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Everything posted by Steve Herschbach
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Equinox 600 Versus Equinox 800
Steve Herschbach replied to daryl curtis's topic in Minelab Equinox Forum
There is such a thing as too much, and tripping over unneeded features. Manufacturers rely on the mindset of people "needing" certain features to get people to spend more money. So the "needed" feature is withheld from the less expensive model and included in the more expensive. Plus some people are what I call "detector snobs" playing the "my detector is better than your detector" game, more controls equating to better in their minds. But no, a 600 will do just as well as an 800 and a 700 will do just as well as a 900 for a very large number of people. I kind of feel a pull to more concise control sets and simplicity myself. It's pissing in the wind though, as the fact is the 800 sold so well many dealers did not even need to stock the 600. At the time the features the offered were seen as such an incredible value compared to more expensive detectors that it still came across as the bargain machine. -
It might not for given uses. How well coils work depend more on how you use them than who makes them. A 5x10 will not hit a coin as deep as the stock 11" coil for instance - its a smaller coil. It will however separate in trash better due to the smaller footprint. In general the normally supplied manufacturer coils are better than people give them credit for, as the detector is often directly designed around the stock coil. Tech notes - Coil Basics by Carl Moreland About Search Coils by Dave Johnson Search Coil Field Shape by Dave Johnson
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I kind of doubt that will be the actual US pricing. If it is though I'll officially not be getting a Manticore. A Deus coil is actually a metal detector. A Manticore coil? No reason it should cost much more than an Equinox coil except for Minelabs "if the detector costs more, charge more for the coil" history. Equinox 6" round coil $179 - no way I'm going to get bent over for $340 for a 5x8 coil for the Manticore. But I am really hoping it is priced more appropriately in the U.S. like $199 - $249 tops. But $340 and I will learn to love the Deus 2 and keep my Equinox 800.
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Anybody Seeing Depth Issues With The Manticore Update?
Steve Herschbach replied to abenson's topic in Minelab Manticore Forum
abenson has been detecting longer and knows more about detecting than most people. If he says his update went sideways, you can take that to the bank. That’s not to say the update is no good and that others are not getting good results. It’s saying something went probably went wrong with his update on his detector. -
Congratulation Mitchel, you certainly deserve it!
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Freddy Dodge's Gold Prospecting Show
Steve Herschbach replied to Tom Slick's topic in Detector Prospector Forum
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Freddy Dodge's Gold Prospecting Show
Steve Herschbach replied to Tom Slick's topic in Detector Prospector Forum
We have Discovery through Spectrum cable, and by activating that Link it gives you streaming access to the shows 24/7 -
Freddy Dodge's Gold Prospecting Show
Steve Herschbach replied to Tom Slick's topic in Detector Prospector Forum
Garrett sponsors the shows, which is how I made the connections. Garrett calls me like a few days ahead and says "wanna go" and I say "sure!" So the hat stays, but "Alaska Mining & Diving Supply" and "Johnson Outboards" get blurred out. Kind of funny on the Johnson Outboards because the brand no longer exists. Thanks for the screen shots Simon. I'll have to watch, mainly to see how it gets portrayed out of the footage shot. The true story on this gig is the miner thought his tailings had big lost nuggets, but if you look at the gold he is actually capturing, pretty unlikely. It was no surprise I did not find one, more like it would have been a surprise if I did, especially given the limited amount of time involved. I remember it enough to know that would have been the Surf PI Hawaii Edition that I had, very limited edition. Kind of regret selling that one so good on you. I kept quiet about the details but now that the show is about to air, this was from the Hoffman operation 80 miles north of Nome.... -
Freddy Dodge's Gold Prospecting Show
Steve Herschbach replied to Tom Slick's topic in Detector Prospector Forum
I think it is a subscription link. All a quick Google turned up for me. -
Freddy Dodge's Gold Prospecting Show
Steve Herschbach replied to Tom Slick's topic in Detector Prospector Forum
I make a brief appearance in this weeks episode. If it makes you feel any better I don’t find anything. I’ll be in an episode of the Hoffman show at Nome sometime soon where I do find a lot of gold. Just finished another bit piece with Freddy outside of Missoula last week for next season. Freddy has actually mined more gold than most of us will ever dream of. His show is probably one of the more real of the reality shows, and he is genuinely helping out miners mine more gold. But it’s TV and they have to play to the audience also. For me it’s just been a lot of fun, all the cast and crew of both shows were super nice to me. I don’t make any money doing these. It’s more like little short paid vacations to places I’ve never been and hanging out with interesting people. The funny part was my telling the Hoffmans and Freddy I don’t watch shows of any sort really, theirs included. I’ve not actually watched this one either and only found out it was on because somebody said they saw it. Gold Rush: Mine Rescue with Freddy & Juan S3 E1 - Old Dog, New Tricks Freddy and Juan face a mine intervention at a 30-year-old Nevada claim. https://go.discovery.com/video/gold-rush-freddy-dodges-mine-rescue-on-discovery-discovery-atve-us/old-dog-new-tricks -
Garrett Axiom Vs Minelab SDC 2300
Steve Herschbach replied to HardPack's topic in Metal Detector Advice & Comparisons
Is it impossible for people to think the SDC timings have a hole? Denial is a river in Egypt. No detector is perfect. The Axiom for sure, but that goes for the SDC also. But I’ll repeat for the “nothing can ever do anything better than anything made by Minelab” crowd - the 2300 is a great detector and anyone that has one and is happy with it has absolutely no need to trade it for the Axiom. -
Garrett Axiom Vs Minelab SDC 2300
Steve Herschbach replied to HardPack's topic in Metal Detector Advice & Comparisons
That was using the signal centered 11” Focused Core DD, not the mono. I’m not flipping the coil for my health. 2300 is a great detector and anyone that has one and is happy with it has no need to trade it for the Axiom. -
Been four months now and…….??? I’d interested in another Tarsacci that... A. Had decent tones. That high tone and high frequency hearing loss are a horrible combination. B. Makes it so I don’t have to use the one and only notch to notch out high tone false signals that no other setting on the detector will eliminate. It’s a bug and a bandaid fix. The notch should be for notching trash, not false signals. C. Get rid of multiple menus to access functions. D. Small coil. I can live without the last two, but the tones combined with high tone false signals in bad ground was a deal breaker for me. Almost nobody denies the machine performs, but a large number of people I know sold the machine due to dissatisfaction with other issues like tones, as I did myself.
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Detech Coils Coming Soon For The Garrett Axiom
Steve Herschbach replied to phrunt's topic in Garrett Axiom Forum
Not a peep that I’m aware of, which quite frankly surprises me. -
My compliments to the posters for showing how to answer questions without getting political. The secret is simple. Discuss what is. That's it. Not why. Some people people love to argue over the whys of things and assign blame. Here, I want to concentrate on what unites us, not what divides us, and solving problems for each other is a great place for that to happen. Please nobody respond to this. It is just that when I saw the post topic, California and rules, and I cringed "here we go again." Instead, I'll enjoy my morning coffee. Compliments to the posters. Thank you very much!! But again, let's not let my post become a subject of discussion. Thanks.
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Great write up Bill. Add another vote for landscape pods versus tall copied from cell phone pods. Put some more power under the hood in this physical design and plenty of people would be all over it, including me.
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Steve’s Experimental Axiom Settings
Steve Herschbach replied to Steve Herschbach's topic in Garrett Axiom Forum
Minelab employed a lot of filtering to get the old GPX series threshold rock solid steady. It’s telling that they went away from that with the GPZ 7000 and GPX 6000. Some of what you are experiencing as EMI is no doubt just the fact that ever since the GPX 5000 every prospecting PI made since has had a less stable threshold. As far as I am concerned the GPX 5000 and older machines are great detectors. They may be the better option for some people. Some old GPX users will find the Axiom to not be to their liking because it is different. Others will be happy they switched. I’m not trying to push the needle either way. Truth is people will just have to sort it out for themselves on their own ground, but as this thread highlights it might take a little time and experimentation to find out what works best. -
Issue With Axiom And Ground Noise
Steve Herschbach replied to Gone Bush's topic in Garrett Axiom Forum
Some weird settings that may or may not help….. -
Or maybe we should call these “Stupid Steve Tricks” for now. I’ve only begun delving into these weird settings but figure I may as well toss them out there for other people to experiment with also. I’ll post more somewhere down the line when I come up with something more definitive. But for now, I’ll just give a brief summary. Minimum Sensitivity - I was working a location that was dense with trash, way too many signals. Sensitivity 1 really worked some magic in making it possible to use the machine in dense trash. Way too early to say much on this yet, other than that I did find it useful for cherry picking coins in a park by digging low tones only, which eliminates low conductors in favor of mid to high conductors. I was able to get more coin than trash targets. I still dig trash with a VLF so this was a good resultant in my limited testing. I am going to see what happens on depth on a 1/4 oz nugget going from high to low sensitivity in a future test. Salt Setting - yes it tunes out small gold. But how small? I don’t know yet, but it’s not as bad as people might think. It can also shut up some ground and hot rocks other settings will struggle with. I need more work with both this and Large Mode. My initial sense is that the differences between the modes are more subtle than dramatic. Minimum Threshold - this shows the most promise for developing a silent search “Bogenes Settings” methodology for the Axiom. -7 still has some audio break through. -9 is pretty much dead silent but seems too aggressive? I’ve settled on -8 so far as a preference, and was surprised at how well small nuggets jump out still, and with good depth. It also allows for a bit higher sensitivity setting, so I would highly encourage people to try these very low Threshold settings with either a normal or slightly boosted sensitivity setting. For some situations I’m thinking I might be employing this a lot. Super pleasant way to hunt for those that hate a threshold. I just wish there was more nuance as right now the jump between -7 to -8 to -9 is coarser than I’d like. I put it on my wish list for an update. Forced Frequency Setting - default frequency is 50 with range from 0 - 99. The automatic frequency scan is fairly simple. It scans all frequencies looking for the quietest one. It is therefore imperative normally that you do not introduce extra noise by moving the detector while it scans. Normally I’d have the coil on the ground so it is picking up anything it would pick up in normal sweeping, but aiming the coil at a nearby EMI source like another detector can help eliminate that source, so it bears playing with if it still seems noisy on the first go. If you have an pinpointer, turn it on and set it it 2-3 feet away while doing a frequency scan - this will let most pinpointers play very nicely with the Axiom. And do remember that going to a lower sensitivity or DD coil vs mono also help reduce EMI. The interesting question here is that for areas with no EMI, is there any difference in the frequencies? There very well might be, though in my limited testing so far I’ve found no smoking gun. But if you want to try, here is the trick. If you want a frequency of 99, start the scan going, then wave a metal item over the coil while the machine scans 0 to about 90, then get the metal away, and let the scan finish. Very good chance you’ll end up at frequency 90 or higher, if not try again. To hit the other extreme, start the scan, and when it gets to about 10, now wave metal over the coil until it gets to 99, then stop and let it finish. You should end up at 10 or lower. With a little practice you can force almost anything, but I think the main interest is in the two extremes. Can anyone find a discernible difference on any target between the extremes? In theory there should be one, but again, my very limited tests so far have not found anything. So there you go. I do like the fact that the Axiom does not have too many controls, but on the other has enough to give me things to think about and experiment with. Early days still, new machine, people need to experiment and share notes. So that’s mine so far, hopefully a few of you will take up the challenge and add your own observations.
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I prefer the 11” mono first, 11” DD second, and 13” mono third, as my coils of use at this time. I agree, the 13” DD ruins the ergonomics as being nose heavy, and so it spends less time on the machine. When it does, I let it ride on the ground. Whatever, if you are struggling with ground a DD will usually help. And this out of shape 65 year old guy can still swing the 13” DD on Axiom for an 8 hour plus day with a bungee support, so it’s not that bad. That being said, in my opinion the strength of the Focused Core DD is being hotter in the center, but that also takes away from the traditional ability of a DD to handle hotter ground better than a mono. I’d like a traditional DD coil for the Axiom for that reason. While I’d still recommend the DD over the mono for tough ground situations, it’s not quite the magic fix that a traditional milder reacting DD coil would possibly be.
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We get it Dig, you think visual displays are useless for jewelry hunters. Personally, I fail to see how having more information in any form is a bad thing, but to each his own. If you don’t like visual displays, don’t use them. But no reason that I can see to try and convince everyone they are useless. That is not a lot different from people trying to prove they are the holy grail. The truth is in the middle, as is normally the case. It’s just a tool being offered and it’s a bit early to say that no jewelry hunter under any circumstances anywhere in the world can’t have a use for the thing. One thing for sure is that if a person is convinced of something in advance and does not even try, the result is preordained.
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I stopped visiting Tom’s forum due a couple trolls that hang out there that seem to have it in for me. But prior to that I had no issues with my iPad even when others said they were. It may have to do with the age of the device or if the latest updates are running or not.
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Help:: White Tdi Pro Cant Sense After 30min
Steve Herschbach replied to sarix's topic in White's Metal Detectors
You cannot reinstall the firmware… there is no update function. It sounds like a component is failing. Works until it warms up. If so the component needs to be located and replaced. If it was mine I’d have it serviced, but I’m not sure that’s an easy option for you. -
Garrett Axiom Vs Minelab SDC 2300
Steve Herschbach replied to HardPack's topic in Metal Detector Advice & Comparisons
Language Warning - Don’t watch if you prefer your expletives deleted! Interesting video. Normally I might bet on the SDC 2300, but it’s close. Where the tipping point would be is in the extremely aggressive ground cancellation the SDC employs. It is great at eliminating ground and hot rocks, but as a result there are some “holes” in the system that miss some nuggets. Looks like Dave found one of those nuggets. It’s smaller than it appears since it’s a tiny specimen bit, rough and porous. Dave needs a little work on his nugget recovery technique. But in defense the little ones can be challenging at times. -
Yes, and it’s not fast. You have to scan every square inch and analyze what you are seeing, which will be a lot messier than cherry picked promotional photos. A nail on end will look like a coin. A coin on edge might look like a hairpin or small nail. I doubt there is enough resolution to see a hole in a pull tab or washer. If you can’t hear the hole, you won’t see the hole. It’s just mapping the audio to a screen. The downfall will be efficiency. You’ll never get anywhere or cover any ground in a trashy park type scenario. The Invenio is far better suited for archeology oriented site survey type scenarios.