steve herschbach
New member
Apparently there is a lot if misinformation out there about metal detectors and how they perform in the field. I am offering this to try and and clear up some possible misconceptions.
No detector finds all the gold that the coil goes over. I repeat, no metal detector finds all the gold that goes under the coil.
Some gold is too deep. Some gold is too small. Some gold reads the same as the ground and so the ground balance system tunes it out. Some gold reads the same as a hot rock, and tuning that hot rock out tunes out that gold. If a person uses iron discrimination, a lot of gold reads as iron and is tuned out or at least not dug up.
The ideal detector would find every bit of gold that passes under the coil, but it has not been invented yet.
Recently, questions have been raised about the Minelab GPX 5000 and it's ability to find gold. Some people may think it does more than it actually does. People do not read manuals after all, so this would not be surprising. Make no mistake though, the information is available and there certainly are not any surprises here for me or people that care to learn about an expensive investment.
Guess what, the GPX 5000 does not find all the gold that passes under the coil. Surprised? I hope not. Virtually everyone knows PI detectors are weak on tiny gold and specimen gold. Many GPX users employ VLF detectors to fill this gap in the capability.
The Minelab PI detectors have progressed over time, with more settings added to deal with situations the earlier models had difficulty with. In low to moderate mineralization settings are available that will get just about anything in range, but again not tiny stuff or stuff that is too deep. Anything in the immediate vicinity of the ground balance settings will also be weak or lost. As mineralization increases or hot rocks become more prolific, there are settings to compensate. More cancellation results in more possible gold missed.
The goal is not what is missed, the goal is what setting gets the most gold. If a setting puts more gold in your pocket then the goal has been achieved. But gold will always be missed by detectors so do not fool yourself into thinking this is magic. There is some really weird gold out there, like gold in ironstone matrix. Wire gold in quartz. The list goes on.
Rather than try to explain further here is a simple picture from my collection at http://www.findmall.com/read.php?81,1891862 It kind of says it all.
[attachment 280089 image.jpg]
Note there are three possible timings here for simplicity sake. Three good ones to know, by the way. Note that in low mineral ground Sharp covers almost all the bases, but does very poor in severe mineralization. Conversely, Fine Gold does very well in severe mineralization, but no matter what it does not do as well as Sharp does in low mineral ground. Worse yet, using Fine Gold in low mineralization will cause gold to be missed that Sharp will detect.
Minelab blew it with the names. Fine Gold is not the best Fine Gold setting, except in severe ground, where it rules. In low mineral ground Sensitive Extra is better on small gold.
If they could go back in time they would rename them on a scheme more related to increasing ground mineralization, because that is where you should be taking your clues as to best settings. But the names came about haphazardly over a period of time and stuck.
Nobody ever said power comes without some complexity, and anyone investing $5795 would be well advised to study up on learning about what it is they have purchased. No doubt this complexity is too much for some people to learn. If so, maybe they should consider something else.
Now how about the Garrett ATX? Will it find all gold that passes under the coil? No, it will not. However, it appears on the small amount if information available so far that it offers a very simple setting that does very well on the gold and ground most people will encounter in the US. This can be a boon indeed to people wanting the most bang for the buck and extreme simplicity. But it cannot and will not get all the gold that passes under the coil.
The ATX is optimized for use with DD coils and for small gold. That will come at a cost, as lighting up the small gold is going to light up ground mineralization and hot rocks. Anyone who thinks differently does not know how detectors work. There is no free lunch. Another poster just asked "how do you know it will not do well on large gold in highly mineralized ground"? Wrong question. Given how detectors work, why would anyone think it does? The ATX has to prove it does perform under those conditions. Nobody has to prove it does not. The lack of adjustments will simply prove a problem at some point. Minelab did not create those settings just to mess with you. It created them to deal with very specific difficult situations.
It is all about trade offs folks, and no detector, GPX 5000 included, gets it all in a single pass, or even many passes. Am I the only person that knows you have to cross grid ground? I know I am not. I am not the only person that knows to break out a VLF when the GPX is not producing. And anyone that thinks a Garrett ATX is going to get it all is kidding themselves. If they think it can do it all with a single setting, they are kidding themselves. Even the single setting on the ATX will need applicable ground balance, gain, and pulse delay settings to deal with difficult situations. Making those adjustments will result in a trade off in performance.
Why in the world do you questioners and doubters think I have a half dozen detectors for prospecting? For my health? Because I like to waste money? No, it is because not one of them gets all the gold. If all I owned was a GPX 5000 I would be shorting myself. Anybody that does not understand that sure has not paid any attention to me over the years, that is for sure. If I had to own one machine it would be the one but it is far from perfect. I need two more inches on a 1 ounce nugget!
So to finish up, the Minelab GPX 5000 misses gold. So does every other detector to one degree or another. We all clear on that? I hope so.
Learn your detector. Learn your detector. Learn your detector.
No detector finds all the gold that the coil goes over. I repeat, no metal detector finds all the gold that goes under the coil.
Some gold is too deep. Some gold is too small. Some gold reads the same as the ground and so the ground balance system tunes it out. Some gold reads the same as a hot rock, and tuning that hot rock out tunes out that gold. If a person uses iron discrimination, a lot of gold reads as iron and is tuned out or at least not dug up.
The ideal detector would find every bit of gold that passes under the coil, but it has not been invented yet.
Recently, questions have been raised about the Minelab GPX 5000 and it's ability to find gold. Some people may think it does more than it actually does. People do not read manuals after all, so this would not be surprising. Make no mistake though, the information is available and there certainly are not any surprises here for me or people that care to learn about an expensive investment.
Guess what, the GPX 5000 does not find all the gold that passes under the coil. Surprised? I hope not. Virtually everyone knows PI detectors are weak on tiny gold and specimen gold. Many GPX users employ VLF detectors to fill this gap in the capability.
The Minelab PI detectors have progressed over time, with more settings added to deal with situations the earlier models had difficulty with. In low to moderate mineralization settings are available that will get just about anything in range, but again not tiny stuff or stuff that is too deep. Anything in the immediate vicinity of the ground balance settings will also be weak or lost. As mineralization increases or hot rocks become more prolific, there are settings to compensate. More cancellation results in more possible gold missed.
The goal is not what is missed, the goal is what setting gets the most gold. If a setting puts more gold in your pocket then the goal has been achieved. But gold will always be missed by detectors so do not fool yourself into thinking this is magic. There is some really weird gold out there, like gold in ironstone matrix. Wire gold in quartz. The list goes on.
Rather than try to explain further here is a simple picture from my collection at http://www.findmall.com/read.php?81,1891862 It kind of says it all.
[attachment 280089 image.jpg]
Note there are three possible timings here for simplicity sake. Three good ones to know, by the way. Note that in low mineral ground Sharp covers almost all the bases, but does very poor in severe mineralization. Conversely, Fine Gold does very well in severe mineralization, but no matter what it does not do as well as Sharp does in low mineral ground. Worse yet, using Fine Gold in low mineralization will cause gold to be missed that Sharp will detect.
Minelab blew it with the names. Fine Gold is not the best Fine Gold setting, except in severe ground, where it rules. In low mineral ground Sensitive Extra is better on small gold.
If they could go back in time they would rename them on a scheme more related to increasing ground mineralization, because that is where you should be taking your clues as to best settings. But the names came about haphazardly over a period of time and stuck.
Nobody ever said power comes without some complexity, and anyone investing $5795 would be well advised to study up on learning about what it is they have purchased. No doubt this complexity is too much for some people to learn. If so, maybe they should consider something else.
Now how about the Garrett ATX? Will it find all gold that passes under the coil? No, it will not. However, it appears on the small amount if information available so far that it offers a very simple setting that does very well on the gold and ground most people will encounter in the US. This can be a boon indeed to people wanting the most bang for the buck and extreme simplicity. But it cannot and will not get all the gold that passes under the coil.
The ATX is optimized for use with DD coils and for small gold. That will come at a cost, as lighting up the small gold is going to light up ground mineralization and hot rocks. Anyone who thinks differently does not know how detectors work. There is no free lunch. Another poster just asked "how do you know it will not do well on large gold in highly mineralized ground"? Wrong question. Given how detectors work, why would anyone think it does? The ATX has to prove it does perform under those conditions. Nobody has to prove it does not. The lack of adjustments will simply prove a problem at some point. Minelab did not create those settings just to mess with you. It created them to deal with very specific difficult situations.
It is all about trade offs folks, and no detector, GPX 5000 included, gets it all in a single pass, or even many passes. Am I the only person that knows you have to cross grid ground? I know I am not. I am not the only person that knows to break out a VLF when the GPX is not producing. And anyone that thinks a Garrett ATX is going to get it all is kidding themselves. If they think it can do it all with a single setting, they are kidding themselves. Even the single setting on the ATX will need applicable ground balance, gain, and pulse delay settings to deal with difficult situations. Making those adjustments will result in a trade off in performance.
Why in the world do you questioners and doubters think I have a half dozen detectors for prospecting? For my health? Because I like to waste money? No, it is because not one of them gets all the gold. If all I owned was a GPX 5000 I would be shorting myself. Anybody that does not understand that sure has not paid any attention to me over the years, that is for sure. If I had to own one machine it would be the one but it is far from perfect. I need two more inches on a 1 ounce nugget!
So to finish up, the Minelab GPX 5000 misses gold. So does every other detector to one degree or another. We all clear on that? I hope so.
Learn your detector. Learn your detector. Learn your detector.
). Missing gold goes hand in hand with electronic prospecting and if your being completely honest with yourself deep down you know that because thats the reason why we all return to our favourite digs to have another crack at finding more!!