nuggethunting

Hello Kyle, What he is showing is how to reset the "Fast Track" on the Tracking ground balance setting. This don't need to be done in my opinion. If you're using Tracking mode, just start swinging the unit side to side and the unit will automatically track for you. If you want to pump it up and down and press the button to get the beep, that is fine. When in Fixed, you will need to check from time to time the balance. This can be done by pumping the coil up and down while holding the button. Once you get a smooth threshold sound (normally 2-3 seconds), let the button up and you're ground balanced.

Hello All, I just got in a batch of Erik new book, "Gold Atlas of Quartzsite Arizona Vol. 2, Southern Dome Rock Mountains. This is a great book breaking down sections of the Quartzsite mining district and placers. The pictures of gold nuggets and specimens are awesome! A must have for anyone wanting to learn more about the area or might have an interest to explore the Quartzsite region at some point in time. Here is the direct link to our store - http://www.robsdetectors.com/gold-atlas-of-quartzsite-arizona-vol-2 Price is $35 + shipping. P.S. We carry all of Dr. Erik M's books.

Hey Leaverite, Thanks for posting the nuggets and what a great way to end the year. I managed to get out Saturday and turned up 3 small nuggets, but only a fraction of what you found. Congrats and thanks for sharing. Rob Allison

Hello All, Christmas is not always happy times for everyone. My Grandmother has been rushed to the ER with CO2 levels up to 94%, which is very dangerous. Not sure what the outcome is going to be. It don't look real great right now, so we would appreciate any prayers you're willing to send her way. Her name is Helen, and she is one of the most loving and caring Grandmothers one could ask for. I'm praying the Great Lord will be with her.

Hey Steve, If they would only mate, maybe we would have that perfect discriminating Pulse Induction gold detector.

Hello All, If anyone wants to get in last minute orders, please do so today or early Monday morning. We will be closed for the Holidays from Dec. 24th (Tuesday) thru Dec. 29th (Sunday). Business will open back up Monday morning and all products ordered through the online store will ship Monday Dec. 30th. Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Rob Allison & Family

Hey Guys, I've found a few lunkers over the years at depth, some were just random finds, others were in old patches where I had to use combinations to achieve the greatest amount of depth in hopes of one being missed. With the GPX 5000, keeping the Gain around the factory preset, running in Deep with Deep Audio will definately help a bunch. Are we talking about 2-3 Grammers at depth or are we talking about 1-2 Ouncers at depth? There is a huge difference between these two sizes of gold and finding at depth with various combinations. I personally can find Gram size pieces at max depth better with the Sensitive/Extra than Deep. I personally have found targeting nuggets around 1/4 and larger is where you will see the great gains using "Normal" timing, if the ground permits. I have seen guys running huge round loops in areas where 99% of the nugget found were under a gram. Personally, I think you're wasting your time and money using a large loop here unless you're looking for more coverage. Just some of my thoughts,

Hey Jim, Congrats. Thanks for sharing the video. Wishing you much success with the Garrett ATX.

Hey Roo, I have to agree with you. I was real surprised when I seen it ran on C batteries over like AA's. You can get AA's anywhere, cheap ones or high quality. The C's are much more expensive. Some said the unit runs on 4 - C's, but not sure of this yet.

Hello All, Saturday a partner and I spent the entire day exploring some new country. We drove over 100 miles on the backroads, stopping at various spots and swinging for an hour or so. The first 2-3 spots didn't look great, no working, mines or prospects that we seen. Later in the afternoon, we stopped at an area that has some strange colored geology and figured we would give it a whirl. Not more than about 15 minutes I found a small 1/2 Dwt nugget in a small drainage. Later, found another piece around 1 Dwt (shown on the left of the coil). Nothing to exciting, but did find some gold in new spot, not sure what the surrounding area might hold. Both of these nuggets before I dug them, we checked with the Garrett ATX. The smaller nugget was only down around 5 inches and the ATX hear it. The second piece was about 10 inches, the ATX couldn't hear it, but GPX heard it well. Sunday I escaped for a few hours in the morning. I hunted for a few hours with the Minelab GPX 5000 and scored two small pieces, one was .3 Dwt's and 1.0 Dwt's (on the right of the coil). No big payday, but it was fun exploring some new country.

Hey Chris & Goldseeker, Chris - If you have one, I will pay you for it if you don't need it anymore. Gold Seeker - I checked on Ebay earlier and didn't see any. Do you have a few Ebay links off hand? Thanks. Rob Allison

Hello All, If anyone has a used or new copy of Andy's book called the "Minelab Quattro and Safari Handbook," I have a customer looking for one. He purchased from us and the book is now out of print. If you have one, or know someone willing to part with it, please let me know. Thanks!

Hey Guys, Well this is a touchy subject for someone that has been burned a handful of times. For the most part, if you're exploring new country and you both are contributing to the hunt the same, most just keep what they find and show the other person. However, when it's a patch or area you have discovered gold in already, then it can be different. Many can get the "gold fever" and the friendship, help or whatever you have done for the other person can change quickly. I couldn't tell you how many times I have taken someone out to a spot, shown them right where the gold was being found and come back and the area was hammered to death. Even though it's not my claim, there should be some respect to showing your finds and asking to return on someone else's discovered area. I have had areas dug up, bushes and trees uprooted and even rock turned over in hopes of a guy finding a few nuggets missed. When it comes to patches or known gold areas you have discovered, it wouldn't hurt to lay down the rules. If you don't want someone there, you just don't invite them. If you decided you want to invite someone, then you might discuss any details on the detecting prior to letting the person set foot on the spot. I can tell you, if you don't, there will be problems. It might not be so much the person finding a big nugget you missed, but rather the person bring in others, who tell others and before you know it the area is now well known and being hammered to death. Nugget locations are not easy to find, at least good ones, so you need to but thought into it. I recommend finding one or two good hunting partners that are on the same page, then you have no worries.

Hello Kyle, Well I have to agree to disagree with you. I have found gold on old patches I have missed with the GPX 4000. I'm not saying the GPX 4500 and GPX 5000 are 10x better, but there is no doubt they are much more stable, receive less EMI, can use a Mono coils better on mineralized ground vs the GPX 4000 and have more user control, which can mean better overall settings for just a 1/4 inch increase in depth or that extra bit of boost you might need to hear the smallest of the nuggets. We respect your opinions, but then again many that have used all the detectors for at least 2-3 years solid know you're just blowing smoke. I have to say, since I have allowed you back onto the forums, you have been pretty anti-Minelab (don't buy Minelab, they are junk ..... yada yada). I think most are worn out of hearing your bickering, so I ask you politely to talk about metal detecting or whatever without down-grading a brand in "every, single post" you have made. I guess we can say this is a "very friendly warning!" Hope you understand. I don't care if you purchase a Minelab, Fisher, Garrett, Tesoro, Bounty Hunter, White's or some detector from Radio Shack if you're happy with what you purchased. Rob Allison

Hey Guys, MPS - Multi-Pulse Sensing. I'm guessing MPF is Multi-Pulse Frequency or Multi-Pulse Fractional?

Hey Jim, Great questions, so I will do my best to quickly answer them before I hit the sack. Yes, I always make sure the discriminator is down to zero, as once it's around 2-3 it can effect depth. There is a huge drop in depth with the ATX if you have the discrimination around half or better. Yep, always keep the unit in fixed ground balance, as this is my favorite mode to hunt in with the GPX also. I was running the sensitivity on the ATX at max. When I was using the GPX 5000, I had everything in factory default modes under the "General" setting. The gain I believe is 9 or 10. I didn't measure the nugget depths, but this is what we done. We placed the nuggets, each size, down to max depth range for the ATX. We then would try the GPX 5000 in the default settings in General and would easily hear all the nuggets. The ATX wouldn't hear them, or just a faint whisper if that. The ATX is very quiet and pretty damn impressive for how simple and the reasonable cost.

Hey Guys, The ground was already disturbed on the Gram piece, as the guys were clearing some rocks and brush in areas. Some more testing today shown that the ATX is great at shallow, smaller gold, but when the depth starts to increase the performance of the ATX drops off and the GPX really takes over. We tested nuggets from the 3, 6 & 10 Gram range at depth and the ATX really struggled, many couldn't even hear, but loud and clear with a Minelab GPX. I think we all pretty much had a feeling or knew the GPX was going to take over on heavier mineralized ground conditions and when it comes to depth. I was only using the GPX 5000 in the general, DD coil mode, default settings and Normal timing. I didn't adjust anything to tweak the detector even more.

Hey Chris, Great video and congrats on the finds. Hope to see more videos and pictures in the near future!!

Hey Adam, I'm not going to say either way I know or don't know about the detector and what it has to offer. When the unit comes out, we will know the true cost MAP (minimum advertised price) and features (waterproof, extra coils, features and such). Personally, like I have said many times before, I think they allowed Garrett to beat them to this market. I hope I'm wrong and this unit has more to offer, so it's a waiting game now. Come on Dec. 9th .....

Hello All, This afternoon my partner and I had a group of GPX customer out for field instructions. The group consisted of a few Arizona locals, a customer from Florida and one from Canada. We all didn't realize how cold it was going to be today, especially when the Sun went behind the clouds. The instructions went great as always, the customers loved their GPX 5000's and got to learn a bunch on the ground we hunted. One customer scored a nice, flat Gram sized piece under a few rocks. Throughout the day, my partner and I got to play with the Garrett ATX more. We done some comparison with targets detected with the GPX's and then scanned them with the ATX before disturbing. For the most part, any really faint target the ATX couldn't hear, but we all pretty much knew this. The more obvious targets the ATX heard well. This was not some trial to see what the ATX could do, just the fact we asked the customers to not disturb any targets if they would until we scanned over them. My partner, a long time Minelab user really liked the ATX and what it had to offer. We spent more time playing with discrimination and found we were able to eliminate some smaller targets on full disc., that the Minelab would still beep on. Just trying to see if we could use the ATX as a tool on very trashy areas with small bits of iron rubbish and potentially "cherry pick" out larger nuggets. A lot of experimenting needs to be done, but the preliminary test seemed interesting. Much more to learn and play with on the discrimination abilities. To date, for $2,120.75, it's going to be hard to beat this waterproof PI that can be used for gold nuggets, coins and relics. By about 4pm, we all decided it was too damn cold to continue.

Hey Blake, Good questions, but none of the manufactures seem to care what other brands you carry. Some even ask what other brands you carry (basically hoping you sell other brands) when you sign on with them. I think if you really were bashing one brand while carry a multi-line of detectors, then they might step in and remove your dealership. So back to Minelab's new Mid-Line Pulse Induction metal detector. What does everyone know about it? Seems as if some know the price, what is looks like, what features it might have and more ..... Maybe you can tell me more!

Hey Guys, From what I have seen from the Garrett ATX, the price better really drop down. I can't see that unit (not sure of all the features and such) running against the ATX for another $1000+ if there are not some real good differences. Wishing I knew more, but right now I think the ATX has the edge and told Minelab this for years.

Hey Guys, Hunted the area 10-12 years ago with some success. Worked some virgin ground, but found most of my finds around old workings. The tailing piles, placer drifts and such were more productive for me for a limited amount of time on the ground. No doubt gold is there, but it takes time to pinpoint a area worth working.

Hey Guys, I'm not saying the GPAA/LDAA is not a great organization, but in my opinion it ain't what it used to be when the "Buzzard" was running it. The GPAA is now commercialized like all other big companies and organizations. They have taken away the personal relationship with the members, which was huge when the Buzzard was still around. Just my thoughts, Rob Allison

Hello All, Quick report: The unit is very simple to operation and understand. A total of eight different push buttons that are labeled and easy to understand and interpret. The unit is complete waterproof, extremely sensitive to small gold and gets good depth. Still a lot of testing to do, but found it can detect some types of gold smaller than the GPX 5000. You can use rechargeables or alkaline batteries. It's a bit heavier than I expected, but for all the other features and great price, I can manage the weight with a good bungee cord or harness system (Pro-Swing 45 or Hipstick setup). We are a Garrett Dealer and will have more in stock soon. The supply is very limited and all my stock is gone from pre-orders. Call us if you have question, or post here on the forums. Gold Found with the Garrett ATX prospecting in Arizona - Garrett ATX Basic Package - $2,120.75 More coming soon ..... Rob Allison