Sd coils....

Ive brought myself a nugget to test my detector, i got sick of trying to find 1, i was surprised the 16 in DD XP NF coil i got hardly registered a signal unless it was nearly touching it on top of the ground, the NF 17x12 Mono was heaps better but its not as quiet in mineralized ground, what had me surprised if the lack of a decent signal compared to a smaller bit of nail.

G'day JeffH.

The NF 16" DD XP on the Sd 2200(strictly because of its size) is not much good in depth,on gold below the 1gm. You'll find that a coilteck 11 or 14"DD standard or Pro,far more suitable on the sub gram stuff.As for mono's,they'll all play some sort of havoc over mineralized ground.One thing people must realize,gold found undisturbed in its natural resting place,will add inches to its depth as compared to being pulled out of the ground,laid on top and air tested for depth.

Cheers kon61.

So, it seems i should bury my nugget to see how the coil works.

No,to late for that.Once the nugget has been excavated from its natural burial spot,the halo surrounding the nugget also diminishes in strength.It's this halo,surrounding the nugget,which makes it possible for the detector coil,of picking up the nugget at greater depths than air tests.

Cheers kon61.

Hi JeffH, Kon61 is quite right in what he is saying. I religiously use a Coiltek 14DD on my 2200d. I find the monos are far more sensitive, but with that benefit, you also get far more ground noise, far more than I can tolerate here in Vic. DDs are not quite as forgiving as monos and you must have an idea of the ground that your working in and the potential size of the gold that your seeking, to know which coil to use. The 16DD is ok for deeper bigger gold, but you will miss a great deal of closer, smaller nuggets. That's why Kon hsaid that the 14 or 11DD is the best "all round" coil for that machine. Shallow ground, use the 11DD, slightly deeper ground use the 14DD knowing that you may and will miss small surface bits, really deep ground, use the 24DD "satelite dish", but of course with this you will loose a lot of smaller to medium bits but will find another "Welcome Stranger Nugget" if you happen to walk over it...
CostasDee

It seems that Coiltek have a bit more of a following than Nugget Finder.

JeffH, I am not aligned to any company, but I try and use what works for me, and what I wrote above is what works for me. I did try a Nuggetfinder 16DD XP and it just didn't work for me. I found it slightly more noisey and it just didn't give the the right "Vibe". Each to their own though and I'm sure there's people out there that will swear by them, like I swear by my combination. Horses for courses...
CostasDee

JeffH wrote:Ive brought myself a nugget to test my detector, i got sick of trying to find 1, i was surprised the 16 in DD XP NF coil i got hardly registered a signal unless it was nearly touching it on top of the ground, the NF 17x12 Mono was heaps better but its not as quiet in mineralized ground, what had me surprised if the lack of a decent signal compared to a smaller bit of nail.

I have used an 17 elip NF on my 3000, boy oh boy it was noisy. However, on a GPX 4000 in smooth mode it was quiet, another guy at camp was doing well with it. Although I think anything in smooth mode is quiet. If I were you I would try a different brand unless you have a GPX unit.