GMC South Australia

Phil at the Gold Mining centre SA has a few specials on.
http://www.goldminingcentre.com.au/index.php?route=common/home
Pro Pointers seem to be a good price.

Got one of the on special 7x3"DD Infinium LS coil in the post....... since other Infinium DD coils work well on the ATX, I will expect this one to do the same.

ivanll

HI Ivanll.
Given that the ATX is already pretty good on small stuff with the current coils, it will be interesting to hear how the 3 x 7 performs.
On my Infinium I find that the 3 x 7 detects the same size small nuggs as does the 8 inch, 5 x 10 and the 10 x 14 mono although the 3 x 7 gives a sharper signal.

There are many locations where I prefer the 7x3" coil.

Top left is one of those places.

Bottom left with original supplied DD coil, had restrictions to open areas.

On beach with ATX chest mounted and using the 10x5" DD Infinium LS coil, yes you loose some depth but the lightness and ease of use mean one can cover a very large part of the beach.



(Just a bit of entertainment for those that come visit for no other reason.)

Nice ring there Ivanll, You still do get into some interesting places.
I agree that the 5x10 is a good coil on the beach although the 8 inch mono is my fav..
My Infinium has not been out for a run for some time now since I have become all wussy with the ease of use of the vanquish and EQ. My finds tally has dropped quite a bit since using these tectas instead of the infinium. Sure I dig a fair bit of junk with the Finny but also get a good tally of deep coins and jewellery . Maybe when I get my other knee replacement I will crank up the Infinium again.
Have just acquired an in good condition Garrett Deep Seeker just to play with and reminisce a bit....Sucker for punishment I guess.

Have just acquired an in good condition Garrett Deep Seeker just to play with and reminisce a bit....Sucker for punishment I guess.

I learnt on a newly released Garrett Deep Seeker back in 1979. Sucker for punishment could be an understated view. However once I mastered it I would put it up against and detector at the time. The biggest result is, I have had no problem using any detector since. You could do anything with it or am I reminisce a lot.

This thing runs on 6 nine volt batteries and I paid 63.00 for the cheapest I could find. With a run time of approx 25 hours it is an expensive beast to operate. Have not fired her up yet. Just giving it a clean up and making sure the pots are all working smoothly with no scratchyness.

I ended up using rechargeable 9V batteries the run time would do the day. It was the only way to keep many weeks of detecting.

Rechargeable' are becoming too expensive and a set of 6 lithiums are out of the question at well over 100 dollars.
I will give the deep Seeker a curiosity run on the alkalines and then resell it or hang it on the wall as a collectable.

was looking at buying a battery lawn mower yesterday so went to bunnings and found a tough looking AEG for 500 bucks only to discover that It didn't come with batteries which were going to cost another 400 dollars on top of the cost of the mower. What a  joke, a bit like  buying a car without an engine ...So looks like I will be running the petrol job untill it dies.

Gave the Deep Seeker a try out in my back yard and over my test patch.
   The machine runs well and is quite stable with minimal drift. The Auto Tune works very well in Gb & Disc mode.
The All Metal VLF GB mode is powerful at max sensitivity and easily matches or betters most of my other vlf machines on my test patch. Nice even response from the co planer coil. The disc mode is a typical VLF TR Discriminator that requires the coil to be kept at a fairly constant height above the ground  although in the manual tune mode with the detector tuned a few inches above the ground the detector still managed to locate all of my test patch coins except for the 5 cent coin at 6 inches. The detector is heavy-ish and out of balance at 3.2kg with  the 10 inch coil.
   The ground balance range performed very well and had plenty of range remaining suggesting that it could likely handle some tough iron mineralization.
Okay it will not do so well over extremely iron mineralised ground and it is not all that flash on small sub gram gold. Even though it can respond to 0.15g bits it will require careful control of the coil and the ground balance and sensitivity in order to find small stuff. This machine was built to find big nuggs and in the early days it did exactly that.
Overall I was moderately surprised with the good performance of the Ground balance VLF Mode and I can see why the Deep Seeker had a good reputation in our Aussie gold fields.

Compared between my Deep Seeker, Vanquish 440 and a Garrett GTP1350 in ability to detect an 18k 7g gold ring.
Sensitivity on each machine set to just kill the EMI in my back yard.

Deep Seeker in All Metal mode .....Air check = 32cm.  In Disc mode = 23cm......Through a slab of ironstone 1.5kg.... All metal = 32cm..... Disc mode = no go.

Vanquish  in all modes in air = 30cm.....Through iron stone = no go in all modes.

GTP 1350  in air  = 30 cm ....Through ironstone = No Go.

The deep Seeker All metal mode is good anywhere except on wet salt beaches. (don't get it wet) The disc mode works but is a pain over mineralised ground compared to modern tectas.
The Vanquish is good for lightly iron mineralised ground and excels at the beach.
The 1350  is a good coin and relic detector in mild ground. No good over the wet salt beach sand or over heavy iron minerals. It has a target size indicator which actually works ..Sort of.... Yeah yeah I hear you say "Whats a GTP 1350"?

I guess this all just means use the right tool for the job in hand .

Back in 1980 I used to think my Deepseeker was no good in wet beach sand too. Until one day when I was detecting the dry sand and noticed a bloke out wading with his Deepseeker. I chatted to him when he came ashore and he happily showed me the jewellery he'd just found. When I asked the secret, he explained that the Deepseeker was terribly noisy in the salt water, but he'd found that it still signaled loud and clear on metal targets and that the shallow water was prime territory for finds.

When he'd left, I tried it for myself - he was right, I hit the jackpot almost immediately! And it proved to be great training for operating in the highly-mineralised Golden Triangle goldfields when I came to Australia a couple of years later.

Agreed.
I did not write about that aspect coz most people likely would not have the patience while thinking the tecta was crap.
   
In Disc mode you will be battling to get much sense out of the machine over iron and/or  wet salt mineralisation. but in All Metal with the GB set to the least noisiest setting  over the salt and if the target was close to the coil or a large signal  the target tone can override the salt noise and can even break through during Blanking.

A bit like my old GS15000. It hates salt but I still found plenty of stuff with it on South Coast beaches....Including my own lost wedding ring in knee deep water at Twofold Bay.

Gave the DS a run at Pine Island yesterday and it performed very well aside from being a bit heavy after a hour. Disc & All Metal modes were fine with no noticeable drift (which often plagued the early detectors when moving in and out of the shade).
Anyway I am happy with the old beast knowing that it can in several ways stand up (performance wise) along side some of today's modern feather light machines.

Adrain I did very well with the DS in salt water and wet sand on extreme low tides. One Easter on a beach in QLD I got over 50 gold rings in the fortnight that we were there. My tuning out the salt noise, was by using the TR discriminator knob to set the threshold, much the same as using the ground balance. However this meant no discrimination was available so every signal had to be dug.