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Thanks Gentlemen! Thanks David, No I haven't found anything over the 1.2 dwt nugget and we're good! The lower desert of Az are starting to warm up and I may not be out hunting as much. It's still beautiful in the early mornings but we've already had some 90 degree heat in the afternoon. Hey Rob, great job... just have to stay away from those cactus roots. Thanks... nuggets are from Arizona.

It looks like you've got the SDC dialed in and thanks for sharing your gold finding stories!

Thanks Fred, I sure hope you get you new GPZ soon... I'm no expert but here's what I'm doing. Gold mode - High yield will be 80% - 90% of your hunting when you get a target play with the settings by switching it to general mode but only if you are in hunting deep ground. If looking for big deep gold use general mode but I think high yield will punch down to the big deep nuggets. Stay out of extra deep... I'm thinking that will be for the 20" coil. Ground type - Difficult, but it will punch deeper if you can run normal, if it's to unstable in normal switch to difficult. Audio smoothing - Off, it will go deeper with it turned off, but it might be good to turn it on low audio smoothing for the first few days until you get use to running with it off. It does smooth out the audio at the cost of depth, but you might hear a deep soft signal with a smoother audio. Sensitivity - Easy does it. It will be set to the type ground in your area but I'm running between 9 and 13. To much sensitivity will cause false ground noise because of hot spots in the ground and more hot rocks. I'm very surprised at the depth of the small nuggets... the deepest so far I'm guessing 13 inches on the 1.2 DWT nugget.

Three weeks with the GPZ and I finally broke the half ounce mark. I got a little bigger nugget this week at 1.2 pennyweight. The total weight now is 10.2 DWT's. They range from a couple that won't register on the scale in the grams mode all the way up to 1.2 pennyweight. 38 nuggets and I still can't pin point with the GPZ and I'm not use to digging such small nuggets. They are adding up and after 3 weeks I've lost 15 pounds and the detector is getting lighter, and I'm getting the exercise the doctor ordered. Some nuggets haven't had a bath yet. Enjoy the picture...

I thought hawkeye might like to see the GPZ on tree roots.

The base of saguaro cactus has almost always given a signal on Minelab Pi's, but now I get them on 2 inch diameter roots several feet from the saguaro at 8 inches deep. I have chopped the roots out of the hole looking for the target and the signal disappears. The roots are full of moisture, so not sure why but they will give off a signal.

I have noticed the GPZ is for less susceptible to false ground noise and mineralization than my previous Minelab's, just go easy the sensitivity. But I have more trouble with tree roots and burned tree roots or charcoal. I've had several targets that turned out to be 2 inch Saguaro roots as far away as 10 feet from the cactus. I've also had trouble with Palo Verde roots several feet away from the tree. I've found nuggets caught in tree roots and Saguaro roots before and now this new detector causes a bigger challenge to make sure it's not a nugget.

I think the pumping of the coil was inadvertent because the hole was to small. My question is why did it take so long to balance it out?

Posted by gullyhunter. That's very strange... unless he tracked out the target by pumping the coil?

Hey Fred... how frustrating is that! Tell them you want two batteries for the trouble.

Nice nugget Lucky! Enjoy your Birthday!

Thanks... the control box cover is not made for the GPZ it's for the GPX. The fit is not perfect but didn't want to scratch a $10,000 paint job before they start making GPZ covers. It's made by Shingleback Detector Defence Products out of Australia , I bought it from Rob's Detector.

Very nice Rob, thanks for sharing!

Pic of the back side.

Well sorry the pictures aren't better quality but you get the idea. Someone was asking about a sun shade for the GPZ after pricing these on ebay I decided to make my own. The shade was free and it took about 10 minutes to make we'll see how good it holds up. I made it from industrial Velcro using the sticky back to mount to the side of the screen... pretty easy to cut out and mount, be sure to prep the side and top of the screen with alcohol first. Have fun!

Qld Sandy, between reading your post about the GPZ having more like a computer doing the ground balancing and looking at that beautiful car in your avatar got my wheels turning.

The auto ground balance/tracking on the GPZ reminds me of the ECU on the newer cars, or not? The ECU "learns" about your engine as you drive the car. The "learning" is actually a process that the ECU uses to track the tolerance changes of the sensors and actuators on the engine. The ECU is always tracking the engine's sensors and actuators. Resetting the ECU does not cause the ECU to learn engine changes any faster. The ECU is always tracking the gradual changes in the engine sensors and actuators. The ECU never gets satisfied with a setting, and is always updating the trim values. It will discover whatever change you made to your engine and make the appropriate changes. In fact, unplugging the ECU will most likely increase the learning curve of the new part.

Boulder Dash you've done very well with the gold bug II, congrats... My good friend and hunting partner who recently lost his battle with lung cancer used a gold bug II for many many years, he found thousands of nuggets and specimens with it. With all of the gold he found he never found a solid nugget over an ounce. He knew he was missing the bigger deeper gold but just couldn't handle the weight of the Minelab because of his age and his heath. I've found several nuggets over an ounce including a 6 ouncer with Minelab PI's in the very same ground hammered by gold bugs and goldmasters. In another case I was hunting with Rob A. the day he found his big 9 ouncer in ground that was pounded with the best VLF's out there. IMO the VLF's are better suited to tailing piles and specimen gold, flake gold, wire gold, or sponge gold, invisible to the older minelab pi's... now that has all changed with the GPZ 7000, that's what I'll be swinging this year.

I can't wait to use the extra deep mode with the 20" DOD... I can dream can't I? Now if I can only attach a helium balloon to the 20" coil to raise it just above the ground.

Awesome, thanks Steve.... I've got it booked marked.

Very good advice Steve. The first time I turned my GPZ and looked at the gold mode settings I thought now why would I want to find small gold?

I've run my GPZ the same way Steve recommends, only switching General/Normal where the ground is deep and big nuggets were found. You can run the sensitivity a littler higher the General/Difficult mode all depends on your ground condition. ​Nenad has a very good explanation on the GPZ settings here... http://phasetechnical.com.au/putting-minelab-gpz-7000-gold-test/

Hey guys this is a Cave Man detector!

Hey Bob compared to my new Bounty Hunter it has twin turbos!!! The Bounty Hunter still works like a 40 year old champ Simply amazing what technology has done in the last 40 years.

Hi Flak, I'll take that bet, a gentleman's between two gentlemen. I'll bet there's nothing over a 1/4 ounce in the next two weeks on old hammered ground.