Northeast

It is interesting but in the end the targets are planted pieces of lead so need to be taken with a grain of salt. Although I haven't weighed them, the QED with the Sadie coil on feels about the same as the Equinox. It is still light with the 11" Detech but it is a heavier coil and it makes the QED a bit nose heavy. I think you can but Reg would be able to give you specifics. Being a mono that is suited to the GPX units my guess would be yes. I have been a bit excited by your initial x coil tests as you have mentioned good sensitivity and less EMI issues. If an X coil allowed me to up my Gain a little that would be nice. You don't need anymore detectors ?

Evening all. Thought I would give an update as to how my QED adventures are going having spent a good few days in the NE and the GT of Victoria using a few different coils and also visiting the Coiltek test site at Maryborough. I am also posting this across 3 forums that I frequent with varying amounts of input. Prospecting Australia, Detector Prospector and Australian Electronic Gold Prospecting Forum. Apart from my recent findings there have also been a few questions and comments across a few of the forums about various QEDisms and hopefully this may answer some of those queries for the people that posed them and others who may be looking at a QED with interest. There are some people that like to fire shots across the bow of others on the forums I mentioned above. I’m not interested in that and please don’t start that in response to this post. People across all of these forums have been most helpful to me and I am posting this to try and be helpful to others, not to start arguments. Have I found gold yet? YES!!!! One tiny, teensy little piece not far from home. That was with the 11” Detech Ultra Sensing coil. The 5 days recently spent in the GT were hard yakka and I didn’t find any gold. But neither did Mitchel (from DP with his GPZ) and Elusive (DP and PA with his SD2200). Elusive did take home some consolation prizes with his SDC of 2 species and another small piece of gold. Apart from 1 spot we mostly covered flogged ground. With the recent rain I was apprehensive about how the QED was going to handle the mineralisation. My personal feeling is that wet mineralised ground ‘lights up’ the mineralisation and makes ground noise issues greater. For example, my GPZ hated wet, red clay but would play nicely in the same ground when dry. The QED is not much different I find. A depression in the clay that has allowed water to sit and moisten the clay, surrounded by hard packed, dry clay would give the QED issues. The mineralisation and also the variability between the density of the ground creates problems in my opinion (for the QED and the GPZ). The important thing though is how did the QED (and the operator) deal with with these problems. Well, this time around I dealt with it a lot better. Isn’t it funny how the more you use a detector and get used to it the easier it seems to be ? Most of the ground noise that showed up gave a wide response and also a variable response - meaning that it wouldn’t always be in the exact same spot like a genuine target should be. Using the GB change of 4 points up or 4 points down also confirmed things for me. 4 down would often soften the response greatly and 4 up would sharpen the response greatly. I have been very scared using this method as I really do not wish to walk away from a genuine target and due to this I dug (or at least scratched a few inches off) every target I got. Not a single time in 5 days did this technique fail and I end up popping a genuine target out of the hole. I tried to remember to do this on targets that I was sure were targets before digging them and the response might change the very slightest amount but essentially they sounded the same. I didn’t always remember to do this though as I was excited to dig what seemed a genuine article. Lead shot/BBs/.22 bullets/lead fragments - if digging these is a sign that a detector is working then the QED was purring because these little **&%$$##%&* absolutely pop. There is no mistaking that they are a target. Ground Balance - the settings I used on the 11” and the ground (especially around Bendigo) meant that a spot on GB only had a variation of 1-2 points. So, the unit may be ground balanced at 110 but just out at 111 or 109. Getting a GB is now quicker with more use and recognising when it is out of GB is also becoming more innate. It is now at a point where a quick, on the fly re-GB is not an inconvenience. THS-A, THS-B - Have now found happy settings for these with the 11” and sticking with them until such a time that I need to change. Gain - still having issues getting a stable threshold with a setting of 2 or above and I forgot to discuss this with Reg when I was with him. I have occasionally punched the Gain up to 3 or 4 to find a really, really, tiny target as it brightens the signal but it also ratties up the threshold so it can’t be kept there. Mode - Adjusted this better over my GT trip in response to the ground conditions and it allowed improved handling of various ground conditions. Again, learning the features of the unit and when to utilise them (and remembering to utilise them!) has helped a lot. Goldman’s QED Tips thread on the AEGPF has been quite useful in getting an understanding of the finer points of using the QED - so thanks to Goldman. There was a comment on DP forum that related to Jonathon Porter’s review of the QED back in 2017. It was something like the QED is ‘best suited to small targets in less mineralised ground’ and the question posed was if this is the case then why not just use a VLF? This was in 2017 and there have been several more modes added to the QED since then. The belief is that this has given the QED a greater range of ground conditions that it can effectively work and my opinion would be that the QED is quite well suited to a variety of gold sizes in a variety of grounds. This is in no way a slight on JP’s review as I believe he simply ‘called it as he saw it’ at the time. The advances in the number of Modes available may lead JP to a different view now. I would like to back up my statement of “the QED is quite well suited to a variety of gold sizes in a variety of grounds” by showing some wonderfully large and small nuggets but unfortunately I can’t. All can say is that I have dug some quite deep .22 bullets and other rubbish and a visit to the Coiltek test site proved quite interesting. I gave the 20” NF Advantage Spoked coil (bundle wound) and the 11” Detech Ultra Sensing coil (spiral wound) a run here. The 20” picked up the smallest target of 3 grams, the 2 ouncer and the 5 ouncer without any worries. I think the other 2 targets are 7 grams and 15 grams and it got the slightest hit on one of them but not enough to stop me out in the field and no hit on the other at all. The 11” really surprised me. It got a hit on the 3 grams, 15 grams, 2 ouncer and 15 ouncer. It missed the 7 gram though which was interesting. However, the Coiltek fella that was there said many detectors had trouble with that particular target. Mitchel’s GPZ got all targets except the 5 ouncer. We did try a few different settings but couldn’t get a peep on it. I have seen other’s on PA say they have got all targets there with their GPZ’s and I can’t help but think there was something in Mitchel’s settings that was limiting it. As a previous GPZ owner (who loved it!) I have seen it pull some ridiculously deep stuff and find it odd that it couldn’t pick that piece up. The Coiltek fella had an SDC and it couldn’t get anything which only surprised me on the first target - I thought it might/should have got it. A few things to point out. I keep comparing the QED to my GPZ and although that is not a fair comparison I have not used anything else that does compare. I respect Howard for the progress he is making with the QED and the fact that it is an Australian product makes me a proud purchaser. However, please don’t feel I am making comments on the QED as a means of persuading anyone to make a purchase. Having layman’s reviews of any product may help those in the market decide if a particular item is going to work for them. I probably align myself with a comment from Ararat Gold recently that he is not brand loyal. I will buy what works for me at the price point I can afford regardless of brand. (If that product happens to be Australian then all the better ? Previously I have felt that I am reasonably happy with my QED purchase. The 5 days in the GT has increased that feeling of content and I am quite confident in approaching different areas/tasks with the QED in hand and getting the job done. The variety of coils available is a new joy and headache for me and the new ‘X coils’ might be a really interesting development for the QED. As always though, it doesn’t matter what you swing you have to get your coil over some yellow first.

It has been great to spend a few days with you Mitchel. Those amongst the forums may feel that we 'get to know each other' in some way via a keyboard but it is not until you shake a hand, wander the bush and have a few conversations together that you make a real connection. I very much appreciate the meteorite too. Had a look on Google maps at Gold basin, Santa Monica Beach (380 miles each way) - it's nice to get a sense of where it came from and the effort it has taken you to find it only just to hand it over to me ? Pity I couldn't put you on to some decent gold but I gave it a shot. When my friend today talked of 5 grammers, 20 piece trees, 5 pieces of 2 grams all within metres of each other it is hard to believe that all the 2 of us could get the last 2 days was your small piece this morning. I suppose when you pick over the carcasses left by others before you, there is often not much 'meat' left on the bones. It's a shame the long shot at Marong didn't pay off for us. For me it is now back to the research to find a fresh patch rather than a depleted one. Best of luck with your one last foray tomorrow, hope the hire car passes its final examinations and I am sure the real gold will be waiting for you in LA on Thursday morning California time. Safe travels ?

Spot on ? Tuesday is ounce day!!!!!!! Bring it on ?

*Elusive. By name and nature ?

And there may be something soon that will ‘Vanguish’ the opposition in that lower price range...

Great to meet you today Mop. It is always dicey meeting ‘some rando’ off a forum but so far the people I have met have been helpful, cheerful and friendly. And you were no exception ? Muchly appreciate you taking us to your spot. Respectfully we left all the gold there for you ? We are heading out west of the airport in the morning tomorrow if you wanted to join us again. Sunday is gold day!!!!

That would be good Mop. Nice to put a face to a name. Im camping tonight on a spot that I wanted to check out. Turns out there was quite a bit of surfacing done here back in the day. Meeting Mitchel west of the Maryborough airport tomorrow if you want to meet us there. Or if you have a secret spot you wish to let us know about ?

There has been some fine analogies recently. I like this one too. DP forum has become detectorphilospher.com Be warned, I am still but a Grass Hopper. However, I guess the mind set I have now changed to is 'go big or go home'. I have the luxury of going some time between nuggets in the hope that those nuggets are sizeable. I don't envy Mitchel as he does not have the luxury of time on a trip like this. But don't worry, I will be trying to get us on to something decent - it is in the best interests of both of us ?

5 days starting Friday we are going to catch up with Mitchel. Myself, Elusive (from this forum) and hopefully my wife's cousin from Bendigo will be hitting some spots and hopefully all finding some colours. We are also catching up with Reg Wilson on Friday and heading to Maryborough for a bit of QED fine tuning and testing a few machines on the Coiltek test site and then Reg may continue to join in our hunting over the weekend if he wishes. I have been getting targets with the QED but have been hitting flogged patches and not getting deep targets. Testing some known targets at known depths will hopefully give me some confidence re: the QED and its different settings and, possibly more importantly, confidence in the coils I have. Hopefully some company this weekend for Mitchel will bring some yellow as well ?

YeeHaa, gold is in the scoop! Nice pic of the ‘roo too. You’ll sleep a little bit sounder tonight ?

I didn’t think there were any photos that were too blurry... ?

These sorts of descriptions are so hard to fathom. It must have been an amazing thing to see.

Here is a happy medium. Hope she finds you some gold today ?

Will this create EMI issues over the next few days? Geomagnetic storms doesn’t sound great. https://amp.9news.com.au/article/28ce231e-5e21-40e5-b2a8-5d4fa1e0fc24

And Thursday?

Isn't that a trailer park? Or are trailer parks for permanent residents? Where to travelling caravaners stay? Do they just 'free camp'?

Good point, everyone stay away ?

Sorry, I didn't think of that as being an issue. Here is a good website for checking out what is what as far as state parks, forests, national parks, reserves, heritage areas, etc. http://mapshare.maps.vic.gov.au/MapShareVic/index.html?viewer=MapShareVic.PublicSite&locale=en-AU And 300 metres from the back fence of the Wedderburn caravan park is the new hot spot ?

? It looks like a piece of lead? But I hope it is the real deal.

Oh dear, that was a long drive for a poor return. Hope Wedderburn returns some yellow for you. Are you staying out that way tomorrow night or heading back to Bendigo? It is a beautiful home ? I'll P.M. you my email address, respond to it and I will send you a couple of spots. 2 near Bendigo and 1 near Marong.

Best of luck on Sunday Mitchell. Sunday prayers in the Bush Church might help shine some light on the yellow ? On a different note, did you get a chance to get any Australiana souvenirs at the airport for Little Mitchell for when you go home? Is he about 12 months old now?

Not just the bit I quoted but the whole post - you seem to have too much logic and not enough conspiracy theory in there for this thread ?

Nothing stopping you tomorrow Mitchell. Go get ‘em ?

I think he went straight out to Reg’s place. Plenty of ‘roos in the bush out there.