Is Garrett About To Release A New Gold Prospecting Pi?

[cudamark]

So far, it's WiFi signals that give me the most fits.

[phrunt]

One spot with my 4500 was next to a highway, well what we call a highway in NZ, a two lane road with a car about every 20 minutes ?  I was detecting about 30 to 100 feet from the road above the road surface on a hillside.  It was funny as you knew the cars were coming before they were in sight as the detector let you know.

When cars were coming my GPX would go nutty before they got to me, after they passed it quietened down quickly.   Every car seemed to do it, I thought maybe their alternator.   I haven't had the 6000 there as it's got too many hot rocks to bother. 

 

[jasong]

10 minutes ago, phrunt said:

The reason I'm confident it's a PI is the coil size, looks to be 11", unlikely to sell a VLF prospecting machine with an 11" as stock.  Also their most powerful gold prospecting detector ever made (By Garrett) is unlikely to be a VLF when they have the ATX on their books. 

All good points. You are probably right, I just don't want to make to many assumptions since I learned from the Vanquish release. 

I'm still hoping we all get surprised and it's something new like this half sine machine.

[jasong]

7 minutes ago, phrunt said:

Every car seemed to do it, I thought maybe their alternator.

Yep, alternators generate noise. Also just sparks and combustion, they can both be essentially wide-band EMI impulses generating huge swaths of interference. Lightning is basically just a massive version of a spark plug, and we definitely hear lightning.

[GotAU?]

My SDC was and now my 6k are all quiet with a cellphone on and even when calling with it- maybe a EMI difference between phone models?

[jasong]

Yeah different phones definitely affect detectors differently. I had an S20 and it was ok with the 6000. Broke the screen, upgraded to a smaller S22, this phone doesn't play as well with the 6000.

Oddly though, sometimes worse than others. It's another thing that leads me to believe the 6000 reaches a tipping point where it's noise algorithms get overwhelmed with too much input/stimulus, and it subsequently loses stability in a feedback loop where it's own corrections cause further instability. It's not really any 1 specific thing, but being exposed to a combination of additive things, including it's own self. 

[GotAU?]

HF handheld radios as well- my GMRS handheld on low power is fine, but noisy when transmitting on high power (5watts). They are pretty cheap though and probably bleed all over the band.

[Jeff McClendon]

7 hours ago, jasong said:

Garrett can definitely score a massive win just by allowing/providing for a good coil selection. Especially if some clever manufacturer out there can work some magic and increase coil performance with some new concepts/designs.

I'd love to be able to mitigate the 6000 EMI by using the 14", but there is no way to use a coil that big in brush like this. This is what I detect in:

The 14" limits me to grassy patches only, and there is never gold there. Even the 11" is almost too big.

The EMI issue for some reason seems worse in the Rockies, and I can't detect here until June when the snow melts, otherwise I'd have been posting about the problem a lot earlier.

In AZ/NV I ran into noise, but it was doable. Here though, it's not just noise - the detector just loses stability entirely and I have to constantly stop, reset, wait, retry. Get 10 mins of detecting in, then lose stability entirely again. Rinse, repeat.

Maybe higher elevation, closer to planes? I don't know, but it's enough to make me extremely hopeful this Garrett machine performs at least somewhat ok so that I can sell this 6000 now since ML won't even acknowledge a problem. 

They've definitely left the door wide open for a competitor to walk right in now though. If Garrett is smart they will have gotten some experienced prospectors who understand these deficiencies and openings to test their new prospecting machine and design accordingly...

This is the kind of terrain I often need a PI for. 10,000+feet elevation, really hot ground and very few flat/open areas. The GPX 6000 11" mono is okay for some of it. The 14" DD isn't due to its size and weight, even though I need to use it since there are big power lines and military/civilian flight paths in the vicinity of both sites. The SDC 2300 was noisy and hard to handle at these places too. The GPX 5000 handled it the best but wore me out even with smaller mono and DD coils.

Maybe the new smaller mono coils for the GPX 6000 will be much better for EMI and for hot rock handling.......

Or, maybe this new Garrett detector will really be a PI that might work better in the Rockies.

[phrunt]

I have an order in for the NF 8.5"x6", 12"x7" and Coiltek 14x9" so I'll let you know if there is any difference with EMI as they're likely to arrive here before the USA.  Hopefully Garrett understands the importance of coils and releases their machine with a satisfactory range of coils right from the start.