araratgold

Rank amateur would be my take on it. Sensitivity of only 5, WTF ? 🙄 Rick

Yes Steve, I am one of those Aussie YouTubers who stopped doing videos ( araratgold ). Got too many " jealous " or simple minded people claiming I had faked my bigger finds, and one individual in particular who tried to follow my tracks in Western Australia to poach my hard earned patches! Just wasn't worth the effort or the agro! PS : I am a personal friend of Tim ( Minelab Gold ) and did an 8 week trip to WA last year with him. We found quite a bit of gold, but neither of us did any vids. Don't expect to see more vids from him any time soon, as he is not well at the moment. Cheers, Rick

Reg, have to agree with you. Nenad has always been a great bloke to deal with, and has done so much to promote the Minelab product. IMHO what has happened to him is a dog act by Minelab! 🤬 Since Ian Aitken left, Minelab have, in my opinion, been a pack of greedy corporate thugs, who will do just about anything to stifle competition! 🤬 Rick

Considering that there is at least 100 of them out there, the reports have been scant. Those reports I have seen have emphasised the ergonomics, and cheap price, but not much else. My guess is that if you came in to an area behind anything more recent that a 4500, your chances would be limited, at best. There are currently 2 here in Victoria for sale second hand at the moment, that I know of. I really hoped that this would be something special, with auto ground tracking, given the pedigree of the maker. Maybe future models will be! Rick

Thanks Norvic for that. The lack of automatic ground tracking is a deal breaker for me, as I would mainly want it as a lightweight patch hunter in WA, then follow up with ZED and X coils. Your mention of " GBing often in noisy ground " kills any prospect for me. No doubt others will find a use for it though, especially if they don't already have a detector. Rick

Thanks Nenad, that is slightly encouraging. However, working small areas of pushed ground is a whole lot different to patch hunting, where the ground varies constantly. Patch hunting in hot variable ground is what I would like the Algo to be able to do, time will tell I guess. Here's hoping ! Rick

Trouble is, Simon's ground is largely deathly quiet. What we really need is some evidence of its ability to handle nasty changeable ground. If it can't do that, there is not a lot of point buying one for many places in OZ. I would love a lightweight patch hunter, but it needs to be able to handle bad ground, and not have to be re ground balanced every minute. Rick

Same here Aureous. I'm heading to WA in 2 months for at least 3 months, and was thinking of one as a lightweight patch hunter ( as I did with the QEDud ), but unwilling to part with the dollars if it cannot tame the fierce and ever changing WA ground ! Rick

One thing that stood out for me is that the SDC easily beat it on all targets with the 14x9 Coiltek vs 12 evo, and the 6000 with its standard 11 inch smashed it for depth. The SDC does have another advantage, that is automatic ground tracking, and also has exceptional handling of mineralisation. Will be interesting to see how the AlgoForce E1500 goes with bigger coils, in real ground conditions. Interesting too in this test is just how poorly the QED did ! Rick

I've done lots of night detecting out from Alice Springs and in Western Australia. Never had an issue so long as you take some basic precautions, like carry your GPS. Can't beat the cooler nights in the desert, when the EMI is minimal. We also set up a flashing beacon like on the top of mines vehicles, which can be seen for some distance from the car / quad / camp, just as a closer reference point. Depending on the terrain and trees, you can see it for a mile or so. Rick

I remember many years ago ( 2001 ) when I was a relative new chum, I walked around with my GP Extreme / mono coil in cancel mode for about an hour. Somehow the switch had been knocked in transit. I wondered why my unit was running so quiet until I discovered why ! Gave myself an uppercut and didn't do that again ! Rick

That's great for you guys in the US. Here in OZ, we get NO military discount from Minelab, which is a bloody OZ company ! Talk about getting "shafted" ! ?

Got to agree with James Beatty ( page 1 ) in regards HY / Normal. I have been using the 22CC X Coil for about 6 weeks now, had a 17CC previously. They are crazy sensitive for a big coil, with my smallest so far being an 0.17 gram crumb ( pictured ) at 3 inches that gave a nice dig me signal in Normal HY, and was still there in Difficult. So far I have not found a place around Ararat Victoria that I could not run in Normal, and a number of faint targets in Normal basically disappeared in Difficult. Moral of the story, run in Normal if you can, only go to difficult if the ground is really bad. In fact, I would rather go to " locate patch " mode and stay in Normal, than go to difficult, which is what I did occasionally in Western Australia ! Just my two bobs worth ! Rick

Good to see that Garrett didn't go down the path that Minelab went with chipped coils ! Kudos to them ! ?

Got to agree with D4G. That whole area between Leonora and Laverton is one of the most heavily detected areas in WA, including myself, and has been for more than 20 years. My bullshit meter has gone full scale on a 2 ounce surface piece still being there after all that ! Rick