phrunt

That's the coolest, you need to weld an old satellite dish on the front and go out in the desert somewhere and take black and white photos of yourself on it and you could say you went to the moon.

I've been a bit slack with doing adventure posts for a while now, no real reason for it, just lazy I guess! 🙂 Today was a beautiful day, perfectly still and not too hot, not too cold, the ideal day to head up one of the mountains and fire up the Manticore. I quite like the Manticore, while I don't find it's target ID's as good as the Nox in a way its helping my detecting, I focus a lot on target ID's coin hunting cherry picking coins so I dig as little as possible so I don't cause damage to the fields, but when at the ski fields they're wild rocky soil places so digging a hole isn't as damaging and easy to fill it back in like it was never dug so using the Manticore with it's less accurate ID's doesn't overly matter as I tend to dig any non-ferrous. The ski fields aren't overly loaded with junk, for the most part the junk is accidental rather than people throwing rubbish down, for example I found no pull tabs at all even though people often drink out of cans while skiing/snowboarding. The drive up the mountain takes about half an hour once you get to the bottom of it, it's quite a steep drive and many cars overheat trying, it's said to be one of the most dangerous roads in the country, I think it's fine in summer, but winter lots of cars go off the edge from slipping in the ice and snow or crash in some way or another, especially tourists. They should all take the shuttle busses and it'd save a lot of grief. Made it up to the base of the ski area, I wanted to detect where I've never been before, so I went up to the top of a beginner/intermediate lift which took me over an hour to walk up there, but figured the most likely people to fall are beginners going up lifts for the first time so it had the most chance of decent finds. The base magic carpet areas where beginners not capable of using lifts go are always a little over-detected being the easy area to get to right at the base and an obvious place people are constantly falling over. They must still have juice running to the snow guns, these pole sort tended to cause much worse EMI than the other larger guns, not sure why but the Manticore really didn't like working near these ones. The ground is mostly rough broken up schist. this hole to the right of my control pod was a bit of a weird find, a golden knife. Not sure if it's gold, it's not magnetic, quite heavy and comes up as a solid 10 ID on the Manticore. I found this silver ring shortly after the knife. It was in this hole to the right of the control box. It's marked silver, the knife has no markings. This is the area I was mostly detecting, in the distance they set up snow jumps along the trail where the snow guns are for beginners to practice jumping, another good place they constantly fall over. The foreground here was most of my finds for the day. No sign of any surface stuff, far too late in the autumn (fall) for that, if I wanted surface finds I'd have to go just after spring while the snows still melting away, by now people have been wandering around all summer exploring so all of my finds were digs. Go earlier and some quite good stuff can be found without a metal detector, mostly phones and wallets. The ground here is quite variable around the mountain and required reasonably frequent ground balancing when I moved from one spot to the next, there were of course hot rocks too. I thought I'd head back down, my wife and daughter came along and they went to the lake, yep, lake, there is quite a big lake up here. it's straight ahead in this photo in the top right corner. This is it, nice clear water, perfect for a drink refill. I think the lakes around 2000 meters above sea level, something like 6500 feet. It's the first time I've seen it not frozen solid, I mostly am up the mountain in winter and spring when it's frozen. And my total finds Mostly bits off clothing and branding stuff off skis, snowboards and boots. See how none of the junk I found looks like something someone would throw down? I'm quite happy people treat the place with respect and don't throw rubbish around. I have no idea what this thing is, I'm not sure if the 1923 is the age of it or a model number, I couldn't find it on a quick Google search. $10 in current currency NZ spendies on the right, the gold $1 and $2 coins, and the left is oddly all old 20c coins, with one 5c and one 10cent. All pre-1980s coins. The goldies were mostly all from the 1990's except the shiny one which was a more recent 2020 coin. 5 cent don't exist anymore, 10 cents are now different and junk cupro coins and the 20 cent coins now are small rubbish cupro things too, the cupros are made in Canada, these older ones give a nice solid signal. The $1 and $2 are about the easiest coin to find, nice solid signal, never corrode, they just get a bit dull with age but clean up pretty good. The more unusual stuff, looks like an Aussie was littering the coin, a 2002 year of the Outback special edition coin. The left one is some Chinese 100 coin and the right one I'm not sure, some UK 50 pence coin that I've never found before, unusual shape. The Aussie looks like it's been run over by the snow groomers a few times over the years 🙂 So, a fun day out, probably my last detect at the ski areas, it was only 2 weeks ago the area was covered in snow, but the snow was too soon and melted already, the next lot probably won't melt. Happy enough with the Manticore, in fact it's excellent other than it's target ID's, when it comes to Cherry picking coins in the fields I'll stick to using the Nox and especially the CTX, I need the more stable reliable ID's so I dig as few holes as possible.

Garrett is more unusual as they often don't include covers with their detectors, my Ace's never came with covers, nor for their accessory coils, same with my AT Gold, the 24k didn't come with covers either and I had to go to great lengths and expense to get them from USA as they are not available in the local market, the Garrett dealers don't even list them as an item you can buy, you don't want to know what that cost me but lets just say it's cheaper to buy a coil than it cost me to get the covers, I shouldn't have bothered I guess. Then other brands come with covers, the Vanquish I got came with a cover as it was the "high end" Vanquish version but I believe the cheaper models don't. It seems odd to me as the covers cost them next to nothing to make, so not including them on detectors that cost many hundreds or even thousands of dollars is just weird I think, it's a way for the manufacturer to add value in the consumers mind with minimal expense on their part but I guess like everything any accessories can be where they make the highest profit margins. As for as an accessory coil, well that's a different story, if they come with it or don't it makes little difference as long as the price is right. The Mars Tiger I purchased came with a skid plate although they made it clear its not necessary to use it as the coils are designed tough and the skid plate isn't beneficial, I believe them they are tough coils. They put skid plates with coils for the UK market as for some reason the British customers had trouble accepting skid plates were not necessary, all that grass they hunt on and all 😉 I bought my Tiger from the UK hence it coming with a skid plate. The only detectors I've worn through a cover on are the Equinox and the GPZ, oddly they're the ones I've used the most for the longest lengths of time. I expect I'll wear through a 24k skid plate in the future, the rocky gravelly ground here can eat skid plates for breakfast.

It seems to me EMI mitigation should be the number one priority for detectors now that they are really looking like they're at the peak when it comes to performance especially depth. Even looking for smaller targets the key is often crank that gain as high as you can but you're limited by EMI more than anything. People are already coming out saying they prefer the Nugget Finder coils over the stock Minelab coils for the 6000 as they seem to handle EMI better, allowing more gain and there have been aftermarket coils around for years that handle EMI better than the standard supplied coils from Minelab. This seems a common theme, the coils that handle EMI well are the ones people say are going deeper or allowing more gain and finding them more gold. The Concentric coils on the GPZ are a good example of that too. The Manticore has a gain of 35 when the Nox was 25, yet few people will ever get near 35, when most could get to the 25 on the Nox in certain places, 10 more numbers of sensitivity that are available if conditions allow. I have spots here I can run mine at 35, remote spots but it shows if EMI is not an issue you can run it at maximum without the circuit producing the noise, it runs as quiet as a mouse on 35 away from EMI. I'd love to run 35 when its quiet and stable on some of my good spots, unfortunately too much EMI there for that. The long noise cancel method on the Manticore is something they should implement on all detectors, the 6000's super quick method is a fail in my opinion, why did they not come up with the long press idea when the 6000 was being developed, it would make a nice difference being able to hold that button down and give it some time to get a clean channel rather than pressing it over and over again hoping. The long press narrows it down far better and when you feel it's settled on a number you let go of the button and done. CONTINUOUS AUTO NOISE CANCEL In some instances, there may be more than one ‘quiet’ channel suitable for detecting all with similar levels of EMI noise — you might notice this after repeating the Auto Noise Cancel procedure multiple times, with each resulting in a different channel being selected. Continuous Auto Noise Cancel continuously repeats the Auto Noise Cancel process over a longer period of time to find the quietest channel. If they've done all they can do performance wise looking at improving EMI resistance would be very beneficial I think, and I guess they learnt an expensive lesson with the 6000, and as Woody has pointed out in these videos too the 7000 has a similar problem as the 6000 just not near as bad but again, something they could have improved during the design stage had they focused on EMI reduction more. He shows with his oscilloscope how easy it is to find components causing noise, I'm sure the Minelab techs already were familiar with this loop technique. His mods for the 7000 will end up being superior shielding for a quieter running detector rather than the hardware mods he was doing on older models, he may end up changing a component or two for a better shielded version. If you put your phone near your detector its interfering with the electronics, it's not the coil causing the EMI trouble its the detector itself, you can easily demonstrate it putting your phone right up near the control box, this is an extreme example of it letting EMI into the electronics that better shielding could improve and if it improves your phone causing EMI it's improving everything.

It very easy to do a poll, see below And yep, if I was buying a coil from any brand I'd expect it to come with the skid plate and manufacturers should encourage that, it makes the coils last longer thereby more happy customers. They last thing they want is angry people not using them and photos of coils with holes worn through them popping up online 🙂

Here is the second part of the video Some may find it interesting, others probably boring 🙂 I quite liked it, showing the noisy components on the board and he's working on mitigating noise to improve performance rather than increasing gain. The next part will be interesting, comparing side by side a modded and standard GPZ.

I just think it's very hard to bring a new gold VLF to market with the multi purpose SMF VLF machines being so popular and so good at the job it's made the purpose made prospecting machines a difficult sell. The older ones on the market already had a foothold before the multi freakers hit the market so plenty of people already had them, the Nokta was released at a very bad time, 2017 Nox hits the market, 2018 Gold Kruzer hits the market... couldn't get worse timing, add to that the fact most people who wanted a gold prospecting VLF already had one or more and had little need to buy another one like the Kruzer, if anything they were replacing them with multi freakers. Add to that people buying multi freakers selling off their single frequency gold machines so the market for new units was even smaller. The Equinox, Manticore, Legend and possibly the new Quest are seeing the death of the single frequency prospecting VLF's. Yes they may have advantages in certain areas, disadvantages too and financially for many it makes sense just to have one detector that can do it all rather than a specialty prospecting machine and also a multi freakier for other purposes. Even detectors like the Deus which many people had, they were able to just buy another coil for it and they have a good prospecting machine, no need for another detector and then they're still using the unit they're familiar with and enjoy using without learning a new machine. Single purpose machines are far less of a necessity now than they were some years ago.

Good luck, enjoy yourself! I would have made the same choice of coil if it were me for a similar reason. I'm quite impressed with the Deus 1 for prospecting being up there with the top few but for everything else for my needs not at all, the Deus 2 sounds the better choice and by all reports sounds an excellent detector for your needs. I can't wait to hear how you go with it, plenty of enthusiasm and energy can only mean good finds will come your way.

Carl (Geotech) who works for Fisher told us. I believe it's worse than the old one, the new controls are more annoying, the old one is nice and simple. I'd certainly not "upgrade" my old one for a new model, unusual for me to say that 🙂

yes, the 6" on the Nox is more bump sensitive for me than the 11". It's crucial to be well ground balanced to minimize the bump sensitivity with both the Nox and GM1000.

I haven't noticed any knock sensitivity yet on my Manticore.

Completely normal. PI vs PI and PI vs VLF, any combination can do it. A PI is not really the type of machine you can use in your backyard either. You just have to work out a suitable distance you can detect from your friend and stick to it.

I can't put any up of exact locations I'm doing the prospecting not to reveal where I am going which is a shame but a few photos going to places along the way to my missions. I have to take this road to get to every spot. If only I could show the actual prospecting locations, they are generally very nice spots but these give you an idea of the area.

Looks like two birds were killed with one stone with the fix that just happened. Nice to hear its resolved.

The fact you have to be careful where you place a Bluetooth transmitter on the side of your GPZ as it causes it to go nutty shows it's not overly well shielded, I can put a Bluetooth transmitter on my GPX 5000 anywhere on the sides of the box and it's all fine and dandy. In saying that the GPX 5000 is pretty poor at handling EMI by comparison to the 7000, so they improved the EMI capability even with lesser housing shielding. I don't know why Minelab seem to often miss the simple things yet they're brilliant at the difficult things.

Fantastic thank you. They need to let people know this, it's widely assumed there is no service agent.

Some may find this interesting, a tear-down of a GPZ 7000.

If I had an Apex I'm confident I would do well with it, I do well with my Ace 250, and my Ace 300. Perhaps I'm in ideal conditions for them but yay for me if that's the case, they're actually enjoyable to use, turn on and go simplicity and the Ace is a deep detector with my Nel Tornado on it, it does better in my soils than much more expensive detectors for depth. If I was the owner of an Apex I'd take advantage of one thing it has over the other Multi Freakers on the market, AFTERMARKET coils and I'd be buying the Detech Ultimate before my Apex even arrived! One of my favourite VLF coils of all time, and it's on the Apex, I would like to be swinging that! Silver coins here I come! It's probably lucky for me the NZ dealer has no stock, I just checked, and I'd get in trouble with the wife if another detector appeared in the mail in the next week 😛

The Apex does seem a bit pricey, here it's about the same price as an Equinox 600 which is why I haven't purchased one, I'm a massive fan of my Ace 300i, I really enjoy using it and it's a deep machine, if only it had different audio than the doorbell tones. In saying that it's better than the duck being murdered sounds of the Simplex 🙂 I often wonder how the Apex would go in my soils, judging by my Ace 300 or 250 I'd say probably quite well. I would say I'm a happy Ace user and feel confident with my hunting locations for coins in mild relatively iron jink free soils with the majority of junk being pull tabs I would not be left dramatically behind by any detector I've used.

Yes, I do tend to focus on small gold, mainly because I'd rather go home with something rather than nothing, I have a hard enough time finding the small bits let alone a bigger one 🙂 I do tend to use the 15" CC the most out of my coils on my GPZ so that with any luck would find me a deeper one if it was there, it's been my most successful coil on that detector and I prefer to use the GPZ if I'm hoping for something bigger, the GPX I've decided is my smaller gold and can't be bothered rigging up machine.

The fact the 19kHz detectors that First Texas make do appear to ID something like a coin to the depth of detection makes me wonder why they haven't released a 19kHz Nitro Turbo Boosted edition where they let you crank that gain up even further. I tend to run my Gold Bug Pro basically maxed out most of the time in sensitivity and it handles that quite well, not too much EMI interference and pretty stable, if I could turn that knob a bit more I would. I'm very happy with it's Target ID performance for the purpose of coin hunting for a single frequency detector. The Simplex seems to have a higher gain, it has a range where it runs reasonably stable and when it goes wild, it has two firmware choices available as some didn't like the latest one so there is a rollback option. One detects deeper targets with no target ID at all, just some audio, the other gives you wild target ID's on the deeper targets. In saying that the Simplex isn't a very deep machine by any means for me but they're at least letting you run it to it's full potential however limited that is, the 19kHz Fishers are deeper and ID to better depths easily. But if 19kHz machines are so stable at max gain, ID to the depth of detection there just has to be more in the tank they could offer where the machine can get a bit unstable, where the machine will go wild on ID's on deep targets, It would be great if they opened up that untapped potential of the detector. It's a shame they can't firmware update like modern detectors as I'd not buy another one to get that imaginary update, but I'd happily flash it on if I could.

Oddly, I've found my Carrot AT to not be an issue with batteries, lasting weeks of detecting regularly, I've only ever used a rechargeable battery in it though, this one. Photographers like using them as they are the best performing battery for camera flashes. Main Features Pre-charged and ready to use out-of-package Low discharge rate allows PRECHARGED batteries to hold 85% for up to one year Rechargeable up to hundreds of times Rechargeable Nickel Metal Hydride batteries 1pc, 9.6V The Powerex Precharged batteries differ from the competition in that they boast higher capacities as well as increased power retention in storage. The Powerex Precharged batteries can be recharged hundreds of times and perform extraordinarily well at elevated temperatures. In addition, the Powerex Precharged batteries feature a low-impedance design and can deliver a high burst of current. I haven't had any issues with my battery going flat regularly on me, I even leave my Carrot alone for a few months and come back to using it again fine, I often have no idea when I last charged the battery.

Your quest for a decent pinpointer mirrors mine, and I agree with your assessments on the ones mentioned, the Minelab is absolute junk, an embarrassment to the Minelab name, I've had 3 now and they all performed the same. At the moment the XP Mi-4 and Pro Pointer AT are my favourites I've not yet tried a Quest but by the sounds of it I should. My F-Pulse is also quiet and falses a lot, I figured being a Pulse it wouldn't care about ground balance as much as it does as I don't have to balance any other pinpointers except the TRX, even in my very mild soil I have to turn it on touching the ground or It's all over the place. I rarely use it except for beach detecting, that's about all it's good for. It's got terrible volume level too, the Carrot AT and XP are much better for volume and neither need me to worry about touching the thing to the ground when turning them on.

It sucks you had a bad run with the detector palzynski but I guess you could replace the detector name and three issues with different problems and your statement could be just about any newly released detector over the past few years, none really get a flawless entry to the market. I am sure they've been fixed or were more random problems than with all detectors as I've seen plenty of people using the Apex on social media with nothing but praise for it.

Mirrors my results, the Simplex is not even remotely deep for me, anything with any depth that it does detect it gets no ID on or with the alternative firmware just displays random ID numbers all over the place on deep targets. Targets other detectors identify easily it has no idea what they are if it sees them at all. Yes, it's an entry level detector but other detectors in its class do it fine, even cheaper detectors.