’ve never seen a person yet that was happy about that. The question is, do you want to be finding gold or not? I’ve dug as many as 100 of those tiny bits in a day with a Gold Bug 2 and you know what, they add up. Plus, they keep you going until a larger nugget comes along. People who are finding nothing tend to go home. People finding a tiny bit every 10-15 minutes tend to keep at it. In general I have to chuckle at people who say they detect for the fresh air, and those that say small gold is not worth their time. Except Reg of course. No, the rest of us are out there to find gold and small gold is better than no gold.
  19. Besides this one? No. The Manticore with M8 coil can hit tinier gold than the E1500. The E1500 will easily hit bigger gold at better depth in highly mineralized ground than the Manticore. In low mineral ground or very trashy ground the case can be made that the Manticore might be the better choice for some people, just like the Equinox 800 has done well for some prospectors. Think deep tailing piles with deep nails and cans or the middle of an old mining camp. And while the E1500 has a discrimination system of sorts it is conductivity based not ferrous vs non-ferrous, and requires target by target analysis. The Manticore you can set for two tone ferrous vs non-ferrous, far more efficient and helpful in true trash scenarios. It's the same old VLF vs PI story - nothing has changed. People expecting the E1500 to be some new magic wand are barking up the same hopes are going to be dashed tree that grows up every time we see a new model come out.
  20. I find the speculation that the E1500 will somehow outperform detectors costing much more money to be, well, how to put this nicely… questionable at best. If this detector was GPX 6000 class it would be stupid to sell it for one quarter the price of a GPX 6000. I don’t think Alex is stupid. Here is the current price structure in Australia as of today after Garrett just introduced the lower priced stripped down Axiom package: 1. GPZ 7000 $10,499 2. GPX 6000 $8,999 with two coils 3. Garrett Axiom $4,999 with one coil 4. SDC 2300 $4,399 5. E1500 with Sadie & Battery $2649 6. Minelab Manticore $2499 7. Gold Monster $1299 I have pretty solid information in hand indicating that you are going to get what you pay for. The E1500 is a very affordable option at close the price of a top end VLF and will outperform said VLFs on gold in mineralized ground. Time will tell but I think the E1500 will fall short of SDC 2300 and Axiom level performance, essentially being a bridge between VLF detectors and those models. The 6000 and 7000 will continue to rule the roost but at twice the price of the SDC/Axiom level you are not getting twice the depth. Pulling a number out of my ass I’d assign a very debatable expectation of about a 15% increase in overall performance at each major step up in price. People can of course argue that number all day long but I think it is very important to give newbies some sense of reality. Twice the money does not get twice the performance. Gains are more like 10% - 15% - 20%…. pick your number, but it’s not double, triple, quadruple. If I was still selling detectors I’d explain to this new customer that they can go find a gold nugget with a Gold Monster or a Manticore. I’d explain that for not much more than a Manticore they could get an AlgoForce E1500 and be able to deal with mineralized ground and hot rocks that will give the VLF models real trouble. I’d tell them that for substantially more money they could get some very solid bang for the buck in the Axiom/SDC range, a step up from E1500 but still not top tier. Finally, I’d tell them that if money is no object and they simply want the best performance they can get, to look at the 6000 or 7000. I’d comment that out of the box with provided coils the 6000 would have the edge for smaller gold, and the 7000 the edge on larger gold. Adding aftermarket coils (and more money) to the 7000 can close the gap between it and the 6000 on small gold, but nothing you do to the 6000 will have it hitting the big stuff as deep as the 7000. That would be my short and sweet sales presentation and I offer it up as the most simplified big picture no B.S. look at the scene as you are likely to find. My somewhat educated opinions only, feel free to toss in trash bin if you don’t agree. In the States this would be the situation if the E1500 could be had here: 1. GPZ 7000 $8,999 2. GPX 6000 $6,499 with two coils 3. Garrett Axiom $3,995 with two coils 4. SDC 2300 $3,599 5. E1500 with Sadie & Battery under $1999 6. Minelab Manticore $1699 7. Gold Monster $799
  21. Hybrid is the new sales buzzword set to trap detector dollars.
  22. What Simon said. You can’t fairly compare the price of the Axiom with coil and two day battery to the price of an E1500 with no coil or battery. The price decrease was probably more about addressing the fact an Axiom is far less money in the states than a GPX 6000 yet that situation was reversed in Australia. That should never have been allowed to happen.
  23. Is it? I saw nothing about that in the post. Whatever, consider me properly chastised.
  24. Maybe I'm wrong but I’m pretty sure the original poster is basically asking if they can metal detecting for gold nuggets on private property if they have permission from the property owner. I’m going to go out on a limb here and just say yes. Sure, you could define that metal detecting for a gold nugget as a minerals exploration activity requiring legal ownership or permission from the owner of the underlying mineral rights. And that maybe somebody else other than the property owner has those rights and you are violating them. Maybe I’m out of line, but that seems like a bit of a stretch looking for a conflict over what is probably going to be a day spent digging bullets. Chances are very high that if the private ground is of that much interest to a guy with a metal detector it’s probably patented mining ground, so the property owner most likely does have the mineral rights. Metal detecting for gold is generally defined as casual use by BLM and Forest Service so no permits normally required etc. So if I know for a fact Bob owns the ground and he says I can go do my thing I’m not going to lose much sleep over anything beyond that. If Bob is aware of some serious conflict about the mineral rights I’d hope he’d mention something about that. Seems pretty low risk to me. If I want to bring in my excavator and drill rig that’s another matter.
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