Steve Herschbach

I’ve already said the forum is going nowhere until 2025 at earliest. I’d say that’s pretty generous given close to zero activity for quite some time now. In the event I pull the plug on the forum no threads will be lost, they will simply be moved to another location, most likely the Tesoro, Compass etc forum. It’s not anyone's job other than Dimitar's to try and single handedly keep things going. Ultimately it’s up to him to keep not just this forum but Tarsacci itself alive. If the manufacturer can’t be bothered to promote their own product then there is little reason anyone else should care.

My understanding is like in everything else Garrett has faced intense competition in the security area, their bread and butter. This is therefore good news as keeping strong in the security division can only benefit us also. The only way to do that is with innovative competitive product. Hopefully we see similar action on the coin relic and jewelry side of things!

Per designer Dave Johnson: Posted by: Dave J. Date: September 24, 2015 08:59AM "Cache mode" on most F75 and T2 versions is very similar to "Slow mode" on the F70. The response is slow, with improved sensitivity to large deep targets. However this means that the signals from shallow targets will smear, with a cost in both sensitivity and in ability to discriminate and ID targets. Shallow targets will do better in cache/slow mode if you slow down to a crawl, but the default and boost modes work better for the shallower stuff. And, if you really do want best response on deep stuff, all metals mode goes deeper than disc mode. For finding the deep stuff, an alternative to Cache/Slow mode is to search in Boost mode all metals, then switch to disc when you suspect you're fighting trash. ........Another way to deal with shallower stuff is to search in Cache/Slow mode with the searchcoil lofted several inches above the ground. This will result in a big cut in response to shallow trash, but perhaps more importantly it will achieve a large reduction in ground mineral interference (since ground itself is the shallowest target) and in mineralized ground will usually enable deeper detection than if you were scrubbing the surface in a misguided attempt to "get as close as possible to the deep targets". SUMMARIZING: Cache/Slow mode is basically for locating large deep stuff in areas where there's not so much trash as to defeat the enterprise.”

98% of the time my pick is hanging in my hand at my side or over my shoulder. My pick handles are generally too long for hanging from a belt and in fact often double as a walking stick in rough terrain. I do have a nylon belt loop where a short handle pick might end up on occasion but out of habit I usually forget it is there. Detector in one hand, pick in the other, that’s the way I roll. The only time I normally stow a pick would be for a long hike, and then it’s probably going on my back. https://highplainsprospectors.com/products/high-plains-nylon-belt-tool-pick-holder-or-holster

This I would enjoy. I can live without color, but I’m tired of this deal where every detector now is a cell phone on a stick. I’d ditch them all for something more like the Apex.

Well at $99,999.00 I’ll have to pass. https://metaldetectingstuff.com/products/garrett-storm-metal-detector

The F70 has nearly all the bang of the F75/T2 and was considered an overlooked value by Dave Johnson. He frequented some forums under the name of woof! and here is what he has to say in a post on TreasureNet: "The F70 was the product of a mission-- to come up with a less expensive adaptation of the F75, while incorporating things we had learned meanwhile. Without "dumbing it down". Because the F70 was advertised for a lot less money than the F75, marketing dept. didn't quite dare to say how good the damn thing really was. Some of the secret sauce we put into the F70 eventually made its way into later revisions of the F75 group of machines, as well as into the Teknetics "Fratbros" series and most other new beeps introduced after the F70. As the top of the Fisher lineup, the F75 including its revisions got all the attention. That's how the F70 became a "sleeper". Guys like Mudpuppy will never have to wonder if they should have gotten an F75 instead. This is the same sort of explanation I just posted in "another forum" about the approx. $200 category. If you get a Eurotek Pro, you never have to wonder if you should have gotten something else. Get anything else, and you'll wonder if you should have gotten a Eurotek Pro instead. F70 owners never have to wonder if they should "upgrade" to an F75. (emphasis added)" The model has one of the best true all metal modes ever made, something that has been lost in the new digital models, that are always doing some sort of filtering. Yet has a full time visual target id layered on top of that all metal audio, a killer combination. I look really hard though at that $199 and ask myself the same question - would I really use it? And the answer is no. I do 95% of my detecting with a PI, and if not, it will be a multifrequency of some sort. That's just the reality and so at even at that price it's no deal at all if it just sits in a corner. And that is the long way of saying they have to practically give these things away now to sell them.

Jim Straight always used to say "Silence is Golden". I've blabbed pretty freely over the years but always with an eye to sometimes obscuring locations or in many cases waiting a year or more. I will say though that telling those stories and documenting them like I have is one of the best things I have ever done. Memory fades with time, mine especially, and if I waited too long to tell the tales a lot would have been lost forever.

An article I wrote for a magazine years ago, now on their website for free..... A Beginner’s Guide To Gold Panning

Fabulous find! Not to rain on anything the value of dug coins is rarely what people imagine. No way that will rate even as good. There are unofficial ratings like fair or poor and they are more likely to apply here. This coin makes me wonder what a professional cleaning service can do with it - how good are those people really?

13" Ultimate is in the running for best coil ever on multiple models, not just F75. Some other options to overwhelm the F75 owner.....

When I started this forum most people did not know that Bounty Hunter, Fisher, and Teknetics were in reality all the same company - First Texas. That holding company purchased those brands to trade off the cachet of their established names and brand following. It is therefore ironic to me that they are now abandoning the separate brands to a large degree. The once separate websites now all point back to just one - the new First Texas umbrella website. The old Bounty Hunter website http://detecting.com/ The old Fisher website http://www.fisherlab.com/ both redirect to subsections on the main First Texas website. The old Teknetics website is still up at https://www.tekneticsdirect.com/ but no doubt the new First Texas Teknetics subsection will replace it someday. First Texas is obviously abandoning small dealers fully now in favor of big box and direct sales. They have been repeatedly selling various models direct on Amazon and the FT website at under dealer cost. Hard to be a dealer when your number one competitor is your supplier. The Teknetics site long since morphed into factory direct sales and now the new site has everything factory direct, often with huge discounts. The main FT website does have a dealer application page still. It mentions a dealer listing page but I have not been able to find one. Maybe that is because of this requirement: To earn a spot on our dealer website page, dealers must have placed orders for a minimum of 20 units and sustain an annual sales goal of 100 units. Your dealer listing on our website will exclude your website address if your landing page promotes detectors from other brands. 100 units a year plus no mention of other brands on landing page specifically excludes small dealers. Only sell 80 a year? Too bad. I'm a businessman and business is business so I am not posting this as a swipe at First Texas. More a recognition of things changing with the times. The fact is many so-called dealers are just order takers competing on under the table price discounting out of garages and basements, not real brick and mortar operators. I understand why the companies, and not just First Texas, will be weeding these people out. Everything will go big box and factory direct eventually with only a few of the biggest online independent dealers hanging on over the next ten years. As price competition heats up so will the need to cut extra pockets out of the distribution chain. First Texas might be ahead of the curve on this a little but they are not the only company making these moves. Minelab is heavily promoting direct sales via Amazon and Garrett has a new factory direct website. My advice to anyone thinking of becoming a small metal detector dealer? Don't. Great deal on the Fisher F70, regular $375 and below dealer cost at $199 - almost makes me want to buy one, it's such a smoking deal! https://firsttexasproducts.com/products/fisher-f70-metal-detector-with-dual-coil-and-coil-cover-combo?variant=47452772335896

The problem is accentuated when no tuning steps have been made to alleviate the hot rock responses. Set the 24K or Monster or GMT or any VLF up with a similar overdone response to a hot rock and the same issue will arise - it’s not something exceptional to the Gold Bug 2. Whatever. The question was about the utility of accessory coils. I reject the idea that having more than one coil is not worthwhile on any detector unless a person is highly focused on a single task. You are a huge advocate for accessory coils on other detectors Simon and seem to be making an exception in the case of the Gold Bug 2, based purely on your own circumstances and ignoring that other people worldwide reading this stuff may not share your circumstances. In my opinion stating categorically that no coil but the 6” coil has any use in the Gold Bug 2 is just bad advice. There are pros and cons to everything. The good news is between the various posters including you on this thread both the pros and cons have been covered so I’ll leave it at that. Detecting Small Gold at Crow Creek Detecting Gold at Ganes Creek Lode Gold at Hatcher Pass Memorial Day at Ganes Creek Detecting Micro Nuggets at Crow Creek

I've never heard anything like that ever said before!

As you say they have done nothing wrong - you are only being critical of those other people who are ruining things for the rest of us. Greed brings out the worst in people and due to that we frankly have a lot of scumbags attracted to what we do. Sad but true.

You are overstating the issue Simon. You of all people should know there is such a thing as low mineral ground and ground relatively free of hot rocks. Other than being higher frequency the GB2 is just an IB detector and the issue with gold hidden by hot rocks exists for all of them. With thousands of hours on the machine myself I honestly have no idea what you are taking about with this “extremely slow recovery” statement. Masking yes, hot rocks or nails mask good targets. But slow recovery? That is a different beast and I’m not seeing it with the GB2. Get two nails put a nugget between them and put it in disc mode and make a video - I think you will find little evidence of slow recovery. In fact just the opposite. Just like people saying the GB2 has poor depth on larger gold. That is only true in higher mineral soils. A simple air test will put the lie to that statement on larger nuggets in benign soils. And before anyone says no such places exist that’s flat out wrong also. Anybody that solely owns a GB2 and never owned or used another coil is just shooting themself in the foot. I’m surprised anyone would ever suggest differently. Coils are tools and experiences in one place are not applicable to all people and all circumstances worldwide. It’s like owning a socket wrench and saying because you have never needed a large socket that large sockets are useless and nobody will ever need one.

I half regret selling mine but the tones and the need to use the notch to eliminate high end falsing on my location killed it for me. Impressive detector though and I would be first in line to by an MDT-9000. Hopefully such a thing comes to pass because otherwise Tarsacci will end up just being a minor footnote in detecting history that most people never heard of. I'll give it until 2025 before I decide what to do with this forum. No finds being posted, no discussion of settings, etc. means no forum and if things don't pick up by next year I will roll it into the Compass, Tesoro, etc. forum.

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!!

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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....

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