New At This But With Old? Detector(s)

[Foiled Again]

Hello!

I have two detectors, both Garrett. Hopefully you won't throw donuts at me for being a Garrett owner.

12 years ago I bought new a GTI 2500, and last week bought a busted GTAx 1250 for <$50 usd. Never really used a detector so I'm miserably noob.

I had to do something since my wife got ahold of the GTI and found a quarter after 5 minutes...so she's hooked and absconded with my GTI

So, I'm now a two detector family. See my followup posts on other topics as I absorb ask dumb questions and learn.

I tried another two detector forums but they were not as technical savvy as I need. Strick's expose' of coil innards scored my attention.

kyle

[JCR]

Welcome from East Texas.  Nice to have your wife as a detecting partner.

[rvpopeye]

Welcome Kyle .  You chose forums wisely .

It's a big plus on the wife getting the detecting bug .

THAT will be priceless EVERY time you want a new detector , only problem is you'll need to get two !   GL+HH 

[Wild Bill]

Hi Kyle!

a while back my wife said she was going to order a Garrett AT Max, I said order me one too.  She did and we both like them.  We both ordered extra coils, she got a Super Sniper, I got a NEL Thunder 10x14 DD and we both got Garrett 5x8 DD coils.  I use a Nokta Gold Kruzer for prospecting.  Here’s what I found that really surprised me.  I have little bits of gold that I’ve found.  I tested several detectors on the gold.  In a tiny zip lock bag I put four tiny pieces of rusty manganese coated quarts particles with tiny specs gold on my highly mineralized northern Nevada ground and covered it with an inch or two of soil.  Combined the four little pieces weighed 0.3 grams.  Several detectors wouldn’t give any signal.  The Kruzer gives a great signal as expected with its sensitive 61 Kh frequency but so did the AT Max with its very low frequency of only 13.6 Kh!  Using the 5x8 Garrett DD the strong signal seemed the same as the Kruzer.  So I told my wife to USE IT!  It works fine.  I was prompted to check after watching a guy in Australia who was using the Max and picking small nuggets.  He had two Mine Lab detectors, Gold Monster and a 7000 PI but was talking about how well the Garrett AT Max was working.  Later on another detector forum I fella was in the California Mother lode using a Gold Kruzer and finding small nuggets and doing pretty good.  He also had a ML Gold Monster.  Anyway someone joined the chat and asked “I have an AT Max, can I use it for nugget hunting?” So someone chimed in and said “No, it doesn’t work.”  I felt bad for the guy that asked if his Garrett would work as the guy saying it wouldn’t is simply wrong!  My wife said… “I don’t wanna dig anything smaller” and my response was “I understand but I’ve seen you dig a lot of pennies and gold is $60 per gram right now!”  It’s about $100 now I guess but she understands where I’m coming from.  I also had a GTI 2500 with a lot of coils and the Treasure Hound two coil attachment.  Someone told me I could use that to find deep black sand deposits.  I did and it works!  In dry washes in Nevada in two locations.  One at about 2’ deep and another at 4’ deep.  The deeper was larger at about 150’ long by 20’ wide with gold dust.  Nice color.  I also used a NEL Big DD coil on the GTI and the same thing, it also detects the deep black sand.  I didn’t buy the Garrett’s for gold prospecting at all but they do work in some ways.  I sold the GTI with all the coils last year as it was just sitting.  As luck would have it, a close friend asked me to find a buried loot of silver dollars on his property he remembers from years ago and said I’ll split it with you if you can find it!  Not sure how much trash is in the area but I’ll use the Max with the 10x14 NEL coil.  My choice to start with would would have been the GTI and two coil Treasure Hound as it ignores small trash and I could cover a lot of ground fast!  But ALAS the GTI is gone.  

[Ripcode]

Hello and welcome from Michigan! 👋

[Foiled Again]

Thanks Guys!

I feel a little better about the GTI now. I was just dumb and bought it thinking it was the hottest at the time. I read here somebody attached a big DD coil to their GTI and it made a huge difference in performance. It is likely I will pursue such a coil.

I have relatives in central Wyoming so it is entirely possible we will try our hands at prospecting. I'd be blown away if we find anything. Thanks for the warm words and nice narrative WB!

For now, I successfully repaired the GTAx1250 I got for cheep. I replaced its membrane switches with micro tactile switches. That was tedious work but it gives the membrane switches a very positive feedback when any switch is used. I tried it out for the first time today, but there is so much trash buried in my property that I cannot really run any testing with assorted targets.

After reading the reviews of various makes/models, I think a multi-frequency detector is probably a far better choice. I rather like the White's VX3i performance even though it is a complex device to operate. That does not scare me, and neither does the fact these are a defunct model from a no-longer-in-existence manufacturer. If I had to repair it, I could probably succeed.

k

 

[Foiled Again]

I am so green with using these tools that I sorely need practice, reading the manual and viewing a few youtubes, so I'm deep in learning mode. This is not really that easy...interpreting what the detector is trying to tell you. Unfortunately, many youtube vids do not show what the settings are that they are using -or what adjustments.

I've been shootin' coins with both the GTI2500 and the GTAx1250. I have the original two round coils for the 2500 and one 6x9 Proformance ACE coil for the 1250. Oddly, the GTAx seems to be a better shooter than the GTI. The sand lot  I'm practicing in is somewhat devoid of trash, so the GTAx seems to better ID coins than the GTI, using factory settings for 'coin'. The GTI almost lost its marbles on a cache of three hot-wheels toys (zinc?) buried about 4" deep. I gave these to a kid that had been spectating my confusion!

The first 'adjustment' I make is to turn the volume (no headphones) down a little bit. Then I increase the threshold to just let me hear the oscillator. This works better on the GTAx than on the GTI for some reason.

k