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Here in the Desert Southwest the local plants respond more to rain than to growing seasons. It's still winter and the last 2 late season rains have caused the Desert to really green up. Areas that are normally barren have ft tall weeds sprouting up and it's giving my GPZ fits. For some reason the GPZ is really sparky when swinging through the fresh green growth. It's not just the first swing it's all swings until I scrape them down to the ground. They're spiking the threshold loud enough that it's near impossible to distinguish a target whisper in there. In the past the GPZ has given off something akin to a single static spark in fresh dead weeds on the first swing then dying off in further swings, but this is consistent, constant and downright annoying. It's only in the weeds, on open ground it's fine. No particular bump sensitivity, just those fresh green stalks. Is anybody else experiencing this, or is my machine acting up? Solutions? I sprayed some static guard on the coil cover, didn't help at all.

Hello all - Going back and reading some of Steve's Journal posts on the GPZ, has got me wondering if the GPZ would be the best bet for finding gold in my area (Virginia). I currently hunt with a GPX4800 but have yet to have success with it. I do extensive research and find areas that have produced large gold in the past, and i use lidar to figure out the vein trends that the old timers were working, and in a number of locations i find large course gold, and specimens dredging. But for the life of me, I have not been able to get a nugget with the GPX. When im out detecting i find plenty of buck, shot, bird shot, small pieces of old square nail and other things that tell me if there detectable gold for the gpx id hear it. I wonder if the thickness of leaf mat (1-2 inches) plus the thickness of topsoil (1-6 inches) is just putting the gold out of reach of the gpx, that plus the course nature of a lot of the gold in VA. Seeing what the GPZ is capable of in regards to detecting small gold at depth is what impresses me the most about it, and i think it is that ability that would give me the best chance of finding gold here in VA. The soil here ranges from mild to fairly hot. The biggest interference issue would probably come from EMI since civilization is never far from any location. Im interested in what everyone here thinks, especially people who have experience with the GPZ and conditions similar to mine. Thanks everyone!

I am new here. Want to buy a GPZ 7000, but also want to wait until the next model of GPZ technology coming out. It would feel horrible to buy GPZ 7000, and new model come out in half a year. So does anyone know or hear anything about when new GPZ metal detector will come out? Thanks a great deal.

This year has not been going exactly as I imagined it would. My stated goal for the year was to set a new record for days in the field detecting. So far however, it has been anything but that. No complaint - I have been devoting myself to visiting family and other things that took precedence over prospecting. Weather has also been a bit dodgy this spring leading me to sit out things a little waiting for better conditions. What time I have had for prospecting has mainly been spent in northern Nevada. I am really taken with the desert and am very partial to the sagebrush and grassland country. It reminds me a lot of the time I spent in Australia with huge wide open spaces to wander. I enjoy the idea that gold can be found nearly anyplace, the exact opposite of Alaska, and I love just wandering from valley bottom to hill top because, well, you just never know. There is some old and interesting geology here that leaves nuggets in what might seem to be pretty unlikely locations. I did find one nice little patch that produced about half my gold this spring, but the rest were just strangely random isolated nuggets. I would find one and get all excited, then after several hours of methodically gridding the area wonder why that one nugget ended up there all alone. My largest nugget, at 3/4 oz, was just such a find. I wandered out of what looked to be the "good area" and just lucked into this nugget all by itself on a hillside far above the valley floor. Where did it come from? Why nothing else near it? I like to wander around freely but due to the nature of the gold deposits I am relying heavily on the GPZ 7000 map screen and GPS track to attack areas in chunks. I just start someplace and then use the GPS mapping screen to fill in all the pixels as completely as I am able in a given area. My goal is to completely hunt that area and then write it off forever as being hunted. Each hunt area is dumped to X-Change building my master map of hunted areas. I am approaching it much like building a jigsaw puzzle, each planned hunt taking in a segment and filling it completely. I still like to wander around a lot but the main focus is long term - the many years I have ahead of me hunting these areas. I could just do what I have always done and hunt piecemeal but I decided it is time to switch gears and get more methodical about things. I figure there is a lot of that random "scattered gold" out there and that a slower long term goal to gather it up is a major part of my plan going forward. Using GPS mapping is key to getting good coverage while eliminating the chance I might waste time hunting and rehunting the same locations over the years. The GPZ is also critical to this effort as I have great confidence in its ability to sniff out almost any gold that finds its way under the coil. Small gold, flat gold, wire gold, deep gold - the GPZ is my gold vacuum. All detectors miss gold, including the GPZ. But right now if I have to hunt an area once and once only, and have my best shot at finding what might be there, I do not know of a better option for me than the GPZ 7000. One detector, one coil, one pass over the ground ever - what are you going to use? If gold is found a person of course has the luxury of coming back with different coils and different detectors and trying to find gold missed before. The problem is finding that first nugget. If it does not get found, you just wander on, never knowing that maybe you just missed a great patch, for the lack of finding that first, most important nugget. I am convinced there are many undiscovered patches out there still. The patches with the big easy to find solid gold may be very rare now, but "weak" patches comprised of smaller, or deeper, and harder to find specimen type gold surely exist. They will be found by people hunting outside the commonly known popular areas. That is what I have been doing. Hunting locations where other prospectors are rarely if ever seen. I honestly think I have been a bit lucky as of late but the methodology is sound and it is what I will be doing for as long as I have left to swing a detector. I continue to follow the various posts around the world about the GPZ 7000 and people's experiences with it. Mine are pretty boring. I turn the machine on, maybe do a quick ground balance routine, and go detecting. I may not even go through the ground balance motions. I just turn it on and pick up from where I left off the previous day. I usually run in High Yield, Normal Ground, Gain of 12, Smoothing Off, Ground Tracking On. I leave most audio settings alone. The detector will often run noisy with these settings, especially in alkali locations. I may lower the threshold to 20 to knock out some excess noise, or just lower the overall volume level using my headphones. The GPZ lacks a master volume control that lowers all sounds at once, and so benefits from the use of an external booster with master volume control. The problem for me is that is one more battery operated gizmo, and so I often just use my headphones instead to gain the overall volume control I crave. I tend to run my detectors noisy but like it to be quiet/noisy not loud/noisy. When the ground responses get a bit much, as is the case with ground salt, I react more by slowing down and modifying my swing than changing detector settings. So far I would say about half the gold I found was pulled out of fairly high salt response ground with the attendant moaning/groaning or hee/haw responses the GPZ produces in that type of ground. That seems to be a show stopper for a lot of people but I don't pay much attention to it myself. I have this theory that killing those responses might kill my gold finding capability on this ground to a certain extent, as I know some of these locations have seen other detectors that ignored the salt. They also missed the gold. Coincidence? Maybe. I have plans for more experiments regarding this but have had a hard time tearing myself away from my limited detecting time to do more comparative tests. Later. Anyway, I have quietly picked up just over a couple ounces of gold with my GPZ 7000 so far this spring. The largest nugget is 3/4 oz and there are several other nice pieces I am very happy with. Nice solid, clean gold, my kind of stuff. An odd mix from very worn appearing to rough. I am unfortunately getting waylaid again with things I must attend to before I can go prospecting again and so I decided I may as well post this update now. It could be weeks before I get out prospecting again. Until then, here are some happy pictures to enjoy. More Information on Minelab GPZ 7000 Click photos for larger versions... This post was promoted to an article

Davs scores again!? Enjoy" Ig

I was one minute into the day when the 7000 lost sound to the WM12`s. This has happened before but restarting the detector always fixed it, but this time the detector wont power off either. The only way I can turn it off is to unplug the battery. Tried everything, turned off the GPS, plugged in 2 sets of headphones, did a full detector reset- Still no sound and wont power off. I phoned Minelab, they seem to know what`s wrong with it and only want the back end of the detector back, not the coil or shafts or battery Thank goodness there is still 5 months of warranty on my detector.

I recently lost sound whilst detecting. The detector was working just fine. I turned it off after finding 3 small pieces of gold to have some lunch. After i turned it back on and went through the quick start process it just dropped sound. Only noise i got was turning the wireless off and on. Then the detector would shut down without removing the battery. I tried to reset, also didn't work. Very frustrating as i was on a good area and had driven 560km. Please advise as im at a loss. The detector hasn't been used more than 20 times, ie brand new.

Published on Sep 30, 2018 by Nuggethunting (Rob Allison). “Here is a series of 3 short videos filmed in Arizona. Not all targets are gold, but at least one was a small gold nugget. I was using the Minelab GPZ 7000 Metal Detector.”

Hii Good afternoon! would you help me regarding minelab Gpz 7000, whether it can detect other metals like silver, bronze, iron, relics, coins antiques other than gold?

Published on Apr 12, 2018 by steelPHASE In this video I talk about the settings on detectors, aiming mainly at the Minelab GPX, SDC and GPZ series. My aim is not to tell you what settings to run, but rather give you the knowledge to make informed decisions on settings out in the goldfields. Now I am no Einstein so I do stumble and fluster in a few spots but I have edited in some text to make things clearer (hopefully).

You have a new brother in the family. Special thanks to each of you that gave me advise on this decision. Extra call out to Brian for checking the Zed out for me in person. Lot of respect for the tight group we have here. Feel free to drop tips and hints in here or pm. I have read so many threads my eyes are bleeding lol. Come on 1 oz Nug. JW looking forward to nugget find sharing with you. Fred low and slow, Check! Nenad hit me up with more of those tips, so I can pay for this thing lol lol.

Ok I am just passing this link on, as I found it of interest I feel others on DP perhaps may be interested. This is the first I`ve heard of such thus have no idea if it is for real but I hope it is so, we want lighter, smaller, even bigger coils for our Zs. and as we`ve experienced, with the aftermarket coils for SD-GPX series, increased finds, why not for the Z? http://golddetecting.forumotion.net/t25940p60-aftermarket-for-gpz (forum gone)

Is there anyone out there who is willing to explain a little more in depth about the Sensitivity setting in the GPZ7000 and how works in relation to the other settings? Or perhaps point me to an existing discussion? I don’t feel I know enough to use it correctly and I know it's obviously important. Thank you in advance. David

This might have already been posted I figured it would be faster to ask. I have a potential client who is thinking of upgrading from a 5000 to a 7000. The concern is his knees and he thinks he'll have both knees replaced next Spring. I know a 5000 can be used with long shaft (I have customers with titanium knees), but the 7000 is a different beast. Anyone know for a fact if it is possible or should he stick with the 5000? It would be nice to hear from those who know from experience and have tried it.

What ground balancing mode does everyone use? Only reason I ask, is I recently saw a video with Johnathan Porter on Facebook, , where he got a faint signal, that ended up being a nugget. He mentions if he was in auto, passing over the target 3-4 times, more than likely the signal would have went away. Now I hunt in auto, and I can't count how many times I've come across a faint target, and it went away after a few swipes of the coil. Now I wonder how much gold I've missed....? Dave

I have noticed since I have been detecting in semi auto tracking, at the start of the day when I drop the ferrite ring on the ground, I can never hear the ferrite, but I do the thing with the quick track button anyway. My question is: Once I have set up the detector to the ferrite ring in semi auto tracking, if I NEVER touch the quick track button ever again, and never take the detector out of semi auto, do I ever have to use the ferrite ring again? It seems to me if you dont touch the quick track button in semi auto the detector always has the correct ferrite balance regardless of ground conditions. Dave

What would the difference be on mineralized rocks and hot bedrock between these two detectors? Took out my 3k and had a hard time detecting due to these two factors. Hoping a new 7k would solve that issue. Thanks.

Ok to kick this off i have just purchased a gpz 7000 spent my time with a sd 2000, gpx 4000 and a gpx 5000 all good machines if you ask me! But tryin to get a steady rewiew on a zed and bloody hell there seems to be two sides to this argument, A. The people who are dealers and trying to sell and in that case the thing has been sent from the gods to find gold!! B. Those who cant afford one and use the trusty 5000 and rag it down it doesnt perform aswell bad in hot ground misses nuggets just garbage bla bla What i want to know is a unbiased opinion on this machine from an average prospector like what most of us will be at how effective it is in a variety of ground conditions. Coming from north qld the gold can come in a variety of iron rock and minerialized ground. And also any tips people have come up with while using this machine?

I used the GPZ 7000 in the Summer of 2016 (with yellow ferrite ring) but it had so much ground feedback in my detecting area that I sold it. I found that the ground noise on the GPZ was masking targets over the GPX-5000 running in fine or enhance gold timings. (Damp & salty highly mineralized ground.) Question: Has the latest software update with Locate Patch & Semi-Auto Ground balance helped significantly to handle this type of bad ground feedback? I am considering buying another GPZ 7000 this Summer to try again. Also, I found that the 5000 can match or beat the 7000 on larger chunky gold targets when running the larger coils. (And of course, the GPZ was superior on some specimen gold types vs the 5000.) Here is an air test on a 3 ounce wire gold & quartz nugget below. The 7000 was at maximum sensitivity of 20 with the stock 14" GPZ Coil. (I didn't own the 19" GPZ coil to try in this test.) I mostly ran in Difficult/General or Difficult/High Yield as Normal mode was impossible here, too much ground noise! 3 Ounce Wire Gold Nugget: (air test) GPZ 7000: Difficult/General: 18" Difficult/HY: 18" Difficult/X-Deep: 16" Normal/General: 21" Normal/HY: 23" Normal/X-Deep: 20" Severe: 15" GPX 5000: Fine Gold w/12" NF Round EVO coil: 17" Normal w/12" NF Round EVO coil: 21" Fine Gold w/15" NF Round EVO coil: 18" Normal w/15" NF Round EVO coil: 23" Fine Gold w/19" NF Round EVO coil: 20" Normal w/19" NF Round EVO coil: 25" Fine Gold w/25" NF Round Advantage coil: 20" Normal w/25" NF Round Advantage coil: 26" -Don

What's the current feedback on the GPZ-19 coil? Good to have? Thanks.

Heading to Rye Patch, NV next week with new detector. Very little mineralization out there and far away from any type of EMI. Looking to go as deep as possible. Reading the manual cover-to-cover but thought you all could provide some guidance on the initial settings. Thanks!

Been wearing headphones while detecting for years. Now that we’re running the GPZ I see some respected GPZ users on here that run without them. Would love to ditch the ‘phones... Thoughts?