PhaseTech

The Minelab clip on knuckle protector has been an addition on new SDC's for a while now, maybe several months?? They are really nice fitting, and have a very nice finish to them - unlike many of the 3D printed versions around.

F1A4, F3 and F3C were all landmine detectors, so MF5 certainly seems to be leaning in that direction.

The 7x4" Gold racer coil on the AU gold is deadly. The little 5" isn't too shabby either, and gets a touch more depth in my testing. Got this little tiddler in a pounded patch first time out with the AU gold.

I like having the choice, and even though I mostly use the GPX in Fixed, there are times I use tracking. I find Slow Tracking is very unlikely to track out a genuine target, especially if you use wide sweeps across the suspected target area, getting the coil across lots of ground as well. At the end of the day, if something's pulled you up, you should have a dig at it. I know a spot where I used to take small groups out for training, where the surface of the ground looks pretty uniform, but the soil underneath is very variable, red clay, to white clay to pink/schisty type stuff all within 3 metres. I had buried a target for demo purposes some months before. Setting the detector to Fixed, ground balancing and then sweeping across the ground to the target I got a signal which was a bit drawn out, and not too exciting sounding. I went back to where I started, put it in Tracking and started swinging towards the target. Whammo, clear, crisp response. The thing I learned with Smooth timings especially, was that just because your detector isn't giving you false signals, doesn't mean you're perfectly ground balanced. And even being slightly out of balance will cost you signals. So when running Fixed, I always re-balance as part of my sweep technique - don't wait until your detector is upset, as then it's too late....how much ground have you waked over with a less than optimum ground balance?? If you are lazy, you'd be much better off in Slow Tracking.

The update is worth it even just for the adjustable threshold for the All-Metal mode. The new dual range volume adjust now means I can use a variety of different wired headphones. Also the extended time-out when adjusting settings is very welcome. Just gives the whole unit a much more "complete" feel.

Yes, definitely has an eerie feel when the sun is going down, but I love it out there.

See my post above. The Xpointers and PulseDive are both PI.

I tried a few different pin-pointers to see how close I could get them to the Simplex. Pro-Find 25 - needed to be over 1m away from Simplex coil Xpointer - 55cm Xpointer Pro - 50cm Pro-Find 35 - 25cm Nokta PulseDive - using the PulseDives frequency shift, I could get it as close as 30cm! The only Garrett I have here is a dead carrot, so can't try it.

Thanks Lunk. I have dug other cornflake nuggets over the years, even one not too far away with the 5000 and old 18" mono, but with the GPZ they are very common up there. A few have also fallen victim to the 14x9" Evo in more recent years - something about the flat wound elliptical that really sniffs out flat thin pieces.

Video uploaded really quick!

I have two or three scoops in the gear bag, but as I usually just put it in the cargo pants leg pocket, I don't bother with lanyards or string with a clip - but it still falls on me to remember to slip it in the pocket in the first place! The thing I always do forget is my mini tripod!! But I very rarely go out with the intention of filming, so have to make do with what's available. I have a couple times managed to successfully tape my camera (i.e. phone) to a conveniently hanging branch which works great as long as it isn't windy!

In South Australia we are really limited to public accessible fossicking areas. We have two areas open to the public at Echunga: Chapel Hill & Jupiter Creek Diggings, and another area which is the old Gumeracha Goldfields. The area available to the public is now a pine plantation, so access is via a permit available from ForestrySA. So when 90% of the old diggings has had pines planted on top of it, unfortunately a lot of the old gold workings such as shallow diggings, test pits, shafts, wash piles etc are simply no longer visible, so it does present a challenge of knowing where to look, but there are also some positives: 1. Old pines give you nice shade during summer, and 2. When they harvest, the ground gets churned up from all the machinery. With all this extra time I've had on my hands, I've had time to sort through a lot of footage and found many videos from my visits to the forest, with hopefully some valuable info to others. Part 2 will be up later today.

Hey Steve, the Gold Kruzer is doing pretty well down under. In the last 6 months, it is my biggest selling VLF gold beeper by far. In second place would be an equal split between the AU Gold Finder, Gold Monster and Gold Racer. Everyone who has bought one has been impressed with it. And warranty claims are virtually non-existent. I've put a gold middle shaft on mine, off the AU Gold, I think it looks better 😉 First time out with the gold shaft on, I pinged a 0.06 gram in amongst a bunch of partially filled detector holes, so it's staying on. I got off the phone to a customer just before posting this, who pinged a 2.2 gram bit with his Impact and the stock coil, so you are right, there are many good capable options these days.

The Sovereigns have very good volume, so not sure you'll need that headphone amp, unless using very weak headphones. The Sovs are still one of the most powerful discriminating beach machines imho.

If the Vanquish was waterproof.........it'd be more expensive 😉

Yeah I'd think like the 12x8" Evo, the 9" Elite may be too much for a GP machine, they are just too sensitive! Be dynamite in very mild soils though... My remote GB switch was literally a relocation of the control panel switch. I removed the switch and put a DC plug in it's place, so didn't have to drill the control panel. Then with a bit of boring on the handle, mounted the switch up there. It was forward for tracking, back for fixed. Worked great.

Agree and agree. I find the handle excellent, and I like that there is the extra bit of "meat" under the control box to accommodate larger hands. I quite like holding it here in a sort of pistol grip. I find it very comfortable. For a unit designed for beginners, it is making a lot of experienced hunters quite happy as well.

Yes, that was my thought when Nokta first advised about this unit. Even at 14 kHz though, with the 5" or 7" elliptical I bet it would still be pretty hot on small gold, same as the Kruzers and Anfibio. Most Nokta Makro machines have a pretty raw/unfiltered audio in the all-metal modes, which gives them very good sensitivity. I know I tested the Impact in 20 kHz with the 10x5" coil, vs the Gold Kruzer with 7x4" coil, and the Impact was only slightly behind down to quite small gold. Also the Fors Gold+ with the 5" coil behaved a lot more like a 30-40 kHz machine than what you'd expect from a 19 kHz unit.

Uploaded a new (well sort of old) video I did, talking about my experiences of this software update. Semi Auto was the big thing for me, and when you find gold you kinda stick to what works....

Sorry for being the typo police, but I think you meant Sensitive Smooth, not Sensitive Extra.

Hey Ash, Glad to hear that. 12" round or 12x7" in the advantage? Yes the level adjust was always a tricky one. I used to use Fixed in milder soils, and in variable ground when using Tracking, I found the Level Adjust on about 10 o'clock worked well. Later when I installed a tracking switch on the handle, I never (very rarely) used Tracking, as it was so much easier to control the machine. In very mild ground, running mono coils on Normal/DD position was deadly. One thing I could never really work out. On my GP extreme when using a Coiltek 14" Pro DD, it seemed to run better with my home made battery regulator set to 6.9 V. When I used the same system on the 3500 I seemed to get a more stable threshold running a stock 6V gel cell. Couldn't work that one out..... I later switched to the 15x12" Commander DD, running my regulator on 6.7V (unloaded) and that combo worked great. Medium tracking, Mono and Sens Extra could handle most of the soils here and got some good results.

Hmmm interesting. Well I'm on 2 and 3 on the list. I have or had a findmall account. Since they did the change my old password doesn't work. I hardly ever posted there so not too bothered... I have a look at Dankowski forum every now again but find the format very difficult to read.

Nice to hear a few old beepers are still out there kicking the occasional goal!

Something else I've pondered recently relating to early PI's is that during the SD & GP series days there was good development in DD coils. Coiltek had the terracotta series and then PRO series. Minelab went from super goldsearch to the black GPextreme coils and then to GP series, and Nugget Finder had their Fiberglass DD's. The 16" DD was a ripper on the GP series machines. As soon as the GPX4000 came out and the birth of the Smooth timings (later adding Enhance and Fine Gold to the mix) development on DD coils sort of died. I may be wrong but the only new DD coils to hit the market were the Commander 15x12" DD, Coiltek changed their 14" Pro to a tan coloured DD Pro Elite, and then more recently Detech released the 15" DD Ultimate, and last year saw the Nugget Finder 25" DD X-Search. Anyway, my thought was if Minelab/Bruce Candy hadn't come out with the Smooth timings, I wonder what sort of DD/Coil advances may have been developed?? I guess we'll never know. Actually, the other non-Monoloop coil development that happened was Detech's SEF coils.

Just curious, how many prospectors are still swinging around a Minelab SD series, GP or even GPX4000?? These models hardly get a mention these days. For those that are swinging these older models, here's a few additional questions do get a bit of chatter happening....maybe Have you tried any of the new flat/spiral wound coils? Have you tried modern boosters, or aftermarket battery options? On a personal note, I still have a SD2100e and a GP3500 but they don't get any serious use. The 2100 is very sentimental model to me as it was the detector I found my first nugget with. The GP3500 was my baby, where Minelab added everything I wished for. It still has the best audio in any prospecting detector I've used to date (admittedly she's a bit on the quiet side).