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  1. Fisher Research originally released the 19 kHz Gold Bug model about 1987. It was a real breakthrough design at the time with a compact control box, S-rod, and elliptical coils. The detector is a good unit but is strictly all metal (no discrimination). It has no LCD readout and looks much like the current 71 kHz Gold Bug 2 but has a white lower rod and a black control panel face. Some people are confusing this old model with the new so be aware of this when looking at used detectors. The 19 kHz coils for the old Gold Bug will not work on newer versions of the Gold Bug below. The 71 kHz Gold Bug 2 is a totally different detector than the various 19 kHz models described below. Around 2010 a number of new Gold Bug models were released by Fisher. First came the Gold Bug in 2009. Then came the Gold Bug SE (Special Edition) which added manual ground balance at a bargain introductory price. The SE with minor tweaks later became the Gold Bug Pro at a higher price. So now we have two basic versions, the Gold Bug and the Gold Bug Pro. They differ from the old 1987 model by having an LCD readout. The standard version of either detector comes with a 5" round coil. There is a Gold Bug DP (Deep Penetrating) which is nothing more than a Gold Bug Pro with an 11" x 7" DD elliptical coil instead of a 5" round DD coil. The only difference listed by Fisher between the Gold Bug and the Gold Bug Pro is that the Gold Bug Pro has a manual adjustment option for the ground balance and also offers "higher sensitivity". Both models use a "Ground Grab" button as a simple ground balance method that is quite effective. The Gold Bug Pro allows you to also manually adjust the ground balance setting up or down. The manual adjustment can be used in conjunction with or separately from the Ground Grab button. The big question is the "higher sensitivity" claim. There are two possibilities here. First, that the Gold Bug Pro actually allows for higher gain or sensitivity levels. However, I was in marketing too long and have a more jaded thought. Manual ground balance allows for a higher degree of control that if used properly can get you more sensitivity. There is a very distinct possibility the higher sensitivity claim follows directly from the ability to manually ground balance the Gold Bug Pro. This could be tested with both units set side by side with identical ground balance settings and max gain. If the Gold Bug Pro is inherently more sensitive an air test should show it. I have not had the chance to do this my self but if somebody wants to there you go. ads by Amazon... My opinion? I believe the Gold Bug and the Gold Bug Pro if outfitted with the same coil are basically the same detector. The only real difference is the manual ground balance option on the Gold Bug Pro. Do you need it? Not really, and especially when you consider that for $499 vs $649 that is probably all you are getting. The Ground Grab function is remarkably effective and would suit most people just fine. I personally do like manual ground balance and so for me spending the extra money to get it is a non-issue. I do as a rule tell people that if cost is not an issue get the Gold Bug Pro. It is far more popular and would be easier to resell. But in all honesty I think the Basic Gold Bug is the real bang-for-the-buck unit. There is nothing else close to it at the $499 price point that offers full LCD readout target discrimination while in full power all metal prospect mode. I should note that First Texas owns both Fisher and Teknetics. The Fisher Gold Bug DP (Gold Bug Pro with 11" coil) is marketed by Teknetics as the G2. The Fisher Gold Bug DP goes for $699 and the Teknetics G2 is $749. The $50 extra gets you a pistol grip rod instead of the Gold Bug S-rod and an arm strap. Nice gray paint scheme also. Really boils down to pistol grip vs S-rod, purely a personal preference thing. I use the 5" x 10" elliptical myself and consider it to be the best all around coil for the Gold Bug. However, right now you have to get it as an accessory or as part of a two coil package. Fisher would be doing us a service to release the Gold Bug with this coil as standard on the unit. My Gold Bug 2 is slightly better on the tiniest of gold but the Gold Bug Pro easily outperforms the Gold Bug 2 on larger nuggets at depth. For all around nugget detecting the Gold Bug or Gold Bug Pro (and G2) have a better balance of both small gold and large gold capability than the Gold Bug 2. Fisher Gold Bug Pro & Teknetics G2 Detailed Comparison To recap first came the original 1987 era Gold Bug with knobs and switches: 1987 era analog Fisher Gold Bug Then in 2009 we got the new Gold Bug: Fisher digital Gold Bug Followed quickly and briefly by the Gold Bug SE. Note how the plus and minus buttons now have dual functions, both Disc and Ground Balance, compared to the basic Gold Bug above: Fisher Gold Bug SE The Gold Bug SE was basically the prototype for the Gold Bug Pro, which got a new faceplate decal and a higher price: Fisher Gold Bug Pro And finally, the Gold Bug Pro was also marketed under the Teknetics line as the G2 with a different rod/handle assembly: Teknetics G2 Gold Bug Pro DP compared to Teknetics G2: Click on images below for larger versions.....
  2. I have a Lobo ST and my wife will be swinging a Fisher Gold Bug. Is there any chance that we could cause EMI on one another? If so, what would be a safe separation distance? Thx Bob
  3. Thanks again Steve, you are definitely speeding up my learning curve. I live in Nevada now so it will probably be a few weeks before I can get back to the beach (my wife travels to California often and has a free companion pass so I tag along for free). I will share anything new I learn. Most of my experience has been with the Fisher GB2 on meteorites and while not related to beach hunting I have learned a few tips recently that have paid off. I usually hunt the Franconia Strewn field which consists of chondrites and tiny irons. Most of the chondrites have been found and most folks think the irons have as well. But many of the irons are tiny, some smaller than 0.1 gram. The irons exist in an area that has been more or less entirely gridded. I recently bought a 14" coil for my GB2 to allow me to cover more area and went back to Franconia a few weeks ago. I hunted the usual area of "iron alley". I kept the sensitivity maxed out at 10, as well as the audio and the audio boost switch on. I ground balanced often, but with these settings the GB2 more or less is continuously noisy. Anything less than max sensitivity would be a waste of time because most hunters run maxed out. Anyway, with all the visible scrapes and dig holes on the smooth desert pavement areas I decided to instead concentrate mostly on the areas with large basalt rocks from golf ball size to around softball size. The GB2 was screaming from all the hot rocks but every now and then I could hear a slight faint blip in the background. Sure enough many of these blips turned out to be irons and many were larger than normal up to 1.5 grams or so. After 3 days of hunting I had 49 irons and 2 chondrites, a new record for me! What I learned from all of this is to focus on the specific target sound or blip that usually indicates an iron and ignore all the hot rock sounds. It can be tough to do because the basalt hot rocks create a loud background chatter that is almost continuous. And most folks avoid the basalt area for that reason. This technique probably won't be much good with the ATX because it runs so quiet, but just thought I would share it. ....jim
  4. Hi steve i attended your class a few years ago and really enjoyed it. I have a specific question. I want to target flakes and pickers and small nuggets behind my house in basically the Talkeetna mountains, which include hatcher pass, sutton area, willow, and numerous high small streams that i hike and four wheel into. from all the research i have done the fisher gold bug 2 seems to be the ticket and i see you have used it with great success. my question is this area a high mineralized area? i see the gold bug 2 is very sensitive to hot areas, i plan on using it a lot and practicing on the little sue with practice targets, is this something i need to be concerned with ? (also will be hitting crow creek,petersville and eureka) but mostly hatcher pass and sutton area. what are your thoughts on this?
  5. This was mentioned on another forum, was wondering if anyone has knowledge this aftermarket coil for the GB Pro. 12" x 14" Excelerator SEF Pro coil.
  6. There were amazing finds made at Ganes Creek, Alaska in the early years of the pay-to-mine operation there. One of the early visitors in 2004 was Steve Burris of Idaho. Steve was hunting downstream of the airstrip in an area well known to have produced large nuggets in the old mining days. His Gold Bug 2 screamed as loud as a Gold Bug can scream, and when he looked down a dust covered yellowish rock lay at his feet. It was a huge gold nugget weighing 33.85 ounces, and to my knowledge it is to this day the largest gold nugget* ever found in Alaska with a metal detector, though the 32.2 ounce nugget found at Moore Creek may have had more actual gold content. The backside of this nugget is actually mostly quartz showing. Still, a very spectacular find. Here is a photo I took of the nugget in my hand when Steve was kind enough to bring it by the shop to show to me. It is the best photo I have seen of the nugget and I do not think I have ever posted it before. Heart of Gold found by Steve Burris of Idaho at Ganes Creek, Alaska Steve named the nugget the Heart of Gold due to its shape when looked at right and the fact he had open heart surgery not long before visiting Ganes Creek. Steve is a super nice guy and I had the pleasure of rooming with him and detecting on later Ganes Creek visits. Here is a photo of Steve during our visit to Ganes Creek in the last year of operation in 2012. He was swinging a Minelab X-Terra 705 that year that got him a 2.74 ounce nugget. Steve Burris at Ganes Creek, Alaska in 2012 Steve wrote a story for the ICMJ Prospecting & Mining Journal that was published in August 2004 and can be read online at http://www.icmj.com/article.php?id=1248 if you have an online subscription. *There have been several larger gold specimens found in Alaska with metal detectors but they were mostly quartz. See http://www.akmining.biz/mine/nuggets.htm
  7. The Gold Bug Pro had turned into one of my favorite prospecting machines, especially for trashy areas. Ray Mills and I have been bugging (get it?) Fisher to put the machine out with the 10" elliptical coil as stock. In my opinion it is the best all around coil for the detector and also makes it look like it should as a prospecting detector and cousin to the Gold Bug 2. Right now you can only get the coil as part of a package or as an after purchase accessory. The coil works on the Fisher F5, Gold Bug, Gold Bug Pro, and Teknetics G2.
  8. Hey guys, I have 2 gb2s, has anyone had problems with threshold on these? What i have had happen with both mine on occasion is you will be going along just fine and threshold sound goes away sometimes temporarily sometimes you just bump it, sometimes you have to adjust slightly then it comes back on. I have adjusted it at higher threshold(louder) and it seems to stay on but to loud to pick up small gold. I seen another gb2 do this on occasion also. Whats up threshold switches themselves or somethihg different? Rick
  9. Despite all the noise about pulse induction (PI) metal detectors these days I firmly believe that in the United States most beginning and many professional nugget hunters are often better served with a good mid-frequency VLF. For beginners I think it is more important to master the real skills involved in prospecting before investing a ton of money in a metal detector. If you can't find gold with a $700 detector there is little point in investing thousands of dollars in a detector that still probably will not find the person any gold. Perhaps a PI is required in most of Australia but I have seen very few places in the United States where a good VLF will not work very well or at least well enough. Certainly in Alaska that is the case, where low mineral ground and smallish gold is the norm. Even locations where large gold lurks are so loaded with iron junk a PI detector has a hard go of it. It is nearly impossible to convince die-hard PI users to accept this until they experience it for themselves. One of the best detectorists I know has found hundreds of ounces of gold including two nuggets each weighing over a pound, all with a White's MXT. He also has a Minelab GPX 5000 and is very good with it. This last summer we hunted a lot together in junk infested tailing piles. I tended to use my GPX 5000 and he tended to use his MXT. We ran neck and neck for finds, and he detected less and dug way less junk than I. When all the shallow stuff is gone a PI shows its value with extra depth. But in target rich environments, especially ones filled with junk, a good VLF is a worthy choice. Let's set the VLF versus PI thing aside though and accept for the purposes of this article that VLF detectors are still a good choice for many people in the United States. I know for a fact I could own nothing but a VLF and do very well indeed. So what VLF to own? Two detectors stand out in their high operating frequency as dedicated nugget detectors, the Fisher Gold Bug 2 and White's GMT. I could make a great argument for why either of these detectors will eke out gold where other detectors fail and do it consistently enough that a skilled operator would be wise to own either one. However, I think overall a better case can be made that if a person had to own just one VLF detector, a mid-frequency model would be a better choice. There is much more versatility offered plus a better balance of performance on all ground types and all gold sizes than the hot high frequency models. The contenders from the "Big Five" brands? The Fisher Gold Bug Pro (also sold as Teknetics G2), Garrett AT Gold, Minelab X-Terra 705 Gold, Tesoro Lobo SuperTRAQ, and White's MXT. All available for around $700 more or less. This is the choice I personally faced, and the decision took several years of use to settle. What follows is purely personal but I will explain why I ended up where I did. Fisher Gold Bug Pro, Garrett AT Gold, Minelab X-Terra 705 Gold, Tesoro Lobo, White's MXT First up, the White's MXT. Simply a superb detector, and one that has found me pounds of gold. Yet I am just going to go ahead and blow White's off at this point! Why? The weight. I am sorry White's, but at 4.3 pounds the MXT is the heaviest detector in this slug-fest. I love what the detector does, but I am no longer willing to forgive detectors with poor ergonomic factors, weight being the most obvious. In the 21st century, the day and age of the iPhone, poor ergonomics is not acceptable. The MXT needs to lose a pound, plain and simple. So I sold my MXT after one particularly arm wearing day. Now the Tesoro Lobo SuperTRAQ is a great beginners detector in that it is very easy to operate, but it also gets put aside. The detector is locked in ground tracking at all times while in all metal nugget mode. This is great for beginners but I personally find it unacceptable. I almost never use ground tracking systems as they mess with the signals from weak targets. If there was a locked or fixed mode it would be fine. Worse yet, the alternative discriminate mode has a factory pre-set ground balance. Sorry, fail. Just my opinion, but the Lobo is way overdue for an update after 16 years on the market. Garrett is to be commended for finally producing a waterproof detector that does not penalize the owner by weighing a ton and removing all the features. The AT Gold is a miracle in being waterproof and yet fully featured, with even the speaker being waterproof. And only three pounds with batteries! This detector is so wonderful I really do feel bad about taking a pass on it here also. Why? Sadly, the waterproof design also means special o-ring connectors for the coils and headphones. If you do not need the detector to be waterproof they are delicate connectors that collect dirt and require quite a bit of care to not mess up. The coil connection in particular is in a maddening location making it almost impossible to connect coils with bare fingers alone. A special adapter must be purchased if you want to have a choice in headphones. If you want waterproof the AT Gold is an obvious choice but I do not need waterproof for most of my nugget detecting. So down to two models, the Fisher Gold Bug Pro and Minelab X-Terra 705 Gold. Both under the magic 3 pound mark! Both with extremely powerful all metal modes. So powerful that in all metal mode these detectors give the PI units a run for depth in most ground on most gold in the US. This was tough for me as the X-Terra has a far richer feature set than the Gold Bug Pro and for many all around users would be the better choice. But I looked at both from strictly a nugget hunting perspective where those extra features are extraneous to the task at hand. It came down to this. In all metal mode the Gold Bug Pro is simultaneously and separately running in discriminate mode. The audio response is pure all metal, but you also get the probable target id, when possible, displayed on the screen. Very deep targets will have no target id, which is why we are using all metal prospect mode in the first place. The X-Terra 705 you can run in Prospect Mode or Discriminate Mode, but not both at once. This one thing leads to more efficient detecting with all the information you need on screen at once. The Gold Bug Pro gives you the target id, ground phase, and magnetic susceptibility reading all on screen at once while in all metal mode. ads by Amazon... That is how I settled on the Fisher Gold Bug Pro as my all around do everything nugget hunting model. It is not a coincidence it is also the lightest of the bunch at only 2.5 lbs with battery and 5” round DD coil and 2.7 lbs with the 5” x 10” DD coil. It is a basic unit that gets the job done, and that appeals to me. Plus, it does just fine for coins, relics, and jewelry if I wish. if I could improve only one thing it would be to swap the position of the target id and phase readout on the meter. I have to wrap this up by pointing out that these are all fine detectors. I can actually find gold about as well with all of them. The engineers have mid-frequency all metal detectors figured out, and in all metal mode these models are practically equivalent. Small nuances that help one model in certain ground cost it in another and it all evens out. So from a straight up all metal nugget hunting perspective I think a person can use any one of these detectors and be just fine. What differences there are show up far more when comparing discrimination features which are of little use to the nugget hunter. With that said, the final lesson in this article is that it is all the other factors a person should be looking at when making a choice. For me it was just lightweight basic operation. But if waterproof is important, the AT Gold is a no-brainer. The Lobo is very forgiving for beginners simply because it is locked in ground tracking mode. The MXT is a superior all-arounder, and the X-Terra has various tone schemes and notch discrimination features common on top-end detectors. You can make the case for any of them depending on your own particular needs and desires in a detector, and know you will be well served for basic all metal nugget hunting capability. We are lucky to have so many fine choices, all at very affordable prices.
  10. See if you can tell what's wrong with this guys ATX video. I am pretty sure what wrong with the first part poor performance and its not got to do with the disc/delay... see if you can see anything.. I know I'm not crazy.. Keith
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