Well I’m back from my last prospecting trip and hopefully the attached pics work out.

If it wasn’t for the nice specie that was popped at 19” or 48 cm it may have been a dam sight less.

The specie when water weighed indicated that there was approximately 202 grams within. When weighing the specie against the same amount of quartz that was used to displace the same amount of water there was only 1 gram difference.

Sorry about so many pics of the specie but this is to give you an indication of how the gold is dispersed around it.

Total weight of the Specie is 842 grams, pic’s of the nuggets amount to 104 grams total weight for the trip was 306 grams or 9.8 ounces or there about.

TWA

GGC

(Gold Guy Congratulations)

  Well done! Thanks for posting! What detector/coils?etc
doug

G'day Huego.

I was a bit worried when they said you had left the forum, can' lose our watchdog now can we. LOL

About 10 weeks spent prospecting and out of that it was about 3 to 4 hours a day 5 days a week, thats taking in checking out new ground, a day aweek to re-supply etc etc.

And is it getting harder to find, not really only if you keep returning to flogged out areas but even then you still pick up the lurkers or the ones that have been missed as not everyone can get everything.

What helps is researchand time and effort swinging, it even pays to check out the most unlikely ground also. As I have seen some nice gold come from ground that even I would think twice about swinging over.

Cheers,
            Trevor.

G'day Doug,

Two Detectors used, SD 2000 M and ML 5000
Coils Used: Coilteck18' eliptical Mono and 16 " round Coiltek mono, and old faithful the ML Green Garbage Lid modified ( cut out excess F/G)

5000 was far better on sub grammers than the 2000.

Before digging out the specie the 18" eliptical coil swapped over to the 2000, I don't care what anyone says but there was a louder response recieved from the 2000M. I  also compare it with the dustbin lid at the time  as I have picked up other species from the area also but slightly deeper than this one. this one was only 19" 0r 48 cm down.

With the dustbin lid I was able to estimate almost the exact depth and position of the specie before digging.

On trying with the 2000 with dudtbin lid attached the crossover indicated that it was about 14" down.

Although this specie was firstly located with the 5000 It did give me confidence that it was capable of locating the bigger deeper nuggets and yes I was using the settings given out previously by alluvium.

A lot more experimentation with settings is still required as there is a lot to learn with 5000.

Sorry Bugwhiskers but still awaiting the QED

But either way both the detectors gave a loud enough response that you couldn't not miss having to dig it out.

Cheers,
            trevor.

Nice finds  how long were you away for?

Trevor have you got any pictures of the country you were detecting in? I will understand if you don't want to give away any secrets!
Also you might explain how you went  about all dealing with the paperwork to get access to some areas. I think this aspect puts a lot of people off  giving it a go!
doug

TWA nice gold by any ones standards I am leaving Friday on a short testing trip with two SD2000M's and a GP3500M  and a heap of new coils but I don't expect to get results anywhere as good as yours but the fun is being there and you never know do you.

Regards, Ian.

G'day Ian,

Like they say, No pain No gain. Good luck for Friday mate, may all your signal be gold.

Cheers,
           trevor.

=============================================

Hi Trevor & Fred,

Firstly Trev congratulations on your recent finds it looks like you really enjoyed yourselves this season.
I have been tied up with health problems this year, and have been restricted somewhat detecting wise.
Trev the only way to compare these GPX machines with earlier SD & GP models over an undug target, is you have to use Normal mode on the GPX's, as this is the only timing on all earlier M/Lab detectors.

Totally agree with your response to Fred. Either the 4500 or 5000 will pull in small gold, if that's what you are after.
I have had 2 x 4500's and now run a 5000, to my judgment, one is as good as the other for this purpose. As long as the 4500 is a later version.
There are some good bargains available on 4500's presently. Fred ring Tony Mills at Gold search Aust. 03 5468 1877 and have a talk about this, you won't be disappointed.

The 5000 is expensive, the benefits are, slightly better G/Balancing, and it does handle the mineralisation better, its best feature is the smoother threshold, this enables you to get those faint signals on small bits in changeable ground.
The extra filtering smoothing out the threshold does have an effect on signal response, the signals on deeper nuggets are quieter than on a 4500. This is particularly so when using any of the Smooth timings.

As far as the 5000 tuning out the EMI any better than the 4500, this is very debatable and it still a handful in certain areas or weather conditions and just as damn noisy. Of course if you use a smaller mono coil you would lessen this problem.

Fred I think the main reason that new operators get into trouble with either machine, is that they continually fiddle with the multitude of settings, and end up throwing their hands in the air not knowing what to do next.

There are only a few adjustments that are necessary to tweak on a daily basis, this is only as the conditions change throughout the day, or when the ground minerals changes in the area you are detecting.

If you use either detector you will get very good results, remember if it's small gold you are chasing, use a smaller mono. I would suggest the Commander 11"in mono or for slightly more coverage the new 12"in Nuggetfinder mono (The solid type just released).

If you want to talk about settings or larger coils for deeper bigger gold ask here or in a PM.

Cheers to you both  Alluvium.