Rick K - First Member

Klunker, I have a truck!

There is clear evidence that the SDC-2300 presents a new capability when it comes to finding small and specimen gold. However, given it's 8" coil and preference for slow sweep, it can't cover acres at a time. Since I'll be getting one soon, I'd appreciate it if everyone would kindly send me GPS coordinates for all their "worked out" patches. i would especially appreciate ones with high mineralization or EMI. OF COURSE i will give you full credit for putting me on to all that small and specimen gold which was undetectible with PI detectors or un "hearable" because of limitation of VLF machines. Sorry for the foolish tone of the above, but I for one will be scouring the forum archives for clues as to where gold has been found under circumstances which lend themselves to "clean up" by the SDC. After all, they say you should never "leave gold to find gold". Edit Note: I re-read this post and realized that the last paragraph basically said that I was going to figure out exactly where some forum members had found gold. Not so. What I am going to do is try and figure out (mostly from older posts on other forums) areas where a combination of mineralization, small gold size and maybe features like powerlines have made it likely that previously well known productive patches are candidates for what Steve has called the "patch vacuum".

Easy, Foolproof, finds gold others have missed. Steve said a while back that a smart person would buy an SDC and run, not walk, to the nearest proven gold producing patch to clean it out of what the others have missed before everybody else gets one. Check here - more of the same. https://www.facebook.com/GoldCityDetecting

Nice gold. Just did a deal on an SDC-2300. I figured that if I was going to find any gold at all, it would likely be small. Why not maximize the odds of doing so. As soon as it arrives, I will be comparing it as a "fly poop" detector to my GB2. If it's tolerably close, somebody is going to get a good deal on a perfect GB2 with all 3 coils. The GB Pro went last week after I decided that my F-75 was all the Ll-purpose VLF detector I needed. Hopefully before Thanksgiving I can be out in the field with the new device. Oh yes, there is this to reinforce my enthusiasm - "If all a customer wants is a simple to use detector that can find gold, it is hard to think of a better solution than the SDC 2300". Some smart guy said that.

I see that the GPX/SDC bundle deal has hit here in the US as well. Rob's site has it anyway. http://forums.nuggethunting.com/index.php?/topic/11053-huge-savings-starts-today-gpx-5000-sdc-2300-749500/ Of course, it's a red hot deal if you want both. Folks in OZ, where this deal has been on offer for 10 days or so, are teaming up to "share" - one guy taking the GPX and another taking the SDC. The other consideration is that this may very well mean that the new superdetector will really be based on entirely new technology and that pure PI detectors will be eclipsed if not obsoleted. Exciting times.

I love it. We live around the corner fron this neighbor and had a similar problem. I wasn't as clever as your dad, but one of those Rubbermaid all-in-one units solved our problem. You can't see it in my picture but the dark box on the ground on the right is a box of dynamite with a few stick poking out.

Made by neighbor a retired mining executive.

My Lord - look at that ground!

Klunker, No offense taken. My imaginary detector would use artificial intelligence to combine the kind of automatic adaptation Steve is talking about with an ability to accept input from the operator regarding what he observes, concludes or desires. Intuition and experience would be inputs that the device uses to function as a smarter "shovel". If a patch is producing tiny nuggets and you want to find all of them, then the device will have to operate differently than if you expect and hope to find larger, deeper nuggets. No one combination (at least in current PI machines) can be expected to do it all. Up to now, the best answer has been the GPX-5000 and a collection of different coils. The problem with that is that the adaptive inputs are all from the operator - what timings and other settings to use - which coil to use. A more intelligent machine would use data it gathered about the ground, the EMI environment and targets - including operator imput like absolute target ID by digging - to adapt its operational parameters to the goals of the operator and the environment. If it were done well, it might indeed only have one button! Of course it would take 10 engineers, 5 programers and $100 million to produce and that only happens with Military equipment and mass market hi tech - which our gear sadly isn't. Oh well.

Ok, let's perform a small thought experiment. What if I walked out on my 3 acres or so of AZ desert with a truly intelligent detector. I would ground balance and "initiate a session". As I got visual, tactile or Aural feedback from the detector, I would imput the results of my "analysis" of the signal in terms of what I had observed, whether I thought it was just ground noise (low value assigned by the machine - simce I had no direct observation, but only an opinion to offer) or whether I kicked it out of the way, determining that it was a hot rock, or whether I dug and ID'd it (high value assigned to the data by the machine since i had directly observed something). After a bit of this, the machine starts modifying its operating parameters to take account of the data it's gathering as well as the data I'm inputting. So, instead of me having to notch out .22 LR cases manually, it would do it for me after I told it what I was finding - and if I found more of them outside the limits of the notch, it would analyize and compare GB and other factors to compensate - likewise if I found a target in that "notch" which a broad-based form of feedback led me to question, it would "reconsider". For gold, if I was lucky enough to find it, it would consider the reading for a nugget in the context of other current and historical (for that site) data and tune operating parameters accordingly. oK, where and when can I Buy this and why does this make me sad that I'll soon be 68?

Ah, the OZ Forums. Look, but if you don't have a very thick skin - don't touch. Here in Arizona, most all plants have thorns. Falling off your horse onto a cholla cactus here may or may not be worse than the verbal "thrashing" folks get on some forums over there. Still, they are the largest English speaking group of die-hard gold hunters in the world and clearly have bragging rights for the horrible mineralization of some of their ground and the size of the monster nuggets which have been found. I'd take my hat off to them, but skin cancer is always a risk.

Thanks Steve, I was a bit concerned I'd get taken to the woodshed for my usual over analysis - spiced with unprincipled speculation. In this case however, ML has promised something entirely new. We can only wait. As far as First Texas, I think there are at least a couple of years out on the PI front. Their corporate head of sales and marketing Tim Mallory recently said. "... we have 15 seasoned engineers. Still it takes 3 to 5 years to get a new platform to the intro stage. Let me just say, a PI is in the works." Hopefully he's just being cautious.

Supposedly the new super detector GPZ-7000 - code name Jupiter. Largest planet in the solar system, but then some say it's just a giant ball of gas. I suspect that a new technology gold detector from ML would be a lot more than a giant ball of gas. Right now in OZ they are doing smoking deals on combo packages of GPX-5000 and SDC-2300. If you have both of those, you are covered for everything current technology can give you except perhaps discrimination. Deep, adaptable to many different conditions - GPX-5000; sensitive to very small and porous nuggets plus EMI resistance and waterproof - SDC-2300. A repackaged "mash up" of the two would be very attractive if combined all the previous features. If it also could add reliable ferrous rejection and perhaps even VLF style target information - maybe even more depth and modern integrated Lithium battery packs, then all you would need to do is write one check and all your bases are covered.

Thanks for spelling out your thoughts on the subject. As usual!

Steve, Point taken on the knowledge and effort of the hunter being a more important factor than the capability of their gear. Since you are a lot closer to non-icy beaches now - compared to AK - you might end up beach detecting in CA one of these days. If so, it would be instructive to get results of your comparing the SDC and the ATX. I expect that the SDC is unlikely to be bought by someone whose primary interest is beach detecting - if only because of its price level compared to a CTX or an ATX. On the other hand, a CA detector user who looks for gold and also detects at the coast might think about plusses and minuses of the two detectors in a different light than a "pure" gold seeker.

I saw the posts by Gary Drayton. He must be the luckiest beach hunter in the world. I have never seen anyone post the string of spectacular finds that he has. Maybe it's location, location, location - work, work,work. The reason I asked about the SDC at the beach was that I can see a lot of SDC buyers having it as their only gold detector or at least their only PI gold detector. Reading the forums from OZ, i an hearing of folks who having searched gor gold for a year or so with other machines, including specifically the SD and GPX series - who get an SDC and promptly find gold their first time out. Stories like this will, I think sell a number of SDC's to folks for whom it will be their first (or only) PI detector. Some of these folks will want to try them at the beach - including me if I get one. I had a DF PI and it was fine in the water, but the coil made it a nose heavy beast out of the water. My TDI, with the GB off, is probably the best balance between depth and portability around in a PI at the beach, but it isn't and I guess never will be, waterproof. You have documented the ATX as a great machine when submerged, but it too expensive to have for a couple of beach trips a year, if somenody chose the SDC over the ATX for gold. So it's back to the SDC. There is the above youtube clip comparing it to the ATX at the beach and it supposedly didn't pick up a thin chain that the others hit on. There are problems with that clip however and I find it distinctly odd that the SDC, which hits fine gold so readily isn't the "champ of chains" The stuff I did find talked about using various levels of the Salt Settings as well as the normal ones, to adapt to the changing comditions. Anyway, I hope some new SDC owners hit the beach with it and get some performance data. Things I would investigate if I had the chance, would be whether some combination of its small coil and timings could make it a microjewelry hunter in the dry sand and whether the small coil could be exploited to hunt cuts and dips in the sand closer.

Steve, This thread goes back a ways. Have you gotten any feedback on how the SDC actually does at the beach?

Like retail - location, location, location. He probably could have found this with a Bounty Hunter "muffler on a stick". Great things metal detectors - they detect metal! I love my GB-2 and know it's a great detector, but this slug probably could have been detected with the machine that Alexander Graham Bell used to try and find the bullet in President Garfield! LOL

In the four years since the GPX-5000 was introduced, the eventual question of "what next" has come up. Minelab's parent Codan is a publicly traded company, so it's leadership,has to answer to stockholders. The Annual General Meeting is where management sets out how they are doing and where they are going. This year's meeting was tomorrow (that is to say morning of 29 October, which is today there but tomorrow here - funny thing the earth). For gold hunters, the big news was one slide. I don't know if this really means anything, but the outline doesn't look anything like the GPX series! It will be an exciting year!

The upgrade program for owners of all previous F-75’s is also up. It's on their "hobby" section page. http://www.fisherlab.com/hobby/registration.php Click on the upgrade button, the registration stuff is for new owners.

I should have known. With all ML knows about PI gold detectors and their active development of demining technology - I should have known that when the decided to make a machine which "kills" on small and specimen gold, that they would nail it. I was one of those who thought of it as a rush job to head off Garrett's machine. Some rush job! From what you are seeing, i suspect your Gold Bug 2 might be getting less use - it would be interesting if you found a spot where the SDC found several small nuggets then see if the GB2 have value as a clean up. Anyway, it's clear from your reports that ML nailed it.

Hey Reg, nice to hear from you. I haven''t given up on my thru-hole TDI - I will be interested to hear when the dust settles on the mods what of it is applicable to those early TDI's As far as the SDC-2300 being "single channel" it would be odd indeed. As I understand it, ML's original patents on the SD machines were for the MPS two channel approach and I have read elsewhere that the SDC draws heavily on the sd-2200 platform, now tuned for small gold including presumably shorter pulse delay and the simgle optimized coil. Interestingly enough it seems to have a threshold less even than the GPX detectors. Maybe Alan has comfused the single timing of the SDC - as opposed to the multiple timings of the GPX series - with single channel operation. Don't know. Enough flogging of dead horses.

Wow, I have been reading and "studying up on" PI detectors for more than 7 years now. I carefully read Reg Sniff's short technical paper on how PI's work and "meditated" on it till I understood it. I have owned and used 4 PI detectors by 3 different manufacturers. I have read TONS of stuff on every model of PI detector Minelab has ever produced, studied the extremely confusing timing charts on ML's webpage, written dozens of posts myself on various forums - asking questions - giving my (often ill conceived) opinions..... Now I read a page or page and a half by Steve and there it all is, wrapped up in a pink bow. Wow - well done.

According to an email I got from Nokta, Kellyco is currently their only US distributor.

They do indeed seem to be a first class outfit. Cheap and secure international shipping and online communication are rapidly abolishing geography.