Chase Goldman

It is not made for commercial sale, it was produced for solely for military use by L3, a "defense" contractor dedicated to providing equipment for use by government agencies.

It integrates pulse induction (PI) metal detecting (common in consumer grade metal detectors, especially those used primarily for gold prospecting) with Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR). 

The latter technology, GPR, is available for non-military, typically industrial, use but is not popular for use by treasure hunters because non-military GPR units are typically prohibitively expensive, heavy/bulky, and not refined for general purpose treasure hunting. They are typically designed for locating sub-surface voids or large-mass buried targets such as utility pipes, conduits, or tanks.  It has limited treasure hunting or archeological use for detecting large treasure caches or buried man-made structures or stone roads.  The military requirement to make GPR compact enough to be used in a hand-held mine detector while incorporating the typical mil-spec environmental durability requirements was probably a significant engineering challenge which probably translates into astronomical per-unit cost for the mine detector that is the subject of the article, making it cost-prohibitive for consumer or even industrial use even if it was offered for non-military use.

One of the most eyebrow raising lines in the linked article was that it had to be "92% successful" to instill confidence by the soldiers.  Are you willing to put your life on the line using a 92% effective mine detector? Hmm.

20 hours ago, cookie58 said:

I wanted to have the unit I bought on V 7.1 which it is V 1.0 now. I have my other unit on V 1.1 and the WS6 is on V 1.1. Sounds complicated but I liked the V 7.1 but I still wanted to play around with V 1.1. I didnt want to buy another WS6 puck. Thanks, man. I hope I explained it the right way.

BTW - You don't have to buy another WS6. You can get a pair of WSA II wireless puck/phones.  Sort of the "dumb" version of the WS6 with wireless audio only (but also with the auto on feature when you power up the remote).  They are considerably less expensive than the WS6. 

Note for others lurking: The WSA II approach can also allow you to have the remote at ver 1.1 (or 0.71) and the WS6 in Master Mode at 0.71 (or 1.1).  The WSA II could have potentially  been shared between them or you could have picked up a second WSA II or a WSA II XL and a second coil/shaft/stem to give you two independent Deus 2 setups (Deus 2 Remote + WSA II and Deus 2 WS6 Master + 2nd WSA II or WSA XL).  Which is stil a few hundred dollars cheaper than two Full Up Deus 2 detectors. FWIW 

Cost Comparison (List):

Full Up Deus 2 = $1449

Deus 2 Remote = $749

WS6 = $349

WSA II XL = $199

WSA II = $149

Deus 2 Coil + Rod = $399 (same price regardless of Coil Size)

Deus 2 Stem = $189

Deus Stem = $149

Orx "Lite" Stem = $99

WSA II + Stem + Coil/Rod  = $149 + $99 + $399 = $647 (utilize WS6 Master from Original Deus 2) and you have two Deus 2 detectors  for about $2247 vice $3000.

Other combos for reference:

WS6 Master Rig (WS6 + Stem and Coil and charging components) =$799

WS6 Master Rig with WSA II Phones = $948

Used D2 Remote + WSA II XL Phones + Coil/Rod/Stem = $800

1 hour ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

Also, you can still roll back either remote to V0.71 and try the WS6 with V1.1 to see if it will work. It may, because in slave mode, the WS6 should just be sending and receiving audio, which should still be the same across all the software versions.

I don't know if anyone else here has tried that, but it seems like it should work in theory.

Gary Black posted that its "good housekeeping" to keep the headphones at the same version level as the remote although there was anecdotal evidence that version 1.0 phones connected to a remote that was at ver 1.1.  So I can't honestly say whether ver 1.1 phones can be paired with a remote that is at less than ver 1.0.   It is worth noting that there must be more to the Update for the WS6 that applies beyond just the Master Mode changes as the WSA II and WSA II XL phones (which are basically like a dumb WS6 locked in slave mode) also have ver 1.1 updates.

12 hours ago, JCR said:

Perhaps the "Sticky" post could just be a link to that particular post in the original thread. In this way it would retain it's context and may generate additional posts to a useful topic.

Yes.  This is how Steve consolidated essential information, tips, and tricks for the Equinox in this post:

Nice gold and Xterra Pro review.

Regarding tge following:

1 hour ago, Swinging 4 gold said:

The second thing to do to get the VDI more stable is to Check and set the (AU) Freq now and then or anytime you make a change.

You are not talking changing the operating frequency but doing a noise cancel, correct? Can't find a reference to "AU" in the Instruction Manual but IIRC, "AU" shows up on the screen when you do a noise cancel.  

6 hours ago, JCR said:

A consummate explanation. This should go in a DP Forum Glossary.

2 hours ago, phrunt said:

Yes, the forum should have a "post of the week" section where the best post each week is cataloged, some good posts are buried away in sections only some people read but would benefit from reading, a post of the week section would consolidate these good posts in a spot where everyone could check it out.  A bit of work, but I think would have a bit of interest.

Yes.  I had this thought as well.  An index where general detecting knowledge items and nuggets  can be collected and saved for reference.  A DP Knowledge Base Section. This already exists in some respects in Steve's site with respect to his Guides and Detector Database.  But perhaps a wiki style that enables crowd-sourced contributions from forum members to be collected and indexed.  Or perhaps "Chat DPT" ("Detector Prospector Tidbits").

Example Topics:

Wireless Audio Technologies

How to Secure Site Permissions

How to Maximize Site Coverage (Gridding and Tracking Techniques and Tools)

Use of Online Tools to Research Site History and Geographic Features

The Difference Between Induction Balance and Pulse Induction Detectors

How Coils Work

Lithium Battery Do's and Don'ts  

and so forth.

I'll discuss with Steve.

Thanks for the nudge.

On 7/5/2023 at 7:31 AM, Zaj56 said:

  I hunted darn near everyday last year and would love to know how many actual hours I put in. Mark,,what exactly do you mean by a mineralization meter?

A mineralization meter tells you how much magnetite or other similar ferrous oxide compounds are in the soil.  The ground balance indication on most detectors is really just a number generated to help a user properly balance out ground phase (conductivity).  It does not necessarily correlate to the degree of ferrous mineralization present in the soil.  Even if you have a properly ground balanced detector, highly mineralized soil (often referred to as "hot ground") reflects and attenuates the magnetic field that is put into the ground by the detector's transmit coil as well as the received induced magnetic field by the target which greatly reduces depth capability.  Many detectors such as the higher end Fisher and Teknetics models; XP Deus, Orx, and Deus 2; Nokta Simplex and Legend, provide a separate mineralization meter.  Minelabs tend to not have this indication although the Nox internal algorithms use sensed changes in ground mineralization as keys to adjust ground balance in ground tracking mode and also sense it in Beach Modes to automatically dial back transmit power in the presence of black sand.

Having a separate indication of ground mineralization helps the detectorist identify this hot ground situation so that they can adjust the detector to compensate somewhat for its effects. 

For example, DD coils are slightly less impacted by mineralization than coaxial or concentric coils, so a detectorist might choose to use a DD coil in this situation (most detectors have now gravitated to solely using DD coils so this is typically a moot point). 

Choosing a coil with a smaller footprint can also help mitigate hot ground feedback effects, which means you should avoid using large footprint coils as they are counterproductive in these conditions, i.e., you will likely not gain any depth advantage as overall target sensitivity will take a hit for the reasons mentioned above and you will certainly lose small target sensitivity and you take an unnecessary weight penalty (applies only to induction balance vlf detectors, as discussed below Pulse Induction detectors are somewhat immune to these effects so you can gain depth in hot dirt with larger coil footprints).

Lowering transmit power (if you have that adjustment) sometimes helps.  If you can separately adjust for salt effects (usually a beach mode adjustment) that can sometimes help too. 

And certain frequencies may penetrate better (usually lower frequencies, but there is no hard and fast determination that lowering the frequency is necessarily always better in hot ground > a lot depends on your desired target conductivity). 

A lot of trial and error is involved.  In really hot soils, shifting to a Pulse Induction detector is the best antidote as mineralization has much less impact on depth detection due to the way they transmit and process their received target signals.  There are other drawbacks to Pulse Induction detectors (expense, lack of sophisticated visual target ID and discrimination) and they are primarily used for gold prospecting, beach work, or for relic detecting in hot and/or high salinity ground environments.

HTH

40 minutes ago, Doc Bach said:

All of those things are certainly possible.However a more realistic scenario would be an officers sword or sharps carbine or perhaps a navy colt at or below the four foot level the possibilities for iron relics are endless. And don't let the bones that you should happen to encounter make you queazy just pretend that you are an Archeologist and those poor souls that are long dead won't mind.

Been there done that  effectively with a metallic 5ft. spring probe (which can "detect" glass and ash that a deep seeker can't) and a Pulse Induction machine that can detect telltale supply barrel bands.  I doubt this will work in hot soil.  Probe has no issues with hot dirt.  

2 hours ago, phrunt said:

They need the Deus 1 in their range anyway as you can't only sell a very high priced detector, you need something for the normal user to buy, the ORX isn't right for that, the Deus 1 covers it to a limited degree but it needs something over the Deus 2 and that small coil is it.

You can get a WS6 Master Deus 2 setup for less than a Deus 1 or even an Orx, so that's how to fill the lineup cost gap, done.  There is no real point of keeping the D1/Orx line alive purely for sub gram gold capability, they are way overpriced if that's the ONLY thing they can do better than the D2, which has them beat handily in every other capability.  Time for them to move on and fully embrace the otherwise superior successor they created.

26 minutes ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

I agree, if XP could meet @Steve Herschbach's challenge of a PI detector that weighs under 2 pounds and cost under $2000, that would be a another game changer for sure. But I still want to see what else is coming for the Deus 2 ecosystem first.

I apologize in advance for my Debbie Downer Reality Check @CPT_GhostLight... but considering this two box coil will cost over $1600 on its own, doubt XP will be pursuing a PI design any time soon (considering they even abandoned that approach for their pinpointer) much less be the ones who will break the PI price barrier.  To me it looks like they are married to solely iterating on the Deus-based wireless IB ecosystem from here on out.  The other telling and disappointing sign is that XP never even publicly acknowledges (much less responds to) the numerous requests for a small elliptical from their user base.  Look at how many people are requesting it in the comments section of the 2-box reveal video and how XP only responds to those who are praising the new deep seeker coil.  Really can't afford my own personal back-hoe at the moment so I will be passing on this.  Getting the Go Terrain App finally working after 7 years would be a major accomplishment.

If it doesn’t work in mineralized ground (I have no idea if it will or won’t but as an IB I suspect it won’t) then it is worthless compared to a PI.   I love the video btw, can’t wait to find septic tanks and all those deep hammers.   Guess I will wait until I see some field tests before I render judgement on its usefulness for me, but I’m honestly not interested in paying over $1500 so I can then bust my butt digging a three foot hole to find a plowshare.  I find enough of those at one foot.   There just isn’t enough buried hoards in my neck of the woods to justify this and not sure if it is good at finding trash pits or huts, especially in the hot dirt and carpets of nails where most reside around here.

6 minutes ago, KD8GIS said:

  My last 3 detectors and need to make the best of them.  MXT AP,  MX Sport, and a Closet Queen IDX Pro.  The Sport and the IDX were spur of the last moment bids on Ebay.  Not the first IDX I have owned, This ebay one came with a 5.3 coil and the original coil, like new.    The Sport still had the plastic film on the screen, 2017, no cracks and the firmware sticker in the battery compartment,  I picked up a 6 shooter for it.   Then after winning I came back to the forums to read up on it,  OUCH.  I can just put it into the closet and give up on it. Sell it for a couple hundred and live with it.  

 Just not me. The manual for it, The manual for the MX-7 is no better than the MXS manual.  I read YEARS of the ordeal of the MXS and It sure makes excuse to give up.  I'm not ready for that.   Any input would be a help.

Yeah.  It's been too long and I never really mastered the MXS.  I saw your MXS thread on VCO and it gave me PTSD.  

8 minutes ago, Deep Beeps said:

Thanks....I was just reading the thread below about this. The SoCal beaches are definitely littered with those pesky guys.

See my commentary on this above.  I was typing it out when you posted, apparently.

39 minutes ago, TJ Jeepguy said:

Well it seems the beach programs may have an issue with iron separation, so you may want to stick to General around those areas. Otherwise there’s no magic pill for all around  detecting.  Find some targets in an area try some different programs and settings on them.  Note the differences and enjoy the never ending process 

To be clear, I would go with General on dry sand ONLY.  Although in my opinion, the observed ferrous separation issues are not that big a deal, its not like you are typically detecting in a bed of nails situation on the beach, so I just stick with variants of Beach Sensitive everywhere using pitch audio which is the most reactive and iron volume at the disc breakpoint (I use between 7 to 10 disc, the Beach sensitive "variants" are based on the three different FMF Maximimum frequencies that are available now - see below).  If I have my doubts about a ferrous target, I can turn on it or use General as an interrogation program if I am concerned something might actually be masked against a tent stake.  I don't lose much sleep over it, but it is a real thing that has been demonstrated.   If you are in the wet sand or surf, you really don't have a choice for stability and you need to go with beach or beach sensitive (or Dive if you want to go a little deeper on high conductors).

2 hours ago, Deep Beeps said:

I had a pair of Deus 2's that I was using down on the Florida beaches and Virginia fields. Got fairly proficient with the original V.6 but had to step away with some health issues. If any can throw this broken down detectorist a few quick program tips that are really working well in the new V1.1, I'd be appreciative. Maybe just link to a thread will do. Going to be hunting SoCal beaches here after the holiday and then some parks. Abandon mining/houses this August.

Thanks in advance to any suggestions.

Btw... People don't swim as much here due to the colder water, nor wear as much jewelry here like in Florida. Most likely will hit around the fire pits first picking up clad quarters and an occasional earring or ring (dry sand and lots of nails)

You can go to this thread for more details on what's new with Ver 1.1 (and some of the lingering issues and new quirks) but there are basically four major changes of note:

• You can now adjust the top end (maximum) FMF frequency for any FMF (XP's version simultaneous multifrequency) program - you pick either 14 khz, 24 khz, or 40 khz.  This biases the FMF towards depth and high conductors (14 khz), Middle of the road performance (24 khz), or bias towards micro targets and lower conductors such as gold, brass, or lead (40 khz).
• Full Tones has been improved to enable iron volume to be used at or below the discrimination breakpoint regardless of the disc setting (it used to only work at disc = 0 or below.
• A new audio profile has been added called HiSquare - it is sort of a hybrid between Square and PCM.  Gives you a little more tonal harmonic distortion to aid in audible target ID but not to the extent of the mosquito tones of PCM.
• Finally, XP added a 5 level audio filter - increase the setting and you can get more tonal nuance out of non-ferrous targets which can perhaps aid in depth or identifying the harmonic distortion associated with aluminum can slaw and the like.

HTH gets you started.

I have the Manticore, but don't have enough time with it to decide whether I'm impressed or disappointed, so having a 3rd choice - I bought a Manticore and am undecided about its performance would be helpful.

22 minutes ago, KD8GIS said:

  I used only the XL Pro from back before 2000.  Found some extra cash and jumped on the MXT All Pro. I got a Detech 13 Ultimate coil and a 5X8 DD Detech coil for it.   The XL Pro  sat in the corner for a year untouched.  I put an ad out for $400 and it sold the same day.  I knew it was good and People were wanting them.  I think I could have got $500 for it.  I don't regret it as the MXT AP fills the space.  Plenty of options on the XLPro,  I expect People will alway want them.  

I was hoping the MX Sport would be an MXT in a new, waterproof wrapper, but it wasn't to be.  Interface and written instructions were non-intuitive compared to the MXT (I like analog knobs), sensitivity had to be cranked down so low on salt beaches for stability I could never really take advantage of its waterproofness (MXT is basically rain resistant, which is fine for relic detecting, never pretended it was a beach detector), and there were performance issues upon release, which necessitated shipment back to Whites.  Finally, the plastic battery compartment screw mounts simply cracked when exposed to cold such that I had to send it back across the country AGAIN to Whites (on my dime) to get it fixed under warranty.  That was the last straw.  Sold it shortly after that.  Never had any such issues with my metal clad MXT.  So, yeah, there is something to be said for those detectors that are built like a tank and just get the job done.

10 minutes ago, JCR said:

Good for you.  The older units can still get it done.  Just as important, they can re teach us about how to set up and run on more difficult sites. You have to think instead of just going with the built in whizz bang.  

Never going to give up my MXT or F75 as they are classics with some great finds memories.  But frankly, the whizz bang just works, and works well, so they don't see much action unless I'm feeling nostalgic or absolutely need to detect with a concentric coil (because none of my Whizz bangers support those).  But again, just never get around to it.  If I'm serious and have limited time at a good relic site, mild or hot, the Whizz Bangers are coming out.  But if I see a deal I can't refuse on a classic in pristine condition, like a V3i, I might just grab it for the heck of it.

4 hours ago, brys said:

The dealers have given release dates that have come and gone and questions on their fb site go unanswered .what a way to run a bisnes 

Not much different than XP, ML, Nokta at product release time.  I remember because you called out XP for the same behavior with Deus 2 and coils…

Like you said then, product release anticipation invariably comes with ”High Anxiety”.  

3 hours ago, adamBomb said:

Something interesting I read is that iron bias setting was changed. So the new '0' might actually be like -1 (or something) and a 1 or 2 might be more similar to the old '0'. If that were the case, increasing the iron bias could potentially lessen falsing...it will also lower depth. I will play around...

Be careful what you read.  Unless Minelab says it explicitly (i.e., it’s explicit in the manual or in update release notes), then it’s all just speculation, even from respected experts who help ML test such as NASA Tom (BTW Note to ML: we shouldn’t have to get information passed down from the mount via Tom or others acting as messengers - just write it down for all of us ML, so we avoid telephone game misinterpretations).  ML, as is their custom, has not been very precise explaining how iron bias is implemented and how to properly use it beyond the high level treatment in the manual (vague on the trade offs, such as whether it will cause false iron positives on mixed non-ferrous alloys or targets of small mass, whether 0 is off, depth impact if any, etc.) leaving us to experiment with it.  I doubt there is an actual depth impact, more like lessened ability to unmask non-ferrous in the presence of ferrous targets, mitigating recovery speed advantages.  From what I can tell, all they did on the 900 was eliminate the old original Fe Iron Bias filter and just went with the F2 IB filter they introduced in the Nox 600/800 3.0 update - but who knows, they’re silent about whether the IB implementation is different between the Nox generations. However, on the 700, now, there is one notable difference than on the 600.  Setting IB to 3 on the 600 equates to IB 9 on the 800.  With the 700, IB 3 only equates to IB 6.  Also, the 700/900 IB defaults are different across modes whereas on the 600/800, F2 was fixed at 2 (600)/ 6 (800) for all modes.  Interesting.

From the 600/800 Manual:

From the 700/900 Manual:

See also this discussion:  

3 hours ago, adamBomb said:

The new version supposedly handles EMI better too

That definitely has NOT been my experience (Nox 900 as susceptible if not more susceptible to EMI vs. Nox 800) to the point that I am just not using the 900 much.  It’s especially chirpy for me in dP which is unfortunate because I was excited about dP for the very reason you cited (eeks out some audible target depth).   Glad your 700 appears to be more stable and EMI resilient than my 900.  Maybe early production lot issues for me.

12 minutes ago, 1515Art said:

I haven’t decided if I even want to bother Garrett yet because it feels a little unappreciative of all they did for me and I don’t think the repair will fail.

Great repair, but never hurts to have a spare just in case you experience a non-repairable failure in the future plus the repair part is likely inexpensive (and easy to ship) and by documenting the shipping issue removes any question in the future if you need to invoke the warranty again that the problem was caused by whatever broke your armrest.   Wasn’t your fault it was damaged in shipment. 

34 minutes ago, steveg said:

abenson -- OH, while I was typing my question, I think you may have just answered my question in your most recent post (that posted while I was typing).

SO -- to reiterate, EVEN IF you keep everything "new" turned off (stabilizer, stabilizer filter, whatever), it STILL performs worse for you than the original?  In other words, you can't "turn off" a setting and get it back to the performance you were used to with the old version?

Steve

An analogy would be the Original Equinox software variant of iron bias.  Even if you set Iron Bias to Zero, some level of iron bias filtering is still applied. The second gen iron bias on Equinox enabled users to lower the effect further, but still not fully disable it unless you went to single frequency.

This is similar to Deus 1 in Gold Field with the Iron Audio Reject Filter (similar but different than discrimination).  Works fine in thick iron in mild soil - it breaks up iron target signals.  But if you use it in ferrous mineralized soils like heavy magnetite, then both ferrous and non-ferrous targets get chopped up.

On 6/22/2023 at 1:19 PM, mark said:

Ok many thanks will keep you posted 

Any updates?

3 hours ago, brys said:

Joan Allen’s have squat and nothing on the horizon.,maybe it’s a hoax

Really?  Well a hoax with an actual working prototype that Andy Sabisch spent several months testing is a pretty elaborate ruse and to what end???  What have they to gain by going to all this trouble with little to show for it other than some social media hoopla that might cause a blip in sales of existing Quest products at the cost of their reputation?  Is that what you would consider good business sense?  

By that logic, Nokta and Minelab and XP with significant delays between actual and advertised release dates would be labeled as notorious hoaxsters.  

No it’s more likely just the usual delays stemming from resolving last minute production line glitches or distribution logistics as per usual.

Thought question: Do conspiracy theorists take the time to really think their theories through…with logic? 

On 6/23/2023 at 1:55 PM, Brad Plohman said:

Yes they do, CPT. I just have to do a little shuffling around in the audio menu to get there. At least it says High Square, very hard to audibly tell if it actually is High Square with all the EMI in my garage. I'm going out for a hunt tonight so maybe I'll try it out in the wild.

Yep, I verified the issue/feature/hack (?), Brad.  Thanks for pointing it out.  If you go directly to bone phones as the audio output device, you can only select Square.  Go to another audio device, change it to HiSquare and then back to bone phones, and it’s HiSquare which can’t be changed directly back to Square unless you repeat the audio output switch hack procedure again.  Switching another device to PCM and switching back to bone phones audio is ignored by the bone phones output.  I only have bone phones, but really can’t tell either if they are in Square or HiSquare audio when it says HiSquare. FWIW.

I’m documenting it in my consolidated Ver 1.X update thread.