Tony

Imagine rolling that specimen back to the group campfire.....”boys, I decided to investigate that ground noise after all”......... I think I will go take a look this weekend......Mission Impossible style 😎

I’ve been fooled by “low areas” that are part of a larger high area many times.......bit like looking for gold in the bottom of a mountain lake 😬

Hello Clive, My only water machine is the Excalibur.....and to be honest, it has enough punch for me. As I have gotten older and wiser, I now really focus on sand movement and will hunt these areas on every occasion possible. As I’ve mentioned before, my conditions are quite rough and even setting the scoop accurately is a challenge.....digging targets beyond 12” into the sea floor is futile so speed and target accuracy (composition and physical location) is the secret. A buoyant, large coil PI is not the tool for these conditions. Lower beach hard pan and shallows then the TDIBH is formidable. For the first time in 25 years, I do not have a beach PI detector. I’m learning the Excal more and more and it is quite an impressive machine......I run her in minimal DISC with as much sensitivity before it naturally falses......and then investigate ANY threshold breaks and remove a few inches of sand for “inconsistent / one way nulls”.........there’s quite a bit in that audio ! But there is nothing like your bare feet to feel the sea floor and deciding if it’s worth hunting......I’m getting the feel with dive boots as well. 👍

Good job Skully.....the Excal is perfect for that sea floor where you don’t need too much power. On a side note, did you get your TDIBH fixed up ? I just sold mine for more than I paid for it.......great detector for the right conditions 👍 Nice gold....now go and get some more !

Well I decided the TDIBH was too much of a handful in the water so I decided to move it on to a new owner. Hopefully I’ll not regret the decision but I got what I paid for it so can’t complain too much. One of Whites best for dry and wet sand hunting but never got much market penetration....I guess most want VLFs these days ? Time to change my profile.......just five machines now 😳

As they say “Go big or go home”.........I think this picture says it all. If I miss some very small stuff then so be it but hey I’ll never know about it anyway !

Sounds like you have successfully diagnosed the problem yourself 👍 EMI is just about guaranteed to be the problem. Have you tried moving further away from the power source because if the problem is gone then you know for sure that EMI is the culprit. With the mono coil then the problem should be significantly worse.

I have a Ghanaian work colleague and we talked about African gold prospecting.......he mentioned that in many parts it wouldn’t be safe (for Westerners) to nugget hunt there by yourself or even in groups........you’re basically taking their gold and the locals wouldn’t like it one bit and trying to “smuggle” gold out of the country is another matter entirely. Corruption and danger lurks everywhere and for many, gold prospecting is a means of survival.

Agree completely.....it’s something I might look at next year, but for now I’m happy with my old school detectors.....they may look retro but still perform very well. Regards, Tony

Is that freshwater inside or salt........sorry to see that picture. if it’s salt then you must open her out and flush with demineralised water and then a good flushing with methylated spirits. I only had to use the TDIBH once in water to realise that the combination of coil size and buoyancy of the control box was a nightmare in the water. Maybe get her back to stock condition and working and then off to eBay.......one sold recently for about $1100 US dollars 👍 My TDIBH is only used for beach work and it is probably the best unit I’ve ever had for that purpose, Good luck Skully........

I did some quick calculations the other day and to my surprise, realised that I have spent over $15,000 buying your awesome metal detectors. I don’t have a problem with that because I hunt the beach and water during the summer and hit the gold fields during the winter. My issue is with the current line up of gold detectors, specifically the pulse induction units which range in price from about $6000 to $10000 dollars. I know you plough a good deal of money into R&D but I feel a lot of your loyal purchasers are being neglected. I remember the days when the SD2100v1 and SD2200v2 detectors were available at a reasonable price as well as the reintroduction of the GPX4500 ( but I suspect as a reaction to perceived competition). These units were available alongside your official top of the line detectors so that Mr Average could afford a high performance detector. What has happened to your ability to still offer affordable pulse machines and not have to remortgage the family home? Mr Minelab......or is it Mr Codan.......your business model is sure keeping your stockholders happy but it is a far cry from how things used to be. Current new PI units are out of the reach of many users who have supported your company for over 25 years. I could go out tomorrow and buy a new GPX6000 but the reason that I won’t is twofold......my old 2100 and 3500 running both small and large monos perform very well for me AND I don’t want to further encourage Minelabs perception that “if we build it (and sell it for a premium price) they will come”. I fully applaud the GPX6000 platform based upon initial feedback from owners but COME ON..........stop making it an exclusive club !

Agree completely.......maybe the depth results were concocted in a lab somewhere....Minelab don’t need to be economical with the truth as the detectors speak for themselves. I’m also happy to miss smaller ones if I stand a better chance of the bigger ones.......the 2100 and 3500 with the 18” Monos do serve this purpose well. Having said all that.....I would happily swing a 6000 if it was proven that I’ll not give up the chance of missing bigger and deeper ones. Has this been the trend of later machines and their timings ?

I’m hoping that amount was due to COVID and no regular USPS service was available due to very limited flights 😬

Well spotted Nenad......the carbon uppers save quite a bit of weight. I may go carbon on the lower shafts but probably not needed. I’ve got two unused Minelab Super Gold Search 11” monos as well plus two 11” DD coils if needed. Keep the monos on whenever you can.......”go big or go home” 😎

With all this talk about the GPX 6000, I’m staying with my retro detectors. I’ve found teeny ones at depth and bigger ones that took an hour to dig out. Picked up these machines from a retired detecting couple who had them as backups.....they were “new in box”. Totally unmodified except for the external tune pot on the 2100 and regulated power supply. Hooked up to the legendary light weight 18” mono Kevlar coils makes a formidable nugget hunter......no bungee required. Two detectors and six coils for 1/4 the price of the 6000. Then again, my 70 Series Landcruiser has a manual gearbox and you have to wind the windows down by hand 👍 ......

Ivanll is legitimate.....have conversed with him a few times. If anyone can get such a machine to Australia then it’s him. He lives in North Queensland, Australia. PS......I don’t have one and most likely won’t. Tony

I have chopped off about 12” of my TDIBH cable.......no problems at all.

Packing my bags.......👍

Not mine Joe.....must have been another setup somewhere.

Or you could get really serious and just get a very long extension cable and plug into the 240v.....😗

And here’s me going back to a stock battery......well not quite....it’s a 3 x 18650 setup @ 11.1v. In another thread, I mentioned the super hotspot on my TDIBH board when running the 14.4v battery which got me worried. Being sealed up, there's probably less opportunity for the heat to dissipate. Even when opened, the hotspot was severe.....couldn’t touch it for more than a second or so without burning a finger. My depth results were a maximum increase of 2” over the stock battery. In fact, my current 11.1v Lithium setup sits in the middle (depth wise) between the stock battery and my retired 14.4v battery so I’m more than okay with just the 1” drop. Regards, Tony

I had one years ago and liked it a lot. Best used on the beach, wet and dry as opposed to the surf. Performance and audio was very good. Indicator lights are a guide only. If it’s a red light only then you are dealing with pure iron targets. Iron alloy targets such as bottle caps will be a yellow light which is also most of your gold rings. Green light is high conductors such as silver rings and some coins. Basically, if it’s anything except a pure red light then you dig ! There is a spring loaded toggle switch that alternates between AM and DISC.....sometimes it doesn’t stay put in the DISC position and flicks back to AM.......only a minor problem. Mine was a very reliable unit......it’s a twin frequency machine which is a good thing. Don’t worry about the Ground Balance knob......kind of redundant in most conditions.

Hello Clive......well thank you for the compliment and maybe your post is a “lightbulb” moment for me. If Fisher needs an AQ user down under then hopefully they will read this thread. I do use the Excalibur for nearly all of my waterwork, which is generally rough salt water work........3 to 4 foot swells are the norm. My problem is with PIs in these conditions is not having the luxury of working signals when simply setting the scoop is a challenge. I use my TDIBH for the exposed wetsand and for that it does very well. I would absolutely love to try an AQ but hunting in my water conditions wouldn’t do the machine justice. Having a measly 0.5 metre tidal range doesn’t help things either. Thanks for adding to this post......keep well and HH Tony

The reason why I can’t see myself ever swinging one of these fully featured models is because I will always be wondering if I’ve missed something due to how I’ve set the detector up, a challenging saltwater/blacksand environment or have I swung over a honker 18/22K gold ring that could potentially be blind to the AQ. As a result of all of this, I would have to run it in AM all of the time which means I’ve paid a lot of money for a straight PI. The tech in this detector is really something and I sincerely congratulate the developers behind it but I suspect that there might be a lot of potential buyers who may whip out their credit cards for a BareBones AQ that simply packs a punch in a reliable enclosure.......a three knob model should do it nicely. This way, I can walk off the beach never wondering what I’ve left behind. Let’s not forget simple.......

I’d hate to meet the owner of that ring in a dark alley. Wrestled that ring from 5 feet of moving saltwater and took me close to an hour due to being pushed off target continuously by the swell and waves. I nearly gave up a number of times but my stubbornness got me the loot. That’s a sword/scimitar engraved into the ring.......looks like something Jack Sparrow would have lost 🏴‍☠️ I had no need for my weight belt after putting that thing in my finds pouch.