Tahoegold

I got the Gold Racer primarily for Gold hunting. I'm not an expert and haven't found Gold with it yet. I do have experience on beaches and sledding hills! There's tons of aluminum foil there which is about the same as Gold. However, I pan and sluice for Gold so I have some 2grain and 1grain targets so I can "hear" what Gold sounds like on the detector. The first time I used Gold as a target was after a few months of hunting for micro jewlery on the beaches. I can tell you, it sounds different than foil. It almost seems like there's something going on inside that makes it call out clearly on Gold. I know that there's a preference for going all metal for Gold. So, I tried using the Disc modes on "0" and setting the "tone break" on 40 to see if I could pull out the 1grain sound on my hardwood floor full of nails. I could! But, by just putting the discrimination up to 22 to blank out the nails a little "masked" the 1grain nugget. Even at 5 it would mask. So, this was interesting. This unit has 3 all metal modes and 2 of them use tone break! Beware though. The pure all metal mode is more sensitive and goes deeper on Gold. So in the right spot, all metal works deeper. But what works best? This detector has options. The large GR 40 coil is fantastic for the beach! I can really cover ground With it. It's able to find tiny stuff too! I found an earing back with it!! Think of this, a 56k unit with a huge coil that can find a tiny earing back. I stood in the middle of my garage and aimed it (the biggest coil GR40) at the garage door and I could just barely hear it. I'd say that was about 8 feet away. The big coil combined with the concentric is a beach going duo. I like the sounds from the concentric. It is more varied and easier to descriminate by ear with the concentric for me. The depth is great for the concentric. I experimented a little with the large GR40 and the concentric on depth. It seems the concentric can reach deeper by a little on some coin targets. That surprised me. But, most coins aren't very deep here. I like the ground coverage and micro capability of this large coil. In trashy spots, the concentric is best. Even better than the DD coil of the same size because of the better sound I hear on the concentric. The tone break is really nice to set so I can ID coins only and put the disc to "0" for max sensitivity to tiny stuff like stud earings. Even the tiny silver bits sound off as a high tone. Too much disc and it won't detect the tiny stuff in trash. But the sound does! Even the big coil can! Now, the other 2 coils I have are the DD kind. I don't have the round one. Only the eliptical 5.5x10 and 4x7.5 inch ones. These sound different than a concentric. They also seem to get between targets a little better if they are on the same plane/level. I used my 1grain and 2grain Gold targets to check these out. I also used these targets on the large coil and concentric coils. The large one I couldn't get a reading very well and the concentric was a tiny bit less crisp than the DD. The tiny DD was the surprise. It could pick up these targets the best. They sounded crisper and at a better distance. We are talking less than an inch of difference for crisp signals. I know most hunt by threshold sounds, but I'm trying to determine the difference in these coils by using the same test methos on each. Yes, these are air tests. But remember, it's the difference I'm trying to determine. Then I wanted to try a 1/4 oz egg sinker whole then flattened slightly. The number reading was only 1 number off from my natural gold. Surprisingly, the small 4x7.5 DD could detect it farther than the 5x10.5DD. The target was on the concrete in my garage. I had swept the spot with the detector and it had no iron on this spot in the concrete. Still, we are talking less than an inch difference. But it was crisper with the smaller coil and farther than the bigger coil. I know if the size of the target is bigger the bigger DD coil was better. A sledge hammer was the target for that test. With this knowledge, I went aluminium hunting on the beach to practice hunting for tiny Gold. In all metal, I could find the tinyst bitty pieces of foil. But there were bits so tiny I couldn't find them. I thought maybe they were itty bitty bits of iron and may look like sand. So, I switched to disc 2, "0" disc and 45 tone break. This would give foil a slightly crackly sound with some high and a bit of low tone. Now, the foil was easy to find. I still heard the iron, but the foil was easier to hear now as a separate tone. So, in trash I could pull out tiny bits of foil. I took the Gold Racer to a pull out on a highway using the tiny coil, "0" disc and 45 tone break. I found a tiny bit of brass that only made a quick quiet chirp. But I could clearly tell that sound from the low tone iron sounds that were constant. This was a great tool to use as there was no descrimination, only sound. It worked! I use this to cherry pick coins on the beach with the large coil too. It WILL find tiny silver out of the trash. The iSAT is important to use properly on all metal. I think it would be wise to have a tiny Gold target to set this at each new location. The iSAT evens the threshold warble over mineralized ground. The higher the number, the more it stabilizes. However, the sensitivity seems to be affected. The higher the number the less sensitive. So, with a Gold target, on the ground you are hunting in, and the detector ground balanced you can tell wthout a doubt, what iSAT setting works best. Sometimes I put up with a little "chatter" and go with a lower iSAT setting to get more depth and a clearer signal. Sometimes though, too low and the threshold doesn't recover very fast. The threshold setting on iSAT is a fine tuning tool. The ground balance is the overall bigger picture tool. But because the iSAT is more like fine tuning, it's great for really getting the the unit to perform well in any particular ground. But, really, you have to have a target, even if it is lead glued to a tooth pic for testing. Use a 2 grain piece. Take a minute to dial it in. Then go hunt. Heck, use the auto tracking too, it works really well, you can test that too on the tiny target to see for yourself. The ground grab switch makes manual balancing easy. Confidence with this detector is easy this way. The Disc modes have something simular called iMask that smooths out some of the small fuzzy sounds from itty tiny bits of metal in trashy places. So, to summarize, the big coil and concentric are for beaches. The smaller DD coils for Gold. Steve prefers to use the 5x10.5 and mentions that if there were crevices he woud use the 4x7.5  I agree. The 5x10.5 covers more ground and finds tiny stuff. If you really need to clean up the crumbs or get closer in a crevice, use the 4x7.5 There's a good start for ya. This info and a little experience with the testing and you can know for sure how this unit is operating. I really like using it. It is light. Except with the big coil. Even that's not bad. And it has a very nice range of sounds not just a beep. I almost think is sounds like analog with the concentric. The DD coils are hollow and light except for the small 4x7.5 that one feels solid. The handle feels great. It's well balanced with all the coils. I like the pin pointing feature. I'm really ok with just pinpointing by waving the coils. I can use the tip even on the big coil, but, sometimes the pin pointing feature just shortens the time to locate the target. The sound boost in all metal is on all the time for me. At night, when the sun is setting, I've had to use the light and it really works good enough to keep from hitting a rock and to mark the target with your foot before getting a flashlight on the subject. It's a nice feature. The speaker is under the arm rest, so I bought the cover. I also wrap a plastic grocery bag around just the box to keep sand and moisture away. The speaker can suffice as it is plenty loud. I prefer to use headphones. But, I think the headphone cable may pick up the signal and sound like EMI at the higher sensitivity settings. I run the cable behind my back and that seems to work. It has a nice feature that allows you to set the back light on the ID panel. I like to set it to come on only when it senses a target. It will come on even if the target ID can't identify the target. So, in low light, it comes on if anything is being sensed. A few times I found deep targets investigating after the light came on and barely gave a chirp. Well, that's my take on this Makro Gold Racer. It is really chock full of useful adjustments that you can save before shutting down. Get to know them and the coil you are using and you'll find the tiny stuff and the stuff in the trashy places. 

    I have the compadre with the 8" coil. I've never used the smaller coil type so I cant compare them. I live in an area with a lot of beaches and snow sledding hills. This was my first detector. I was looking for something to hunt rings and jewlery. The Compadre was the least costly, for what I could determine, of the available detectors that worked really good for rings. I wasn't dissapointed. I've found these items easily. I am not a dealer!

    The Compadre has a very accurate discrimination. There's so many rusty nails, bolts and washers around here. I can put the disc. just above Iron and the Compadre quietly searches for targets never making a sound on the iron. This has no ground balance, no sensitivity dial and just one knob. So there's no "threshold" sound. The knob is the on and off and the discrimination. There's no display with target ID. There's only 1 knob and a speaker on the face. I really love that I can still find silver rings and gold rings without hearing constant sounds from iron. I have found targets as small as split shot. With the discrimination all the way off I found half a staple. On a few beaches, we have this black sand that makes it impossible for VLF detectors. But, one day I had an idea to just hunt anyway with no descrimination. Yes, lots of false sounds. However, I found $5 in quarters because the Compadre's analog "sound" made the quarter sound very repeatable. Heck, I did it into the night with just the moon light on the water because it has no screen and I just listened with my earbuds. It has the larger size head phone jack. I kept finding coins about 3" deep. 

   I use the kind of earbuds with earhooks so I could place them a little away from my ear canal. The Compadre is loud and without a volume control. But, hey, its simple!! It works!!

    I also don't mind that it has no interchangeable coil. It takes that decision away. On a day when I just want to enjoy the weather and go hunt the beaches, it's a joy to have no complicated decisions to make like, which coil, did I ground balance, should I change sensitivity. I smile when I reach for the compadre because my next move is walking out the door on my way to have fun with a detector the will find the goods!

     About the descrimination, it is really good. I can set it right where a zink penny is detectable and I can cherry pick for all coins and anything silver. Or, If I just want to hunt for quarters and anything silver, I set it and it's silent until I hit a target. This method works all the way down to iron. Nickles can be ID'd by using a nickle you have to identify the location on your dial then use the "thumbing" method to ID targets. It is a very specific spot on the dial that you will find this way.

    For picking targets out of trash, it's hard to beat. I found a silver dime in a popular spot in the foundation ruins of an old building with all kinds of pipes, nails and bolts. There was only one sound. The silver dime. That's incredible. In fact, you can put the discrimination up all the way and it will still find silver, noooo problem.

    Here's the "thumbing" method of target ID'ing: By simply spinning the knob to discriminate out the target, then slowly turning the knob back until you hear a solid repeatable sound, one can identify a target very accurately and easily.

     I believe, after using the Compadre, my "hearing" for targets became much better. It helped me with "descrimination by sound" on my other detector. The Compadre is my ninja detector work-out unit! Sometimes you can just hear the ground minerals and other small chirps and just know it's not a target. Sometimes I have to throw a coin down or detect the eyelets on my shoes to make sure it's still running!

    This detector has some great abilities. Some no other detector has. Example, if a coin is right next to a pipe of a fence in a park, the coin target will double beep and that's a sign to dig! That double beep also works on tiny stud earings. I can sweep the sand. I mean sliding my coil on the sand, and get a double beep from tiny earings and earing backs. I have several silver earing backs doing this with the Compadre.

   The nuances of the sound from analog gives a great "picture" of what is under the sand. I could hear the ridges of bottle caps once I got good at it. It's hard to believe, but it sounds kind of scratchy but solid like a coin. The shear fun from such simplicity and function can't be found in any other detector for me. It's a great way to begin metal detecting. Kids can use it too. Just turn one knob and off ya go! I have one other detector with a screen and several coils. I use it a lot too. But, the Compadre keeps out performing in trash due to the discrimination. So it has it's place in my Arsenal. That's my take on the Compadre.