argyle

Most times when we hit the quote button then go onto something else, the gremlins hold the memory of it and we have trouble trying to delete or get rid of it. I went through a bad stage of double quoting and leaving a huge blank space underneath a post due to have the cursor too far down when I press Submit Reply. But I think Steve must clean em up when he sees them. Anyway, hope you are having a great time here Paul and are enjoying every day of your holiday, EMI regardless. How long have you got left before heading home btw...

Yep, it's all about choices John, for sure. And our coil choices are definitely the most advantageous accessory we can use.

Well done Fred, nice work too, the reality part. Are there many feral donkey's-jackass across the Yuma area?

You know Dustman, it's always kind of hard when someone asks for recommendations for their first detector. As everyone has favorites and opinions and so on. I particularly liked your words "I consider myself a fast learner" as it's shows confidence. Enough confidence to nut out quickly which detector to buy and learn. And the use of detectors ain't rocket science. They are across the board very simplistic. On the machines you've mentioned, you run yourself through the menu's on the screen in audio airtests, on top of the ground tests, and real in-ground target response. You isolate a target, notice the tone, size the target quickly by backing and forthing, noting the numerical numbers, and quickly pop it out of the ground and check if your judgement was right. Easily mastered game. Good outdoor fitness. That G2+ at $400, beaut unit for coin, jewellery, relic and gold detecting. A real man's detector. Small 6" or so accessory coil a must to bring you down off that stock 10" blade when you need to. Good luck with your choice and new hobby.

1. I wonder if there is a difference in performance in tailings depending on the type of tailings. Difference in say one single detectors performance? in direct regard to different make up of the rock matrix on types of tailings... I'd say not by much of a margin consistently overall. As most piles are benign and quiet to both VLF and PI. Then you come across a tailing pile/mullock heap that carries within it large chunks of nicely cooked heavy ironstone that shuts most detectors down. Or a large amount of heavily localised 'hot' shale, whether yellow or red shiny liver ect. Then the difference in performance can be extreme, and the fun begins in choice of which unit or type of unit to use. But these are not the vast majority of tailings. 2. Do we need to differentiate between hard rock tailings and placer tailings when talking about the relative merits of PI versus VLF. I definitely think so Merton. Hard rock mullock for me has nearly always produced quieter and deeper detecting, ...as opposed to re-working dirt from sluiced workings, especially if they contain high mineral conglomerate. But again, I feel there is no overall winner between VLF and PI as each individual pile will have it's own mix. 3. Or is it a moot point in all ground types of hard rock tailings due to no electrical conductivity in hard rock tailings because they are busted up? I think quartz tailings can be very benign almost to the point of an inability to GB on them. I reckon if a guy knows the detector he's using at that heap, regardless of type, and can understand that units specific responses to minerals against true target hints, and busted up ground remaining more benign than not, then yeah, I reckon it's a moot point far more often than not. 4. In regard to depth on tailings between PI/VLF being basically equal, is that true in all instances except for say a GPX or GPZ due to the battery power enabling a much higher level of gain? Like VLF = TDI but VLF < GPX? I've never used a Good VLF running for that purpose using 4, 6 or 8 aa's that's ever fallen short of a GPX or ZED's so called 'battery power' higher gain level on tailings. Until a large Mono coil comes into play on the earlier sd/gp and gpx's. That's the only instance I've noticed an advantage. Exception being the heaps that are entirely made up of small very heavily mineralized shale types that units like the SDC do not like at all. Some of the good vlf's may handle that heap better and deeper than it. On those heaps the PI's can be set up to handle much better than the SDC's shallow timing. So, while it's not true in all instances, I think it's true in the main. Having a choice on detectors for tailings that upset some units, is where the real advantage for everyone is.

Cannot talk on any of questions below the first one. Because I haven't bought mine yet. But "Did Whites do enough to notify people of the firmware issue?" Hell yes! There was a total acknowledgment and a quick smart stating of the problems, with the statement that those that were happy had no need to send their units back. Or those that would prefer to have new firmware on their machines were givin perfectly clear instructions by Whites on how to box/label and post it, and an estimate of turn-around. One of, if not the quickest, re-calls for want of a better word, than I've seen before. The company has no need to feel embarrassed by the issue, they haven't lost face in my respect ...it happens. The important thing is they stepped up to the plate. Across many platforms ..forums, dealers, FBook, direct notification to buyers. They even gave young Tom an extra job to do, and he did it correctly. Be a nice time to give the kid a raise... Hey, how many total recalls should Minelab have made but lacked the guts? My count is 7 ...

"Did Trident have a unit corresponding to the Golden... Rick/John?" Sorry John ...I meant did Tesoro sell a GOLDEN uMax version in the LASER line up years ago. Not Trident as I asked mistakenly. The Trident being a Cibola/Vaquero later in two versions.

They completely banned dredging for us here Steve. I had deposits on new dredging gear at the time the law was passed, and I was lucky to get my money back. So what first gold detector did you buy?

Each to their own of course. Not bagging or up-talking any unit or brand ...just my reasons for purchase and use thereof. Not all machines I've had, just a few I can think of at the moment. Compass Challenger X-100. A fantastic unit. Bought for coins and nugget detecting. In the dealership at the time there was a six foot high four foot wide display sign announcing "Are you ready to take the Compass Challenge today" Top units with functions not seen on other detectors. Sold in a three coil package (forget the sizes now but small medium and large it was) Bad ni-cad rechargeable battery set up as even though advertised as a thousand charge life, they were typical of nicads, especially early versions of that battery type, and you'd be lucky to get 30 charges before the batteries were ruined. And any power outage during charging or slackness on your part of the charging regime would kill them dead in a few weeks. Massive power drain with the huge 16" coil, would give about two hours detecting if you were lucky. I went straight to Alkalines pretty quick. Only got around two to three years on each detector as they suffered corrosion on the boards. A real favorite unit. Garrett Deepseeker. Bought because it was the most popular unit at the time. Great coil range. You could choose a straight shaft and extension leads if you wanted to hip mount. Low in kHz and cruised on ground far better than any previous model I'd used. The last run of them were more refined somehow and had darker decals, much like the nice look of the GP 3500 face plates vs 3000's. You never forget the sound ...phaaaaarp. Whites 6000 somethingorother. Bought to be modded for gold. Very nice unit. Back then you were either a Whites guy or a Garretts guy. Very rarely both. The modded Garretts won out in the end for me. Better coil range to boot. Garret A2b. Bought due to the higher 15kHz being able to pick up smaller pieces than the Deepseeker. Great coil range. You had to have many spares on board due to coil bracket snaps, lower rod snaps, bad lead connection, brittle leads. Much better when modded. Tesoro Eldorado uMax. Sinsodial or monolithic coil, cant remember, but nice stock concentrics anyway! Beaut machines, very versatile, could step into the hotter ground easy enough. My fav Tesoro by far. Tesoro Lobo supatrak. Bought for gold detecting but didn't like them. Useless Ground Tracking I felt. No good for the purpose I bought it for. Fine on benign ground and mullock. That entire earlier platform, manual balanced Gold Demon's and Diablo's and Lobo, even though were marketed as ironstone killers and hot ground handlers, could not handle even the milder mineralized dirt. A very wayward balance and horrible threshold. Tesoro compadre. Bought simply to see if such a cheap detector could hold a place. Useless little gadget, they'd give a one way hit on a $1 coin at four inches and I had a hatred for the donut coils on them. When they were later released with the small 6" coil I were much more impressed with them as the smaller coils isolation seemed to suit it's pre-set mark better. Played a bit with both the balance and gain pots but just only managed a shade better difference in performance. Goldseekers 15000. Bought due the old 'handles mineralized ground' marketing. Which in this case was true for the units up until that date, for sure. Not a bad coil range, 8", 11" and a big useless wopper of a coil, maybe 15" but can't remember. Minelab Eldorado MK 1. Metal box, cheap price. Bought for single tone judgement on coins, but soon realised that even with their low frequency, with a small coil they were sensitive on small gold (not sub gram) over hot ground, with extremely impressive depth and smooth running with large coils on hot ground. One of the best Minelab's ever made. Dual Ace. Bought for the twin frequency of 8kHz and 20kHz, plus the fact they were only $895. Best manual balance ever put on a unit. Ran them in 8kHz exclusively. Went through a long stage of hipmounting these and the GT/FT. Took a lot of pressure off the arm and made for easier and longer days. Just like the Bugs, I used to buy two at a time. GT/FT16000. Bought for the auto ground tracking. Functioned far and above what I thought they would. Low kHz so handled ground with ease. XT 17000. Bought due to twin freq, but I was after the 6.4kHz more than the 32kHz. Good machines. Xt18000 Bought for the Triple freq and to check out if everything ran stable with such a variety of correlation going on. Best general gold VLF to date. Ace 250. Bought because they were so cheap. And if they hit coins well and hinted at junk to an acceptable level ....well at that price you gotta give them a go. Horribly disappointed with them, hated them no end, what a shambles. Later on when using pre set balance non threshold based VLF units to go back over ground the PI's had been hitting on but were moaning and groaning and shutting down with big sig responses, I found a place for that horrible little Ace. Bought another when the larger 12" x 9" concentric came out and bugger me, you could mount them on a straight shaft and general detect with them, digging all very deep quiet Iron hits. So I found a place for them and loved the little Aces. I still say today, that if a kid had an Ace and popped on a large concentric and detected every day, his gold take would be more than anyone's for the year. Original Gold Bug. Bought due to them being in 20kHz. Lovely looking black unit with an Egyptian looking Bug on the side of the box. Badly correlated threshold on all units, crappy thresholds all told really. Run mostly silent mode for ease of use and seemed deeper than threshold mode. Set em up in front of the handgrip and rode the balance. Or hipmounted them on long dragged out daily sessions. Loved them, really did. Gold Bug 2. Put off by such a high frequency at first. But bought for shallow sniping and reef working. Light, did their job extremely well. Loved riding the balance and they excelled at what they were made for. Threshold still not very good, no real full life to them. Had they been engineered with a rock steady threshold and tone control they, along with the original Bug, would have been top notch on both mild and hot ground. Loved em. Whites GMT. Bought only due to the fact that I got a chance to use one for many hours, and once I worked out the correct correlation of SAT speed against gain I bought one immediately. After the nice square box Goldmaster11 and following VSAT, then the magnificent GM3, then a change to the 4B, I thought that entire platform was the best small gold or mild ground detector range made for those usages. The GMT with it's beaut ground grab and run manually could handle any dirt. Yet a lot of gold detectorist's couldn't work them out, which I never really understood as they were very simplistic in operation. MXT. Bought for gold only as it ran with a prospecting mode, and running in the lower kHz of 14, I thought it'd make a smoother and deeper 'general detecting machine than the GMT. But I was very disappointed with it on most ground in comparison. Fors CoRe. Bought it for gold. Cannot travel over hot ground. With large coil over mullock it's a deep gain pushing superstar. Gave it good go for coinage on mild ground, nowhere near the mark of my other coin units on trashy ground. But found a neat use for it along inland river banks and their picnic areas. Perfect machine for me there. Big coil lives on it. Love it. SD2000. Bought for gold detecting, hot deep ground only. Big money up front, some new type of signal transmit we were told, so I naturally thought the dollar difference would match up in performance between the current and earlier VLF's with 11" and larger coils quite significantly. $4600 vs $1500 Sadly disappointed in comparison, and felt that the price was about $2000 out of whack. Couldn't believe how many people were stating how quiet they were on hot ground. What bullshit that was. Moaning and groaning beasts, annoying threshold stability. Quite a sloppy threshold dial compared to the vlf platform. And the ground balance wandered badly. Rushed onto market instead of taking a few months to refine them. I still like em though, running one at the moment actually. SD2100. Bought because when I used the first one, the difference in sensitivity over the 2000 was noticed straight away. More stable unit outright too. SD 2200d. Bought simply because I was hoping the auto ground tracking would operate exactly like that on the VLF platform and weren't let down in that regard, Superb. Sadly my first was a dull dud. The second unit was I bought was particularly hot. GP Extreme. Purchase being due to 'new technology'. Sadly got a dull dud yet again. The second unit I tried was a TRUE Extreme and handled itself accordingly. Bought it instantly. Great unit. GP3000. Had a good feeling on this one, bought because I had an inkling the units would be even across the board, no duds, and I was spot on. Loved the faster tracking over the 2200 and much more sensitive of course. All time favorite PI when I sit down and think about it. The following run of GPX's I bought because I'm an idiot. The purchase, selling of earlier machines, and re-purchase of the GPX range was an expensive lesson learnt, and made some average years turn into break even years. Wasted a lot of money and time pulling tiny little sparklers a few inches away from previous dig holes. Big bloody deal...

There would have be changes in performance that knock signal response around with different type of matrix on piles. Some would disadvantage VLF's, some would disadvantage PI's. Only coil size and type being exactly the same I think Merton. And not sure if 'battery power advantages on later units actually place more, or push more gain through broken mild ground than say a Detech Relic Striker with 6 aa's can. Or other types of high gain 8 aa machines.

Haha.. Now that's one of the better clips I've ever seen. Tonage at it's best! Well done Tom. I'm buying a Sport solely due to that clip, and actually now feel like I WANT to get used to the MXSport tones...

Well done Matt... Hope you can get more time out for the rest of the year.

You know how geologists get sometimes ...Chris may only be a bit cranky due to missing out on the last Rock Show that was on, that's all. rock show ...rock show ...

Gotta admit, they are a hell of a lot more exciting to pop out of the ground than the average coin is...

X2.. They are all pretty much on par, and lightweight, very light when used two-handed. Just watch your tighter spots where an offshoot dig thins out, some units do not like the transmit/receive getting feedback from both ends. Running the unit with a positive balance can take care of a bit of that.

One thing I should have mentioned, is that this guy '53Silver (apologies for not remembering his name ) has made some really nice clear crisp detecting clips with Tesoro's and MXT's and Minelabs and popped them on YouTube many moons ago, that give really nice information out regarding the units he's using. So kudos to him, as they can really help someone that hasn't used, or is struggling to get the best out of a certain detector. A lot of guys here detect private farm land, State owned land called Crown land, inland river banks and picnic spots along those, and a lot of this ground can and does correspond with British pasture. Without the dreaded 'coke' of course. Pre-decimal coinage along with British and American coins are a favorite. Did Trident have a unit corresponding to the Golden... Rick/John? Jewelery I simply do not get very much of, maybe five rings a year off park land. And even a fat mens wedding band isn't worth the trouble as the sale value is low compared to the time spent hunting our main coins. But I do target golf courses and inland river banks for coins and jewelery and my count on rings and bracelets ect. jumps dramatically here. Sad about Tesoro, really is. They weren't even interested in improving the HOT line of units.

All seems fine on top of the ground that's for sure. Unfortunately the tones of the Golden simply do not reproduce those quality of tone ID at even three to four inches. Nice units if you bought a good one and didn't have to send it back, but very limited on tone ID depth. The 305 for instance is three times the detector the Golden was. Tesoro die hards will have the opposite opinion to mine though...

Well done in kicking your season off..

Funny thing is, you know the whole time I used the Bug 2's, not once did I realise they were concentric coils. I knew they felt different in a slight way sig response wise, but I guess the elliptical shape simply made me put it down to the elongated blade of a DD.

One other thing on concentric coils. They are much better made now and handle ground better than earlier types. And they come in all shapes and sizes, large elliptical and so on. The inner receive ring is sometimes the trick on hot ground. The smaller inner ring the better they handle hotter ground. They beat the pants off a DD for separation, isolation and depth. And I use some brands on some pretty wicked dirt.

Would like to see more pics of your trips away Terry ...great scenery. Personally I'd jump on the second hand Quattro for your beach work without a second thought. I always liked the Quattro, and now the still in production Safari. Most of us ended up just running them wide open without any fuss. At that cheap price it leaves you only your choice for a discriminating prospecting VLF new.

Hey John, did you ever get a Minelab Relic Hawk and run it through it's paces?

That Whites 5000 was one of my early machines too Mike. Only thing with the first one I bought, was that it couldn't pick up an 8gram nugget, it wouldn't register on a squashed coke can unless it touch the coil, and would not make a peep on pulltabs or bottle caps. None of the functions/dials seemed to work at all, apart from on-off. It would however hit hard on every coin down to 4". Because it was a dud unit out of the factory, I must have just got lucky in it's pre-set waywardness. I never took it back, and kept it for its brilliance at hitting shallow coins amoung trash on junky hard packed ground like dirt car parks. The second one I bought operated fine. But who'd of thought a dud could be a favoured unit...

Just about to hit the Like Button then the post was gone. Steve knows a good 'new thread when he sees one... Glad you like the new MXSport Rico. Looking forward to your future posts on both it's handling and your finds.

Most definitely start that thread Norvic! Looking forward to it...