phrunt

It's actually pretty incredible technology, you should read about it on their website, in particular the 66 zones of detection. We don't see these things in our part of the world, in fact I've only ever seen one at the airport. https://garrett.com/security/walk-through/paragon-walk-through-metal-detector Garrett Paragon Wins International Award Garland, Texas (January 17, 2024) —Texas-based Garrett Metal Detectors was honored today by its new Paragon walk-through metal detector receiving a prestigious security industry award at the 25th Annual Intersec tradeshow in Dubai. More than 1,000 state-of-the-art companies were showcased at Intersec’s safety, security, and fire protection exhibition this week. Garrett’s best-in-class 66-zone Paragon security detector includes revolutionary new features for ease of use, such as Zero Touch™ NFC capability and Ambiscan™ directional programming. “As Garrett enters our 60th year of business in 2024, it is a great honor to have our latest, most technically advanced walk-through detector receive such a distinctive award,” said Bob Podhrasky, Garrett’s Senior Vice President and Director of Engineering. “This is a significant recognition of a significant product,” added Garrett CEO Steve Novakovich. “The Paragon name means ‘perfect example,’ and the Garrett Paragon was designed to address areas where other recent ‘weapons detection’ systems struggle. Small knives and some disassembled weapons are difficult for these screening systems to detect, but Paragon’s superior detection helps security-minded operators get the most performance out of their security equipment.” Paragon’s diverse program options and Quick-Q technology fit a wide range of perimeter security needs from high throughput stadium operations to critical high security applications.

Don't worry, that must be the New Zealand Price they've mistakenly put there, it will be $1400 in USA 🙂

That's true, for my needs the accessory coils are not suitable for the GB2, but for someone else they may very well be. The prices for them are a lot more reasonable for someone in the US too, Going back in time a few months I was questioning if I should buy the 14" coil for the GB2 as it was on a clearance and I could have got it very cheap, and had a very good response from a guy that was using the 10 exclusively and loved it, he also wanted to buy the 14" coil. I didn't buy it, have some regrets now.

Quite a lot of people are finding big gold around Clermont, and Palmerville always pops up when someone's onto big nuggets in Queensland. I think it's cool Palmerville sell season and day passes to look for gold there. During the next ice age I'll fly over and give it my best shot and finding a decent nugget.

Thanks, I didn't watch the whole thing, they tend to drag on too much. He should just run a virtual machine and not need a dedicated XP machine.

His understanding of EXIF and Metadata is very different to mine 😛 He's on the right track with the hidden information in pictures, it's especially common in screeners going out for review for movies so if they are leaked the movie studios can track down the source of the leak. Information is hidden in the frames of the video, it's been circumvented a long time ago by software that searches the video for pixels that don't change frame to frame, as they're the hidden information... This technology is NOT in your phone and cameras like being suggested. Before being worried about the photos being taken containing where he purchased his camera, he should probably upgrade his PC running Windows XP in the background, that sucker is a security risk far more than the cameras information. Great to see a potential new detector coming to market, hopefully it's good as indicated, probably not something I'll require though.

Ok here is a better example, this is a 0.258 of a gram nugget too, so not insignificant. It gets much worse with the smaller bits, but I wanted to demonstrate it with a reasonable size bit of gold. So, obviously as the hot rocks get bigger the problem is worse, also, I was having the coil close to the gold, lift the coil up slightly to give the impression of some depth on the target and the hot rock signal over powers the gold even more. My scales batteries are starting to go flat so the screens a bit hard to read. In disc mode, you often get some chirps indicating a good target, although it can do these as falses with hot rocks too, although I think the discrimination on the GB2 is very good, and I'd always investigate those chirps further as I have a lot of faith in its discrimination. If you're sweeping over the gold before the hot rock you'd find it, if it hits the hot rock first, all bets are off. You'll see as I slightly raise the coil off the targets, the hot rock is detected and the gold isn't, even in disc mode the gold is gone, even when spaced out enough so they're both not under the coil at once. Also, the bigger the coil you put on, the worse the problem gets too. I wouldn't like to use the big 14" Gold Bug 2 coil on a tailings pile with hot rocks all through it, so much gold could potentially be missed. This is where the Gold Bug Pro is an improvement as it also has a screen and you can see more what's going on with the screen, and it performs much better doing this same thing.

A recent family photo. Maybe my hands were cold, as they look like they would cool down a detector handle.

That's a very young Gerry on the GB2 advertisement. Thanks for posting these, all well before my time so good to see.

I will film a better video and show what I mean, I did film one when I first noticed it when I first got the detector so I'll put that up here but this was too basic as you can space the gold and hot rock much further apart and still get the same problem, and the bigger the hot rock the worse it is, this was a tiny one, essentially when you go over a hot rock it does a "boing" sound, this sound goes for a while, and while the sound is playing nothing else under the coil is detected If you go over a good target while the "Boing" is still going the target won't be reacted to. Perhaps recovery was the wrong word, it's recovering from the "Boing" sound to then being able to respond to the next target, it doesn't cut off the "Boing" sound when another target sound is there. With my 10x5" GB2 coil on, the problem is worse as the coils covering more ground so more missed ground on each hot rock. Imagine going over ground with these little rocks scattered everywhere on and just below the ground, it's just endless "boings" Many other detectors seem to work much better in the same situation, Now that's just one little issue and not such a big deal unless in an area like many here full of the crazy little hot rocks. My reasoning for him not needing the larger coil is he already has another similar detector with the 10x5" coil already, if it were his only detector of course, he'd benefit greatly from buying it if he wanted to cover some ground and get a bit more depth on bigger stuff. For me personally I don't like taking the little coil off, as it's just so good, and where I see the Gb2 excelling over other detectors is with that little coil on it, at least that's how it is for me.

The Algo is going to be coming with the USB port covers, I would think by the time the next batch of Algo's are ready they will have them included. The manufacturer saw that I was using them and thought that it would be a helpful idea to include them with detectors for people.

It was the Vanquish that received the firmware update for the incorrect battery meter, well it's not actually incorrect. The rechargeables charge to a lower voltage of 1.2 volt. so, as the detector is calibrated to run 1.5-volt batteries it always reports the 1.2-volt batteries are already well used when you put them in. Still works fine, just a little oddity with it, which the Vanquish also had but they updated the Vanquish firmware to fix it. I don't think they've ever done a firmware update for the 24k, they're all the same revision. And the warranty is 3 years, pretty good so you've got a little bit of warranty left.

Outstanding Erik, well done, you won't regret it, the 24k is great, I had my doubts before getting one but once I had it in my hands I realized I was wrong, it's in my opinion the best of the best when it comes to VLF gold prospecting single frequency detectors, not quite as hot as the GB2 but very much equal to the GM 1000 without the knock sensitivity, and having more settings to play with to get the best out of it. Since I got mine, I've not once felt the need to power on my GM1000, the lack of knock sensitivity is the key. Use whatever batteries you feel like, you won't damage it, in fact the batteries it comes with the detector firmware isn't even calibrated to, and reports they're not full, when they are 🙂 The same problem the Vanquish had when it was first released before a firmware update. I myself use Panasonic Eneloops, you won't regret buying them, best rechargeable AA batteries on the market, not only for usage but the long life of them, I'm well over 10 years now on a set I put in my weather station and still going strong, only charged by its little solar panel. They handle thousands of charges. The 6" coil in my opinion should have been the stock coil, so I'm glad you've got it, best of the best for the 24k, the DD is good though, and perhaps they included that for compatibility on bad ground, as you know I have no idea when it comes to that. It leaves the Gold Bug Pro and 5" for dead, so disregard that, as for the Equinox and 6" coil, it's a battle, each have their pros and cons, oddly the 24k loves wet tree roots here, but it handles hot rocks better than the Nox, sensitivity is very similar when using the 6" Concentric and 6" Nox. Explore the SAT setting, here I can run if off and it gives a noticeable boost, its defaults to 1, and 2 is for worse situations, if you can run it off do so. You found a great deal, especially with our Garrett pricing.

That's more what I was getting at, the biggest flaw with it is it's extremely slow recovery, hot rock and gold under the coil at once, all you hear is the hot rock, the bigger the coil the worse this problem becomes. It's an outstanding small gold detector and really there is no better coil yet than it's little concentric on any VLF for a tiny gold coil, absolutely love that coi. He also already has a 10x5 on another machine.

That 9" round Coiltek will be better than the Sadie for sure. Smallest spiral coil available.

Thanks for the link, a cool video! I can't believe such a great video has had so little views, been there since 2020 and only 97 views. I think I watched a little bit of that video when I went to that museum. I wonder if the museums might be interested in my Chinese coin, being that its so incredibly old they might want to put it on display. I'd be happy to give it to them. Sadly because they were so good at it they left little for someone like me to find 🙂 Good on the Chinese miners for being so good at what they did, I would prefer they were not so good though!

Well, they're down to 23 in stock, when I first saw the sale they had 37, I suspect they started at 40, as that would make sense. Either way, they've sold 14, When the price is right, stuff sells and it's good to see Axioms getting into the hands of more Aussies.

Yep, K'ai Yuan T'ung Pao, was a Tang dynasty cash coin that was produced from 621 under the reign of Emperor Gaozu and remained in production for most of the Tang dynasty until 907. What a coin that old was doing in a creek in New Zealand I don't know, I assumed hanging around the neck of a gold miner, seeing the Chinese miners worked the creek. He possibly got it hooked on something and broke it.

Yea, he had nothing to do with the E1500, and was just as surprised as the rest of us when it hit the market.

Thanks, I'd not seen that video and it makes a lot of sense, good tips in it, sadly the Chinese hit many places around here hard, and it sounds like they were extremely efficient miners not leaving much behind, except perhaps their ancient coin family heirloom lucky charm.

She's very well dressed in very clean nice clothes and even wearing what looks to be makeup, I think perhaps she dressed up to make the video, you can tell it's not some staged thing though and she certainly knows what she's doing, likely does it a lot. I hope she uses protection normally. Good on her, looks like she's living a nice life there, her surroundings are fantastic. Really good to watch and nice to see her pets all helping out! 🙂

For a detector with "no active shield" it sure handles EMI far better than previous GPX models. It would be good if the mods do improve things, I think it's a bit questionable if they really will do much at all though and I've no interest in paying to get them done as I'm fine with how it is already. If there is a new detector coming this year that's another game changer, I'm sure it's not from Minelab, have to wait and see on that one I suppose.

I've used my Minelab Pro-Find 35 pinpointer for finding electrical wires in walls, I picked it because I could easily adjust the sensitivity down to next to nothing to really narrow down where they were, then I was able to cut a tiny hole in the wall to add a power point 😛

The Target ID appears to be very stable, I think part of the reason for this is it's a non-motion ID, so you use the pinpoint function and get the target so it's got the best signal strength, at this point you stop and leave the coil still sitting on the ground, it will then give you the ID, this ID is generally very solid. Even very small targets can give a good accurate ID. With a motion Target ID like the Equinox for example you're swinging over the target over and over again looking at the ID's and they may and do often change around a fair bit, the Algo would too if it was a motion Target ID, as when you're centring the target under the coil in pinpoint mode you do get other ID's not just the actual ID, its only when you've got it centred and sit it still you get the solid ID. I hope that makes sense. Keep in mind it's not an ID like a VLF, it doesn't discriminate iron against other metals the same way. Iron could be anywhere depending on size, a bit of a clue to iron though when you're moving the pinpoint around trying to get it centred on the target it can and often does hit an ID of 99, way higher than a good target like a coin or jewellery will hit during the same process, it's also a lot more unstable when pinpointing it. I'm going to be doing a lot more experimenting with the Target ID and hopefully I make my way to a beach soon and do some exploring there, it's also easier to bury targets in sand so I'll have a play and see depths I can find stuff, then I'll go looking for stuff 🙂 It looks like you would be able to cherry pick the Aussie Goldie coins though Erik. Once I've made it to the beach, I'll film some video of it doing stuff. I think the Target ID feature is one of the coolest and best things about the Algoforce.

I can tell you already the E1500 has no hope in the world of hitting gold that size, regardless of coil, 0.03 of a gram if a nicer solid sort of piece is its smallest size, I'd say more realistically 0.05 of a gram would be its starting point, a little bit behind the 6000. In VLF terms I think of the 6000, 7000 and E1500 all being no more sensitive to small gold than the Gold Bug Pro. Yes, they are often deeper on small gold, but outright tiny gold sensitivity they are similar to the Bug, and nothing at all like the GM, 24k or Gb2 performance. I would never be able to find that piece again, it's in a bottle with a bunch of sluiced gold, I guess I could use some tweezers and try find a similar size piece and compare the 24k, GB2 and GM, I believe the GB2 would win, followed by the 24k and GM being very similar. The real benefit of the 24k is it has no bump sensitivity at all, while maintaining very similar if not the same tiny gold performance as the GM, and it has a concentric coil 🙂