Noisey Mono Coil

Hi guys, I have a minelab 11" mono coil that I havnt used a heek of a lot. It has found me some nice gold including this 18.7 gram piece at a good 12" depth.





It is one of my favourite coils but my problem with it now is that it has become very sensitive & prone to false signals. If I swing it at more than a slow pace or just touch a blade of grass it gives false signals. I dont mean bump it but just lightly touch a bit of grass or graze the ground. It drives me nuts. It never used to do this. When I found the 18 gram bit I was rubbing the ground slightly with it & had no problems with false signals. It has got to the point now that I cant really use it. I have never abused it or given it a hard time.
What is causing this?? Is there anything I can do to fix this? I see on you tube that Woody Poo Poo shows pulling a coil to bits & taping some wires on the inside to stop them moving & causing false signals. I can see false signals happening from bumping the coil but not from just touching a blade of grass or slightly rubbing the ground. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks

Regards

JW

bout damn time you joined JW!!

Mate...my opinion only, but for the price of a few grams (and you seem to have no probs finding that) I'd be buying a new commander and shelving that one...starting to get a bit long in the tooth. They all deteriorate with age, you fix it and will it pack it in again right when you need it etc..

or if you wonted just take it to a detector shop and let them fix it....if you don't wont to part with it...
cheers
stoppsy

G'day Kiwijw.

Before you go puling anything apart,first check in between your skid plate and coil for any moisture or dirt build up. Whilst your machine is switched on,try moving your coil lead up down and side to side (at machine end side first).If you encounter continuous or spurious boing signals,or coil signal cutting off and then on again,it could only mean, loose soldered wire or broken wire in coil lead plug at machine end which can easily be re soldered on.
If by moving your coil lead (where it plugs into your coil) and similar sounds occur,then the problem is in the coil side,and will have to be sent in for repair,and as Tuna stated your better off buying yourself a new one,for repairs on coils,are just too costly,and there's always a chance that old coils just might give way somewhere else down the track.

Cheers kon61.

Hi Guys, Thanks for the quick replies, MadTuna.....it has been a long time between drinks since Jack Langs old forum days. I have been a member here for a while but my trouble is I joined quite a few forums, as you do, & have pretty much only posted semi regularly on a couple of them. They tended to be an American one, Treasure Net, & an Alaskan one. Other forums seemed to stray too much off topic & ego's & politics got in the way & I cant be bothered with that crap.
Trouble for me in New Zealand is that I have to get all my detecting & dredging gear from over seas. Usually through ebay Australia or the US. I have made most of my dredging gear to save on cost but when it comes to detectors, I have toyed with making coils, I have no choice. Trouble with ebay now is the bloody chinese copies.....
I have had my GP 3000 since they were the latest detector but being into dredging, sluice boxing, highbanking etc I didnt use it very much. Had my mind set on gold being in the rivers & creeks & so that is where I started detecting as well. Trouble is the rivers & creeks are so full of rubbish from the old timers & their ground & hydrolic sluicing that it did my head in detecting for days & getting nothing but ferrous junk. So I pretty much shelved the detector.
I live in the Coromandel region of the north island of NZ which is famous for its hard rock gold & not known for alluvial or nuggets. Again the hills & streams there are just loaded with junk from the old hard rock mining days. It is every where plus heaps of low iron content hot rocks from the volcanic make up of the region & its quartz gold loads. So I have given up detecting there.
No work, Builder by trade, at the start of the year, first 5 months, saw me make a few phone calls to Queenstown in Central Otago of the South island & work was secured. A great alluvial gold area so I was like a kid in a lolly shop. This time I gave the detector a real honest attempt. As it is winter & Queenstown is a ski field resort, there is snow through out the hills & the river & stream waters are all snow melt & bloody freezing. I set my mind set to away from the rivers & up into the mountains, snow line allowing, & hit the old ground sluiced areas where the old timers brought water in by water races to work the ground. The bonus is that they have washed off all the overburden, some times many meters, & exposed the bed rock schists. What a beautiful nugget trap that schist is when it is up on edge. Well I have never looked back & find gold most times I go out, which is most weekends & after work. It was getting dark by 5pm but with a head lamp on there was no stopping me while the gold was coming in. The days are drawing out now though which is good.
So the coils I have havnt had a lot of use. Ok they are getting old age wise but not used & abused & worn out from use. Hence my supprise at the 11" mono playing up on me. I have been talking to JP regarding coils & he has put me on to litz wire wound coils like the Minelab commander & nugget finder advantage range.
We are lucky here in NZ that our ground is pretty quite & I can use mono's most of the time. The only real interferance is from farmers electric fences & those bloody high tention power lines. Man it is amazing how many of those go smack bang through gold areas
My favourite coil for the exposed bed rock in the old sluicings is the little coiltek joey mono. It has surved me very well. The smallest I have found with it is .05 of a gram.
My latest coil is the coiltek little 6" mono. Anothe deadly coil on small gold. My very first signal & target was a .1 gram bit going over ground I had been over numerous times with the joey. Funny how you can go over the same ground with the same coil on a different day & still pick up gold. Even though you have been over it very low & slow. I am a firm believer that atmospheric conditions & dampness of ground on any given day will have an influence on ground sensitivity & conductivity. I have proven this to myself time & time again. I wouldnt be suprised if the moon has an influence as well.
My range of coils are. coiltek 24" X 12" UFO mono, my biggest a favourite for open country & general patch finding. It amazes me at the small gold this coil finds. 18" coiltek round mono, 18" minelab GP extreme DD. Havnt used this coil much but have when a farmers electric fence made running the UFO too noisey. I found a .5 gram piece that was down about 3". That suprised me for a large coil & being a DD. Mini UFO, havnt used this coil much as I usually run the bigger one when I can. 11" coiltek DD Pro. This has found me a few pieces & of course the standard minelab 11" DD that came with the GP 3000 detector. Do you know if this coil is wound with litz wire?? This too has found me a few bits & in the pesudo mono mode as well. Usually use the DD's when at the rear times that the ground is very wet & the mono's running a bit ratty & I wanted a little more depth than the joey mono was giving me. The 11" minelab mono which has pist me off with it now miss behaving. Was a good inbetween coil. I guess I have nothing to lose by pulling it apart & having a look at it. I would have to send it over to Ozzy to have it looked at & as you guys have said, not worth the cost of repair & also for me the freight. Plus as you have also said the better technology in todays coils with better depth & sensitivity. Also have the joey mono as I have already mentiond. A great coil & my most used. Minelab 8" commander. I find the joey better with its elliptcal shape for dragging through crevices & poking in to tight spaces. & my latest edition the coiltek 6" mono.
I have been bidding on some nugget finder advantage coils on ebay. Namely the 17" elliptical mono, 16" round, 18" round 20" round & 14" round. But often they go for more than there new price from a dealer. Suppose that will be Americans bidding on them. If any of you might have a coil you wish to off load I would be interested. Maybe even the older nugget finder range as well.
What are your opinoins on the size range of better coils & what make?? As you can see most of my coils are getting on a bit.

Many thank & happy hunting.

JW

G'day Kiwijw.

The standard GP 3000 coil which came with the 3000 is not litz wire wound.

Cheers kon61.

Thanks kon61. I wasnt too sure.
Here are a few bits I got the other weekend. All found with the joey mono. Smallest .05 of a gram & the biggest one .98 of a gram. Found in the exposed bed rock schist that the old timers exposed with there ground sluicing. The 4 smallest bits were all found in the same schist crevice. I only got the one signal & bit of gold but because the schist was pretty soft & rotten it was easy picking & digging. So I kept on digging into it & uncovering more of the crevice. Well I ended up getting 3 more bits out of it. So lesson learnt was that If you get a good signal that is gold but then are getting no more signals, keep on digging a bit more because the gold may still be there but just out of the coils reach until you dig a bit more. This has happened to me on numerous occations.



Happy hunting

JW

Kiwijw, it's always good to see the color of gold no matter what shape or size it comes in.Good little
plonkers,well done.

Cheers kon61.

Thanks Kon61, Be careful or I will bombard you with my past 5 months of finds since I have been down in Central Otago
Here is a tease of a small handfull for a few days detecting. Ones on the left are from old sluiced workings, a different spot to the ones on the right. The ones on the right are a bit rougher & not so water worn & found in an area the old timers hadnt worked & I dont think knew were there. All found on the side of mountains at over 2000 feet & no where near water. Dropped by glaciers I would say.



Happy hunting

JW

Kiwijw,now your making me jealous and envious of your finds.I cant wait for better spring weather to hit here in VIC so that i can start swinging more.We're bombarded with an abnormally cold and really wet season this year.
Once again superb finds.Good luck to ya and keep on swinging that detector.

Cheers kon61.

JW.
Welcome to the site it is a long time since talking to you on Jacks forum. do youstill lug those long pipes into those rivers over there or do you just detect now?
Cheers Greg.

Hi Greg, Thanks for the welcome. Yes been a long time since Jack's forum. Shame that shut down.

koni61, We had snow flurries on friday here in Queenstown. Nothing that settled on the ground. I went over to Naseby to visit a mate for the weekend & they had 3" of snow on the ground. Mostly gone by saturday arvo. Here are my finds from a bit of detecting on Saturday.

Wouldnt you be smiling ?? Just under 4 grams. Biggest just over 1 gram rest sub grammers



WOW.....How was that earthquake in Christchurch?? My mate in Naseby was woken by it & he lives hours away from CHch. His son lives in Christchurh & was thrown out of his bed & ended up on the floor. Unbelieveable that no one was killed.

Happy hunting

JW

Kiwijw Stop. You're killing me with finds like that.Due to bad weather,I'm currently stuck indoors
like a baboon in a cage whose dying to get out.Newzealands looking better all the time,
even with the snow. Yep,they were very lucky that that earthquake wasn't at a larger
scale.Quite miraculous actually,that no one got seriously hurt.

Cheers kon61.

KW. A little off topic but I could not help notice the similarities between your nugget and my bit of 17.2g I found a few years ago. I found it with a 3000 at 6 inches ! It was a screamer and I thought it was junk. Nice bits of yours. Well done.

Chris.

Hi Guys, 6 more little nuggets found today using 10" X 5" joey mono & coiltek 6" mono. Total of 3 grams. Smallest .08 of a gram found with 6" mono. Rest found with the joey. Biggest 1.26 grams.



Found three little ones last night for a total of just over 1 gram.

Happy hunting

JW

JW.
Hey JW. what mechine do you run?
Cheers Greg

Hi Greg, Sorry for the late reply. I run a GP 3000.
I have had a fantastic week & found 50.53 grams of gold starting from last friday with 4 littlies for a total of just .90 grams from some flogged old sluicings using the joey mono coil.

On saturday & sunday went to some other old sluiced workings & on saturday was again using the little mono joey & only got in 2 hours detecting for 11 pieces. I gave two to the land owner for allowing me on to his property to detect. He didnt want to take them but I forced them on to him. I think he was quite tickled in the end The 9 I left with were 5.99 grams. On sunday I detected for 4 hours & used the 24" X 12" UFO mono & got 10 pieces for a total of 26.11 grams. The biggest was 13.85 grams & was only 1" deep. It was out with the first scrape of my pick & I would have sworn it was going to be a .22 shell or a .303. It screamed in my ear as you can imagine.

Scrape hole just to the left of my hand



These 3 were found all pretty close to each other







On monday I went back to the old workings that I went to on the friday that have been thrashed by every man & his dog. Met a guy there, first time ever I have come across some one else there. He was detecting there with a GPX 4500. He was using a 14" nugget finder elliptical mono. Not sure how long he had been there. He probably told me but I cant remember. He took a guess who I was & got it right. MMMmmm guess he has seen my posts & also being in Queenstown....... He hadnt got anything. I wasnt holding much hope myself as I have thrashed the place myself but to date have got over one ounce there. That suprised him as the place has seen probably every gold machine out there over the years.
I decided to look in places that I hadnt given much thought to & went real slow with my little favourite joey mono. Places like the side walls & edges of the old tailing races. Well one as it turned out. I didnt get there until about 4pm. He was just leaving as the weather looked a bit dodgy & it started to rain a bit. I had a plastic bag over my control box so wasnt too worried. After we had a bit of a chat the rain stopped & it looked a bit brighter so he decided to stay a bit longer. I had just got my first signal when he walked up to me. When I got back in to it it just turned out to be a bit of crap. He went off a couple of tailing races away & I headed to the edge of one. My next 4 targets were all bits off gold. It was probably about 1.5 hours later & he decided to head off.
I asked how he did & he had nothing. He was suprised when I showed him my 4 as he had scanned that area when he first walked in. We said our goodbyes & then I got 3 more bits right where I was standing when he walked off.
I was right in the zone....I dont know what it is......Mentaly ground balanced or what But I was just getting piece after piece with no junk targets. Just on dark I got another one & didnt have my head lamp with me. I had left it on the bloody roof of my wagon It was right in the hard schist & not in a crevice & right on the top lip edge of a tailing race that was a good 10 foot drop into the bottom which was full of briar rose. SHYT BAGS....what do I do?? Keep at it & risk it going off the edge & down in to the briar rose bushs & lost for ever or wait until another day......NA go for it.......All went well be it dark by the time I got it out. All up I got 13 pieces for a total of just over 4 grams. Just when you think a place has given all its going to.....13 pieces for the GP 3000 & nothing for the GPX 4500.

4.14 grams


Tuesday I went back to where I was detecting on saturday & sunday & detected there for three days. Hoping to get some more bigger pieces. Wasnt to be but got 9 bits on tuesday for 5.68 grams again using the 24" X 12" UFO mono. I am amazed at the small gold this big coil gets.



Wednesday I got 3 bits with the 18" coiltek mono going over the same ground that I had gone over with the UFO. None of them were over 1 gram. I then went into the old sluiced area looking for exposed bedrock with the little joey & got 5 bits. Total for wednesday was 8 bits for only 3.99 grams. Quite a bit of quartz in the piece top right.



Thursday I put on the 11" mono & got 6 bits out in open country. Then put back on the joey mono & got another 6 bits in & around the fringe of the old workings



We have had snow today in Queenstown so I dont know what the weekend will have in store for me on the detecting front.

Happy hunting

JW

good report sounds like you've found yourself a little Spot X. something is definately going right for you.

your GP3000 gives me good hopes for my modified GP extreme that should arrive next week. do you mind PM'ing me your settings.