Steve Herschbach

An inside look at the manufacturer of Bounty Hunter, Fisher, and Teknetics metal detectors, based in El Paso, Texas. You can also take the Garrett Tour, Minelab Tour, and White's Tour

Two years later he is still in jail, being fined $1000 a day! A treasure hunter found 3 tons of sunken gold — and can’t leave jail until he says where it is

The Nokta FORS Gold is actually a very good general purpose 15 kHz detector. The Nokta FORS Gold+ is a more gold specific 19 kHz nugget detecting machine. The FORS Gold+ would in theory be a step up in that you would get manual ground balance and a variable Self Adjusting Threshold (iSAT) control. In reality however I think what you would basically be doing is trading a capable mid-frequency VLF for another capable mid-frequency VLF. That being the case it is more about how many hours you use a detector to prospect every year and how proficient you get with your detectors. Most people only get out a few times a year, and never really put in the hours to become truly expert with their machines. If that is the case I don't see any real advantage to making a trade like you suggest unless you are just wanting something different. However, if you put in hundreds or thousands of hours a year detecting, then any small advantage can be leveraged and does add up to be worth it. The $499 standard Gold Bug is an incredible value and overlooked by most people because it lacks the "Pro" moniker. The only difference between the standard and Pro models is the Gold Bug Pro allows you to tweak the ground balance manually. The truth is the ground grab function on both is very good, and most people hardly use the manual ground balance if they use it at all. Personally I prefer the compact light weight (2.5 lb) design of the Gold Bugs. The FORS at 4.3 lbs although very well balanced is obviously quite a bit heavier and does not break down near as easily or as compactly. And while some people like it the handle on the FORS models is one of my least favorite. I guess the main question I will end with is - what coil do you have? The 5" round DD? If so a 5" x 10" elliptical coil would be a great investment to improve what you have. I always hate to imply that there is any real advantage to making lateral trades. Going from one mid-frequency VLF to another rarely makes any significant difference, whereas going from a VLF to a PI is a huge change. Or going from a mid-frequency unit to a very high frequency unit, also a significant change. That is why I sound a bit negative on the idea. That said, I think the Nokta FORS Gold+ is about as good as it gets when it comes to mid-frequency VLF nugget detectors. If I wanted to prospect for gold and could only own one VLF detector to do it with, it would definitely be on my short list.

Draft owners manual available for download at http://www.goldsearchaustralia.com/media/qed-operations-manual.pdf Odd that ground balance is labeled as delay, which in a PI is normally associated with pulse delay. It always confuses people when manufacturers break with convention. This is a draft however. It does appear that small targets are hi tone and large targets lo tone, and that the tones are reversible via the pitch function. From the manual above: "Increase for a higher pitch and decrease for a lower pitch. This usually only need to be done once the operator is happy with the setting. Take note of the number as a “load factory defaults” will reset the value. If PITCH is an ODD (factory default) number i.e. 25, 27 etc then small targets will produce a rising pitch. If PITCH is adjusted to an even number then large targets will produce a rising pitch. Please note that the Ground Balance and BIAS adjustment directions will be reversed."

Sorry to hear that Jim. Picks are easy to lose. I had a dozen at Moore Creek I supplied to people and every one of them was lost. People would sometimes find one also but eventually I had to replace them all. Though I always suspected that perhaps a few went home in people's luggage since I was supplying expensive Walco picks on the first go. They got replaced with cheap Walmart picks. Good luck finding yours.

Hi Reg, From http://australianelectronicgoldprospectingforum.com/new-board-109/qed-update-8893/msg41078/#msg41078 "Ground Balance is about creating a null for the ground. This is achieved by using an electronic equivalent of an old fashioned balance beam or scales. This was used by Eric Foster while hand held PI detectors were in still in their infancy. When the signal from the ground is broken up and put on different sides of the balance beam then the ground is nulled or cancelled. There are certain targets that have a characteristic or Time Constant that are similar to the ground and the response to them will be greatly diminished. These targets fall into what is called the "Detection Hole". The function on the QED called BIAS is used to raise the signal that is either side of the detection hole. An OZ 5 cent piece is on one side of the "hole" and the OZ $2 coin is on the other side." The ad copy also states "A single channel design resulting in a low component count, smaller size, less weight and repeatable performance" which granted, is kind of vague, but this just sounds to me like an improvement (possibly) on Eric's design. It is also possible part of the agreement with Minelab was to stay away from multi channel "timings". In any case you can guess and I can guess but guesses are not firm answers.

There are no settings per se that everyone should be using. It is dependent on the ground and the gold. That is why the adjustments exist. Experimentation on found targets with varied settings should be just part of the routine. What is working for me running a Z14 coil in mild ground on smaller gold is unlikely to work well for somebody in Oz in bad ground on different gold. I swear I am no authority on how to get optimum performance anyway. I just get close, that's all. I rely more on sheer hours and patience than anything - I am the blind squirrel detectorist.

Absolutely JP, your advice and opinions are not only respected but highly sought after. I was talking about metal detectors in general and not the GPZ specifically, and should have said so. Anything you have to say about the GPZ I am all ears! I suspect also you are talking much larger deep nuggets than I would be thinking about - mine measured in multiple grams and yours in multiple ounces.

Welcome to the forum Phil. Those are impressive sums and your relaying of your experiences is quite appreciated! I have often seen similar results where going for larger gold results in half the finds but twice the weight of another person cleaning up patches.

I backfill holes and generally try to leave no trace. All finds are marked by GPS for future reference. I do occasionally put a stick or a rock on a find just to have a clear visual reference while gridding an area however.

I certainly do also go on long wandering exploration swings in a regular basis. I read all this again and it sounds like all I do these days is hunt patches methodically. That's not true. One really does need to mix it up and always be exploring new territory, and nothing beats a long wander over hill and valley for pure enjoyment.

Especially when you consider, as LipCA and Tortuga have pointed out, that at depth the search area you are scanning is much smaller. You might be swinging a 20" coil but are poking around in that extra 4" of depth with just the tip of a narrowed and weak detection area. To get full coverage at max depth requires extreme overlapping. The next time anybody gets a really deep nugget, regardless of size, observe exactly where your coil needs to be to get a detectable signal. In most cases you are only getting a good signal in the middle of the coil, that fades towards the edge of the coil. If you are swinging a 14" coil but can only hear the target under the middle 5" of the coil, think very hard about what you are observing. When swinging the 14" coil are you being sure to advance only 5" with each step? This restricted coverage at depth is why people still pull old coins out of small parks hunted by countless people over the last 40 years. You either get dead center over that deep target or miss it.

Going fast and getting maximum depth/full coverage to depth are mutually exclusive. You can do one or the other. I do agree that if I wanted to do the go fast, cover ground thing I would rather use a GPX. I think some of it is a personal thing. Some people like zooming around. By nature I am more the methodical type so the GPZ and going slow suits my personal hunting style better.

I don't think any method is better than another per se - it is determined by the ground and therefore the opportunities you have available. My motto - "Whatever Works"

Remember the Pulse Devil? There are ways Minelab could respond also. Bring back the SD2100v2 or SD2200v2 with built in rechargeable battery. Or a GPX 3000 with two modes only - Normal and Fine Gold.

One thing that intrigues me personally about the QED is that it is a single channel manual ground balance machine, not unlike the TDI in that respect. I expect but need to confirm the tones. Is it the same "low tone big target, high tone small target" routine, based on where the ground balance is set? Can the ground balance be shut off to run in pure PI mode? If so there are many applications here outside just nugget detecting. EMI resistance is said to be superb. How does it handle salt? Hopefully an owners manual is posted soon.

The development cost is just one missing part of the puzzle when people just look at the hardware and say "oh, it would only cost X dollars in parts to make this". Well, yeah, once you have figured out how to make it! Add in marketing expense, warranty repair costs, etc. and there is a whole heck of a lot more cost in that GPZ 7000 than people think. You can never discount the genius in a garage but the fact is huge cash flows and large engineering teams does give one a distinct advantage when it comes to staying on the cutting edge.

Jason made a comment on another thread about the virtues of not getting bogged down hunting small gold. I wanted to comment without getting off topic so here goes. In my opinion big nuggets generally go to the first coil over them. They are big and so kind of hard for any good detector to miss. Let's say there is a nugget that a detector can hit at 20". That means as long as any of those nuggets or larger exist in the top 20" you get them. Now you go back and hunt with a machine that can hit those same nuggets to 24". The problem is for all intents and purposes you are now detecting only 4" of additional depth, and the odds of one of those targets being in 4" of ground is far less than the odds of one being in 20" of ground. And in fact due to the way many desert placers form, your odds are even worse because many desert placers get leaner the deeper you go. Those big deep nuggets of your imagination may just not be there, as has been proved by many (not all) failed bulldozer pushes. There is therefore a lot to be said for Jason's method of covering lots of hopefully virgin ground fast with larger coils to go for the larger gold even if you give up some depth doing it. I spent much of my detecting career hunting like that. The problem is pretty simple. It is getting very hard to find virgin ground that has good enough gold for this method. Days if not weeks can pass between decent finds, making this only for people with lots of time and extreme patience. My method now generally has shifted to cleanup mode. Hunting slowly and methodically chasing smaller gold with the GPZ with the idea that any deeper nuggets I get over will take care of themselves. Oftentimes for most well hunted areas that means only getting small gold but at least I am finding gold, and the GPZ hits about as small as anyone could wish. And if a larger one comes along I have high confidence I will nail it easily enough. As anyone can attest however, those big ones are getting very rare. Novices in particular I have to recommend slow and careful, going for the small stuff. Finding gold, any gold at all, is an extremely important confidence builder and essential if the novice is not going to quit the game after only a few outings. If money is no object, there in my opinion is no surer way to get some gold than to get an SDC 2300 and go as slow and as methodically as possible with it. If you can't find gold with a 2300 you are in entirely the wrong locations, or electronic prospecting simply is not for you.

I have always believed that Minelab can trace their success to not underestimating what people will pay for high performance detecting gear. I too many times when making a pitch to detector companies in the past was told "people won't spend that much for a detector". Gold detectors in particular got treated as a niche market by the U.S. manufacturers and Minelab took full advantage of that fact to eventually dominate the market. People think of places like Africa as being dirt poor. Yet for a couple years Minelab could not build and ship the GPX 4500 quick enough and every dealer in the US got calls from buyers willing to pay over retail to buy detectors ten at a time, which they then sold for double or triple retail in Africa. It does not surprise me the GPZ is selling well in Africa and probably in greater numbers by far than anywhere else.

99% of my nugget detecting is done with the Minelab GPZ 7000. I have two backup units. The first is the Makro Gold Racer. It covers me for places where I think there may be very small gold the GPZ is missing. I did see an example just recently where an area hunted to death with the GPZ 7000 and SDC 2300 gave up some more tiny bits running a hot VLF. I have to say however I rarely find it worth my while to chase those remaining tiny bits - better to just keep going with the GPZ and find another larger bit. Where the Racer really is more useful is if I get into a really trashy location and for lightweight scouting. It is also one of my jewelry detectors. My backup PI is the Garrett ATX. I have been lax about bringing it along but will remedy that in 2017. It folds up so small it is silly not to bring it along. The ATX can ground balance out basalt or other hot rocks that can be troublesome for the GPZ in some locations. It also can 100% ground balance into the salt range, making it great for salt alkali areas where the GPZ really struggles. It is of course also waterproof, but I have not detected in the rain since I left Alaska, where detecting in the rain is commonplace. The ATX is also my number one beach/surf detector.

Just in case you were wondering - from http://www.codan.com.au/Portals/0/investorpubs/Half Year Company Announcement Feb 2015 Final complete.pdf in 2015: "Minelab launched the GPZ 7000 gold detector to the market in February. This is a significant new product platform that has taken five years to develop at a cost of over $10 million." The good news for Minelab is it has paid off as sales and profits for Codan have been up in the last few years after collapsing when the Africa GPX 4500 bubble popped. From the Codan 2016 Annual Report "while sales were strong in the developed world when the product was released last year, the most significant growth in our FY16 gold detector sales has come from the successful launch of this product into our African markets. The GPZ 7000® was launched in Africa in October 2015, and demand exceeded our initial expectations". Since Minelab's parent company Codan is publicly traded interesting tidbits can be found in their annual reports. A few more: "The GO-FIND® is now Minelab’s highest unit seller" "FY17 OBJECTIVES - Release two exciting new products – lower-priced gold machine for Africa and improved larger coil for GPZ 7000®.... Continue investment in product development to create next wave of new products in FY18." Nobody knows for sure how many metal detectors are sold worldwide but Codan alone currently does close to $100 million sales annually in detecting equipment. That does however include landmine detection equipment. Check out pages 19 and 20 of the 2016 report for more details.

Well, the thread is claiming better performance than a TDI for sure, and that seems very reasonable. It is going to take a really reliable third party to prove it matches a GPX 5000 however. Like you Norvic!! Are you seriously thinking of getting one? Risky for you but it would be very beneficial for others on the forum.

Low frequencies expand the high end VDI numbers. High frequencies expand the low end numbers. And... you guessed it... mid frequencies expand the mid range. It's a sliding effect. When you say 40 you may be referring to many machines where 40 is the beginning of the non-ferrous range. The classic range is positive numbers non-ferrous and negative numbers ferrous. The classic range is 1-95 non-ferrous. When you say 40 to me you could be talking a super low end number or a mid-range number. All discussions of normalization usually focus only on the non-ferrous range. I am assuming you are referring to the Fisher and Nokta range which starts as 40 non-ferrous. That being the case, high frequencies expand that range. Excellent article with chart http://www.thebeepgoeson.com/display.asp?page=DFX_VDI_Norm And also on V3i Link deleted since Findmall Forum update broke all old links Something for a new thread really. Back to the Impact - we do not know the details on that yet. Comment on the Deus. It can deliver raw numbers or normalized numbers. The problem is almost everyone acknowledges the Deus VDI accuracy is poor at best so it is not as useful as it could be.

You are referring to VDI normalization. Different frequencies shift and compress the VDI scale. This can be compensated for through "normalization" which is just a simple math adjustment internally. However, I prefer the option to run in raw VDI mode. The DFX and V3i allow both raw and normalized VDI numbers. Low frequencies expand the range on the high end allowing the results for coin hunters to be spread out and more distinct while compressing the low end of the scale. Low conductive results bunch together. Raw high frequency numbers do the opposite - coins bunch up on the high end but you get better resolution on low conductive targets. I run my DFX in 15 kHz raw mode to allow better speed on aluminum, lead, and gold targets. The DEUS allows both raw and normalized results. The problem with raw numbers is you need to change your memory for each frequency because the number change. Normalizing everything to standard numbers makes it easier for novices in particular to get on board. Tons of good info here, see pages 4-2 and 4-3 in particular. https://www.whiteselectronics.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/V3i-advanced-users-guide.pdf

I am not aware of there being such a thing as a "variable frequency" detector in the past, but see Sheltons post above for an example of just that. The problem basically is coils. Coils must be tuned for a specific frequency or specific sets of harmonic frequencies. That is why the frequencies in selectable frequency machines are specific multiples. If you have an infinite variable adjustment you will only get optimum performance when the coil is matched to specific frequencies and at the other settings there will be a coil/frequency mismatch resulting in lost performance.