Franck RACINE

ok, thank you steve, i will buy an AT GOLD, cheaper than the others and waterproof, don't want to spent more money in case of ground mineralisation is high.... AT GOLD seem to have good properties for discrimination and ground balance...

Hi steve, i don't know if you remember me, i'am Franck the French living in Ecuador and i asked you for some advise last year (november 2015) about gold detector to prospect gold in rain forest and mountain (Llanganati mountain...), after study the differents possibilities you suggest me, i took a sdc2300, very good detector that allow to find very small nuggest, but i encountered un big problem not expected in rain forest...the trash...i had to dig a huge quantity of metallic trash, result of various centuries of wood exploitation, farming etc so there is plenty of claws, barbed wire, pieces of sardine can, beer caps etc...so much than i expected... it's not possible in that conditions to prospect with pulse induction material, moreover the ground is not so mineralized that i thought (volcanic region but no many hot rocks..) so i have to reconsider my prospecting strategy and change the detector for Gold VLF ... .... here in Ecuador i have the choice in this list of detector : Garret : AT Gold (1300$) - AT PRO (1300$) - GTI 2500 (with coils 9.5" & 12" and Eagle Eye - 2000$) - GTAx 550 (900$) Fisher : Gold BUG PRO (1150$) - F5 (1400$) Whites : TDi PRO (2300$) Minelab : XTERRA 705 (GOLD Pack - 1000$) - Eureka GOLD (900$) - CTX3030 (3000$) - SAFARI (1400$) Nokta : FORS CORE (2000$) - FORS GOLD (2000$) - Velox One (2000$) - CF77 (with 3 coils c23 c28 c45 - 2000$) Other : DELTA PULSE 2 (650$) - DETECH SSP 5100 (1750$) ??? do know something about those ones, seem to be ground Radar more than detectors..... I read a lot about all those detectors but a never used them so the choice is hard.... Importants things for me : 1 - I will make ONLY Gold Nugget prospection, here there is no coins nor Jewelry so i'am only interested to Gold nugget prospection capabilities of the detector... and i need one that can discriminate very well that huge quantity of metallic trash i encountered !!!! it's so borring to prospect in all metal mode and spent my time digging trash.... 2 - I need one that resist hard rain with coil avaible for water, no need of a real underwater detector, just one able to detect banks of lake and river and dry land too 3 - Ground is low to medium mineralized Can you suggest me detectors in the list below for various kind of price ??? Thanks, Franck

yes it's right, but the problem is that now the best part of ancien spanish places are under new towns... and for other part the rest of spanish or native culture places are in dangerous locations, native don't let you prospect in their property, if you pass anyway, they kill you, this have occured several times !!! others places are dangerous because of the poverty of the peoples... if they see a "Gringo" with a detectors they still you.... so the only way is to go where there is nobody, in the mountain, and it's where you have more chance to discover something...

Thank you very much for your help, i see every body agree with the choice of sdc2300, so i will follow that advise and confied on your experience...

Hi, i'am new in this forum, i have some questions for steve Herschbach First, sorry for my poor english, but i'am a froggy French, and you know Frenchies are very bad for english .... I sent this from Ecuador, town of PUYO, between Llanganati Mountain and Amazonic Forest.. I want to go prespecting here for native Gold, here isn't any treasur nor coin and jewelry or militaria to find, just gold, a lot of river contains gold all around Llanganati Mountain, but the soil is mineralised due to the volcanos (here they are everywhere) and contains lot of black ferous stone.. So i'am looking for a PI detector. I spent lot of time in many forums to take all the informations i could found, in fine i saw 3 detectors that can be good for my purpose, i juste want steve to tell me if my conclusions are good or not and help me to make my choice. The 3 detectors i'am looking for are : Minelab SDC 2300 - GARRETT ATX - Minelab GPX 5000 The problem is that here in Ecuador the prices are more expensive than in USA : Minelab SDC 2300 cost 4000$ - GARRETT ATX cost 4000$ - Minelab GPX 5000 cost 6900$. The conclusions of my search in forums is that : - SDC 2300 is good for very small and small Nuggets and quiet good for Medium Nuggets. - ATX and GPX 5000 are quiet good for small Nuggets and good for Medium and large Nuggets. The ATX seem to have the same capabilities than the GPX5000 for less money and it is waterproof like the sdc2300 (here we have lot of hard rain and i want to prospect in and around rivers). So i think the ATX seem to be my favorite but i can't make a choice anyway between ATX and SDC. SDC seem to be very resistant for prospecting in mountain in case of fall and chocks and more easy to use for somebody without lot of detector experience like me... GPX seem to be the more powerful but it cost 3000$ more, and i don't know if it is very resistant to the rain and if i can put the coil in the water to prospect the bank of the rivers. So my questions are : - SDC can really be good for other kind of Nuggets than very small one's ? - ATX really more complete than SDC2300 for all kind of Nuggets and what about very small Nuggets ? - GPX5000 remain the best overall and it's better to pay 3000$ more to have this one ? What do you think about that and what could be your advise for helping me to make a choice between those detectors ?? Or Maybe you know an other detector better than those 3 for my purpose ?? Thank you very much for your response Franck RACINE