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I have ordered a new size X-coil, it's a 12x8" X-Coil, It's already in the post however it's delayed in shipping due to international shipping delays the world over. Hopefully this coil arrives soon. I am very excited about it as I think it will be the perfect size for NZ. It's even in NZ's black and white colours. This should be good in our rocky terrain on small gold.

Currently using an SP01 and matching twin Speakers, volume on the Z is 8 volume on Sp01 around 7.5 if not using the Sp01 Volume on the Z is 11, with these settings and my hearing am not sure am getting the benefit of the Sp01, so as above would appreciate comments on twin WM12's ( Speakers are high on the Z Harness along with the WM12, the SP01 in the Z Harness backpack) Will look at setting up the SP01 and the Twin Speakers on Margaret's 2300 with a Transmitter/Receiver driving the Sp01. Thanks Peter

'ello, 'ello, 'ello, what's all this then? https://www.nuggetfinder.com.au Wonder how the dongle is done?

I was very keen to go for a gold detect this weekend, only problem is the weather forecast wasn't really detecting weather, I wanted to go back to the spot I did very well last weekend where I found .865 of a gram I just had a funny feeling there was more in that hole as I was getting faint signals with the GPZ but at the time I wasn't sure if that was just the hot rocks, this particular spot is full of hot rocks of all shapes and sizes, right down to pea size up to giant bolder. I was hoping my assumption there might be more gold there would be correct. There was quite a bit of snow overnight but the skies had cleared and went nice and blue so I sent JW a text message asking what the weather was doing up his way seeing he lives 10 minutes from where I was going to look for my gold. He responded it wasn't looking too good so he will decide when I arrive if he wants to go detecting. Nothing was stopping me however, I had a mission and I was determined to find gold! About 10 minutes after I left my house things went downhill with the snow Started to get pretty thick, fortunately they'd plowed the road but it was still slowing coming down. Then up ahead the traffic was all at a stop, by traffic I mean the one car in front of me 🙂 It was due to a car that thought it would be wise to tow a caravan in the snow. Not a good idea, the road was icy and slippery. Things did not go well for them, they lost control, spun around and their caravan basically exploded. Not much left of it. Further up the road the weather was getting worse, and I'd forgot to put my chains in the car, if it got too bad I'd have to turn back. After a bit more driving as I got towards the lake nearer to JW's house the skies cleared and there was no snow up that way. I stopped at the shops to get a few things and picked up a tool from the hardware store expecting to have to smash through rock to recover nuggets like JW has been doing. That seems to be the way nuggets are mostly found at this spot, my nugget in the hole last weekend was a bit unusual. JW always goes straight to detecting the rock where he's doing very well, 10 or so little nuggets most days. I got to JW's and he decided the weather was good enough so off we went. JW went to his rock wall again, that thing just keeps on giving.... and I went to my hole. It was not long at all and I had my first nugget, then another.... and another, they just kept coming. The damp soil I suspect was making them stand out even more, both JW and I have noticed this in the past, they light up in wet soil. I had my first 3 within about 30 minutes I would guess... I took my watch off during the virus lock down as I never needed to know the time anymore and I've never put it back on. I got used to not caring what time it is. That little guy is 0.034 of a gram, and the 10" X-coil found it with no troubles at all. I run my GPZ in HY Norrmal, Manual GB with gain on maximum, all else defaults. I don't bother with the little yellow ferrite ring, I feel it doesn't help at all in our soil. I don't understand Minelab's decision not to make a small coil, they probably don't even know the full potential of the GPZ on small gold as with a small coil it's absolutely deadly, the tiniest bits very comparable to a high frequency VLF like the Gold Monster. I think with the 8" coil it will easily match the Gold Monster. I think they didn't want to take the SDC 2300's market away from the GPZ owners, they'd rather sell them a second detector than a coil - more profit! And here is a video of the detector response on that tiny little nugget, insanely sensitive. I can't wait for my 12x8" and 8" round to arrive, you would think it would not be possible to get more sensitive than the 10". This was my first time finding one so tiny with the GPZ, JW does it all the time and I was watching him do it last weekend so I was using that as a learning experience of what to listen for. I just kept scraping more off the hole in layers, I was having a bit of trouble with tiny hot rocks but I didn't want to change off HY normal / max gain to calm the hot rocks down so I just kept fishing them out whenever there was one there and throwing them far away, often using the Nox to assist with narrowing their location down. During my digging I found a weird little skull, maybe a dinosaur 🙂 There was other bones right next to my hole too, perhaps an animal had been using my hole as it's dining room. The gold didn't stop coming, I've never had a day like this, I had so many bits by now I had lost count, I didn't even bother taking photos as that would waste valuable digging time. I just kept scraping more away and detecting each layer after removing the hot rocks by using the Equinox with 6" coil and picking out any rock that it detect as a hotrock (-8/-9).... If you've got good gold eyes you may spot the bit of gold in the photo below, I spotted it sitting in my scrape. And this was it. I got to the point a big rock was in my way so I had to swing around and attack it from the other side where the sticks are This side was a bit wild, you can now see how much I've dug out, the original ground layer, it was on a downhill slope. right up where a tree root was I had a really nice signal with the GPZ, it was too loud so I thought perhaps a bullet or something so I grabbed the Equinox to see what it would come up with, it had no signal. I removed a bit more soil then suddenly I had a solid 16. I used the Equinox to recover the target and to my surprise......... The biggest nugget I've ever found!!!!!!!!!! \ Oh yea! a beauty. You'll see up above that my little tiny bottle, it's my emergency bottle that I keep inside the zipped up GPZ cover as I have forgotten to bring a bottle a few times I keep that little guy as my spare. Fortunately I did as I sure needed it on this day. I took the following photo today as I went back today to hunt the spot again, this photo shows exactly where I found the big nugget. It was on top of that rock below the tree root. I found a few more nuggets, another 4 I think after the big one but I didn't take any photos, it was starting to get dark so I met back up with JW to see how he'd done on his rock wall, he'd got 9 nuggets, not bad! He was impressed with my whopper and my haul, it is a very big nugget for NZ. We walked the 20 or so minute hike back to the car but as we got close to the car for some reason I checked my pocket to see if my gold was there, and it wasn't! $#@$#@$#@ My heart stopped! We went into panic mode checking my pockets 20 times and emptying out my backpack, nope! Nowhere, it was very dark now and my phones light wasn't helping much. We decided rather than walk back with my phone light we'd go back to JW's house and get a torch and come back and look for it, it either had to be on the path we took or any of the last areas we walked at the nugget spot. We arrived back with the Torch, JW was a lot more confident we'd find it than I was. He said we'd be best off going back to the spot as it likely fell out of my pocket when I was crouching down packing all my stuff back into my bag. We retraced our steps back at the nugget spot and within about 10 minutes I spotted it, sitting in the long dead sparse grass!!! Thank goodness! That was a close call, my best gold day ever and I'd lost it all. Now for the weigh in. All the little ones, I can't even remember how many, 15 I think it was for 2.113 grams And the monster! 4.081 grams!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The total for my best day ever, 6.195 grams! JW offered for me to stay at his place but I wanted to go home and show my wife my find, I didn't expect my 9 year old daughter to still be awake as I got home about 9.30pm and her bed time is 8.30 but my wife let her stay up to see my big nugget, she was very excited and shocked to see how big it was. I had plans to go back first thing in the morning to start again, this hole had to have more, I dug my last one about 5 minutes before stopping last night so I was sure it wasn't finished. This time I was going to come more prepared, better pants with a zip up pocket to hold my gold bottle and a bigger white bottle so I can't lose it after the previous scare, a crow bar as we call them or San Angelo bar in America I believe? and a big magnet on a pole to try help with the little hot rocks. The ground was a bit frozen when I arrived but not too bad. The magnet on a stick is cool, and worked well, shrinks down to put in my backpack too, it helped clear up the hot rocks quickly. A pretty big strong magnet on it. I had to give the area a tidy up and clear all the sticks before starting as I was heading that direction with my digging. Doesn't help with these giant hot rocks though, but the crow bar dig them out and moved them for me, I'm certain they mask the gold targets when they're nearby A quick video of the Nox on the hot rocks It came in handy for giving me an ID on them. Day two was going well too, I'd lost count again on how many nuggets only taking photos of the bigger ones. Quite meaty! And another one! This rock even had a little one stuck in it. I had to be home by 3pm so I called it quits, JW is still there now, hopefully he finds a big one! 🤞 So my total for today 11 Nuggets for 3.310 grams, and my two day total 9.546 grams, what a weekend! I love the 10" X-coil on the GPZ, what a killer combination. I'm really excited about the smaller sizes coming (8" and 12x8")

I haven't had a chance to go prospecting since our lock down ended a few weeks ago, once lock down ended I was busy catching up on everything that couldn't be done in lock down 🙂 NZ has done a stellar job in eradicating the virus so our lives are essentially back to normal now except for no International tourists which in our part of the country are a big part of our economy. We haven't had any new cases in some time and there is now only one person left in the entire country that is in quarantine with the virus. The one case left is on the North Island, so no problem for me down the bottom of the South Island 🙂 Every morning lately has been a heavy frost so I was intending to do my gold hunt in the afternoon once the ground thaws out. This was my yard before I left. A bit chilly 🙂 It was good to get out prospecting again, my wife and daughter wanted to tag along as they were going to ride their bikes along the cycle trails in the area so my day was limited, I only had a couple of hours. We parked up and I walked to my usual spot and showed them where I'd be so they could come back and find me. My first target was a shotgun pellet, damn it, I'd forgotten they existed, I had a hard enough time remembering how to use my detector it's been so long 🙂 I was then walking across to the spot I wanted to have a snoop around and on my walk there I got a signal, it wasn't a booming target and it sounded too good to be a shotgun pellet. I dug the surface away and the signal was still there, looking positive, it was at this point I took a quick video in case I was lucky enough that after only about 15 minutes I had my first nugget. I wasn't too sure on this one as the spot where it was located didn't really feel right, not the usual place we'd been finding gold around this spot so I turned the video off and started the recovery, possibly expecting a deep old bullet shell or something. It was a really scrubby area too, lots of prickle bushes and old sticks everywhere. In all of my excitement of my first find of the day I didn't even get a photo of the area, but the video shows it. I had to dig a fair way down to get to my target, It was stuck in some layers of the rock which I had to smash out to get to it. A decent size too! woohooo, what a start. I like when they're big enough my Carrot narrows them down. Just after I'd found the nugget I was rechecking the area and heard a bike pull up, it was JW, we hadn't seen each other in some time due to the lock down but he'd been coming to this spot again the last few weeks once lock down ended. We had a chat then got stuck back into it, he went to his usual spot where he's been doing very well, and I went back exploring the side I've been attacking. No good targets for about 40 minutes now then in between some bedrock I had another nice sounding target that survived a few scrapes of the pick, always promising. These small coils are just brilliant for our hunting grounds here, the smaller the coil the better, the small 10" X-coil has brought this old hunted out area back to life as you can get into all these little tight spots and it paid off again, the coil only just fit between these rocks too, there is still a lot of ground the 10" is too big for but it does get a majority of it. I'm no photographer 🙂 but in the shadow in front of my coil is the dig hole, right between the two rocks. A bigger coil would have missed this gold. The bedrock is shallow here but I have done this ground with the Equinox a few times and missed this piece. If you look hard you'll see the crack in the bedrock where it was. And the nugget, typical sort of nugget for this area, all water worn looking smooth bits even though none of the rocks around the area are rounded water worn rocks. A few more junk targets and my phone dinged, it was my wife saying shes done bike riding and was on her way back to collect me so I walked over to see how JW was doing. I had heard him banging away at the rock for ages while I was detecting around so I assumed he'd done well. When I arrived he was digging out a big hole in the bedrock cliff face, all the soil was out of the crack and he was breaking apart the rock with his screw driver and hammer. So far he had one bit of gold but another signal was in there, so we tried to use my Carrot to narrow it down, no luck so he kept smashing away. He had created that big hole, the big bit of rock at the bottom of the photo was from the hole, the rest were thrown down the side off the cliff. After smashing some more up and trying to find it he still had no luck so we tried the Carrot again, this time it picked it up, real good. It sure helped speed up the recovery. A big one too! Carrot detectable size again. Unusual to get biggish ones and now we've both got one! He checked the hole again, and another signal A tiny one!, Rechecked again...... another signal, unbelievable. A lot more smashing out of the rock and out it pops The hole was getting bigger and bigger And more kept popping out. My wife and daughter arrived on their bikes now to collect me so I called them over to see the hole that keeps giving, it still had a signal in it now that we were working on recovering, each target as needing more rock smashed out This 10" Coil can really pick up some incredibly small nuggets. And they just kept coming, my family were watching on with interest. More nuggets kept coming out then JW checked the soil and crumbled up rocks that came out of the hole and more signals, all over the place Absolutely nuts, what a hole! All from that one hole,all were in the rock needing smashed out. I had a ball helping with that recovery, 13 nuggets at 1.8 grams total weight. JW said yesterday he found a similar hole on the same cliff face with 10 pieces in it. And my total, sorry for the glary photo, was taken at night once I got home, and the houses LED lights mess up photos. 0.865 grams for 2 nuggets, 0.76 of that is the big one. I really love the small GPZ X-coils, I can not wait for my 12x8" X-coil to arrive as it may get into the spots the 10" coil can't.

U.S. dealers are including the 19” coil free with GPZ 7000 purchases for a limited time. I’m not sure if this is being offered in Australia.

I'm not shy about it. Yup. I have big clumsy feet. The good news is it gives me stabilizing ballast should sobriety forsake me. The bad news is it's hell on GPZ 7000 lower shafts. I have broken several. To make matters worse, the lines of communication between my big feet and my small command and control center often get disrupted somewhere between my gullet and my gizzard which allows my big feet to proceed on a different heading than the rest of me. Oops, there goes another GPZ 7000 lower shaft. But I don't take full responsibility for all of these broken lower shafts. I don't recall ever breaking the good ol' GPX lower shaft and they fit at least 10 different detectors and cost less than half of a GPZ lower shaft. So I lay most of the blame at the feet of Minelab and not because of the feet of Klunker. The shaft is just plain flimsy. Being a "tight wad" by nature I have tried numerous times to repair a broken lower shaft using glues, epoxies, tape, splints and every flavor of bubble gum you can imagine. Nothing worked. I finally came up with the idea of totally replacing the lower end of the shaft and it work splendidly. This was made from an inch and a quarter by 1 inch pvc plastic pipe tee, a fine toothed saw, a drill, a round file, a sander, a heat gun and a bit of good epoxy. This repair has held up for a couple of dozen trips and survived the icy conditions of early spring detecting, which is when my big feet are at their worst. If anyone is interested I will post instructions

This has happened for awhile so I thought I would throw it out to the experts. The Wireless Module on my 7000 does two things I don't understand and are probably related. 1. It takes an insanely long time to charge and after a couple of days, it takes another insanely long time to charge. 2. When out detecting it runs out of charge before a day of detecting is over. Any thoughts? Thanks...

Why oh why does the WM12 take such an unusually long time to recharge when the GPZ battery charges in a couple of hours, and other electronic equipment charges in (much) less time than that? I am not actually complaining but I am very curious why this is so. Anyone?

According to the Minelab website, the GPZ 7000 is "weather proof" meaning you can use it in the rain. The GPZ 14 coil is waterproof and submersible to a depth of 1 m (3 ft). You can easily detect rivers and shorelines with no fuss! The weatherproof design of the GPZ 7000 allows you to go detecting in rainy or wet conditions. This seems reasonable, it looks that way except the headphone socket on the back of it, in the worst possible location to fill up with water as your coil is on the ground pointing that socket straight up to the rain. The other day JW and I were detecting in the rain and I couldn't help but notice the rain drops landed on the back of the GPZ and the water drops run down into the socket. They just kept dripping down into that 6.35mm socket and it had me worried. Over time I could see quite a lot of water getting in there, eventually it would fill up. I ordered a cover for my GPZ, while it's great for protecting the screen it doesn't cover up the back of the GPZ, leaving that same socket exposed to the rain. The designers of the cover did a good job on the screen and control box but the back is wide open. You can see the exposed socket there, no protection at all from the cover. I'm never in my life going to use that socket so I went on the hunt for some covers for it and found these things They just push into the socket and have a little lug to be able to pull them out when needed. Has anyone bothered with this sort of thing? Is there a need to? I ordered a lot of 10 as they were cheap anyway and I can put them on all of my detectors with the 1/4" sockets as I never use headphones and it's such a big hole for water and dirt to get in. You can get them at Amazon and various other auction sites and electronic stores. https://www.amazon.com/uxcell-Rubber-6-35mm-Microphone-Socket/dp/B00X7C1548/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=6.35mm+Audio+Jack+PC+DVD+Microphone+Socket+Dust+Cover&qid=1582528192&sr=8-1 https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Black-Rubber-6-35mm-Audio-Jack-PC-DVD-Microphone-Socket-Dust-Cover-10PCS-/400985786548

Today I took a short beach swing and didn't find much but it was good to just get out in a sea breeze if you know what I mean. I used the Equinox 800. About midway through my 2+ hours I checked my settings and noticed I had recovery speed on 5. I changed it to 6 and then the thought came to my mind, "What would I do or could I do with the Zed to immulate changing the recovery speed?" I've used the 800 in many different settings so far but mostly the beach. I've seen the videos of nails next to good targets. How do YOU tease the good targets out of trash like the 800?

JW contacted me in the morning saying he's got the day off work so if I wanted to go for a detect jump in my car and head on over to his place. This is always a hell yes from me, the world would have to be ending to stop me.... oh uhm... whoops 🙂 maybe more than the world ending. We were going back to the exact same spot we were at the previous mission so figured I'd either use the 15x10" X-coil or the 10" X-coil, but because the area is very rocky I went with the 10", you need as small of a coil as possible for this terrain. The 10" can get into some pretty tight spaces. Gold here would be missed with any bigger of a coil. JW noticed our Davsgold picks looked a little different, this is odd as we both have the same pick so we compared them The years of wear on JW's pick is pretty evident, his pick has gone through hell smashing up schist for years 🙂 He needs to give it a sharpen, the sharp point on mine is very handy. I've also upgraded the magnet I had on my pick, it's been excellent. I drilled out a 30mm deep by 20mm round hole in my pick and dropped the strongest magnet I could buy into it with the same dimensions. Now not only is the base of my pick magnetic, the sides are too, it sucks up ferrous junk like mad. I'm very happy with it. I can move the black sand around on it 🙂 JW was back detecting his highly productive cliff edge armed with his hammer and screwdriver, so I figured I'd go back and check around where I was the other day. It wasn't long and I had a very faint signal, a few scrapes and the signal improved. The bedrock in this spot is about 4 to 9 inches down. It turned out to be quite a nice bit of gold down in the bedrock that required breaking up some bedrock to get to it. For the first time I managed to record a good part of the find on video as I was so confident it was going to be gold. I've wanted to capture a find on video for a long time. Here is a photo of the spot I got it, it was actually quite deep, and the gold was on edge, it's a very skinny bit. My biggest of the day. I spent the next hour or so checking the area slowly. Plenty of pellets but nothing else. I moved back down towards the little gully JW was detecting and on the path we bike in I had a signal, I'd done this path bit the other day with the Nox, I'd spent an hour or two on this small area with it but I missed this piece, maybe just too deep for the Nox. Down through the gravels to the bedrock again. Almost like a little ball 🙂 This round gold is common in this spot, JW's been getting a lot of it. I then realized I forgot to balance to my ferrite ring, seeing I'd gone from the 12" to the 10" X-coil I thought I may as well do it. Again I don't know if I am balanced to it being new to the GPZ but I did the procedure and the noise of the ring all but disappeared after a couple of sweeps over it. The day was getting pretty exciting, I was hoping for a 3rd but for the next few hours I got nothing but pellets... I had a break and drink and watched JW for a while, I usually learn a few things doing this and I was able to see his coil control is far better than mine, he drives that thing around keeping it so close to the ground hugging the rocks while checking the bedrock cracks. The cracks in the bedrock like in this photo can contain gold, but you have to check the entire rock as the gold has proven it can be anywhere in the rock in healed over cracks. As the day was coming to an end I went over to a spot that chased JW away with the abundance of pellets there, they were everywhere!!!! It paid off though, my final nugget for the day This is up on a bedrock ledge, the ground is 10 to 15 feet below where this little ledge is and down deep in the gravels was a bit of gold........ and about 8 pellets 🙂 The gold had a louder and more distinct signal than the pellets. Another ball type bit. And now the weigh in..... My junk Not as bad as last time, I'd already done a lot of the cleaning of the area 😉 Not too bad 🙂 I haven't had three in a while. Almost worth celebrating with a beer at the pub

Now that I've got your attention no JW didn't only get one bit of gold 🙂 He got many but that's his story. I managed one bit. I had to borrow his gold bottle as I forgot my own, I also forgot my harness which is not the best thing to do for someone with a sore back! A week or so ago we went for a detect at a spot on the E-bikes, JW did really well over at a rocky cliff area where gold was getting trapped like a sluice box in the schist. I was detecting some bedrock nearby. My back was terrible at the time due to an injury so I used my Equinox rather than my GPZ. I mostly spent my day digging shot gun pellets but I did manage a bit of gold in a crack in the bedrock, I had only the week before been watching JW smashing gold out of bedrock so when I found this bit I was pretty confident it was gold when the target needed smashed out of bedrock and it was. You can see the thin layer of soil over the bedrock and minor cracks in the rock where I had to smash it out. The smashed up crack above in the coil in this photo and the little bit of gold. I forgot to weigh this one before throwing it in with my gold collection. I wasn't going to bother posting about it as it was just one nugget. That was it for me for the day. JW and I were discussing the virus pandemic yesterday morning as NZ has now locked down it's borders, anyone at all who wants to enter the country needs to go into quarantine for two weeks and he suggested we go for an afternoon detect. I was keen for this as I felt my back was ready to use my GPZ again with the extra weight it has so I jumped in my car and went up to JW's house. We decided we'd go back to the same spot as JW had unfinished business at his very productive little spot and I figured I'd go over the same area I was doing with the Equinox to see what I could get out of it. I hadn't completely finished the area with the Nox as my back got too sore to continue that day. I'm still getting the hang of using my GPZ, I haven't had it long and haven't used it as much as I'd like due to my back injury. It's very much a learning curve for me, it's different to using my GPX and QED. For example I only really learnt yesterday the left and right of the coil are the hot spots, not the center like on my GPX with spiral coils as I was confused recovery targets they were never where I expected them to be 🙂 After a bit of practice with it I've settled on my general settings of HY / Normal with gain of 20 and smoothings off, this seems comfortable enough for me to use in the spots I've tried so far. Everything else is on defaults. I did the ground balance over the ferrite at the start of the day seeing some people say it's necessary, I'm not convinced in my soils it will make a difference but it can't hurt so why not do it. I guess this would be considered balanced to the ferrite? I have no idea, remember I am new the the GPZ but seeing it was setting it off loudly before balancing and afterwards it was like this I can only assume It's done. I'm pretty happy with how the GPZ runs as I was very close to JW, about 60 foot I guess away from his GPZ and they don't seem to bother each other much. I could hear JW chipping away at his cliff edge and I had myself what appeared to be a good target in some bedrock (in the above video you'll also hear JW chipping away at the bedrock), I was confused trying to target where in the rock I needed to smash and couldn't locate where the target was, the rock was solid hard rock and hitting it with my pick wasn't doing much. I went over to JW and asked if he'd mind helping, he came over and we attempted to get the bit of gold out, I'd been at it for about 20 minutes already and with JW's assistance and another 15 or so minutes we had smashed it out, JW instructed me on following the lines in the schist to try smash it out in the layers, working my way from the edge to where the nugget is. My Davsgold Gold Digger pick was copping a beating taking on this rock but I had no choice. My hand didn't enjoy it either, hitting the rock with the pick was hard work 🙂 You can see here I'd been smashing out layers of it to try get to the spot with the gold. I was originally a bit confused with where the gold was, thinking it was in a big crack in the bedrock, but it turned out it wasn't in the crack but in the rock itself. That's the crack I cleaned out above, and the smashed out rock below trying to get to it. A few more king hits with rock flying everywhere and the target was out, but it disappeared, we could not find it anywhere!!!! All that work and it was gone. We detected all around the area and the only thing we could find was an odd bit of magnetic metal in the rubble below the rock, at first we thought it was a bit off my pick but it was weird and one side smooth and shiny. When I got home and put it under my phones microscope I found it's slightly magnetic, you can see the black sand and also a little bit of a metal substance stuck to it. Very weird, this likely came out of the rock as it wasn't there prior to breaking up the schist. We assumed that was the target in the rock and JW went back to his spot to resume his gold recoveries 🙂 I wasn't ready to give up and kept detecting around the area thinking maybe there was still a bit of gold that flung out of it and about 5 minutes later I had it! A little nugget was sitting on the surface. This sun baker had to be my nugget from the rock, it's VERY unlikely there would be a sun baker here. I continued detecting the area for the rest of the afternoon, I was digging a lot of junk, mostly shotgun pellets and little shards of metal and all the ferrous targets I'd left behind using the Nox with it's discrimination 🙂 I had another target I was so sure was going to be gold, I was clearing away the surface soils and the target was down in the bedrock again.... I was so sure it was going to be gold seeing it was in the bedrock I took a video of the target. But no, after smashing out the bedrock the only thing I could find was a damn shot gun pellet that had made itself down into the crack in the bedrock! That damn little pellet was down in that crack! I think it's a steel one too. I called it quits after that one and decided I'd go have a drink and snack and watch JW for a while and see what I could learn, at this point he'd come over to my spot as he was sick of chipping away at the rock in his area and the lucky bugger found two bits of gold in an area I'd been over with my Equinox the week before, I wasn't sure if I went over it with my GPZ but I am pretty sure I had not. The target signals on his GPZ with 10" X-coil were very good, stood out like dogs nuts so there is no way I'd miss them. So my total for the afternoon A bucket load of junk, mostly pellets and little bits of metal And one nugget for 0.086 of a gram. I'll take it, I'm still continuing my pattern of not getting a skunk since getting the GPZ... Before getting the GPZ I regularly found no gold, since getting it I always find at least 1 piece every time I go out.

Well, I have been getting in the hours and have wore out my GPZ 7000 scuff cover / coil cover / skidplate. New genuine Minelab covers are like everything else GPZ rare as hen's teeth. Part number 3011-0286 and very few places on the internet can be found that advertise having them in stock. $62 retail, and Ft. Bedford claims to have them in stock for $48 http://www.fortbedfordmetaldetectors.com/minelab-gpz7000-14x13-coil-cover Miner John has an aftermarket coil at http://razorbackcoils.webs.com/apps/webstore/products/show/5908106 that Chris alerted us to back in May http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/930-gpz-7000-coil-cover-available/ for about the same price. It is twice as thick and has fewer slots that would let dirt get in between the coil and scuff cover. Has anyone tried these out and can report on them?

GPZ 7000 Software Update 2 Get increased performance from your GPZ detector! Minelab is pleased to announce the second software update to our GPZ 7000 detector. This FREE update incorporates a new Ground Smoothing function, a Semi-Auto ground balance setting and Chinese/Mongolian language options. This update is currently NOT COMPATIBLE with XChange 2 - see notes below. Ground Smoothing This function implements selectable noise filters that help deal with difficult ground, especially conductive soils. The new Ground Smoothing options provide several advantages: Reduces noise effects of salty soils Allows detecting in previously ‘off-limits’ locations Achieves maximum depth with both coils Maximises your ground coverage efficiency “With the Locate Patch setting, it is now possible to use Normal Ground Type in very ‘hot’ laterite soil… this is exciting!” Field Tester 1 – Kalgoorlie, WA Semi-Auto This update adds a Semi-Auto option to the Ground Balance Mode. Semi‑Auto gives you these great benefits: Additional control and flexibility for expert users Improved ground balance stability Another option to deal with tricky detecting conditions A specialist tool for expert prospectors “In Semi-Auto mode the GPZ is noticeably quieter over the ground in all modes but especially in Normal Ground Type modes.” Field Tester 3 – Clermont, QLD For further details refer to the brochure here You can download the software here Read the Treasure Talk blog about Ground Smoothing here Firmware Installation Guide Important Notes: 1) Both the GPZ control box under the detector armrest AND the GPZ control pod user interface on top of the handle must be connected together and updated as a pair at the same time. Therefore, if sending your detector to a dealer or service centre, to carry out this update, do not send the control box alone. 2) This update is currently NOT COMPATIBLE with XChange 2 and therefore will make XChange 2 inoperable with the GPZ 7000 detector. Transfer and save Geotrails or Findpoints from your GPZ to XChange 2 before doing the upgrade. A new compatible version of XChange 2 will be available within the next few months, at which time full compatibility will be restored. Any data you have stored on XChange 2 will not be lost when you carry out the GPZ update and when this new version of XChange 2 becomes available. 3) When installing this upgrade, the detector will need to have the universal settings re-selected (e.g. language, weight) and the wireless module re-connected. Basics - click for larger views:

I had my first outing with my GPZ about a week ago with JW, my back was still terribly sore at the time from an injury so I wasn't really doing well and had trouble digging targets, and we were in terribly heavy rain so I was off my game. I went back to the same spot today, the weather was much better, in fact it was far too hot for me. My back has improved a lot, I lasted about 3 hours which I thought's pretty good, my longest detect since I did my back in. This particular place I've always called my Nemesis as I could just never do well there. I've been there probably 25 times and only found gold three from memory. The first time with my Gold Bug Pro which was 1 bit, then the QED with 12x6" X-coil which got 1 bit, then the GPX with 10" X-coil which got 1 bit. I've never got a bit with the Nox or Gold Monster here even though I've used the Nox the most I'd imagine and I'm the most comfortable on it feeling I can use it pretty well. I had a lot more faith in myself today as JW has done very well here with his GPZ and 10" X-Coil so now we were both driving the same machine surely I could come away with a piece. I threw my little ferrite super magic ring on the ground and waved over it, no response unless I rubbed the coil on it so maybe I don't need to do that anymore after doing my Quick start procedure the other day so I just got stuck into it. I've had a few skilled operators suggest I use Manual instead of Auto or Semi Auto, that made sense to me with our mild soils here so I was in manual, I raised and lowered the coil and had no response from the ground so I assumed that I didn't need to do anything so I just got stuck into detecting. I first tried all the mountain goat one gust of wind and you're dead terrain, I get a bit wobbly detecting this stuff as I'm not so good with heights. My first target was a shotgun pellet.... not unexpected, there are many of them around here.... That's good though, it means the detectors working well 🙂 I'm not used to the target noise of the GPZ on these small targets yet, bigger targets sound similar to the GPX but these small things behave differently, it's sort of a wobbly noise, different to the GPX. I kept going, detecting closer to the cliff..... Scary! I did get a target in this area, it wasn't on the surface as it remained after my first scrape and moved on the second, unfortunately, a tiny little bit of some sort of junk I was super impressed with the sensitivity of the 12" X-coil getting these tiny little targets, Gold Monster size bits of junk. I really thought I had a nugget in this photo above, this was just before my dig..... turned out to be another shotgun pellet stuck in the schist bedrock 😞 Now the sun came out, it was terribly hot and I was frustrated looking at the nice cool water below me while I'm up here sweating badly wanting to jump in it to cool off, I really struggle in heat so I moved away from the cliffs and jumped in my car to go back into the terrain JW found his bits last weekend, it's very close by and I could have walked if it wasn't so hot and my drink had run out already 🙂 This next area has lots of good bedrock and didn't seem as junky with the pellets, the issue here is the power lines, I dropped my gain down to 14 from the 20 it was on previously so the machine ran nicer as I couldn't put up with the power line noise as the spot with the bedrock I wanted to detect was basically under the power lines. As I detected further away from them I cranked my gain up again and as I got closer lowered it down, quite easy to do on the GPZ as you just leave it on that option and adjust as necessary. Why do they always put these right where the best bedrock is... I'm sure they did it on purpose. Nice bedrock though... I could see a number of fresh looking dig holes around, I suspect JW's handy work, he was good though, all necessary ones were back filled. 😉 The funny plants are getting annoying, there is a plant that looks like that if you grab onto it and try rip it out it spikes you to death so I wasn't game to touch them, just worked around them. I noticed an area with a lot of dig holes but it was virtually right under the lines, I figured there is no point doing that area but the dig holes seemed to go off in a direction so I instead went down rather than follow the digs and it was only 15 steps from a dig hole and I had a target, quite faint but very obvious. At this point my gain was on 12 to calm down the power lines and I had the detectors volume on 4 as the Steelphase SP01 was attached to the Wm12 and gave me all the volume I could ever want. I did notice if I got between the WM12 and the detector sometimes the audio dropped out for a few seconds and picked up again if I moved, it seems it doesn't like passing the audio through my body, is this normal or is my WM12 a lemon? I would think it's pretty normal passing wireless though your body. I tried changing frequencies but made no difference. I might just use my Quest Wirefree mate as it doesn't seem to do that, similar thing to the WM12 anyway. I dug the target thinking it's probably going to be another shotgun pellet, it was doing the same wobbly type noise, hard to describe the noise.... I did a scrape with the pick and it was still in place, getting hopeful but the bedrock was quite shallow so I just started taking scoops out with my plastic scoop and waving them over the coil, narrowed down a target and it was a bit of gold! Awesome, my first GPZ gold, a tiny little thing.... I rechecked the area and the exact same noise was still there, it sounded like I never even dug the target. So I kept scraping it out and waving the scoop over my coil, a few more scoops with and I had the target. Boom! Another bit of gold. Two from one hole! this doesn't happen to me often. The spot I got them! You can see the detector sitting in the spot still where I got them and if you look up the damn power lines! The two little guys! 🙂 I was done for the day now, it was too hot and my back was pretty sore. I had a goal of finding a bit of gold then I was going to leave, it's lucky it happened when it did as to clean the little bits I had to use the last drop of moisture in my body, my spit came out like pasty thick molasses to clean them. I stumbled back to my car and was lucky. I found a few fruit trees on the walk that were covered in fruit. I got my fluids up eating a bunch of apricots and a few plums. I picked a few for the road too Washed down my KFC with them. Time to head home, my wife had sent me a text message while I was detecting saying I've had a parcel arrive, it was the two coils I've ordered to start exploring for some new ground, I wanted some ground coverage so I can explore and find some ground JW hasn't already done so I think this is partially why I called it quits so early in the day, I wanted to rush home and see the new coils 🙂 15x10 and 17x12" I've tested both of them out already in my backyard, both detect my bits of gold I found today, that means they'll be my perfect exploring coils. I hoped they'd both still have the sensitivity to small gold which they do. I shouldn't say my bits of gold either, my wife confiscated them off me, valentines day gift she said as its valentines day here today 😄 It's the first nuggets I've given her so that's OK. Time for the weigh in. Not too bad! Happy with that. I really like the 12" coil, it's going to to be my everyday use coil.

Well, I tried a new way to get out to this new gold area I found. The gold seemed fairly small, but I had to hike in at least 3 miles to get there. So I tried to drive in another way in hopes of only having to hike in a mile. Of course Google Earth made things seem better than they were (almost like I could drive right there), but in the end I only cut about a mile off the hike (one way). So now I had a decision to make … take my GPZ 14" coil, the GM1000, or what I call my Midget Coil (10" Xcoil). GPZ 14" about killed me getting out there last time so that was out. I love the GM1000 on bedrock, but some of the bedrock here was very hot. Usually in those cases, I will go to my GPZ 10" Xcoil, which I venture to say is at least on par with the SDC 2300 (with the exception of being a little bigger). And the Xcoil is still a pleasure to hike with. So off I went. I started out hitting the areas I had been to before and got some good signals. First piece was only about .1g. Then I started finding slightly bigger .2g pieces. Most of these seemed to be what I call runners. Those are the ones in washes that I find on the sides of the wash, trying to run away when they see me coming. The larger coils tend to lose a bit of depth when checking the sides and depressions. The 10" Xcoil, however, does very well getting in there. Overall, 5 pieces were found (total .75g). Not a lot, but at least half of these finds were detected very carefully with the 14" coil and were missed. The Xcoil was very clear on all but a 1 grainer piece that was about 2" deep on it's side. All in all, it was just a fun day crumb chasing.

So took the gpz out for couple days were I hunt managed to find out that my extra waterproofing didn't work after 20 mins of first day with xcoil so was back to std 14 on day to all and all we had good trip pulled 5 grams for 2 days and 3 nice bits including this one It was all creek hunting and was defanitly impressed the the zeds depth Just hoping with few days sun in a bag rice the xcoil will work normaly again.. Guess I will have to wait for nf coils to be realesed for water ones as the std 14 took on water to even tho they ment to be submersible to 1 mtr

After logging 200 hours behind the Zed pod and unearthing over an ounce of nuggety yellow goodness, I'd like to share my settings with my fellow forum members who would like to take them out for a spin. Since settings like the Gold Mode, Ground Type and Sensitivity are dependent on the local conditions where one is detecting, my focus here is mainly the audio settings. As some of you may know, my audio settings for the GPX range of detectors were very unconventional, and it is no different with the GPZ 7000; at first glance these settings may seem counter-intuitive, but give them a try because you may just be pleasantly surprised. Before getting into the settings proper, I want to mention that they are intended for use with the supplied WM-12 Wireless Module, utilizing its external speaker. I haven't tried it with headphones yet, so feel free to experiment if you use them. I noticed right away that the Zed's pre-set audio out of the box is extremely weak, especially on faint target signals. Using an aftermarket signal enhancer like JP's B&Z booster would work wonders for it, but I surmised that a $10,000 piece of technology would have some kickin' audio amplification and modulation, and the Zed certainly does have! It is VERY IMPORTANT to make the adjustments to the audio functions in the order that they are presented below: A key component to this audio setup is enhancing the signal via the Volume function, which controls the level of amplification of a target's audio response, relative to its signal strength, so we'll start there: adjust the Volume to 15. This will really amplify any faint signal from very small or deep targets. The next audio function is the Threshold Level, which we will adjust to 35. If the threshold level is set too high or too low, faint targets will be missed. A setting of 35 is optimum for this particular combination of audio settings. The Threshold Pitch setting is a matter of personal preference, so adjust it to a tone that is comfortable to your own hearing. I personally prefer a setting of 25, as it supplies a nice full tonal range from a booming bassy bottom through to a crisp, clean high tone when a target signal is encountered. The next function we will adjust is the Audio Smoothing: set it to High. This may seem counter-productive, but it is essential to getting the most distinct target response possible, nice and crisp. I learned this technique long ago from my mentor Larry Salee, a great detectorist whom some of you may remember from his famed "Zip-Zip" series of publications. This leads us on to the next function, Volume Limit, which sets the maximum loudness that a target can make; set too high, it can over-modulate or distort the external speaker and potentially damage your hearing, especially when using headphones. Turn it down to 1, and while swinging the coil over a large metal object such as your pick, gradually increase the setting until the sound is uncomfortably loud; then back it off until the sound is comfortable to listen to. For my hearing, a Volume Limit setting of 3 is perfect. In summary, here are my audio settings back to back: Volume: 15 Threshold Level: 35 Threshold Pitch: 25 Audio Smoothing: High Volume Limit: 3 This audio set-up works with any combination of Gold Mode and Ground Type settings, and is very stable in conjuction with a Sensitivity setting of anywhere from 8 to 15, depending on local conditions, and provides a pleasant, silky-smooth threshold while at the same time delivering a crisp, distinct target response. Please feel free to let me know what you think of these audio settings after giving them a go in your favorite goldfield or nugget patch, especially if you have the oportunity to compare them to your own settings on undisturbed, un-dug targets - preferably gold nuggets! Now for those of you interested, I'd also like to share my complete Zed settings for the greater Rye Patch region of northern Nevada; they handle the area's noisy, variable ground found in most nugget patches extremely well. In addition to the above audio settings, they are: Gold Mode: High Yield Ground Type: Difficult Sensitivity: 15 Ground Balance Mode: Auto Thanks for reading, and happy prospecting!

So my gpz turned up on Friday and I'm super loving it and my 10"x-coil should be here Wednesday, as soon as I got it out the box I grabbed my we test gold ranging from 0.025 to 1.71 gram and shot out to my we test area that happens to be gravel pit in known gold area.. I found for my area in NZ I was geting the best depth and response on general and high yield with audio smoothing off.. I had a play with the ferrite ring with ground balancing then factory reset and ground balance with no ferrite ring.. So my question is does the ferrite ring gb affect depth and sensitivity at all in low to medium ground. What I noticed was our soil and were I hunt in creek beds you hit pockets of high black sand then less etc. I didn't realy notice any difference in performance but I do think that the ferrite gb did run quieter in the ground over all. Does anyone have any tests or input on ferrite balancing vs no ferrite? I plan to get out this weekend for my first hunt with the 10 xcoil all going to plan. So will be sure to put up a link for the YouTube video when made and my finds if any lol I'm checking out new spot

For the last few times out, I haven't been able to balance the 7000 using the ferrite. The detector continues to sound off as I wave the coil over it (with the q.t. button held in).I haven't had that problem before. The detector seemed to be just as sensitive but I am wondering if there is a solution to it not balancing. (I did read through back posts and the only thing I found was a suggestion by JP that after turning the unit on and tuning satisfactorily, turn the unit off. Then turn it on again, tune and continue on to balancing with the ferrite. - I haven't tried that yet)

Hi guys So I have my eye on a gpz 7000 here in nz for sale it's a good price 6500 nzd with 3 battery's and few other extras looks in good condition coil still has original skid plate.. My question is does anyone know the expected life of gpz is buying a 5 year old Machine worth it? Or do I spend extra 3k to get brand new.. Has anyone had any issues on there early model ones through age etc.. Thought I'd just see people opinions before handing over any money etc

Had a friend raise an interesting theory; why didn't ML come up with x-type coils for the 7000 and instead is letting NuggetFinder come up with them? They thought it pretty much confirmed that it means ML is readying a new version/upgraded GPZ-type machine, lighter weight, better ergonomics, up-to-date electronics etc. There certainly is no reason to think this weightlifters detector will remain the way it is when, as Steve and others have been saying, there are lighter, more compact, real world usable detectors out there now (QED for one). Thoughts?

I am after some advice, I purchased a GPZ 7000 late yesterday and of course I am keen to take it out today for a test drive. I am pretty clueless with this machine, although I've watched JW use it many times I've not paid any attention to how he runs it or what he does with it as I never thought I'd be buying one. I think his settings may not be ideal for me yet anyway as he runs it crazy hot, being a beginner I'd probably need more tame stable settings 🙂 JW is unable to be contacted this weekend, Queenstown's big music festival of the year which JW always attends going on for the weekend so he's off at that so I can't get any advice off him for my mission today. I was hoping GPZ users here would be able to give me some advice on what to do. I don't have time to properly read the manual today as I've got a big drive to get to a gold spot, I was thinking I'd just do a quick start and get going but if there is something obvious I should be doing to use it in mild soils please let me know. If the default settings are more suitable for tough soils I'd be wasting my time. I'll have to start reading the manual tonight after I've used it today 🙂 I've ordered a 10" and 12" X-coil for it which I believe to be the best two coils for use in NZ with JW's results. I'm also going to use the Chet method of a longer style adapter patch cable for it, I like the idea of his method and it also makes changing coils easier which I like the idea of. Here's my new toy. Any help greatly appreciated.

Hi guys I'm back after laying low after my nugget find starting to get back into some detecting again.. Still been using my 24k vlf and no way I'd get rid of it its so good.. But I am in need to replace my gpx I sold.. And I can't decide whether to get a gpz and run the small xcoil soon as it's available to buy.. Or run with a gpx 5000 and get my trustie Sadie coil again.. Aparently my gpx I sold ended up with moisture damage on points but was fixed easy but with living on the wet west coast I'm thinking the gpz with its wetherproof housing might be better but the big coil isn't practical for alot what I do creeks bedrock etc but is for old tailings piles.. I was wondering maybe Steve or kiwijw might he able to awnser this how small will the gpz detect will it go as small as say sdc in low to mild ground And 2 is the depth over gpx noticeable on smaller gold Thanks Craig