Detailed Review Of Makro Gold Racer By Steve Herschbach

[nvchris]

Marko Gold Racer has two choices for the 10"x5.5" , DD and a concentric.

[Cabin Fever]

Just got my Gold Racer today and I am extremely pleased!

Out of the box it seems even better built than the original Racer.

I don't have my original to compare side by side because I sold it earlier

this fall in anticipation for the Gold.

The finish has a very nice feel and look.

Little details like the coil cables, connectors, bolts are better quality.

Coil ears are very beefy.

The rods, connectors and even the paint finish are just real nice.

Fire it up and the first thing I notice is smooooooth!

Threshold is very nice and the signal is nice.

Did some quick air tests and this thing is extremely sensitive.

I'm not sure how it will act in the dirt but I got VID #s on sub grain gold in the low 40s.

I didn't expect to get any VID on gold that small.

This thing sees flake gold in the air with no problem.

Did I say smoooooth threshold?

Dam I'm excited to get this thing out nugget hunting.

Bryan

[tvanwho]

Cabin,

 

How much did you have to shell out for the Gold racer?

[Sourdough Scott]

Mine is arriving next week. Yippee. I'm detecting right now in a trashy tailings area. Wish I had it.

[Cabin Fever]

Cabin,

 

How much did you have to shell out for the Gold racer?

I sent you a PM

[Cabin Fever]

I drove by the local elementary school today and noticed a small strip of grass out front

with no snow on it. I couldn't resist.. I brought my new Gold Racer over along with my

CTX to play for an hour. I didn't expect to find much since I hit this last fall..

It was an eye opening experience.

Running my CTX with an open screen except for one line of discrimination across the

bottom the area is pretty quiet.

Fire up the Gold Racer in disc 2 mode, stock settings and the ground came alive!

The amount of tiny pieces of foil is disturbing. This detector is extremely sensitive!

Even though the Gold Racer is hyper sensitive to foil I have hope it still could be a good

gold ring hunter.

What I noticed is that all these tiny foil signals were in the upper 30s low 40s and the

numbers jumped all over the place.

Doing some air testing at home I noticed the Racer locks on to rings hard!

You can't shake the number.

Several gold lady's rings from thin 10k to med. 14k with diamonds each had their own

number. 48 50 51. Different numbers for each ring of course but it locks on hard to

those numbers.

The Gold Racer numbers would bounce around on the foil and even on the little

flat round peel off tops from the plastic juice bottles that give nice steady solid numbers

on my CTX.

If this holds true to in ground real world hunting the Gold Racer might turn out to be a

ring cherry picker when park hunting.

If not it would be near impossible to hunt gold rings in a modern trashy park or ball field.

The Gold Racer locks on to coins hard too.

That's not what I bought it for though. Nugget hunting is what it was designed for

and this detector should do that very well.

Again I was impressed with its very smooth behavior.. Really easy and fun to run.

Feels light and balanced with the stock 5x10. Menu is a breeze just like the original Racer.

Bryan

[Steve Herschbach]

Rings with any machine can be cherry picked by only digging tight, solid target id responses. Basically that will get you rings and the old ring style aluminum pull tabs.

Problem is with a Big Foot coil I can cherry pick a field in a couple hours, and then where are you. Any gold jewelry except a nice round ring will read like aluminum. Ear rings, oddball pendants, chains, etc. all have unreliable target id. So you either keep finding lots of new ground to cherry pick, or start digging those other signals.

Here is a link to the thread that got cross posted from above to Tom's forum along with a great commentary from Keith on the Gold Racer and its sparky response in iron trash. No surprise there for me I must say!

http://www.dankowskidetectors.com/discussions/read.php?2,97472,97491#msg-97491

[Cabin Fever]

I should have probably kept my mouth shut until I get more time on the detector.

When I got my CTX 3030 I liked how it locked up on gold rings and I thought when I was

Out coin hunting in these old parks and school yards that I was going to be able to use

that clue to grab a gold ring now and then while coin hunting without taking time from my

hunt for old coins. Turned out the CTX will lock up on a lot of foil and pull tabs as well.

In my very limited time and testing between the two detectors my Gold Racer noticeably

locks on to gold rings better than my CTX but gives bouncy ID numbers on all the tough

aluminum targets that fool my CTX, so that surprised me.

Way to early to tell of course.. Real world testing will probably bring me back to reality.

This is not what I bought the Gold Racer for anyway.

I do think it's going to be a good gold nugget detector though. Very unique machine.

Bryan

[Steve Herschbach]

I am not a fan of keeping my mouth shut so I hope you do not go there either. Forums where everyone keeps quiet go dead.

I think the Gold Racer is a great jewelry detector myself. But cherry picking will always be cherry picking, no matter the detector.

The thing is it is a matter of degree. Jewelry is not a target, but a near infinite range of targets. Rings are just an easily found subset. Where things get interesting is most other types of jewelry and foil. If you hate foil, use a machine that runs at lower frequencies and run lower gain levels, and you can just miss the foil entirely. Or use a hot machine that detects foil, but ignore jumpy low target id numbers.

There can be a lot of strategy to cherry picking jewelry and some good books written about it. But most jewelry lost stays in the ground. Women's ear rings are the most commonly lost jewelry item, yet the least often found. Easy to see why - nobody likes digging foil.

[Cabin Fever]

I would like to hear some good book recommendations on inland jewelry hunting because

Gold rings have not been "an easily found subset" for me.

My main focus is usually old coins, particularly silver but I would like to do some

dedicated gold jewelry hunting.

I'm embarrassed to say that I have never found a gold ring!

I have been detecting off and on since the early 90s but never took it serious until this year.

I did well on the old coins this year and dug a lot of aluminum hoping for the gold ring but it didn't happen.

Found quite a few pieces of silver jewelry though.

Bryan