Jump to content

Jeff McClendon

Full Member
  • Posts

    3,102
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    43

 Content Type 

Forums

Detector Prospector Home

Detector Database

Downloads

Everything posted by Jeff McClendon

  1. Multi IQ is Minelab's latest version of VLF simultaneous multi frequency detecting. They have been making and more importantly constantly improving their simultaneous multi frequency technology for 23 years (I think, could be more). The Equinox 600 and 800 have the most advanced form of Multi IQ technology along with a ton of adjustable settings and features. The versatility of the Equinox detectors is unmatched. They can do most forms of detecting=beach, turf, relics and gold prospecting extremely well. The fully waterproofed claim is debatable. Dropping it in the surf and retrieving it pretty quickly should not be a problem. Submerging it for a few minutes in calm surf or freshwater at a few feet (less than 10) depth should also not be a problem. If there is a problem you have a no questions asked, 3 year warranty for water damage. I would not personally dive with it. Snorkeling, maybe. I wouldn't use it in any type of high pressure water situation. Minelab's Vanquish models also use Multi IQ technology but not on the same scale and with the same features as the Equinox and the Vanquish control box is definitely not waterproof. Contrary to what someone said earlier, the Vanquish works GREAT at most saltwater beaches. In Florida, you should have no problems using it. It is really made for dry, wet and very shallow calm surf and tidal pool hunting. It would definitely have some problems at some west coast beaches with high amounts of black iron sand and volcanic rock sand. So, think of the Vanquish as a very simplified, super easy to operate, grab and go version of the Equinox. Like the Equinox, it will do very well as a coin and jewelry hunter in modern parks that have lots of aluminum trash with some more recent iron and steel targets like bottle caps, screws and modern nails. Same performance at the beach. I would not recommend the Vanquish in older, iron infested relic sites. Garrett's Apex is Garrett's first attempt at a VLF simultaneous multi frequency detector. There is zero way that its form of multi frequency is as advanced or as versatile as Minelab's Mulit IQ. It should do perfectly well at any normal Florida beach. It is a good quality entry to mid-level detector that would compete directly with the Vanquish series. Looking at the Vanquish vs the APEX, the Vanquish detectors lack one huge thing that the APEX has which is some form of manual ground balancing which at least for me in the very mineralized dirt I often hunt in is a huge deal and makes them more entry level than the APEX. That issue should not be a problem in your mildly mineralized Florida dirt. The Vanquish target ID accuracy and depth is superior to the APEX which goes back to Minelab's long experience and success making multi frequency detectors. Some excellent detector users on this forum have reported that the APEX does better as an iron infested site relic hunter since it deals with near surface iron targets better than the Vanquish. I would agree with that. Target separation, like ground balancing in vey high mineralization, is not where the Vanquish excels. None of the Fisher models you have mentioned are going to drastically out perform these other detectors in YOUR expressed detecting situations. The F75, Patriot and CZs are excellent but very old school detectors with dated technology. None of them would be on my top 10 list of saltwater beach hunters. Submerged diving in salt and fresh water, the CZ 21 would be near the top of the list, however. The only detector I would seriously add to your list of possibilities is the Nokta Makro Simplex........
  2. Having detectors like the XP Deus and Minelab Equinox be highly adjustable is what I like about them. If I want to hear absolutely every actual target that is detectable under the coil of a Deus or Equinox, I have that option and am grateful for it. I prefer to hunt that way in thick iron trash with a few slight adjustments of the reactivity/recovery speed, iron tone pitch and volume level to suit the conditions and my hearing. Those two detectors and several other very high gain VLFs like the AT Max have the ability to detect a very wide range of target sizes and target depths. These detectors like the Deus and Equinox also have the option to weaken the sensitivity and filter out more iron responses by discrimination of much of the smaller disintegrating man-made iron or natural iron if I choose. That level of flexibility is not available on detectors like the APEX and Vanquish which are inherently by design.....quieter detectors with stronger filtering and less sensitivity to very small targets. The fact that one detector is "chatty" and one detector isn't may make a detector "better" for you but not "better" for me or someone else that uses the chatter as a detection tool when the chatter are responses to actual in the ground targets and not ground mineralization or EMI interference. I really appreciate your continued testing of the APEX and the information you are providing. I also really hope that Garrett will produce a similar "all terrain" version with more power, features and adjustability in the future.
  3. Sounds like you are definitely sorting out some of the issues you noted in your original post. I hope I did not discourage you too much. My apologies if I did.......... I hope you keep coming back here with your questions and experiences. Good luck. Jeff
  4. I don’t use a pinpointer for gold nugget prospecting. I sometimes use a pinpointer for saltwater beach detecting. I definitely use a pinpointer for freshwater hunting, relic hunting and basic coin and jewelry turf hunting. Kac, every detector I own (except the QED) has the ability to either pair up wirelessly with a pinpointer or with a press of a button on the detector it will automatically find the least offending frequency between the pinpointer I’m using and the operating frequencies of the detector. Some improvements have been made with detector/pinpointer compatibility in the last few years.
  5. Personally, I like the “guardrails” of the individual brand forums and the basic idea that anyone wanting to contribute in a brand forum needs to try to be fair and honest along with giving opinions based on experience not hype, hearsay or just basic antipathy for that brand for no good reason. Having a Garrett forum where most people talk about how they don’t like Garrett is partially Garrett’s fault. Same with the other brands that have not been able to keep up or even try for whatever the reason. Good targets in the USA anyway, whether they are coins, jewelry, relics and especially gold nuggets are not getting any easier to find and are not being replenished quickly at least in turf and relic areas. We need detectors that are fairly deep, accurate, comfortable to operate and effective. I see this trend everyday when I go out and try to find even $5 US in coins or silver jewelry. Gold jewelry is pretty scarce. I also see it twice a month at the local club wild hunts that I go to. The experienced Equinox users are taking home most of the finds because they can get to the deeper stuff very accurately. Garrett’s Apex is definitely a big improvement over their other models in most of those categories. Hopefully they have the stomach, brains and funds to keep improving their product line.
  6. I guess I really may need some GEO Sense. The GF 2000 looks like a great gold prospecting VLF for anyone who just wants a simplified Gold Kruzer with just ferrous/non-ferrous probability in a solid package with the excellent Anfibio retractable shaft system. I never paid any attention to the TMD-101. If it had been 20+ kHz it might have got my attention........
  7. If it has target IDs mostly in the 30s with little or no iron tone with the horseshoe button pressed=melted aluminum.
  8. I owned an SDC 2300 for long enough to find out that running it a max gain and full threshold never happened in my world.........so a re-test with all of the detectors on similar 2/3rds of max gain might tell a different story.
  9. Since this is the Advice an Comparison Forum, you can say just about whatever you want about Minelab or any other detector manufacturer. When you mention gold in your posts, are you referring to gold jewelry or gold nugget hunting and mostly fresh or saltwater? Personally, if I was diving I would look very closely at Nokta/Makro’s Pulse Dive for a backup to your Mark ll. It comes with two different sized coils, has vibration on targets and by all accounts is a great, inexpensive, miniature pulse induction handheld detector.
  10. This is the Nokta Makro forum............If I want to do a comparison with another brand it needs to be in the comparison forum. I have been called on that several times.
  11. It's actually too close to the detector I'm not mentioning that rhymes with GF 2000 which is its direct competition.
  12. Both the Gold Kruzer and Gold Racer have ferrous/non ferrous break at 40 I think. That sounds about right for the GF 2000. I won't say which detector this reminds me off because of forum rules but it is obvious even in the name. At first I kind of thought it was a prank or late April Fools joke........... My biggest beef with the Gold Racer and Gold Kruzer was a lack of easy to perform single target ID digit discrimination/notching in any mode and that they were running too hot for many of the places I gold prospect so I had to set the gain on extremely low settings to prevent overloading the coil. The advertisement lingo says this will find very deep gold nuggets other detectors will miss and it works in the toughest soils............ I wonder if that is remotely true. Not bashing here just my experience. I guess I am really spoiled and lucky to be using a different detector with those features. I am a huge fan of Nokta Makro and still look forward to their SMF detector. I can definitely see this detector being used for gold prospecting. Any other usage...............I wouldn't want to do it.
  13. A "new", easier to operate, gold probability scale 61 kHz nugget prospecting detector using the Anfibio platform from Nokta Makro. I did not see this coming...... https://www.noktadetectors.com/metal-detector/gold-finder-2000/
  14. Here in the USA, the ACE 250 has been discontinued (I think). I also think it was introduced in early 2005 or 2006. Check Steve’s Detector Database on this site. I don’t know if it was discontinued in Europe and other areas. The ACE series detectors usually hold their value fairly well for the same reason that you were attracted to it due to popularity and advertising. There is nothing wrong with the ACE 250. It is a perfectly good entry level detector for the occassional/casual user. For anyone doing some serious coin/jewelry/relic detecting on a regular basis, there are much better options.
  15. Not me. Welcome by the way. Keep asking questions. If you did your research online without going to actual detector user forums like this one, I can see where you might have been mislead a bit. The ACE series is fairly old tech with fairly old school abilities except for the new ACE Apex which hopefully shows that Garrett is ready to move forward instead of stand still development wise. There are much better entry level detectors on the market than the Garrett Ace 250. There are the Nokta Makro Simplex and the Minelab Vanquish series to name two that are in the same price range as the ACE 250. Personally, if I am not hearing signals (especially from trash) I will probably not find much of anything in a coin/jewelry/relic situation. A VLF detector's sensitivity to targets of many sizes, its ability to handle ground conditions in regards to soil moisture levels and mineralization, and its ability to handle electro-magnetic interference are all factors in whether an inexpensive detector can do better than an ACE 250 or a Nokta Makro Simplex. Sometimes not being able to hear a lot of signals because a certain detector does not have much transmit/receive power is a real blessing. No detector can correctly identify trash from treasure when target IDs overlap like they do in the mid conductive target range above iron. Do you also have a good quality handheld pinpointer? If not, those can really help find targets that are still in the hole or in your plug. They can also let you know if the target is shallow (sounds off on it) or not, very quickly or if it is tiny (won't detect it) or coin sized and bigger. Also, do some in the ground or at least on top of the ground testing with targets you expect to find or that are common in your area, with your ACE 250 and learn how it responds to them. Use conservative settings if you are getting responses when you hold the coil well off the ground. EMI could be an issue. Try some of these suggestions out before you give up on it.
  16. I forgot to say welcome to the forum!!! My bad.... You are definitely new to the forum and possibly detecting too, based on your above post. You might want to do your own Minelab research online. Many on this forum easily pay for their detectors with their finds. Most who do are either very experienced and/or detect nearly everyday, and/or have great locations and connections to locations, which means they put in the time and they get results. A few very fortunate people are just lucky............I am not in that category unfortunately.
  17. Welcome to this amazing forum. Right now, Minelab is the king, queen and all the prince and princesses of the gold prospecting pulse induction detector world. There are only a few other distant contenders for a place at the table. They are welcome to take a seat too if they are worthy. Whether they are worthy or not gets discussed here along with how Minelab pulse induction/ZVT detectors are doing out in the field with plenty of comparisons within the Minelab brand. Then there is the VLF detector gold prospecting category which is once again, dominated by Minelab, with First Texas, Nokta Makro, XP and Garrett/Whites having a good share of the conversation currently. Giving out obvious, exact information on places to gold prospect with a detector...........that information may or may not be found here (probably not for good reasons.....). The same goes for exact settings which sometimes are not just site specific but are also individual target specific. The other brand locations do sometimes have prospecting carryovers that are eventually moved here. If you are a Minelab person, you will find Minelab detector information in all of the categories that are not brand specific. Then there will be plenty under Minelab detectors for sure. Sometimes there are some topics on prospecting without a detector that are included here too.
  18. I can’t say too much about relic hunting even though gold prospecting is a form of relic hunting at most of the places I hunt. I do know that using a DD coil with several of the Minelab GPX series with an iron discrimination setting is preferred by some. I just use a DD coil and listen for two successive low/high tone sequences which works for shallow and medium depth elongated iron targets and don’t worry about iron discrimination. I use the same for gold/non ferrous and ferrous target identification for shallow targets with clear, no doubt signals gold prospecting when the targets are big enough whether using a Mono or DD coil. Otherwise, I dig all faint sounding targets. Right now, you can buy GP Extremes, GP3000 and GP3500s for around $1200 used in the USA with a working battery and multiple coils. I haven’t seen any GPX 4000s for sale lately. Used GPX 4500s and 5000s are between $1800 and $2200 depending on condition and accessories. These have enough power and settings to work with any sized compatible coil. These are private sale prices, not used dealer prices. I know nothing about the Garrett ATX or the new Fisher AQ aside from what I have read on this forum. The Whites TDI Pro/OZ, TDI Pulse Scan and TDI SL are decent PIs if you can find them. I have only had good experiences with these detectors using smaller coils under 12”. They are a bit hard to ground balance, have finicky threshold tones (except for the SL) and are underpowered for deep targets in my opinion and also are not very sensitive on really small .5 gram or less targets either. They do very well on shallow to medium depth coin sized targets. The QED is technically only available in Australia and New Zealand.......... I have one and so does one other USA forum member. For some reason, mine was not setup to handle 60 Hz electrical interference from populated areas and large power lines before it was imported to the USA. That seems to be kind of normal with the QED manufacturer. Some of the problems Steve is referring to above seem to center around the PL3 August 2019 software updated ground balance system which frankly is hit or miss depending on how well each QED was calibrated before sale or during the update. I really can’t tell if mine ground balances correctly or not since 60 Hz EMI continues to interfere. Until I can get to an area miles away from power lines and towns, I just can’t get a good read on my QED and what it is really capable of. I have been able to do some SDC 2300/GPX5000/QED PL3 head to head testing using similar sized coils. I have two large plastic containers with about 6” depth of dirt from northwest of Phoenix and from a site here in Colorado where I have detected gold nuggets. The Arizona dirt in moderately mineralized and will pull down Minelab Equinox target IDs into the upper iron range on .1 gram or smaller gold nuggets. Larger gold nuggets will retain their non/ferrous qualities on the Equinox down to 6” or more. The Colorado dirt can turn any non-ferrous target the size of a US penny or smaller into a ferrous target even sitting on the surface and definitely if it is 1” or deeper.........so definitely PI dirt. My stock SDC with 8” mono coil had no problem with .25 or larger targets in the Arizona dirt. Smaller targets deeper than 1” were next to impossible to hear due to the unstable threshold. It had similar results in the hotter Colorado dirt but the threshold was even more unstable. My GPX 5000 has no problems with either test dirt using an 11” Commander Mono or NuggetFinder Sadie coil on .15 gram sized targets down to 3” or so using Enhanced and moderate settings. .25 gram up to 1 gram nuggets are no doubters in my test dirt. The QED had similar results as the GPX 5000 using 11” Commander or smaller coils even though EMI is still a problem. So, I am fairly satisfied with the QED PL3 I have. It is more sensitive than any of the Whites TDIs I have owned and used and despite its present EMI shortcomings, is easier for me to hear smaller targets than the SDC 2300 due to the SDC’s wavering threshold. Until the 60 Hz EMI issue is fixed I will stick to smaller coils so I have no idea about overall depth/sensitivity using larger coils on the QED. I doubt that would be the best use for this diminutive detector. I am going to send my QED PL3 back to Australia for the latest update which is supposed to fix the unreliable ground balance problem, 60 Hz adjustment and for anything else it might need internally.
  19. I really liked a lot about the original GMT 24K. What I hope Garrett changes are the battery system, give it actual target IDs, more threshold adjustments, wireless connection with the Garrett MS-3s and put it on a Garrett shaft system.
  20. Personally, I am not a fan of cross-talk and arguing publicly on this forum. However, the original poster seems to prefer this form of communication. Several of us have taken time out of our day and tried to offer suggestions to the original poster and have given him sound tips like just starting with the default Beach settings and gradually adjusting from there to fit his situation. Basically, I don't see this process going any further as the original poster is going to do whatever he likes eventually, blame his equipment and us or anyone else that tries to help him after he has asked for help to address his problems. I have yet to read two simple words at any point in any of his posts for the help that has been offered during this topic or from ones he started or joined in the past, which are................Thank you. So, I'm done.
  21. I know that in general, DD coils are theoretically better for highly mineralized soils and for EMI. However, I have hunted with 11” Commander DD coils and 11” Commander Mono coils with a GPX 5000 on highly mineralized dirt and the Commander Mono was actually more quiet than the 11” DD and much easier to ground balance. I also have a Detech 8” DD which is more quiet than my 11” Commander DD which makes sense, but it is not as quiet as my 11” Commander Mono is some places.
  22. Your sensitivity in the video is maxed out with all 5 segments. So it was at 21 or higher. Your 600 was in tracking ground balance. Can you make a similar video with your 11” coil in the same area with slower swings (1 second left, 1 second right) and cover more ground?
  23. So, just some observations from your excellent video on a very iron sand rich beach.......I could not tell if you were in Beach 1 or Beach 2. Did you try both in that damp sand? Did you ground balance your Equinox or just use 0? Do you get the same results with your 11” coil? in your video your sensitivity is above default 20, most of your black sand target responses are -9 and -8, your depth meter on those black sand targets is basically pegged and you are swinging really fast. All I can say is if you are getting that strong a response from the black sand at that beach you may need to compromise on your settings. Do you want to hear actual targets or mostly hear tiny iron sand targets that are reading 8 to 12” in depth because they are so small? The extreme sensitivity for small targets that the Equinox has is a really good thing but it can cause issues like you are running into. Turning up the sensitivity is just going to amplify the ground noise even more and make it really hard to tell if you have a real target. Swinging really fast is also not going to help you pick up actual coin sized targets in those conditions. So, I would lower the sensitivity enough that most of your target responses will be actual targets and the tiny iron sand targets will not be heard as much along with swinging slower. You can also compromise by rejecting -9 and -8 or so and hunt with every other target ID accepted to eliminate much of the ground noise and still hear actual targets. You can also hunt in 2 tones with your ferrous/non-ferrous tone break set at zero.......... I would take a US nickel and a dime, bury them at 6” or so and see how they sound and how they respond with that setup. Can you lower the sensitivity enough to eliminate most of the ground noise and still hear 2 direction, repeatable responses from those buried coins with enough non-ferrous responses to know that your target is non-ferrous even though you may have a few responses in negative numbers on those coins which may be either rejected (-9,-8) or in the iron range IDs that are still accepted?
  24. The 15X12” Commander Mono is a very good coil. The 11” Commander DD is too but it will not be as sensitive on small gold as the 11” Commander Mono if you had one or possibly even the 15X12 Mono. So, in addition to Northeast’s question about if you have found gold with the two coils you have........What is the size range of the gold in this area? If there is plenty of 1 gram or larger gold and the depth is around 12” or less, even in really bad mineralization both of the coils you already have should work. For smaller gold you may need a more sensitive 11” or smaller coil and for larger and deeper gold, you may need a larger coil than the 15X12 whether it is a DD, Mono or Concentric.
×
×
  • Create New...