Zampano

Thanks mate, much appreciated!

You may not call this a post; this is an excellent article! Thanks Steve.

Fully agree... this is why I am waiting for the next CTX 3040 / CTX 4040 or whatever it will be : )

fully agree : )

1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

At this time I have no firm opinions to offer on the CTX 3030 versus the Impact other than to tell you I have used them side by side for a short time and they are competitive.

Thanks much Steve,

You got it right: We are prospecting gold in the mountains PLUS we dig for everything of human provenance in flat areas as Europe has been visited by mankind for quite some time.

Me and and some of my buddies do already own Makro Gold Racer, using it mainly in the Swiss Alps, thus following your advice : )

English is not my native tongue, but the question was really regarding a direct comparison Nokta Impact to a CTX, regarding depth and ID reliability. Thanks so far...

Cheers from Switzerland, Tino

Nokta Impact. Now that it's released

I guess Steve will have been one of the experts with the privilege of testing the new Nokta Impact.

Minelab original quote regarding its 6th Partner Conference, in Las Vegas, January 2017.

We held various training sessions, workshops and announced the introduction of several new Minelab products which will be available later in 2017! The first of this being the GOLD MONSTER 1000.

In my interpretation more than a new CPZ coil and the Monster.

Cheers, Zampano

Great post, congrats Rob ! This looks inspiring .... and makes it even harder to wait for a new CTX 3040 / 4040

There is only one good biological indicator I know: If the ground is pure gold, there will be no flora

22 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

The CTX 3030 is far from being a machine to buy just to go gold prospecting. However, people that own them have had success finding gold nuggets with them in trashy areas. There are some pretty amazing gold nugget finds with the CTX documented on this forum. Lets face it - you can find gold with any metal detector as long as it is large enough and shallow enough. The CTX 3030 would not normally be on my list of preferred nugget detectors but at the same time if it was all I had I would go find gold with it. I will probably try and find a nugget with mine this summer just to say I did it.

There is a long pre-existing thread on the subject on the forum at 

 

Sorry, but this does not leave a lot of hope for the CTX with smaller nuggets than Ron's ; )

On 20.6.2016 at 3:04 AM, vanursepaul said:

Oh my Lord................

 

---- Am I starting to think I would like to try out a 3030 .....

Noooooooo... Make the voices quit !!!!!!

Too late – I can hear it too

You are a big help, Steve. Thanks again.

Only asking because I saw people with CTX in coastal water and they seemed to be quite happy with the performance.

Concerning the too long waiting for a CTX 3040 / 4040 I fully agree. Still I would not expect it to take that long for two reasons: a) the two European competitors will further expand both VL range and possibilities very soon and b) that irritating battery seal needed to be solved (quicker) anyway if a manufacturer cares about reputation and brand in a quite transparent global community... Frankly, this subject made me think more about Minelab quality and facing guarantee issues here in Europe than anything else so far. Good customer responsiveness would do good for the brand anyhow, if you compare the Minelab image (outside AUS) against eg. Nokta / Makro. I have no solid proof that they are better but they (Dilek) definitely do a better job in communicating, as you will be aware. Perception = Reality = Image.

Back to the 3030: If Minelab only updated processor-speed and screen resolution I would go for it. But it just doesn't feel good to buy electronic gear that was launched 2012 and remained technically unchanged. Most of the people I'm talking with think alike; so let's wait and see...

For the meantime I'll have a new start with the Makro Gold Racer up in the mountains. If you hear something jodeling, it's possibly me ?

Cheers!

Got it, thanks again Steve!

The only question left then is do we wait for th 3040 / 4040 ?

And why would you still use a Garrett ATX at the beach

Cheers!

Thx much guys, much appreciated – I think I got the point.

@Steve Regarding these alumininum ring-pulls: Are you saying that with the 3030 it would be possible to distinguish these from a small gold-item?

Thanks Terry 

Fully agree on all you point out. Still, if looking at a "general purpose VLF detector" (not so hot on gold). Why will a 3030 be the better choice than a cheaper VL, if everybody tells me, you may not rely on the ID, not even with the 3030? I much like the TX but I do not understand why it should be any better than a Makro Racer in practice... If it's just for waterproof, there are also cheaper models in the same freqency ranges.

Hi everyone, I hope someone can help me in understanding this.

In all the forums we are told "If you go for gold you need to dig it all". And it says that – depending on ground conditions and depth plus surrounding targets – you may never be sure if it is aluminum or gold catching your detectors attention.

IF this is true, why should anyone invest in gear like a Minelab CTX 3030 (which is what I am about to do...). Why not a simple Garrett AT PRO.... and why not a PI machine?

I am aware of higher freqs = better for gold, lower freqs = more depth. And I am aware that every product has it's special strengths. But this does not answer the blunt question for me of why investing in fantastic ID capabilities if it's not worth it in practice.

Thanks much for your piece of advice!

Well, yes, in german gold it’s also called gold, but that’s about it…

In Latin it’s aurum, this is why the chemical element comes with the symbol Au

With the Aztecs Gold was called Teocuitlatl (teotl = God ; cuitlatl = excrement ). This must be why you find prospectors so often yelling things like „Holy sh..“ when hitting a nice nugget

In France a gold medal is called medaille d’or and in Italy, the nices way to say „good night“ is „sogni d’oro“.

 see by yourself :-))

On 10.6.2016 at 0:41 AM, fredmason said:

Welcome Zampano...what is wrong with english? It is that or nothing for me, my brain barely grasps this my native tongue....just teasing!

Are you going on tour with Mark Hyde?  

Would you happen to know Fabrizo,aka, Fab?  He is a very good detectorist and was touring with Mark for a long while...! 

Best wishes

fred

Hi Fred, thanks for the warm welcome!

English is just fine, I speak 5 leanguages, but it sometimes takes ages to express what I really want to ask or say in eglish? especially as these topics are quite specific and I found out there is a prospector slang that you need to get familiar with, not even mentioning the mates from down under :-))

I do not know Mark or Fabrizio yet. Is Fab swiss?

Best to you

Zampano

It's gonna be a Gold Racer then and i'll be waiting what follows next for CTX 3030 and how XP 4.X and Nokta Impact will do. I would expect top of the line VLs to show same depth capabilities as PIs under our not so mineralized groud conditions. For Queensland it will still be the GPZ 7000, I guess ?

Hi Steve!

This is a very nice forum ( even if it is in english :-)) and I would like to thank you in the name of all these not so experienced colleagues like me!

Punch ist meant for impact / depth of the CTX 3030; from what I understood, it is the punchiest VL in the market. I think someone figured out in another post that multifrequency also has its drawbacks, regarding the ability of finding small amounts of gold. When choosing to run the Impact with 4 kHz, good depth should be expected (?).

Cheers!

Hi Steve,

you are regarded as one of the real experts when it comes to Nokta / Makro products and you mentioned the new Nokta Impact, operating on 3 frequencies. I would think you are one of the rare people to have it for the ongoing field-testing but would never ever admit...

We are a group of mixed prospectors / coin / jewelry hunters from Switzerland – Lots of people over the entire history, on a very small spot; you might call the ground trashy. As me and my colleagues are about to decide for an update in equipment: What are your expectations regarding possibilities of the Nokta Impact?

• Will it have the punch of a CTX 3030?
• Will it be close to the abiities of the Makro Gold Racer on small gold?
• Would you expect it to be a real allrounder? (without offering PI-Performace)
• Will it outperform the (existing) XP Deus?

Or should we take Makro Gold Racer for small Gold and wait for the nex XP Deus V4 / Nokta Impact to decide for our other requirements?

I for now would go withe Minelab CTX, if it was not that weak on small nuggets.

Thanks for your Feedback, much appreciated !

Zampano & Friends