phrunt

Well, ordered the Superfly, Although I think the Mars Tiger is awesome it's main benefit over the Nel coils is its EMI handling, the AT Gold is already great with EMI, than 18kHZ an 19kHZ frequency range seems a good one around here for EMI so EMI handling wasn't on my list of requirements for a coil.  I'll see how the Nel goes.  I notice on their coils now they all appear to have that funky red coil cover, I'd rather the old school black ones.  I don't like standing out like dogs nuts.

I doubt it, I'd just think they're missing that feature. Once you've got the old one out just pull it apart and see what that 3rd wire is doing, it maybe just attached to a temperature sensor that you can move across to the other battery.  The detector would likely work fine without it anyway you'd just have to be careful yourself not to charge it if it's too hot like in a car on a hot day as charging the batteries in too high heat can damage them.

Those Ebay batteries look like they were two wire, the battery that comes out of the Equinnox has an extra yellow wire, not sure what for?  Temperature maybe to stop you charging when overheated?

Norvic, you should be sleeping! 🙂

I think Reg will like the 6k, he liked the QED for it's lighter design and the GPX gives him that to an extent.  Not near the weight of the QED but still, lighter and better performance.  He always hated being strapped up like a turkey and the GPX doesn't have turkey strapping like previous models.

Reg likes big coils though, and for that he's a bit limited with the GPX, unless X-coils come up with the goods for it, which may happen!

It will be interesting to see what he thinks, especially seeing he often hunts with jrbeatty and he now swings the GPZ.

It looks like they'll be in NZ very soon, the dealer has updated his website with a little yellow line of text which indicates so.  The newest GOLD Detector from Minelab will be in stock very soon.

Well ,I sure don't have much to look forward to by the look of it.  At least in my 50's I'll get a s sports car, although that was done in my 20's so maybe I'll end up with a Volvo instead.  I'm not much of a car person though, I buy one and use it until it dies, it's probably the thing I care least about as to me it's just a mode of transport.

I just hope in my detecting lifetime a PI comes out with accurate Target ID's, if it does I'll be satisfied.  A PI CTX 3030 and I'd be satisfied.   I'd like if it draws the outline of the target on the screen as you waive over it too with some sort of ground penetrating radar technology!   The more swipes over it the more detailed the image becomes.  Ahhhh, I can stop dreaming now, that can be my sports car in my 50's, a detector of my dreams.

Wow, since posting on here that my dealer has them sitting in stock all of his stock has sold out! They were sitting there for weeks unsold. Crazy! 🙂  It shows the demand is high people are willing to buy them from another country,  maybe people may want to keep an eye out on his GPX 6000 stock levels too 😛

Oh yea, I forgot, Dealers are not allowed to sell Minelab to overseas markets.

Interesting fact, all his coils he had in stock sold to US customers!

Understood, my reasoning was there is no known date, putting a deposit down saying it'll be here in 2 weeks for delivery to you or something I'd understand more than you'll get one someday and in that situation a deposit is very reasonable  They don't even know how many they'll get so if they take too many deposits who knows when you'll get it?  As described above they may get 2 detectors per dealer and take 25 deposits, that's not going to work too well so some people may wait 6 more months or more, who knows?

It worked for you Matt, but maybe your same dealer had 20 other people paid deposits, and he had more deposits than detectors.  Still first in gets it.

The big issue is no delivery date and no security over numbers of detectors that they'll even get.

Then what if you've put a deposit down with one of the big popular dealers and they get a delivery of 5 detectors, and you'd also put your name down with a few other dealers and some obscure little dealer gets a delivery for 5 also and only has 3 customers wanting on one so calls you up to say your 6000 has arrived, please deposit the coin and we'll ship it today.  Then you've got the hassle of trying to get a refund from the other dealer that took your cash with no security on even being able to deliver the goods.

Look at the situation with Coiltek Nox coils, the same thing...with many people waiting for many months to get one, and still none available, and then my smaller dealer here has them sitting in stock  🙂

I have the Mars Tiger on my T2 and I agree how good it is with EMI, put the stock T2 coil on in my front yard and the T2 goes nuts with EMI, put the Mars Tiger on and it runs perfectly even in maximum sensitviity it's pretty stable, impossible with the stock coil.   I think I'll get another Tiger for the AT Gold or the Superfly.  I really like the Detech Ultimate but it's nowhere near as good in EMI as the Tiger and the Tiger is a shape I prefer.  I'm not bothered by weight as I'm growing a Popeye arm from swinging the GPZ so these VLF's all feel pretty light by comparison.

At the moment it's between the Tiger and the Superfly, I've never owned a Superfly so perhaps I should get it so at least I've tried one.  You know you've been swinging a GPZ a lot when you pick up a CTX and it feels very light 🙂

Where I could see taking funds up front could go very badly is if each dealer gets a small trickle like what happened in Australia, yet they have deposits from 25 or so people and get 4 detectors to sell.  How long is too long to hold onto someones money without giving them what they've paid for.  No dealer is likely to lose out with all stock selling immediately anyway so there is just no need to take peoples money prior to having stock.

I think in Auto the CTX was settling on 14, it was quiet as a mouse with no EMI but struggled on the deeper target with that sensitivity.  Manual certainly seems the way to go, I tried Auto +1, +2 and +3 ,they do alright but I'd just rather set it myself based on conditions than worry about Auto doing it for me. 

I forgot to include the Go-Find 40 in my test video above about why I like certain detectors for their Target ID's, it's a prime example of why I much prefer detectors with an ID than without, having these 4 segments for ID on the Go-Find is useless.  It has to be a very easy target to get a good segment to be stable and even then a massive range of targets fall into each segment.  People complain about the Nox having 50 ID's, well the Go-Find has 4 🙂

You'll see on the deepest coin the Go-Find actually did better than the AT Gold, while also reporting it as junk quite often it flicked across to the correct ID segment to say it's likely a deeper coin.  If you really learnt the detector you'd get used to the indicators of deep good targets.  The nail response on the depth meter is very shallow, while the times it hits the coin it shows as very deep.

I've marked the depth meter in Red on the image above, watch it when on the deep coin to the left while looking at it's ID.

Now, to give the Go-Find some credit, it does do reasonably well on the deeper targets for such a small coil but it's really a dig it all detector, certainly not suitable for cherry picking in parks, unless you're just after modern near surface finds but how many modern coins are there these days? Nobody uses them anymore so you'd mainly be digging modern junk.

I'm not overly versed on US pricing but I'd imagine Minelab want a similar price for the Go-Find 66 to an Ace 300 which has full target ID's and a range of coils including aftermarket options and the  Go-Find 66 just has 4 segments of ID and a fixed coil.

The real competition to the Go-Find is the Nokta Mini Horde kids detectors which have similar features and specifications, and the same ID segments.  I'd never want my kid using one though, what a way to put them off detecting forever by digging so much junk with the limited target identification.  A hundred bits of junk later they'll hate the hobby, with an Ace 300 or Vanquish they could cherry pick NZ $1 and $2 coins quite effectively and fill their moneybox in no time.

The Go-Find was built off the same V-flex technology as the X-Terra series though, it does work quite well and even works pretty good at the beach on dry and wet sand.   The real downfall for it is the lack of ID's which they resolved with the Vanquish as a more realistic entry level machine, in fact a really good one.

We had a warm day today and the frozen ground melted 🙂

I think it's really dodgy dealers taking money off people for a product they can't provide that's coming in the future at some point.  Our local dealer just puts names down in a list, first in first served.   We have two Minelab dealers, one of which I like the other I don't as one treats their customers well with good old fashioned service, the other not so much.   There is no need to take money other than to secure the deal to benefit them and make it less likely you going to go to another dealer if you're not happy with that dealer.  If for whatever reason during the waiting period you change your mind and don't want the product it's easy for him to just delete your name off the list then the next in line moves up a spot.  No big deal for anyone.

If a dealer tried to charge me money for something they can't provide at the time I'd go elsewhere.  Whatever excuse they come up with for doing so would not be good enough in my opinion.

9 hours ago, geof_junk said:

I went to a nude beach near Noosa Qld by accident. It was uneventful as the wife said they have no pockets to lose any coins, I agreed before any evident showed that I thought it was a nice beach.🤣 

Geof, you obviously went to the exact same beach I did 🙂

Yes these NZ $1 and $2 coins are simple targets, they're similar to the Aussie $1 and $2 coins except we got ours around the right way with the $2 being the bigger coin than the $1, they made their $2 the small one 🙂

EMI is a depth killer, I've noticed that a fair bit in the past, I know if my detector is being bombarded with EMI not only are my target ID's messy I'm also losing depth.

The Vanquish for some reason handles local EMI conditions better than the Equinox.  I've displayed this on video in the past.

5kHZ is a troublesome frequency for me with EMI, I wonder if seeing Minelab were experimenting with 4kHZ and released that 4kHZ update for the Nox that for their Multi-IQ variant on the much newer Vanquish they used 4kHz instead of 5.  Just a thought.

I've always said the Vanquish is better with EMI as I really believe it is.  I guess it could be the elliptical coils helping?

I really like the Vanquish/Nox ID's too Jeff,  The T2 having more ID's and so jumpy makes me far less likely to dig in a park situation when I don't want to dig many holes where I rely on ID's more for dig decisions as I can be more confident the target is good on the Vanquish/Nox, if it's jumpy on the Multi-IQ machines for me it's less likely to be a good target.  If it's jumpy on the T2, it's either good or bad 🙂  If the Vanquish or Nox lock onto a target, life is good especially these $1 and $2 coins as they're such easy picking.  You do have to do some pinpoint size tests sometimes as you can mix them up for a buried coke can. 🙂

If I left the CTX in Auto sensitivity it struggled on the deeper of the two targets, manual sorts that out.  In my nearby park I can run the CTX in manual 25 before EMI causes me trouble, as apposed to 16 at home.  I don't have recovery deep turned on due to the nails, once in the field I have it turned on.  I'm finding the CTX outstanding for depth so far, beating the Nox in default park 1 gain of 25.  My little 6" coil should arrive for the CTX today or tomorrow, that'll be the depth tester as the 6" on the Nox will not hit the deeper of the two test targets in this video.  Will the 6" on the CTX? I hope so 🙂

The idea of my post wasn't to say detectors are better than each other or anything like that, it was just showing how well a new to detecting person could do using even entry level detector in my hunting grounds, the higher end machines with their extra features isn't really going to be much of a game changer for them.  It's a shame the coil the Ace 300i came with is relatively useless on these deeper targets as it would be serious bang for the buck if it came with a Garrett made Tornado alternative and I'm sure there are plenty in Europe that would agree, those Europeans are who inspired me to get a Tornado for the Ace as based off their forums and Youtube it's a very popular Ace coil for deep coins.

These coin depths I've got the coins at are quite shallow compared to coins I usually find, I would say 10 to 11" would be near average around here for coins.  The reason I've put them in a little shallower is the EMI from my house.  I should put another in at 11" and another deeper one I guess for my challenging tests but when I need to know that I just take the detector for a spin and the local field and let the detector show it's stuff.  I'm not big on buried target testing when so many coins are available in their natural habitat so close to home 🙂

I've always wanted a vintage detector and never been able to get my hands on one, I've always got my eyes open but missed a couple for sale, perhaps one day I'll get my hands on one.  My closest is a Fisher Gold Bug 2 🙂

One of the things I like most about VLF's is their target ID's.  I'm amazed with detectors being able to ID targets.  Where I hunt I prefer to dig as few holes as possible so I heavily rely on Target ID's.  My front yard is the most difficult place around my area for coin's to ID well, it has the EMI of my house nearby, the worst seems to come from my long range wireless router, I'm also abut 100 meters away from some high voltage power lines that carry power from the nearby windmills to the town.  Once away from my front yard the results of this test do not change much, the ones that shine in this test are even better away from the EMI and the ones that struggle in this test while they do improve their overall performance ranking on Target ID's doesn't really change. 

What I've done with this video is tweaked the detectors the best I know how to handle the EMI with as high sensitivity that keeps them stable and gives their best hope of a good ID, some run fine maxed out in sensitivity while others needed high disc to operate.  If I lowered the sensitivity anymore on the ones that are struggling with the EMI they would no longer detect the deeper of the two targets so I have to allow some EMI interference to get that deeper target.

I've put white rocks on the grass where the two targets are located.  The target on the left side is the deepest at about 8" while the right easier target is the same coin at about 6".  They've been there around 2 years.  Both are NZ $1 coins.

When I was looking into these detectors as an AT Max popped up very cheap nearby and I was considering getting it I watched this video that compared the AT Series.  The seller of the AT Max here said it's very chattery but not faulty, they'd had it checked.  They basically didn't like it but were new to detecting.

In this video the Max likely had the best depth by a little bit but it was in my opinion very unstable compared to the AT Pro and AT Gold with the chattering you're talking about.  I think it's because they've got an At Pro and cranked this thing up as high as was possible to make the AT Max on the edge of stability so running a little lower on the gain is probably not that detrimental.   If it's anything like my T2 the performance is better on 60 gain out of 99 than it is at 99.

Either way, this video is worth the watch, the AT Max does do arguably a bit better, but you have to put up with a noisy detector which I don't like.

5 hours ago, afreakofnature said:

Anybody find just a speaker similar to a WM12 or ProSonic?  The Taurus neck band seems to be the closest that I could find that was low latency. I can’t find any just standard speakers that you could just clip on.

That's what I want to get.  If you find one make sure you make it public 🙂

When I was about 20 and surfing chasing some good waves I stumbled across a nudist beach on the Sunshine Coast in QLD/Australia.  I saw things nobody deserves to see, the image I had of nudests and the reality of the nudists were two very different things, damn well scarred me for life.  As we got there at first light there were none of them there, by the time we came in for some food they were everywhere, we had to navigate through them to get out of there, dodging all sorts of things.

I wouldn't even consider taking my detector to a nudist beach with what I know now, also, with no pockets for the coins to fall out of they're unlikely to lose many coins anyway 🙂

I am chasing some advice, I recently swapped my QED PI detector for a Garrett AT Gold.  I basically never used my QED and it was gathering dust and wasting cupboard space which with my growing collection is becoming an issue, I've never gotten rid of a detector before, I even have my first detector from when I was about 9 years old but I decided the QED had to go.  I offered to give it to a friend but after trying it out in my backyard he decided detecting isn't for him as it was too complicated 🙂.  An opportunity came up to swap it for an AT Gold to a guy in Australia who offered to swap his AT Gold plus some cash for a QED, I just took the direct swap with no cash involved to keep it simple so I jumped on it and sent the QED on it's merry way on an international flight the next day.

So now I have an AT Gold, I've messed around with it and the gold performance is not near the VLF detectors I prefer to use for gold more on par with my other 19kHZ detectors from other brands that also spend their life in the cupboard and nowhere near the performance of the higher frequency VLF's that I do use so I figured I'd get a bigger coil for it for coin hunting, not because I'm expecting it to compete or compare to my other coin detectors but just to give it another purpose as I'm unlikely to use it for prospecting, although maybe the odd creek trip being waterproof might be in it's future.

It's in tidy condition, the owner was a GPX 4500 guy and in the land of OZ with high mineralisation so the AT Gold was a cupboard decoration for him too.  He sent the Garrett headphones for it too but I have a phobia of headphones so they're stashed away now never to be seen again.

So, what should I do for coil options for it? The Garrett NZ dealer only has the coil I've already got for it in stock and the 9" x 12" PROformance Concentric Search coil, I am in mild soils so perhaps this concentric would serve me well for coins?

I prefer aftermarket coils in general and especially in comparison to standard Garrett coils that I've got with my Ace 350, 300i and now the AT Gold, so would I be better off getting a Detech Ultimate, Nel Superfly or Tornado for it? I have both the Ultimate and Tornado for other detectors and really like them and I love that I even have the option of getting these coils with the Garrett as it is one of the things I absolutely despise about the other brand that doesn't allow aftermarket coils.

I've tested the stock coil on it and the target ID's are pretty poor on my usual coin digs, my Ace 300i with Nel Tornado is giving me deadly accurate Target IDs on deep NZ coins at 6+ inches in depth and the AT Gold with stock 5x8' is all over the place on the exact same targets, very unreliable ID's and won't even detect a 8" coin that the Ace 300i hits on with ease with the Tornado.  Yes I know, big coil, little coil.... this is what I want to improve.

On Ebay there are a brand of coil I've never heard of available for the At Gold, Magic Coils, made in Russia and they look quite good, Youtube personalities like The Hunter GT have left them very positive reviews but I can't find too much info on them, I'm always willing to try new things though, you never know when you'll discover something special others aren't willing to try.

Here is one for sale for the AT Gold https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/292834716248?hash=item442e4f2a58:g:ijgAAOSwkB5b~EMv

So what's my best option from people using one of these higher end Garrett VLF's, Nel? Detech? Magc? or the good old trusty stock coils? if so which one? As at the moment for coins my Ace 300i is flogging it for target ID stability and depth using the Nel Tornado vs the 5x8" Garrett DD on the AT Gold, even on shallow coins the ID's are more stable on the Ace.

Also, is it worth getting a Nel Snake for it to get a decent little gold coil? I have one for my GBP's and it works well, again no match for the higher frequency detectors I prefer to use, has anyone used a Snake on an AT Gold? I don't expect it to compete with higher frequency detectors but even if it handled hot rocks better or anything it might be an option worth considering.

If there is one thing I'm not it's a detector snob, I'm always willing to give anything a go and more often than not I'm pleasantly surprised, detectors that aren't the flavour of the month can still be very good detectors especially in my soil and low junk conditions.

I'm quite disappointed I didn't buy the F75 SE that was for sale, it was only 30 minutes drive away and was only $287 USD with two coils and rarely used, it looked brand new.  😞   The reason I didn't is I've already got two T2's, one with DST and one without.  I much prefer the DST model.

For me to even buy an aftermarket coil for it would almost cost the price of it and I knew if I bought it I'd want another coil for it 🙂, I've been kicking myself over that as buying US made detectors here is quite rare as the market is dominated by ML and Nokta.

If I see another ever pop up, or more than likely that same one I'll grab it and give it a go.

 it sucks they're even more expensive in Europe! 😞

It seems you get 5 free articles on NY Times a month, you must have read your 5, unless they just let internationals get 5 free...

Out for a hard day detecting 🙂

Say, that's a nice finds bag.  I must get one.

28 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Simon, you have outdone yourself by finding and posting this pirated detector hall of fame classic..........

Oh I don't know Jeff, It might be nice to read an Ebook while you're detecting 🙂

Just now, BchPatrol said:

Maybe some of that high UK price is due to the VAT?

Nope, it's crazy profiteering! Taking advantage of the shortage.