araratgold

Got to agree with you Norvic. I thought when the ZED first came out that the chip was in the coil, but learned later it was actually in the plug. If they had have put the chip in the coil, we would all be stuffed ! Probably a mistake on their behalf, because now there is nothing they can do to stop the flow of aftermarket coils. Rick

Likewise Norvic, I have found I can use normal a lot more now. Stability is great, as is EMI resistance. In addition to my awesome 17 X coil, I have a 12 round and a 22 x 21 coming. Can't wait to see how well the big " Russian jobbie " goes on some deep ground ! The way these coils are performing, I can see Minelab taking a big hit to sales of their GPZ19. Cheers, Rick

Fred, that's exactly what I and a few others did, but we were labelled " knockers " ( per jrbeatty above ), and far worse ! All we did was point out it's shortcomings in WA, and copped a whole lot of sh#t for our troubles ! Simon, I don't think you will have many problems at all in NZ with your crazily mild mineralisation, but I can assure you that that is not the " experience and observations " of a number of us who were trying to use it in WA, and at least one user from NSW ! Rick

Anyone who pointed out anything negative about the QED was labelled a Minelab sycophant by the QED crew. As I said, they would rather attack the individuals than admit there was a problem. Most people were too afraid to publicly say anything negative, because of the public denigration they then received ! BTW, Howard has recently made an admission of sorts in regards to the problems I highlighted, by stating things he is trying to add to or fix on the QED. From AEGP forum : " 1: Better GB ie ability to handle higher intensity ground variability without constant re Ground Balancing. " " 2: Ground Tracking. " Rick

And the bolded section was also my findings, and those of at least 4 others, in Western Australia, when I tried to use the QED for patch hunting in heavily mineralised and variable ground. It needed to be re-ground balanced every two feet or so, making it unusable for the job ! Hot rocks also gave it hell. Not that the QED sycophants will listen to these people about these problems, they would rather attack and denigrate the user, than admit that there is a problem ! Rick

Gidday Jasong, Thanks. I finally have a good video camera, and it has a plug in microphone that I have covered with some sponge to dull the wind noise. The stock built in microphones are terrible when it comes to windy days ! Cheers, Rick

All the reports from people who have these new coils are good, and from what I have seen in a week so far they are impressive, much better than the stock coil. I would like to do comparisons, but I hunt alone, and it was hard enough carting a video camera with small tripod around with me, let alone a stock coil as well ! Not to mention having to swap the coils around, which is not as quick and easy as swapping GPX coils, plus I don't want to be changing too often as I don't want to possibly damage the adapter lead. Cheers, Rick

Got out today for a few hours in between showers and managed to get one nice little 1.5 grammer in an area I have carefully gridded with stringlines. Was detecting in HY Normal, sensitivity 18 and no smoothing. 17 inch X coil. Ground was damp and normal moaned a bit, but the targets still yelled out. Normal general ran noticeably quieter that normal HY. Filmed in 4K with a new dedicated video camera, hope you enjoy. The X coil is dynamite, and I can see many more nuggets coming ! 😉 Cheers, Rick

My bullshit meter has just blown up !! Some people must be really gullible ! Cheers, Rick

All good thanks JP, no offence taken at all. Cheers, Rick

Gidday Jin, I've been using picks made by " bluejeansronald " for a long time, they are great. Contact him through Prospecting Australia Forum, he also has them on eBay from time to time. https://www.prospectingaustralia.com.au/forum/viewtopic.php?id=15914&p=1 Pictures of them by Mbasko down the first page a bit. Cheers, Rick

JP, I understand the theory behind the ferrite. I use semi auto, and as you know, the machine "learns" the ground and compensates as it goes. As I said, I have found no positive difference in using the ferrite, after many tests of in ground targets, which is why I stopped using it. In fact, if anything, I found the the ferrite can actually over compensate for the ground, especially if you are in quieter ground. Just my findings, yours may be different. I use no audio smoothing, my machine runs just fine without it. Sensitivity at least 16, usually 18, and often 20 when night detecting. Threshold 25, volume 18, threshold pitch 37 and volume limit 16. As you know JP, ground noise is a delicate balancing act. I always try to use normal, but when ground noise gets too much you have to go to difficult, with the corresponding loss of depth ! Deciding the point where ground noise is negating the benefit of normal is the $64K question ! Cheers, Rick

Gidday JP, Did not even bother with the ferrrite, haven't for about a year now. To be honest, I have not seen any improvement / difference between using the ferrite or not, when testing over buried targets, or general prospecting. I was using HY Normal for most of the time, just to see how much ground feedback I got. The ground where I was varies from medium to nasty, with lots of hot rocks and hot pockets of clay. A bit of ground noise where I got the 2 targets, but the two targets still jumped out ! Other areas the ground was too noisy to run normal, so went to difficult and HY. Tried a number of different settings, including general difficult, which is generally my go to for raw prospecting. No bump sensitivity at all. Same with general / extra deep. These coils have excellent build quality ! The coil is a super D similar to Minelab, not spiral wound. EMI was also good too, considering the wet and windy weather we have at the moment. Cheers, Rick

Gidday All, Managed to get two hours in today before rain chased me home with the 17 inch Russian X coil. Blew me away just how good this coil is ! I purposely picked a small area of State forest that I have flogged for the last 10 years, with all 3 different GPX detectors, with coils from 11-25 inches, the SDC, and even a QED. This spot has yielded many ounces of gold to me from 0.05g up to 33g. I had declared it " dead ", as my last 10 or so efforts with the standard GPZ14 and GPZ19 have yielded nothing more. 2 hours in today, nearly back to the car, and I get an obvious signal. This was slightly downhill from a small patch of small reef gold, in an area that I have literally smashed. Coil was about 2 inches above the ground because of sticks and clumpy grass. Removed said obstacles and signal firmer. 4 inches in and I am in nice gravel, target now screaming, out pops what turns out to be buck shot. Bugger, but this is from a spot that I have NEVER managed to get a target in ! Moved about 10m along and same thing, another obvious target, once again coil 2 inches over the ground. Dug in and same again, 4 inches down in nice gravel, target screaming louder than the buckshot, out pops what turns out to be an 0.65 gram bit of reef gold ! I'll be buggered, I thought ! Rain then chased me home. Coil was very sensitive, being able to pick up my 0.11g test piece at 2 inches. I tried knocking the coil against a tree a few times and no bump sensitivity. 17 round weighs the same as the GPZ14. All in all, a fantastic coil. Don't know what the Russians have done differently, but Minelab need to have a good hard look ! Further testing to come when our shitty weather finally breaks. Cheers, Rick

That would be the Minelab SDC2300 " blue vacuum ", a machine that works really well in WA, unlike another, that shall remain nameless. Well done on the gold Dave, looking forward to testing my new GPZ17 this week, if the rain will go away ! All the best for the rest of your trip, wish I was over there too ! Cheers, Rick