Steve Herschbach

Awesome - first gold nugget with a detector! Congratulations! In all metal mode did you try the auto sensitivity settings to see if they run quiet?

Interesting. This new Youtube channel popped up recently for somebody calling themselves X Coils It appears to be Russian? and they appear to be working on coils for the GPZ. Here is a peek at the 12" x 10". Personally, that's a bit too similar to the stock coil to interest me - I would rather see a 10" x 8". Still, it's interesting that somebody has managed to make some coils that might work on the GPZ without blowing it up. This is one detector that I will have to let others gamble with first on this sort of thing but I knew you would all find it interesting. Edit - the videos disappeared so I deleted the link. Here is the latest X Coil 2021 News

I love mining gear rigs like this Bryce, thanks for posting. It was too good to leave in the other thread so split off on its own. I am glad AMDS treated you right, although I am afraid they have struggled with getting knowledgeable people on board since I left. I met with them recently with ideas on how to turn that around but sadly it is not what it used to be at this point. Hopefully improvement will be seen going forward.

Very nice report Peg, and I know you know your Gold Bug 2 - thanks!

Great adventure and photos Tom - thanks for posting! The White's metal box machines are more water resistant than most people realize. Box is gasket sealed. Speaker is plastic cone and sealed to box - you can pour water in the speaker holes and the water will not get into the machine nor hurt the speaker. There are orings under the knobs and rubber caps on the switches. There is nothing in the pods that is sensitive to water. I have run an MXT in rain for days on end with no protection and no harm done.

According to several threads at Findmall the AT Max is not available and could be as late as September. I have to say I was a little surprised to find out Garrett has also joined the "announce way before ready" club. Quite a few other people appear to be surprised as orders were placed thinking the machine would be available soon. Those orders are now getting canceled by at least a few people.

Meanings do change over time. Here is a good comprehensive reference from 1920 that can sometimes clear up older definitions or terminology no longer in use: A GLOSSARY OF THE MINING AND MINERAL INDUSTRY by Albert H. Fay WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1920 From the above. The second definition for chloride is interesting as per Merton's speculation. Chloride. 1. A compound of chlorine with another element or radical. A salt of hydrochloriC acid. (Webster) 2. To follow a thin vein or discontinuous ore deposit by irregular workings, intent only on extracting the profitable parts and with no regard for development; usually said of a lessee, sometimes of one who works another's mine without permission. The term is eaid to have originated at Silver Reef in southwestern Utah when the rich silver chloride ores were being worked. The thin seams were followed by lessees with the least possible handling of barren rock, hence the miner became a chlorider, and his operations chloriding. The words were later extended to similar workers and their operations in other fields. (F. L. Hess) Magnesia. Magnesium oxide, MgO. A light, earthy, white substance, obtained by heating the hydroxide or carbonate, or by burning magnesium. (Webster)

That's them - I modified your links and added the pictures to make it clearer which is which.

Google Earth.... click for larger view.

Some current single frequency detectors: Fisher 1280X - 2.4 kHz Fisher F2 - 5.9 kHz Fisher F4 - 5.9 kHz Fisher F5 - 7.8 kHz Fisher F70 - 13 kHz Fisher F75 - 13 kHz Fisher F19 - 19.2 kHz Fisher Gold Bug - 19.2 kHz Fisher Gold Bug 2 - 71 kHz Garrett Ace 150 - 6.5 kHz Garrett Ace 200 - 6.5 kHz Garrett Ace 250 - 6.5 kHz Garrett GTI 2500 - 7.2 kHz Garrett Ace 300 - 8 kHz Garrett Ace 400 - 10 kHz Garrett AT Max - 13.6 kHz Garrett AT Pro - 15 kHz Garrett AT Gold - 18 kHz Minelab Go-Find 20 - 7.7 kHz Minelab Go-Find 40 - 7.7 kHz Minelab Go-Find 60 - 7.7 kHz Minelab Gold Monster 1000 - 45 kHz Tesoro DeLeon- 10 kHz Tesoro Cortes- 10 kHz Tesoro Silver uMax- 10.6 kHz Tesoro Outlaw - 10.6 kHz Tesoro Compadre - 12 kHz Tesoro Tiger Shark - 12 kHz Tesoro Cibola - 14.5 kHz Tesoro Vaquero- 14.5 kHz Tesoro Tejon- 17.2 kHz Tesoro Lobo - 17.5 kHz White's TreasurePro - 8 kHz White's TreasureMaster - 8 kHz White's Coinmaster - 8 kHz White's MX5 - 14 kHz White's MXT - 14 kHz White's MX Sport - 14 kHz White's GMT - 48 kHz

Welcome to the forum Bryce! I do hope you will report on how the GM does for you. Hopefully you do not have the graphite based hot rocks that plague operators further south in British Columbia. As a non-ferrous conductive rock there is no reasonable way to deal with them short of a PI. I have a few graphite "nuggets" I found in Alaska but thankfully they are normally so rare as to be an interesting find rather than a nuisance. There is one spot north of Anchorage however where I encountered graphitic slate hot rocks with every swing of my VLF that shut me down quickly until I returned later with a PI.

Thanks Monte!

A person may need to be logged in as a Facebook member to see the video?

Higher frequencies aid in recovery speed. From the Nokta Impact Owner's Manual page 24: Frequency IMPACT offers 3 operating frequencies — 5kHz, 14kHz and 20kHz— to suit different target and soil types. Based on the frequency selected, the detector's detection performance for different types of targets will vary. The list below includes, but are not limited to, different types of targets that correspond to each frequency: 5kHz: Large ferrous and non-ferrous objects High conductive coins Medium or relatively small targets in non-mineralized ground without iron trash Ferrous masses and militaria 14kHz: General use Small coins Different size coins in medium-highly mineralized ground 20kHz: Small coins with different conductivities and thin large coins Gold coins, rings, small jewelry , sheet iron, foil Small targets in iron trash

A nice overview of why some people like to go metal detecting. This is a bit of an experiment as an embedded Facebook video so let me know if it does not work for you.

Some good basic information along with a video from Brandon Neice (Dr. Tones) on his Treasure Talk blog. Follow the link to the article and here is the video....

For those that do not know vanursepaul is in Australia for a nearly three month long adventure, with gold prospecting at the top of the list. Imagine his distress when he arrived in Australia and the control box portion of his new Minelab GPZ 7000 was missing from his luggage!!! This on top of just having his previous GPZ 7000 stolen over the winter. The solution to this serious problem is buried deep in another thread but I thought it should not go missed by people not following that thead, so here is a copy of Paul's post today at http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/3724-nurse-paul-in-oz/?page=6#comment-41276....

As a general rule high frequency detectors will have better battery life. This can be seen directly with machines like the Nokta Impact and White's V3i, where the lower frequency settings more quickly consume battery power than the high frequency settings.

I from practical results in the field consider low frequencies to be better for large/strong/thick targets and high frequencies to be better for small/weak/thin targets. For instance a U.S. silver quarter is a strong high conductive target that does well at lower frequencies. However, in Europe very thin hammered silver coins are common, and these may be cut in half or quartered in the old days to make change. Even though these targets are silver, a high conductor, they are small and thin and so actually do better at high frequencies. Therefore I personally do not think much in terms of what the items is made of (gold, silver, low conductor, high conductor) but in terms of size. The larger the items are, the better off you are with lower frequencies as there is no problem detecting the target, and lower frequencies reduce ground effects that work against you. I would consider dime size and larger items as "large" targets. As targets get smaller than dime size, they respond better at higher frequencies. The smaller they are, the higher the frequency required to get a decent signal from them. However, the higher the frequency, the more the ground and hot rocks respond. It is this sensitivity to ground effects that tends to "blind" high frequency detectors and result in depth problems in bad ground. High frequencies air test just fine; it is in the ground where the issues occur. With that in mind, when looking for large items I tend to lower frequencies and when hunting very small items I go to higher frequencies. There is of course more to it than that. Here are some technical details and references to more in depth information...... George Payne was one of the engineers who patented many of the basic concepts used in VLF detectors to this day. Here is an excerpt from his article at http://jb-ms.com/Baron/payne.htm (2002): "The r component acts differently. It is maximum at one particular frequency and decreases if you go up or down in frequency. We call the special frequency at which the r signal is maximum, the target’s “-3db” frequency. It also turns out that at the -3db frequency the x signal is one-half of its maximum value. This special frequency is unique to each target and is different for different target. The higher the conductivity of the target the higher will be the targets -3db frequency. Conversely, the lower the conductivity the lower the -3db frequency. The -3db frequency of the high conductivity target will also make the r signal peak at a high frequency, normally well above the operating frequency of the VLF detector. This will make the high conductivity target have lower sensitivity on the VLF detector because the r signal amplitude drops if we are significantly below the -3db frequency. Simply put, maximum sensitivity on a VLF detector would be if we position the operating frequency directly at the target’s -3db frequency. For example, a dime and penny have a -3db frequency of about 2.7KHz. This is where their r signal peaks and would be the best frequency for picking them up using a VLF detector. However, a silver dollar has a -3db frequency of 800Hz. Nickels, on the other hand, have a -3db frequency, where its r peaks, at about 17KHz. Targets like thin rings and fine gold are higher still. Clearly there is no one frequency that is best for all these targets. The best you can do is have an operating frequency that is a compromise." So that sets up the basics for air tests. The problem is we have to deal with the ground. Lower frequencies tend to be better at reducing ground issues, while higher frequencies light up both the ground and hot rocks lower frequencies might ignore. You are looking for a frequency which best lights up a target while minimizing ground effects. All in all mid frequency machines in the 10-20 kHz range offer good compromise solutions, above 20 kHz tends to be the realm of specialized prospecting detectors, and under 10 kHz the realm of the "coin detector". Some prior posts with more details: Frequency Changes ( Effects ) While Running All Metal Selectable Frequency And Multiple Frequency Why High Frequency? The Effects Of Different Frequencies On A Small Gold Target (Video) Optimal Frequency For Coin Hunting (Monte)

I have been using the ATX some more and I am impressed with the feel and especially the knock resistance of the new 11 x 13 coil. If being center mounted and knock resistant is important to you then you may want one, but what you are not going to see is any serious difference in the performance compared to the 10 x 12 coil. If you get the 11 x 13 DD you can expect performance almost identical to the 10 x 12 DD. For all intents and purposes you can look at them as being the same coil, the 10 x 12 for underwater use, the 11 x 13 for dry land use. I so far personally have not found a scenario gold prospecting where the 11 x 13 mono outperforms the 11 x 13 DD although I suspect it will do so on very large (multi-ounce) nuggets in the right ground. If forced to choose between the two right now I would favor the 11 x 13 DD myself, if for no other reason than to retain the ferrous discrimination capability.

That would depend on the specific detector and coil involved plus the ground mineralization. In general mono coils do well but the Garrett DD design is unique. The overlap in the middle opens up to create a small 5" inner coil area that is very hot on small gold. I cover this in some detail in my first report on finding gold with the Garrett ATX. This special design makes the Garrett DD coil hotter on small gold than one might expect from a normal DD coil.

No, you need the SDC adapter cable. In theory that makes the Minelab Pro-Sonic a better deal for the SDC since the Pro-Sonic comes with the adapter. But with Pro-Sonic at US$269 and Z-Lynk at US$128 you can buy the Z-Lynk and SDC adapter and still be money ahead.

Despite my own interest in the XP DEUS I doubt it will have a serious impact on the prospecting market in the U.S. unless a dedicated like the Depar DPR 600 is made available. The DEUS high frequency option as currently configured is just too expensive given the other options available to prospectors. You have to be seriously interested in the other DEUS capabilities as a general purpose detector to want to pay the big bucks for it. It is kind of the same problem the White's V3i or other top end units face. The V3i can in theory do ok as a nugget finder with its 22.5 kHz frequency, but the reality as we all know is you never hear of such a thing. The V3i can no doubt do the job, but why pay $1500 for a machine when a $499 Gold Bug can do as well if not better? And why pay $1500 for the DEUS when an $800 GM1000 or Gold Bug 2 can do the trick as well? The Depar DPR 600 however is nothing more than a DEUS locked into the Gold Field program and sold stock with the high frequency coil. At a current price of about $680 something like the DPR 600 would be very price competitive with other options on the market. I have to believe we will eventually see this option become a reality. September 2018 - New XP ORX announced.

The GM1000 has no target id, just ferrous/non-ferrous discrimination. See the "Gold Chance Indicator" below. It actually has nothing to do with gold per se so it really is a "Non-ferrous Chance Indicator"

Fabulous find - thanks for posting Tom! John Hull And The Pine Tree Shilling