ophirboy

There’s only one thing worse than finding the tool you bought at the hardware last week is now half price . It’s minelab releasing a new gold detector and then making it redundant 6 months later.

Yes John the lightly mineralised locations do wonders for the discrimination features , unfortunately the areas I work in make it almost mandatory to dig the material and lay it on the surface before using the discriminator , on my first outing with the GM I found a 2 gram piece at 5 inches that showed as ferrous until it was placed right under the large coil. I’m very envious of you guys in the milder soil.

It looks like the iffy numbers at depth on the equinox are no different than the Gold Monsters vague probability meter readings in mineralised ground , and it also suffers from some bump noise in the high frequency setting. So it’s probably going to suit the relic coin hunter who wants to dabble in s bit of prospecting more than someone who is concentrating on the gold.

I, m hanging of until the new minelab units arrive to see what there like . X

I find like others that headphones are almost an ear hazard when using the Gold Monster , and only use them when I, m in close proximity to other prospectors . I have a nice set of Noise cancelling ones that I use for such occasions.

Well done .Good to see the GM finding some pieces on its own rather than just as a pinpointer for the Big PI units as seems to predominate here.its certainly a good detector for beginners and youngsters and a great detector for chasing gold caught in shallow exposed bedrock .

The welcome nugget was found in a deep lead mine in what is now situated in the middle of the city of Ballarat ,and the Welcome Stranger was found by 2 partners near the surface of there mining claim in Moligual in Central Victoria . A cast was made of the Welcome however the the Welcome Stranger was broken up before a cast was made and replicas where constructed from photos.

The Spot type devices are not mobile phones as such but can deliver messages via satellite .The main advantage of these units is that they will send satellite messages to your email address that contains breadcrumb style tracks overlaid on google earth that you can record and mark for later study and research. We have used these devices in Scouting for a number of years. Whilst the kids are out on three or five day hikes we can be at home and receive constant updates as to there progress . When I take the Spot out prospecting I can wear it all weekend and when I get home I can open up the email and see exactly where I have been over that time I can even send icons with the message if I make a good find to mark it on the map separately to the breadcrumb trail ,I can then add google earth icons and name locations for later use.you can set the device to mark at shorter pre set time intervals as well to give better resolution ,or lengthen the intervals to save batteries.hope this is helpfull

In Australia the Spot Messenger is very popular with hikers and prospectors ; you can pre set email addresses and phone numbers to send your gps locations to friends or your home address . When the email is opened google earth will launch and show your track over the time you have pre determined . It also sends either a range of preset messages or can be customised to send a message of your choosing. The Spot also has an emergency SOS function that alerts search and rescue if needed . They are quite reasonably priced but because it is linked to a satellite communication provider a subscription plan needs to be activated prior to activation. In Australia the units retail around the $200 dollar mark and subscriptions plans start at around $150 .As the Aus dollar is worth about 70 cents to the US dollars it should make the Spot device around the &100 dollar mark over there. Regard Paul.

With the choices around at the moment and the due release of the Equinox series I think you would be doing yourself a disservice if you don't wait and see what's just around the corner regards multi purpose detectors , it's not that the AT isn't a good multi purpose machine it's just that Running at 15 kHz it's not going to be overly sensitive when used for prospecting . As Dsmith suggests the the xterra has come down in price and has a dedicated prospecting mode and runs at a slightly higher frequency and is well regarded as a coin machine as well , the ground tracking is also the best in the business. The only advantage the AT has is its ability to work underwater.

Not up with American currency so I’m not sure how big those pieces are but it’s a start and the angular nature suggests they have not gone a long way from there source . I think the most important thing about breaking the gold drought is the enormous boost it gives your confidence both in your ability and that of the machine as well. It also gets rid of the nagging negativity you can develop when things don’t seem to be coming together. Once that pressure is off you will find your search becomes a lot more relaxed and satisfying .I hope it’s the first of a lot more finds for you and your Gold Monster. PM??

G,day Billdean I would double up on what JW and Sourdough have expressed about finding shallower areas of bedrock that are covered with minimum overburden to give your monster every chance of finding smaller pieces of alluvial gold .The GM is not a deep seeking detector so you need to get the coil as close as you can down amongst the cracks where the gold will lodge . You may need to use fairly high sensitivity levels if that’s possible without getting to much ground noise and falsing .Your other option is to look for the reefs shedding the gold in these areas and see if you can get some of the drift deposits between reef and the watercourse , I have found some gold like this with the gold monster including a nice 2 grammer .Some general hints I can give you for operating the GM are (1) when nugget hunting in any but the mildest soil conditions don’t put much stock in the accuracy of the discrimination graph . (2) If your new to the Gold Monster run in Auto or Auto plus until you gain some experience. (3) Try not to bash the coil on rocks as there are some reports of falsing caused by this. (4) Use a plastic scoop to locate your target as the GM is sensitive enough to react to your hand. (5) Natural gold comes in all shapes and sizes from smooth water worn slugs to rough angular pieces with ironstone and quartz attached so don’t expect coin like tones and response. You will be amazed how well the GM responds to even the smallest pieces of gold so be careful when discarding material. Finally don,t get discouraged if success doesn’t come as quickly as you envisioned,. Learn by reading and watching what methods others are using successfully and it won’t be long before you can adopt some of these techniques to your advantage in your local goldfields . Regards PM

The 705 was very popular in oz for its all round ability for those who wanted to do a bit of weekend detecting for nuggets and it has found some nice pieces here , ground tracking was as good as you could get for vlf and it was a great coin and beach detector so it dominated the part timer market here when a lot of people couldn't afford the runaway prices of the Minelab PI machines, its mid frequencies meant it wasn't overly sensitive on the small gold. But it's light weight , good battery life and choice of coils ( frequencies ) made it a winner here . I know of some nice size nuggets found with the 705 allthough most where near the surface and could have been found with any detector.The 705 was clearly a detector made to appeal to the masses and succeeded . I think the equinox is aimed at the same demographic with ( chirp ) technology so it will be interesting to see how that all pans out. PM??

Dredge piles by design tend to be seperated into size according to the design of the machine. Usually the first to be discarded from the tromell are the largest rocks and boulders that are moved by conveyor some distance as to not impede the operation of the plant ( usually already worked ground ) these tailings are washed by high pressure water jets leaving what are just very clean rocks , you are not likely to find much at all in these piles and as you have already found there's a lot of air between this material , much better to find where the separation tables where located to see if anything was missed , sometimes Gold is lost when tables are opened and cleaned .although it would be a poor operator that doesn't double treat these areas themselves. If the dredges are small portable units look for signs of where the machine stood and the look for run off areas with fines nearby , If the dredges are the large floating pontoon types your up against it because these dredges are usually floated and moved in artificial ponds and tailings end up on the floor of these ponds. Your certainly setting yourself a big challenge.You may have more luck if you can find bedrock scraped by the buckets on Higher bank terraces . In some areas near me large dredges where floated up to a mile away from the present day river bed to work the ancient river course.The trouble with dredged areas is usually the enormous amount of overburden that washes back every time there's a flood . if you read most of the articles here you will find that high frequency vlf detectors are being used to pinpoint finds from PI detectors or for small nugget shooting on exposed shale bedrock where the limited range can be used to advantage , there's just no getting away from the fact that gold drops to bedrock and then forces its way down into any microscopic cracks available, the old timers cleaned these areas well but couldn't clean it all and it's these deposits that can be targeted with super sensitive detectors like the Gold Monster . Good luck with it. P M.

My experience with discriminating detectors when searching for gold is to dig everything unless the audio tones suggest otherwise . In other words lean towards the audio cues rather than the ID numbers , quite often mineralised soils can play havoc with numbers simply because of the the background mineralization that the detector is working to try and neutralise. Sometimes ID numbers only become reliable enough to rely on when the target gets close enough to the coil for the the mineralised ground to loose its influence. With the X Terra series I would listen to the tone and sound profile and only use the numbers when the target was on the ground and ready for separating . With the Gold monster I do the same and just watch the ferrous - non ferrous graph once I have the target out and the dirt flattened on the ground and even then I will still investigate if there is any hint of the graph showing into the gold side. There is a you tube video of a man and his son finding a good sized nugget in Bendigo Victoria using an X Terra 705 with a larger mono coil , he gets a big signal and checks the I'd numbers and finds them good for gold and then removes the leaves and finds a good sized nugget in the first handful of dirt from the surface . The lesson here is if it's close to the surface and is at least a couple of ounces your safe with the numbers . However if your looking for small pieces at any sort of depth in mineralised soil dig anything that sounds clean and non ferrous.

I think that the GM being such a new beast , with a very fast processor that some users are calling some of the genuine abilities of this machine as being faults rather than genuine advancements simply because the older gen machines don't behave this way . This vlf machine has features never seen in A vlf nugget detector before and as such will have idiosyncrasies that just have to be learnt and understood to get the best out of it . I too have struggled to understand some of the behaviour of the monster. But it has to be remembered the technology I was familiar with is know getting quite long in the tooth. Running the monster in full auto means that the machine is adjusting sensitivity and ground balance in unison and the response to ground conditions will be a lot different to a detector like the Gold Bug where the operator sets the response parameters.I too have some bump issues with the coil but usually if I'm rough with it and I'm running high sensitivity, but I can't honestly say it distracts me all that much. I guess a machine with such high sensitivity and audio is going to be a bit touchy . We will have to see what minelab comes up with but it's certainly not a deal breaker for me. PM??

Thanks guys .it was an oldie but a goodie . Simple to use and lightweight with minimal controls . The mineralisation control seemed to be a simple 50% ~100% sensitivity switch. There was another detector around at the time called an A1 prospector that had a similar sensitivity switch but included an analogue signal strength meter similar in size to the Garrett A2b groundhog.

Thanks JR , I can remember the up market red model but not much mentioned on this one . Interestingly minelab address is listed as 36 George st Sydney.. I do remember the mark 2 it was the first model to resemble the later underslung models like the eureka.

One of my early vlf prospecting detectors , it's a minelab but I can't find any history on the unit . It was one of the first units to offer a high and low mineralisation switch and a ten turn GB but not much else , it was converted to hip mount hence the fox like plug where the handle would normally be , there's no information on it on the Minelab site. So if any body remembers it they might be able to fill in the gaps on specs etc.

The six pieces I Dollied had a combined content of just over 3 grams of gold and the largest piece of quartz was the size of a baseball , very iron stained and in one piece , the gold could be seen once cracked open with a hammer. All gave a positive reading on the meter once dug and scanned close to the coil. At depth the meter swung more to the ferrous.

Good enough for me , ive never found it in large enough quantities to test not that I've ever had the urge to, I'm still trying to work out why my GM picks up my hand , it makes it almost compulsory to use a plastic scoop. The metal detectors we have at work for food packaging screening certainly will pick up your hand although the coil is a square unit that's about 4 foot square and must have very high sensitivity as they have to find tiny metallic particles inside 20 kg bags of flour based products.

Here's a question for Steve . If iron pyrite is paramagnetic does this mean it could cause an effect on an induced magnetic field in the same way as permanent ferromagnetic mineral Even if it's only short term whilst it's in the coils influence. regards PM

G,day Mike . Iron pyrite is a type of iron sulphide , it has a crystalline structure that is usually brassy or gold in appearance . Pyrite or "fools gold" is often seen in the alluvials in creeks and streams and due to its shine and light reflective qualities is mistaken by prospecting newbies as gold . A metal detector would "see" iron sulphides as background mineralisation due to the fact that it is rarely found in large lumps but rather broken and scattered in sand particles although at times crystals can be found in quartz and ironstone in bulk deposits . As gold deposits in Australia are usually associated with iron of some description we are constantly battling this presence in an effort to find the gold hidden within . Articles written in this forum will give you a good idea on the brands available and the various models ability to handle the effect of ground mineralisation . Regards PM

Yep, that's our russell. He's a real coight.

I have found some specimins that had to be dollied and panned as the gold was not visible , with the GM 1000, , these pieces where on dumps close to mined areas.