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The day ended up too hot for man nor beast and my hunting buddy and I ended up in the water to cool off. We havent had rain since 1st week of December so relic hunting in dirt is out!!!! The spot we went to was mixture of Black Iron sand, quartz sand and rocks I had to turn over. Iron and nails were in abundant supply but we will revisit here in cooler weather. I suspect people in the past with PI machines have snuck into this spot guaging by the mixed dates of targets found so the finds we were after were not as plentiful as they should have been , however I was happy with what I got and the performance of unit in hard hunting conditions. Photo includes the trash before sussing out cherry picking. Jews harp (broken unfortunately) , musket/pistol ball, 1889 UK penny, Nz pennies 1961,1946, bent apostle reaspoon, button from S.W.Silver &Co, London clothiers, oarlock.....which looks old but I cannot date, square nails which straight away tells me 1800s site and etc.

I was asked to do the test again, this time with “wet” coke rocks to see if the TARSACCI could still hit the $1 gold coin. Thanks! Aaron

Here is another video demonstrating the amazing ability the TARSACCI has to not only “see through” ferrous targets, but also use those ferrous targets to AMPLIFY the signal...... Please note that in this video I have purposely kept the sensitivity on 1, to show before and after the coke rocks are over the gold coin, and the dramatic difference in audio amplification.

For those of you who know Keith Southern i believe you will find this an interesting test of the MDT. He used a dime placed under 2 of his area clay bricks. Bricks in most cases ... old brick, were made from the local soil...... so his are pretty hot with iron. For relic hunter around old homes this could grab you some missed targets.

One more test with the Tarsacci. A horseshoe and zinc penny. Again this should not happen.The Horseshoe is under coil at same time as the penny and is abundantly larger than the penny. Usually we use targets of the sane size to show unmasking.like a penny and a nail. Or a horseshoe and a belt plate. Not so with this unit.the unit is some how overcoming the large iron halo barrier and still hitting the coin.and with not even falsing on the horseshoe.VLFs false on the horse shoe easily.that's why I have a truck load of them. This it seems why I'm seeing so many non ferrous targets in heavy iron sites heavily hunted..and quiet easily i might add. Keith

Here’s a good very of Keith demonstrating how to adjust the Salinity Balance on the MDT 8000 in bad dirt. (Thanks Keith!) Aaron Keith

Hey guys! Check out this video Keith Southern has done demonstrating the TARSACCI’s extraordinary ability to work right next to BIG iron! Please note the iron used here is NOT a modern hammer thats a 1850s style blacksmith iron hammer..thats one tough thing to do right there. Its shouldn’t be possible since the hammers bigger than the penny and the hammers under the coil at same time penny the penny is. The field of distortion is crazy! This should be particularly interesting to those of us hunting in old house, field and campsites. HH! Aaron

It was a rather strange day today ......broad spectrum of finds and dates of coins. BUT .........I got a tiny 9ct gold stud earring in black sand mix. A nice old penny, the other penny is just too far gone to see a date. Another coin for the scrap. Hubby ran off with the stainless steel hose clip thingys......guess some junk is useful eh?

Went out with 3 hunting buddies slopping in the muddy blackish sand for a few coins and a small 1.3gr 9ct gold ring. Still waiting for beaches to do more of a move. Photo of my medium dug hole which only produced an old 20 cent, but happy with depth the Tarsacci got. The others only got 3 coins between them so hard hunting with so few targets around at the moment. Happy with 1944 shilling......1946 3d is toast.

Back to Maraetai Beach Monday as tide was a little further out this time. Dug a crater for the shield/badge which so far I cant ID, and even the metal has me beat. Its not lead, iron, aluminium, silver. Possibly pewter? Anyway, it is busy soaking but awfully fragile. Not fragile in its thickness, but fragile from sea crust and age. Most unusual to have the word Chancellor on the back, with embossed fleur de lis on the front. Maybe of French origin??? The crusty ring cleaned up well. Not many finds, but unusual finds....which is what interests me more. Again, trash and all......😉

I purchased my Tarsacci in February of 2019. It is # 000029 R1. Does anyone else care to share their information? If you are a salt water hunter I recommend this detector to all. It’s negative side for me is no additional coils are available and the 8” x 11” just seems small out of the water. This is only my opinion.

Maraetai Beach, NZ.....one of the most hunted beaches by PI's, VLF's and a local experienced resident with an Equinox 800. Hopefully beach will be on the move shortly by the looks of this lot. Finding an apostle teaspoon was the biggest surprise!!!! Photos is trash and all, then a bit of a clean up. Crustys were DEEP! Broke most of the blobby crud off coins before photo so I had an idea of what I had.

I did this video last week at one of my bullet places with some hot dirt. I mainly was just trying some new settings on the machine to see how it would respond. I dug several bullets and towards the end of this one, you'll see a deeper bullet "live" dig between the Equinox 800 and Tarsacci. It wasn't meant to be a comparison video but I had both machines with me and was signal checking as I went along. The Nox is usually pretty good for me but I was kinda surprised that on some of the deeper bullets, I didn't get the best of signal. By mistake, I cut out the settings for the Nox....which was Park 1, sens 20, recovery 4, Fe2 = 2. I like Park 1 for most of my hunting these days and I did cycle through the modes while I was signal checking to see if any others responded better. They did not. The Tarsacci impresses me more and more every time I use it.

Tarsacci MDT-8000 Data & User Reviews

I found this video on u-tube yesterday. Not sure who shot it. Everyone can nit pick a video but .. i think for the most part this was a pretty fair comparison on how people run the machine. Note the Nox is in beach 1, recovery 2 and sensitivity at 22..... everything else looked pretty good i didnt see any glaring things that might give more depth. The MDT .... couple of things i would have done..... ran threshold at 0 AND in the wet sand i run in 12 or 18 khz.... there another 1 1/2" gain to be had there. Here in my sand a nickel at about 11" on the Nox changes to read IRON. The MDT will have a bouncy screen..... but it will give you mixed reading and you WILL check that target. Tom said he could get a nickel at 17" ..... hes got mad skills...... but this shows i think that most might get a nickel at 15" and more once they have a little more time on it. Im not bad with both these machines and i dont think my results would have been much different....... based on how i hunt with these machines. Me and another guy did testing on a 3 gram 10k gold ring....... in those same conditions at the surf edge..... MDT was 14" the Nox 12". We didnt under or over run either machine ...... because we wanted to know just which machine was better for our use on our beaches. Here ya go take a look.

Photo taken last year of cleaned and preserved military buttons from 12th Regiment in NZ Land Wars 1860s using Treborius preservation wax. This was when I was getting started with the Tarsacci. As I was far more familiar with the XP Deus, it found the majority of these, but then when I thought I had cleaned out my gridded patch, I swapped to the Tarsacci and found about another 6 at greater depths in highly mineralised soil. It is a crying shame finding these in such condition.....deteriorated from age, fertilisers, lime, animal urine and soil minerals.

I am frankly surprised that there has been no mention of the Tarsacci MDT 8000 on this prospecting forum. At least I saw none when I did a search of this forum. This detector intrigues me. Supposedly not a PI nor a VLF. Maybe ground breaking tech. Depth somewhere in between a GPX and a VLF but with almost full depth discrimination. It's mainly been marketed as a beach machine but the same features that make it excel on the beach may also be good for hot ground. I am sure it is not a panacea for whatever woes you have with your current machine. It seems you only have the choice of one coil, a 9x11. The tones sound different than what most people are used to. It's not as deep as a GPX or maybe not even a TDI? I don't know, not much info out there as this detector has only been available since mid-December. There are plenty of ways to pick this detector apart that I have not listed but let's look at the positive aspects of it. The Tarsacci may be the first detector that offers better depth than a VLF yet retains good discrimination both tonally and with a VDI number. The manufacturer does not tout it as being hot on small gold but there are a few anecdotal references on forums or youtube questioning whether it may be OK. I dont think it will equal a really hot VLF operating in a high KHZ range but I for one do not care. I get tired of scratching for fly-poop and would welcome a DISCRIMINATING detector that would give me greater depth in hot ground. I know that I am old enough if I dig ten deep nails I am about done for a while so the old proverb of "dig it all" doesn't work for me any more. One thing that really struck me is the ability to use the salt balance feature to totally eliminate certain(many?) hotrocks. I can think of more than a few scenarios where this detectors capabilities may produce some gold in the poke. So yes, I am surprised I see no discussion or even a mention of it as a candidate for a gold nugget machine. Tarsacci MDT 8000 Data & Reviews

French speaking with english subtitles. Nice finds but wish he showed more of the detector in action.

Relics & Rings Published on Jan 21, 2019 - Going over the menus and setting on the Tarsacci to see how they affect a few targets in the ground.

Coins, bits, fishing sinkers and half a ring from beach last week in NZ. We have new 10, 20 and 50 cent cupro nickle coins which just degrade and rust in the sea salt or even the soil. The bad ones I just put between a cloth and a few whacks with a hammer to get the crud off, either rotary tumble with malt vinegar and salt or if Im feeling vicious.....into a container of CLR (calcium, lime and rust remover), then a container of water, finaly container of baking soda and water. Banks here will only accept coins that are recognizable.....no matter the colour, as in rotary tumbling I plonk the 10c cupro copper with "silver" 20 and 50's and they all come out a pretty pink! Only advantage of cupro nickle is they are magnetic.......using a 120kg pull neodymium is interesting fun !!!!!! However, what the photo does say is they were deep and bèen in the sand a long time.....and that is from a beach which is constantly detected by others.

To correct rumours floating around, there are NO Tarsacci agents in NZ. As I was the first to bring the Tarsacci into NZ early 2019, I feel confident enough with my hours on this unit to offer any help to end users in understanding and using this detector. I am not associated with the company, but my passion for detecting and honesty of feedback was appreciated …..hence the later development and arrival of the NZ specific Coil designed for our black sand conditions, but it also does exceptionally well on our east coast quartz sand beaches, mud and mineralised dirt too. The following is a recent cut and paste from this forum which I took as a personal slur whether the writer intended it to be so or not. The link he provided is to an article I wrote in June 2019, yet in January 2020 and as a fellow Kiwi who belongs to that same NZ forum as myself, it raises questions as to the intent of his comment. I would have expected a call to the horse’s mouth, so I say to you…..you can bag the “guy”.....but not the lady! I “promote” by way of letting interested readers “aware” of ANY NEW detector or new technology irrespective of the manufacturer. These are exciting years as MENSA brains are aplenty so the bar is getting pushed higher by demand and design and whilst I am able to do 6 hour stints, I’m making the most of it with whatever detector does the job I use it for. “Some guy went on a NZ prospecting forum and tried to promote them saying they've made a special coil for NZ conditions for the detector which put a bad taste in my mouth knowing it was a lie. Not sure if he's associated with them or not, I hope not. https://community.paydirt.co.nz/t/tarsacci-mdt-8000-with-new-specific-nz-coil-release/3826” OK, on a lighter note, Phrunt has also shown you photos of our famous Titanomagnetic black sand. The composition of this magnetic sand is made up of 82% magnetite, 8% Iron Oxide, 8% Titanium, Silica, Manganese, Vanadium, and Phosphorous. It originates off the west coast of NZ at Taranaki, and this black iron ore sand is smelted at the Glenbrook Steel Mill and exported overseas. Concentrations of iron vary up and down the west coast…. 3rd degree burns on barefeet have been heard of in the heat of Summer! You can all appreciate the challenge for ANY detector in these conditions. Just forget a VLF, a Pulse Induction will cope but it can be hard going. The NZ specific coil on the Tarsacci MDT8000 has only been up against a Tesoro Sand Shark, Sea Hunter Mk2, and GPX5000 so far in this black sand and found targets the other 3 failed on. Don’t get me wrong, the unit is not the holy grail…...It will still overload in places but the settings can be manipulated to gain success and a quiet unit…..and yes I have found rings…..albeit had to be quick and deep with the scoop as parts of the black beach has like liquefaction sand so the hole fills in nearly instantly. My apologies if this post is rather verbose, but I needed to address and clarify some points. I see Steve H. raised his eyebrows at a guy claiming the unit cost over $4000…...and rightly so. Cost is USD $1495 plus freight which still doesn’t convert to NZD $4000…….even on the worst exchange rate plus duty etc. Just think he was trying to put people off buying!

I am copying part of a post by Badger in NH on the Dankowski forum. Will this beach performance transfer over to hot dirt and more nuggets? I don't know but this guys results are certainly interesting. “For the depth testing I had a silver quarter, a silver dime and a medium sized mans 14k gold ring. I had drilled tiny holes in the center of the coins, ran a nylon string through each one and tied a knot on the end. This is to ensure that coins stay flat when buried. I would bury the coin at 15 inches and slowly pull the coin towards the surface a little at a time until it just came into detection range. When I reached the edge of the max depth that the coin could be detected, I grabbed the string where it came out of the sand, pulled up the coin and measured the length of the string. It worked perfectly. The gold ring is attached to the end of a fabric measuring tape. I tested the Tarsacci MDT 8000 against the Minelab Equinox 800. Settings were - Tarsacci - GB 600, SB 26-30 depending on Freq, Sense 7, Threshold 0, Disc 0, Mix mode. Equinox - Beach 1, Sense 23, 2 tones, AM on, recovery 6. To achieve a max depth designation, the detector must have a clear repeatable non-ferrous tone and reasonably accurate numerical ID. Tarsacci max depth on the silver Quarter was 13". Equinox was 10". Tarsacci max depth on the silver Dime was 12.5". Equinox was 9". (All the Tarsacci frequencies picked up the coins at max depth but 6.4 kHz sounded best.) Tarsacci max depth on the gold ring was 13". (All freqs picked it up but 18 kHz sounded best) Equinox had an iffy signal at 11" and 10" but only got a decent tone and ID at 9". I tried radically changing the GB number on the Tarsacci to see what that would do but came back to 600 because it got the best depth. I forgot to test Black Sand mode but will do that another time. So the Tarsacci wins the depth test by a large margin. I am extremely happy with it.” Tarsacci MDT 8000 Data & Reviews

Detected a stretch of a river that had some erosion on the banks and sand removed down to the gravels. I dug up many coins including a buffalo nickel and a silver dime that someone was going to make into a ring. The best find was a 14k ladies ring 3.1g (not a genuine stone). Also dug up what looked like a white gold ring turned out to be stainless steel. The tarsacci has good recovery speed like the T2 worked great in the trashy area with broken pieces of rusted old steel cans, bottles caps, bits and pieces of iron along with all the newer junk tossed into the river. The tarsacci worked better than my T2 it found targets in a area I couldn’t use the T2. The 2 wheat pennies were dug up at a old park 6-7 inches deep. The tarsacci goes deeper it’s just that my ctx did a good job sniffing out most of the oldies at this old park.

Yesterday hunted a old 1850’s settlement here in California and used 9khz, sens 9, threshold 0, blacksand On, mixed mode. If I turned blacksand off machine becomes a bit erratic so I left blacksand On. When I got home I did a air test with a nickel 9khz, sens 9, threshold-1, blacksand Off. I found that using threshold-1, blacksand Off you will get less depth a little more than 1/2 inch compared to threshold 0, blacksand On. Also helps with EMI if hunting around buildings. Anybody else use blacksand mode while hunting? Here’s a pic of my finds from the old settlement. pistol balls, rivets, rusty nails (still getting fooled on some) and some modern trash.