RickUK

Fabio,some terrific finds me old mate,that GPX of your is performing very well,love reading your adventures on FaceAche. Well done.

Tim,i really cannot say the reason why,it may well be what you have suggested it could be,but over the many years that i have been detecting i take a mental note of my finds rate not over say a few weeks or months but years this can in theory give me a pretty accurate barometer on what machines perform like.....in theory we all hope that as we change detectors over the years the finds rate continue on the upward curve as we refine our detecting techniques and also with newer technology that comes out,and to a certain extent i would agree that the finds rate curve has continuously gone up.But not with all machines i will hasten to add. The T2 and DFX was just 2 machines that i found that had that certain magic what that certain magic is i still have not really found out but the finds rate of decent finds ie gold and silver hammered coinage did increase my a significant amount by using the original green T2 and the DFX. I of course wont part with either the Deus or Nox as they are as light as a feather and suit my right wrist problems,but the T2 is also lightweight and the magical combination of this T2 and the Sharpshooter coil have been pressed ganged into use again.

Peg,if you ever did come over to the UK on a visit,you would be more than welcome to come out on some prime saxon/roman permissions that i have access on.

Never used a Simplex so cannot give any form of opinion on that detector but i have used and still own my old faithful DFX,it was my main machine for about 14 years and found me some absolutely amazing finds over the years,but gradually the T2 and Deus took the crown from the DFX and i guess one could say the DFX is in semi retirement. As its a public holiday here in the UK next monday i have the machine sat in the corner with its 12'' Hotshot coil and the RNB battery pack which was last charged at Easter but still almost got a full battery charge in it,could well take it out over the weekend to blow the old cobwebs out on it and rekindle some of the old thoroughly enjoyable days that this machine has provided. Since i stopped using the DFX and my original T2 as my main machines and started using the Deus for 6-7 years and Equinox about 14 months ago,my finds rate has dropped and not by just a small amount but by a massive amount. Over the weekend both the Deus and Nox have become backup machines and the T2 and DFX have become once again the machines that have provided me the largest amount of both silver hammered coins and gold hammered and milled coins.

Thats a very interesting find,what exactly is it that it is showing ??

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this adventure,i still cannot grasp fully this gold nugget detecting its all so new to me,i have a basic idea but i really do enjoy reading about all these adventures you folks get upto.

Fascinating information,that link makes great reading....many thanks

Excellent find,very well done,alas because i live so far inland i very rarely go beach detecting,a ideal time coming up for us will be after the Bank holiday here in the UK next monday and also folks are starting to go on holiday again here as well,because of travel restrictions that are still in place to other countries folks are just staying at home and enjoying what resorts that we do have.

Some of the local fields that i detect on have alot and some fields running into 100s of them,they are a novelty for some but when you have so many it it can get beyond a joke,but saying that you can sometimes find some gold coins that had been sown into a jackets as a bartering currency with the idea that it could be used if one was taken as a prisoner of war etc.. Was out detecting yesterday and the permission we have although does not have what i consider a massive amount of military buttons from shoddy but we have found other military items from both wars including medals which have been handed back to next of kin from a chap that died in 1917 and that was only fond back in January of this year.

For when i dig manicured lawns which is very rarely and need a precision cut of the turf i use a 'Hori Hori knife' works a treat,always carry it with me anyway but mainly just for when recovering a lost item on someone pride and joy lawn.

Stu,welcome,some nice finds,could never get on with the Tejon but did love using the Adventis 2 that was a great machine used one for 9 months while someone was abroad and thoroughly enjoyed it. The George111 dice is very unusual,once again welcome.

Sven,outstanding information,although i dont own a Bliss i do own a very similar machine the Nexus MP which although amazing depth i feel the manual GB could be much easier when adjusting,i feel the GB although for sure is the best way to gain maximum depth out of these machines can be very hit and miss and this single problem i feel makes folks want to sell them very quickly. Its a possibility that although i have mastered setting the Nexus MP up as i have had it a fair few years it could be more enjoyable and used more apart from really deep relic/hoard hunting of which they are famed for..The Nexus i feel may not be as complicated as the Bliss for setting up but i am certainly going down the route of looking into changing some of the pots especially the GB one,its a high precision 10 turn lockable pot but what how high a quality the actual pot is debatable. The shaft setup on the Bliss uses the same in my mind el-cheapo shaft that is used on my original rare Crossbow PI and that went in the bin as i use a lighter carbon fibre one these days. Will be following this project.

Tony,welcome onboard,same here i am from good old 'Blighty',one detector that possibly would fit all your needs could be the Minelab Equinox 600 as that could/would cover all your needs and within a similar price bracket as what you have suggested.Possibly the most popular range of detectors ie the Equinox 600/800 being used in the UK.

I had the Deus for maybe 8-9 years and when the Hot programme came out everyone wanted to use it including me,it last about 2 hours using it and never really used it again for everyday use,it just fries my brain with in my mind useless overload audio.For many years all i use on my roman and medieval sites is the stock GMP settings which runs the discrimination at 6.1.The only thing i occasionally change is the freq but the Deus wont miss much if at all and if it does not beep then probably nothing is in the ground. All these super sexy programmes that folks come up with and give them fancy names are in my mind just ego booster,the GMP is a reliable workhorse and it works very well for my detecting needs,must admit the HF elliptical just makes it possibly my all time favourite detector and its the one i grab as i go out the front door.The Nox and T2 which i still highly rate are backups rather than the main detector.

My standalone pinpointer is the original black Garrett propointer had it years and its never let me down,always carried a new Whites Bullseye as the backup but as yet never need to use it. But my favourite pinpointer combination is the 'MS-3 Wireless Headphone Kit with ProPointer AT Z-Lynk' i use this not only on my Nox but also all my other detectors both VLF or PI which has the 1/4'' jack,its not a cheap setup but after the initial one of outlay i can then switch to listen the pinpointer through my Garrett headphones without sliding the headphone off one earlobe while i listen to the pinpointer.One of the best bits of kit that i have bought in recent years.

Thats the exact same setup that i use as a everyday machine,possibly not the deepest machine on the planet but saying that it wont miss much either,i am finding that running the machine in GMP mode 'without' any settings changed and running in 14khz works a treat. The elliptical works a treat in between the stubble rows but its the target separation what this combination is all about.

This video looks like it been made to promote this cheap chinese made twin box detector,normally when comparing say 2 machines like for like the person who made the video does not normally include all the contact details for the detector ie email and other vital contact details.......indirectly it could be seen as a very clever detector spam video.....could be wrong though.

In theory i would agree with you,but in practice of using my original green T2 which i have owned since 2006/7 and the Equinox for possibly 15 months,the T2 has found me the most artifacts and coinage including the most gold coinage than all my other detectors.I certainly would not class myself as a novice or anything like that.But of all my detectors which for the most part are single freq machines machines the T2 has that certain magic that other machines have not produced,the only other machine that has come close to find the celtic gold staters that the T2 has is my DFX which i have owned since 2002/3 that has had 1000s of hours of use under the belt and although that is a dual freq machine most DFX including mine is usually run in 15khz. The Nox using multi freq excels in certain situations like say wet beach conditions,some of my roman sites that have ultra high mineral content,great depth on pasture but my T2 does not hang about depth wise on pasture either when using AM mode and big NEL coils. For pure depth and the Equinox even if used with multi freq or even single freq just wont come near what either of my Nexus machine can get depth wise and those are single freq and running low freq's as well. So although multi freq do have some advantages and i do use them accordingly so also some single freq machines can perform as goo as and in some cases exceed what some multi freq machines can do.

Gunnar,a terrific find,video works for me so not sure what the problem is from some folks unable to view it. Love the HF coil on my Deus,albeit mine is not the round version mine is the elliptical coil,but with just 2 detectors ie the Deus and the Equinox i have all freqs covered from 4khz right upto 80khz,have almost all scenarios covered with just these 2 machines. Well done on finding the matching pair.

Welcome,some tremendous finds,have detected with Gordon (Ironhearted Gog' a few times over the years and also possibly on one of the hardest inland sites to detect a roman trading villa site as the soil conditions are just like black high mineral sand that you find on the beach its that bad,but machines like the GPX which you use have accounted for many many coins found on this site infact the huge amount is staggering. One main thing i learnt from Gordon when related to using a Pulse machine in this instant also is the GPX 5K is the 'spray paint' method' when on farmland using a special marker spray can on either a new permission or one that has all ready produced a hoard,in Gorden's YouTube video that he made some years back he demonstrated how he uses his GPX and a Minelab705 together trying to locate possibly more gold full staters from the original hoard......this is a method that i adopted some years back albeit not with a GPX but a TDI Pro with the 15x12 GPX mono coil and the Nexus MP both work identically to the same system devised by Gordon. The history on your sites ie roman and saxon etc and basically the exact same as what we find here in the UK,very well done on your finds,i can also relate to your comments about depth and the main reason behind why you use the GPX for deep artefact/hoard hunting and the reason why a Pulse with large coil is required as it only possibly takes just one decent find at that greater depth to pay for all the detectors many times over. Enjoy your style of detecting.

A terrific and very interesting topic,but one that although the common denominator here is 'metal detecting' can vary and we adapt using what detectors best suits the job in hand ie in Aussieland or Arizona and your targets are gold nugget hunting then depth is important as well as a machine for extremely small targets hence high freq VLF and PI suits that type of detecting. For me personally and for my type of detecting and the targets that i am after here in the UK then i use machine best suited to our extreme historical past going back 1000s of years,also the extreme variations is materials used,this could be from using gold,silver,bronze,lead and many other different metals and also the added twist and complications of additional metals into various combinations eg a silver coin or gold coin from say 1000 years ago could have a higher content or even a lesser content of base metal due to how the economy was at that time. So for me i tend to use 2-3 or even more detectors as in my mind no one detector does it all across such a wide spectrum as what we have on offer,so my way of thinking is that i use 2 main machines ie Deus and Equinox that cover the freq from 4khz upto 80khz then also bring into the equation also not desirable targets like some extremely trash roman/saxon sites then also coil size on the 2 main machines also can improve the odds in your favour,so matching coils to said machines can also be as important as using the correct freq. For the most part even though our history is extremely rich and varied most common finds across the spectrum are found within the top say 6-8'' for the most part,hence most detectors can find these common finds like say roman and silver/gold hammered coins using a stock 10'' coil,but also its not uncommon for us to find finds that are say the highly valuable ones this could be say artifacts or hoards which could well be below the eveyday 8'' finds layer that most folks like detecting for.But by using a everyday detector most folks unless its a very large pot could possibly miss these more desirable deeper hidden targets like hoard.One has to remember that banks and other saving institutions are modern forms of saving valuables but with such a long history as on the UK the safest place to store valuables till war and other major problems past was by hiding said artefacts and valuables in the ground near say a strategic location near a tree,building or what ever waiting for the original owner to return and retrieve the item but alas this often never happened hence the reason why so many hoards are found and this is my personal opinion many many more are still awaiting to be found. This brings me onto my obsession with either using VLF or PI machines with larger coils like my TDI Pro,2 Nexus machines and also my TW-5 twin box and the reason for this is that if i suspect that even the slimmest of possibilities that a large artefact/hoard could be in that location due to the previous history then i always carry one heavy hitter with me as well as my 2-3 machines that i use,the logic behind my way of thinking is that if i find say a tight radius of coins this is a classic indication that a scattered haord that has been clipped by the plough is in this area then the heavy hitter either VLF or PI comes into its own and yes i have used these a few times.I like to think that i try and cover all possibilities if i am away on a days detecting and these means from small single coins right upto large deep artefacts and hoards and also increase the odds in my favour.It may seem like i am over doing it but if i was using say just one machine with a happy medium stock coil then i would find possibly everything upto say 12'' depending on item size that is but targets that are more desirable maybe deeper upto the average hoard depth of say a man laying on the ground and putting said hoard at arms length from say 18-24'' depth and in some cases deeper. Its possibly a long winded post and possibly folks who hunt solely for deep gold would not relate to how i detect and why i use the detectors that i do and the methods that i use,but i can only mention how i detector and why,but sharing this fascination and interesting hobby of ours is always wonderful.

I own a Fisher TW-5 twin box and as Steve has mentioned that you do need to align the coils which is not a hard job,only take a minute or so and then you can use the machine,the TM808 is carried like a suitcase but the TW-5 that i use has a alloy bar that hold both the boxes at either end and is carried from the shoulder by a strap. Not used it much and the only reason i bought it about 5 year back was it was practically brand new and was not a cheap machine with all the accessories that came with it,but some novice bought it thinking they would find the Holy Grail but sold it a week later for a 1/3 of the original price,hence why i pounced on it quickly. My 1st choice was going to be the Whites the one with the cave mode,but when this TW-5 came along that one had my name written all over it with a 'sold sticker' on it.Interesting machine but once you grasp the basics on how they work and how to set them up its pretty basic. Not been out with it this year due to the current pandemic but do have a few sites that i could do with running the twin box over,depth subject to the size of the target/s is off the scale.You have to take into account the 'reward to effort' ratio when using them as digging deep holes for rubbish is not alot of fun,but if you start finding coins in a very tight radius and of the same/similar type which indicates a scattered hoard that has been dragged up by the plough then its situations like this when you would use the twin box and then you hope digging that deep hole/s was not in vain 🙂

So sorry to hear this terrible news R.I.P Reg

Have downloaded the latest update,out most of tomorrow as the crops have been cut on my local permission/s,so its time too start some serious detecting time going into autumn/winter these are the peak months for us. Will be detecting right next door to the great roman road up north the A1,so will see if this update makes any difference.

Must admit i still prefer my Deus over my Equinox,wont sell the Nox will just be a expensive backup machine come pasture detector.it will mainly be used when i require some extra depth so will then use it probably just in 5 or 10khz and AM mode i feel that is when this detector could earn it keep as it is deeper than the Deus. Of course our targets and locations are different so we adopt different detecting techniques accordingly.