Desert Dawg

You are wise to start tailoring your hobby gear before retirement, that is what I did, I bought my first pi, a 4000 gpx 2 yrs before I retired, by the time i retired I had sold off the 4000 and bought a new gpx4500, and have since added a couple new tech coils, and also have a GB2 I have owned for yrs. That play money is much harder to come by after retirement.

The Equinox is obviously built with cell phone type electronics, I wonder how long a detector built like this will last with moderate use. Current cell phones have a use life of about 4.7 years.

I have used both Detech and Coiltek coils on my GPX , and I use only Coiltek Elite and Nugget Finder Evolution coils now.

Sounds to me like Minelab is out to curb any sales by Fisher and new the CZX or other possible coin/jewelry machines coming out new in their product line in the near future, Minelab is releasing a new detector in UK in Sept, they claim this new machine will obsolete all current VLF detectors??

I have some friends that were using a gold wheel for a long time to recover gold from their crushed ore, they switched over to a Gold Cube 4 and loved it, never looked back. Much faster. Less setup time, better recovery.

Maybe its a hot GPX 6000 with all optional automatic settings and usable discrimination.

Any idea of what the "new form of ground balance" on the not yet seen CZX may be? Supposed to go much deeper than current vlfs.

Rye Patch with a neat cloud formation.

Just got back from 4 days at southern end of Rye Patch, whew, its getting hard to make finds there anymore. This nugget was covered in stone to start with and only gold peeking out one side of it, after the acid bath it weighs .55 gm. Found at 8" deep with gpx4500 and Evo 14x9, love that coil. Even found a #9 birdshot with it one morning. Another guy with us got a 1.13 grammer at 8" with his GPZ7000. That was it for our group.

One person I know recently went for a week to Rye Patch area to hunt with a group of friends, they setup camp and were off to see what they could find, coming back in the afternoon, they all 3 sat down under the 10x10 shade canopy for a rest, then after a bit they heard this buzzing noise, one guy looked down beside his chair, there was a rattler all coiled up, he had slithered into their canopy shade after they had sat down, spooky. The snake was rapidly dispatched with a .38 and snake load.

Great backup detector, or loaner. Nice selection of coils too!

A Relco kit BFO detector in the 1960's which I built and used several years.

Steve, two yrs ago our group of 5 guys were over around the Rabbit Hole area when it started raining about 2 am in the morning, We decided to boogie around 6am, good thing we did, it never stopped raining there for a week straight afterwards, and we experienced the deep muck desert roads all the way out to Lovelock that trip, we had to travel max 35 mph or were all over the road drifting due to the depth of the muck, and we were in 4x4 mode to keep going straight. Those backroads become bottomless fast in storms, due to no actual roadbed, they are just tracks in the desert basically. 

I am still waiting patiently for the FIsher CZX myself. I have zero interest in foreign made detectors due to warranty issues and extremely high shipping costs these days. I would rather wait and buy from a tried and true USA based company with a solid warranty. Fisher is long overdue with something to replace the dated Gold Bug 2 machine, for now, the Gold Bug 2 is still on top of the heap for small gold detection as far as I am concerned. Just have to wait I guess, or give the new Minelab Gold Monster 1000 a whirl in the mean time.

I generally hunt with one or sometimes two other persons most trips, at base camp we leave two vehicles and a enclosed trailer sitting, so its good that we alternate checking on camp during the day as we range far and wide with a bike and quad during the day. We each hunt in different areas alone generally which still gives us that solitude,  but regroup for lunch and dinner to discuss finds, areas to hunt,etc. Most our hunting areas we will see maybe 2-6 people in a week total, but you never know who is roaming around the hills, so I think its best to have a hunting partner in the general area with radio and or cell communication.

I think Ridge Runner is looking for a field test video of the GM1000? hehe.

My 14x9 Evo coil is very hot on even down to 2 grain nuggets to a depth of a couple inches, I don't think you would go wrong with either brand Elite or Evo in a 14x9, they are both hot coils. I also have the 14" round elite and very happy with it for my "large" coil. I draw the line at 14" round for my largest coil, its heavy but effective.

I heard from some Oroville locals that the Dam workers  have found a few sunbakers.

Very nice outcome, I like it much better than the military design. Now you can get started showing Minelab how the SDC2300 should look? hehe.

I have a buddy that does real well on gold jewelry using a M6 Whites. He uses Detech small coils. 6" dd Excellerator coil mainly.

I saw the Monster 1000 at the Pleasanton Gold Show a couple weeks back, they didn't appear to be demo'ing it, the gal in the booth had no technical information on it either, said it was too new. I did like the looks of it, nice combo of coils too. For me to get interested it would have to equal my GB2 in detection ability, Would be handy to have a grab and go tiny gold detector which requires very little adjustment as you hunt. I get tired of thumbing the GB control in the alkali soils every couple ft.

Bill & Linda's site is a treasure trove of information if you take the time to explore it. I agree with you Steve.

Why are these so expensive, are they wrapped with the new high tech leitz flatwire method like the Elite and Evolution?

We generally do a couple trips a yr to nevada outback areas and we see very few detectorists in a week. Been that way for several years. I heard that yrs ago with the release of the sd minelabs there were as many as 25 vehicles a night camped in a single  gold producing area , sure don't see that now despite the much better machines, coils, etc.  we are using.

Been doing some thinking on the new Fisher CZX, they say 9-1 frequency ratio, well why not build it at least say 71 khz high frequency with a low of 7.88khz frequency, so it mimics the Gold Bug 2 for tiny gold detection with its high freq, or even better do 80khz high and 8.88 khz low freq if its possible to do in the electronics. We all know the success of the GB2 over other vlf detectors due to this high khz.

Deus seems to be coming out with a high freq coil of 80 khz elliptical soon which I think is a great idea. However their detector is single freq, so the CZX should possibly  be able to walk all over the Deus for deeper gold as well as grain size  gold at the surface, between the two freqs working at the same time and the new form of ground balance they speak of.