Jonathan Porter

Steve I think our job is done, time to go have some fun and come back to this when all the dust has settled. What say you? 😊

My lad (Josh) having a play with the GPX6000.

I’d say a lot of the Bismarck coil gold found back in the day could have been found with the later SD2100 with a standard 18” mono coil on it, with today’s grunt in the GPZ the standard GPZ14 would have easily pulled those big slugs at depth. As electronics have improved there’s been a converse reduction in available BIG targets, these available targets have correspondingly decreased with each model release. The other thing of note is when a target gets to that 3 foot mark (which all the PI’s from start to current day and now ZVT are quite capable of achieving) an inch is a massive difference relative to the inverse square law, at 3 feet an inch is akin to 6 inches extra depth at a foot and so on. The other issue is the detector is reacting to those deep slugs but you the operator is either not reacting to them because they are so broad or writing them off as ground noise or after having dug at a few only to have them dissipate then not bothering to go through the painful process of scraping back and trying to get a signal to improve to an identifiable definite response, when a target is at three + feet it can take a lot of digging before the signal becomes the real deal!! I went to Georgetown Far North Queensland December of 2019 and was amazed by the local stories of all the big deep gold that was found with VLF detectors in pure granite country! All sluggy heavy gold, yet everyone up there these days is hitting the red oxidised diorite, weathered Gabbro and metabasalt contacts where it is more mineralised as the granite areas stopped producing long ago. I was amazed, I would not give that pale looking granite country a second look as I’ve spent the vast majority of my career chasing the high iron mineralised areas. Generally the more mineralised areas are also shallower so its a double whammy for modern detectors, the tech allows us to work the nasty ground and pull even tiny little bits of gold but due to the shallower nature of that type of ground large big slugs are less likely to be at depth, back in the day the VLF machines when venturing into those areas would have scored the bigger shallow signals. JP

The 6000 does what the 5000 can do depth wise on larger gold even slightly better, but what’s the point of providing it that way to the market when there is already something much better out there for that purpose in the form of the 7000? Hence the 17” elliptical coil rather than say an 18” round monoloop. A 17” elliptical will be a very good coverage coil for prospecting purposes with pretty good depth on larger pieces, but it is not about outright depth, you have ZVT for that. The GPX 6000 with the largest coil you care too put on can never attain the depth of the 7000 with its standard coil!! Having a lightweight coil with 17 inches of coverage with the sensitivity to snag a 0.01 gm piece is nigh on diabolical, this concept will take shape once operators get their hands on them. Ergonomically the 6000 is brilliant with the supplied standard 11” mono coil, that coil size is perfect for one handed operation with nil support devices unless you are unused to detecting. The standard 11” coil has the ability, if you care to invest the energy, to find tiny pieces right down to the ‘wet your finger to pick it up’ GM 1000 level!! So this then begs the question, what is the GPX 6000 good for? I very quickly learned to target a specific type of environment to maximise the 6000 benefits. The first and key approach was to target old areas were I’d previously found multiple targets within 100mm of the surface, in almost all cases I tend to stick to ground where bedrock is visible and work out from there but mainly sticking to ground up to or around the 12” mark as the targets the 6000 is VERY good at reside at less than those depths (inverse square law). Hot ground is not a problem (usually the shallow gravels are more mineralised as the top layer has been washed or blown away), If the ground becomes problematic due to conductive signals or salt signals or EMI then I revert to the DD coil and use that option (truly amazing sensitivity to tiny surface targets using the DD), I will however tend to stick to ground less than 10 inches as the depth is less with the DD relative to target size. The bulk of the gold I find with the 6000 is in the sub gram range but I have hit on some pretty decent stuff whilst out and about thanks to the good outright depth of the tech, this is reassuring as often decent targets are found due to time spent and the ground covered during that time, so its nice to know if you get your coil over a decent nugget or speci at depth then your in with a chance. The 6000 is not a tiny gold only detector, but operators can only swing one detector at a time, there will be a cross over on some target sizes between the various techs (SDC and GPZ), however what it does do it does exceptionally well as such there will be a pretty decent range of targets that it outperforms everything on. It is nice to know while your taking advantage of the tech behind the GPX it can still compete with its predecessors and also the modern big guns. JP

If that was the case then you could also consider the feedback I gave to ML during development was bound by a similar roadblock!! So yay double whammy!! 😔 But it actually gets a lot worse, DO NOT pay any attention to anything I write because not only am I a field tester but I’m also a scummy dealer who would tell you anything just to make a sale!!! Better grab up all the ML detectors since 1996 and throw them away because I was a field tester on all of them!!! In all seriousness this type of insulting comment grows so tiring after all these years, my primary function as a field tester is to be absolutely honest about what I experience in the field and would probably explain why this dinosaur is still doing field testing after all this time!! But now its being suggested my input be excluded or treated with suspicion because of suspected bias!! So after all these years my input is questionable is it, in spite of the hundreds of thousands of ounces that have been recovered with ML detectors world wide in that time? 🤔 I would like to know what exactly people have to ‘Remember’ after all these years? What ‘Truth’ is needed here?

These are the sort of Youtubers who should be swinging the 6000, big following with simple but very effective honest real world material. I actually enjoy what these guys create, it’s highly relatable and realistic.

This is where this situation becomes untenable, by all means widen your customer base, but guess where they all end up when they start trying to justify their AU$8K purchase? On places like this forum or in my shop!!! Or worse on FB where everyone’s and expert!! In the end they end up drifting to more knoweldagle people who are actually well versed in the art, they have to or they drown, which is explains all the ‘for sale’ detectors on Gumtree or whatever!! When people throw that kind of coin down on a high end metal detector they have an expectation based on the marketing hype, trying to follow a Detextspurt on Fakebook is not going to answer the fundamental questions that are inevitably going to crop up. Yeah I’ve bought a ‘Switch on and Go’ detector that makes me an instant EXSPURT out of the box, but where do I actually go and how do I swing it?

Agreed Steve. 😊 I’ve pondered this a bit and have come to the conclusion the reasons why we have this bottle neck is exactly what I have just described, the people pushing/marketing this product have a VERY BASIC knowledge of metal detection themselves so are not not capable of seeing it from a seasoned users perspective even a casual users perspective. I come up against this issue all the time when giving feedback where what is stinkingly obvious to me is TOTALLY missed by numbers of engineers!!

I think they can do both quite easily, it would be no skin off anyone’s noses to allow the usual guys who were involved in its development to talk about the 6000 to their demographic in parallel to whatever the concept behind the Detextspurts is. Getting into a wider market in this new age should obviously be done via the social media influencer strategy, but why kill off the rank and file members who also crave information, they are also customers who spend money and are looking for info, after all it’s them who have largely funded the gravy trail to the latest and greatest isn’t it? Social media has its place, here in Australia metal detecting for gold is all the rage thanks to programs like Aussie Gold Hunters, in fact there-in lies a prime example of what we are now dealing with. I can barely stand to watch any of those shows because I know BS when I see it. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve been approached by AGH to come on the show and each and every time have said NO! There is no way I am ever going to have my image or my name attached to a scripted load of wank such as that!! But that is just my opinion because I’m informed enough to not enjoy what I’m seeing because I KNOW the subject, the vast majority of viewers world wide get a huge kick out of it and are not overly affected by what they are seeing, but I know better so for me its a deal killer!! Welcome to show biz folks. 😂

I think your right Steve, I’ve honestly tried to look at my reaction to this situation and make allowances for my own very healthy ego and the need for a bit of self hype 😝 . Thing is you and I both know that we have nothing to worry about, it really doesn’t matter how ML promote the 6000, yeah it would have been nice to be front and centre but at the end of the day the 6000 will do a VERY good job of speaking for itself whether we are there front and centre or not. So change of plans, I’m just going to chill out and enjoy the peace and quiet and go do a bit of detecting, Winter is coming. 😊

OMG WTF is going on in the world? Is this instant gratification, social media ‘add water and stir’ the dominant driving force now rather than someone actually having runs on the board? I say this with no wish of offending the social media effort makers reading this forum who are striving to hit that magical viral effect this type of interaction craves, but blow me down with a feather how can someone who has generated more views than actual hours in the field be a mover and shaker when it comes to imparting actual informed information on a subject as complex as a metal detector? Achieving 100 000 views does not automatically insert someone into “detextspurt” category it just means they managaed to create something that was entertaining to a whole heap of clueless people!! I get the entertainment concept behind this type of interaction but just having an opinion for its own sake is not going to help people seeking real information!! Maybe I’m NOW just an old dinosaur who’s resistant to change and feels threatened by a brave new world? But seriously whenever any of these viral vids touch on a subject I’m well versed in I find myself cringing 😬 in embarrassment. Talk about “Fake news!!!” I think Steve has made a good call on this, it’s better to just let this thing play out take a back seat and get on with my year. It’s a Minelab and fundamentally its DNA pedigree is flowing freely regardless of how many “Detextspurts” they engage!! Who knows maybe that’s the thinking behind the whole concept, such blind confidence in their product that they can be as fluid as they like on all other levels? God I feel old right now!! 😔 JP

I’m cross checking within myself making sure I’m dividing the usual pre-release jitters of a product that I’ve been involved in for quite some time now and what is actually going on here, this release is very different to any release I have ever been involved in to the point of almost total exclusion. I understand about hold ups and marketing process, there are a million little things that need to be sorted along that stressful path to ramping up production and having adequate stock on hand, in parallel to that process the marketing guys have to get the word out and let everyone know what it is they have on offer, I get all of that. I also get that I’m not be needed this time round, that the product release is being managed differently and fair enough. But after watching some of the recent super crappy YouTube clips and having numerous people I know talking about how they held the detector at shows etc and others seeing it being used in various locations around the country I find myself asking WTF?

Nope and TBH I’m over the whole process.

Ouch I do see all of the points, but DO NOT fully agree with most of them (that’s the fully part not some of the perfectly understandable aspects of the arguments) but realise that’s how it must seem and because there is NEVER any sort of communication being delivered back through regular channels find myself feeling like I have to defend the ‘dummies’ I have interactions with on a nearly daily basis. ML is a big corporate and the Minions who I consider friends tend to disappear inside the corporate machinery, so I will accept the frustrations written here because they are perfectly legitimate and let ML the corporate machine suffer the chagrin directed its way because of the frustrations caused by ‘ML the obelisk’ chumming the market over long time frames. I too had an issue with the signage etc on the worlds simplest little “Monster” metal detector, the reality though was it was primarily designed for a specific market, so even though the signage jarred at first (for obvious reasons due to political sensitivities), the reality is if anything the signage has actually endeared itself to me, this also includes the name which also jarred my senses when I first got exposed to it. I love the little Gold Monster now. 💕 The 17” mono is going to be a bug bear for me, I want access to them from the get go and am fielding a LOT of enquiries about it for my Aussie customers, but you have to think about the manufacture and supply chain relative to the pack out, our markets get the small mono and the DD and believe me there will be times you will need the DD, that because we live in so called 1st world countries and as such urbanisation has encroached on a lot of ‘popular’ recreational detecting areas, plus both our goldfields have quite big areas of conductive ground (notice how I use the word recreational and popular). Our markets are driven by a hobby mindset not an artisanal mindset. Taking our conditions into consideration you should be then able to correlate an understanding of the GPX 6000 relative to the way it is going to behave in some environs, as such in time the pack-out for our markets will make sense but not right now because of the emotive nature of the frustration at hand. We want it all and we want it at the exact same time as everyone else at the exact moment or as close to the exact moment as we first found out about it. So the issue of the 17” will continue because the vast majority of stock being manufactured and then being sent around the world will be swallowed up by the afore-derogatorily mentioned larger markets because our combined respective markets might just scrape through at 20% of the overall market pie. Logic very quickly indicates that percentage wise our smaller markets will therefore not gain access to some parts due to manufacturing going flat out trying to supply coils to the bigger market. I would say those larger markets might feel some frustration at some stage due to not having access to the DD for the very same reasons. Something to ponder anyway. 🤔 Like I said above I understand the reasons for the rant and can fully relate to the frustrations but the complexities created by such a large and extremely diverse market area and the instantaneous nature of information dissemination can bite any company in the backside, so from my vantage point I can see a feeling-less big corporate sticking to its marketing/release plan and just deal with the millions of little daily hiccups that can easily derail the manufacturing supply chain process, those little annoyances always cause a ripple effect further down the line which is the ever shifting sands of the release date. I feel for some of the guys at ML but from a corporate perspective “I say suck it up cupcake” and throw the dog a bone. Lastly please ignore my words above I know this is not what people want to hear right now so would prefer to avoid argument about something so feeling-less as a big corporate who would in a heart-beat throw me away or any of the many other hard working people behind the facade trying to do their best. 😞

Tom-ate-oh, Tomato 🍅 I’m not saying do any specific thing just that the rules still apply irrespective of the magical swizzlestick you have at the end of your shaft! 😝 If you stick to one timing type, irrespective of how AMAZING the coil is, you will miss some gold. We all miss gold, and you will especially miss gold with a very tight Rx CC coil so overlapping your sweep is now the order of the day. Could be a little embarrassing if a heavy GPZ19 ‘dog’ wielding coil user pings a lumpskee in your boot prints!! 😆 I’ve not changed my stance on X coils, if they ferrite balance properly and behave in most ground types then more power to them, if those promoting them stuck to being factual then all would be well in the world. 😊

Just so we are clear here I’m not disparaging the X coils, trying to make the correlation that somehow a different coil magically fixes a hole in a timing is like putting on a pair of sunglasses and saying the 18 wheeler bearing down on them has now gone away because they can no longer see it!! A hole is a hole and no amount of magical coil voodoo is really going to change that!! The nature of the timing still exists because the coil has not changed the timing, the coil just does what the timing will allow and behaves the way the coil is wound. Where the coil will have an effect is in the amount of ground noise signal it creates relative to the timings and the amount of saturation and salt signal it creates also relative to timings, all those signals will compete with target signals. The timings will do their best to deal with the Rx behaviour of the coil, but the timing will always hold sway because it’s the ultimate interpreter of the ground signal, its design and any holes or weak spots will hold sway and remain regardless of the coil attached. In the case of the 17” CC X coil I have on hand the target signal that is available can sound louder over conventional DOD wound coils (similar to a Mono compared to a DD coil), technically this means more depth assuming the extra ground signal a more sensitive coil produces does not negate the target signal advantage. The 17” CC I have is showing it has been quite well designed because I can easily lift the sensitivity of the GPZ in variable ground so the designer has made the coil quite sensibly for variable ground, he obviously has a good understanding of the increase in ground signal a CC coil generates. If a target falls into a hole in the timings and only procures a weak response using a conventional wound SuperD then obviously a more aggressive coil like the Spiral wound DODs or the new CC coils will help if the ground conditions do not negate the advantage, but this does not mean the CC coils have fixed the hole because they can’t so a target that is extremely faint for a CC coil will still observe the rule created by the timing, so there will still be gold missed by the CC coil in Normal compared to Difficult. You might hit some targets that were extremely faint using conventional coils which is the whole point of the coils in the fist place but there will now be a fresh set of new missed targets relative to the rule created by the timings. I am very impressed with the 17” CC coil I have received, I was already impressed based on videos put up by Rick in WA so was not overly surprised when I tried it out for the first time. The Gain of the coil is set very well for Australian conditions but the Rx size side of things is quite tight so requires careful sweep methods on the deeper targets, this was also mentioned by Rick. X balance is very good and surprisingly saturation signals and even salt signals are minimal even slightly better than ML Super D’s, once aGAIN (pun intended 😂) pointing to the Gain of the coil. JP First session I used the CC17” in variable ground It pays to have a listen to this video as well as Steve and Chris and I discuss the differences with Steve going on to find a nice sized lump himself.

James, the hole is there whether you like it or not, the Normal timings do not do well on a range of solid targets at depth (14 inches plus), so you cannot say you’ve covered off on that size if you have not gone back over the ground using Difficult. The same applies to the GPX 5000 and GPX 4500 using Normal over Enhance or Fine Gold. I would also advise American users to go back over deeper ground and use Difficult just to check off on the possibility of a missed decent sized nugget especially in the washes. The 1/2 ounce nugget in the video was a good example of just such a target. (scene starts at 2:10 for those in a hurry 😆)

Still gagged 😔

Thanks James I appreciate the courtesy. My FYI was more to do with general GPZ usage not disparaging the Concentric X coils which so far have impressed me based on feedback etc. That’s good news about the Sennheiser transmitter, will have to look into one of them. Is it low latency WiFi or BT using Aptx? I wonder if they do a Rx unit in Aptx BT for when the 6000 comes out? JP (not Jonno or Johnny!!! 😂)

No problems James (BTW I prefer Jonathan or JP not Jonno which is a term I find very insulting). As an aside, every audio transmitter I have ever tried on the GPZ either BT or WiFi has caused interference to the detector especially mounted near the side of the control box like that, I‘m amazed you’re able to run a transmitter that close and not complain about it!! The rest of what I wrote above was just a polite attempt to inform considering you have only just started using the GPZ. JP

In reasonably homogeneous ground Normal is going to work OK, its when the ground becomes variable and constantly changing that the Normal timings will leave a lot of gold in the ground. I’ve tested this many many times over the years and the opposite of the described above will apply just as succinctly in variable ground types going from Difficult to Normal. Also be aware that no matter what the ground type there is a huge hole in the Normal timings on solid pieces going from around the solid 13 gram to 20 gram mark, Difficult will actually outperform Normal on those, so it pays no matter how quiet the ground is to go back over it again to make sure you don’t miss out on the decent 1/2 ounce bit. BTW same applies to the GPX machines too. My rule of thumb for gold modes on the GPZ in Difficult is if the ground is less than 18” deep stick to High Yield, the benefits of quieter operation from less EMI and less knock and bump sensitivity along with much better target response on the bread and butter gold well and truly justifies its use, High Yield will not miss the big ones down to 18” and will easily get the smaller gold the other modes miss. Normal on the other hand is a whole other ball game and needs to be used relative to the ground being worked. Good going on the big Concentric James, seems my concerns about saturation signals being an issue have been dealt with. The next thing will be spurious hot conductive ground signals in wet/damp soils, that is something that can’t be avoided with a deeper punching concentric coil design, that and salt of course because of the bigger size. JP

That’s sort of correct but not for the reasons stated, the inclusion of the DD coil is more inline with urbanisation (EMI) near gold occurrences in our market and the exposure to more salt/conductive areas than other sales areas. The DD is not for ground noise elimination but as stated above removal of EMI signals and Conductive ground signals. JP

You’re a shocker m8 😂

Wowsers nice chunk!! Knowing the country you work that piece could go anywhere from 8 to 16 ounces? I use Manual a lot if the conditions allow or call for it. Outright depth is always achieved by using a fixed or manual ground balance, in the case of the GPZ and its stupidly linked Quick-Trak to the ferrite calibration this means going in and out of Manual and Semi-Auto modes via the menu. If your lucky enough to work in an area where X signal is not an issue then obviously you could use the QT button and speed things up. So yes in homogeneous ground where the GB is not altering much over a larger footprint I will definitely operate in Manual GB mode especially when using the larger coils. A prime example is the gully washes up in FNQ and the Kimberlies in WA and also some areas over in the Pilbara in WA. JP

This is the first gold detector release in 20 years that I’ve been heavily involved in helping to develop were I’ve had NO contact with marketing on any level. Right now I feel like a dinosaur that’s gone well past its used by date, I keep looking up for the comet strike!!! 😅🚫 In some ways it’s refreshing but in others it feels akin to driving in traffic with a blindfold on. 😬 😱