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I wish I could say the same here Dave. The new software update,coupled to the ferrite ring,did give my GPZ 7000 some improvement over most ground conditions,but not in leaps & bounds. One thing I have noticed though,because of the saturated wet ground conditions here in Vic,I'v dug 4 times more false signals,than when the ground was dry. Who knows,maybe it's just me & the way I'v got my detector set up? (for I prefer to avoid the use of the smoothing modes,unless necessary.)
As for the new upcoming 19 inch super D coil,Minelab did say there should be an announcement around mid October about pricing & its release date.
Fingers crossed & I can only hope,that the new coil release,turns out to be a winner,in more ways than one & not some expensively priced duffer,or it's curtains for us Dave,curtains I tell ya. All over red rover.
I know I shouldn't be looking at this from a negative point of view & some of the bright side is required,for most the surrounding gold fields here in Vic,are almost free of buck shot,nails & deeply buried steel artefacts/lead bullets.   Arhhh,this is the life no?      

Cheers Kon.

Hey Dave
for my part, I never experienced any issues that a lot of people said they had.  I remember the trouble you had and I never had anything like that,  and consequently, when I installed the upgrade, I never noticed any difference.  My detector ran nice and smooth then and it runs nice and smooth now.  
I was told, maybe 6 months ago, that when the new coil comes out there will be another upgrade so you can select which coil is connected to the detector. I have no idea whether that is true or not.
 I phoned Minelab about 4 months ago and asked them if in any upcoming upgrade could they make a small change to the functionality of the GPS and the lady I spoke to at Minelab told me that what I asked for sounded like a good idea to her and she would move my suggestion on to the powers that be.
So I`m hoping to see my suggestion in the next upgrade      
dave

phoenix wrote:
So I`m hoping to see my suggestion in the next upgrade  
dave

nvm.......

kon61 wrote:. One thing I have noticed though,because of the saturated wet ground conditions here in Vic,I'v dug 4 times more false signals,than when the ground was dry. Who knows,maybe it's just me & the way I'v got my detector set up? (for I prefer to avoid the use of the smoothing modes,unless necessary.)
Cheers Kon.

Kon we are digging our fair share of wet false signals with the GPX,s so don't despair!

I know you're right in what you say Steve. It is what it is and although far from perfect,we just have to make do with what we've got,& what each of us is prepared to tolerate in terms of ground noise. I don't want people to mis-understand me here,for the 7000 I have,is certainly no duffer/slouch & if I wanted it to sing smoothly like a hovering hummingbird,it can be made to,but as all detectors,at the cost of losing some sensitivity/depth. Something of which no detectorist wishes to sacrifice,unless absolutely necessary,of course.
Always look on the bright,side of life, dooroo,dooroo dooroo dooroo.  Now,where dat next nugget hiding?

Cheers Kon.

After many hours of fruitless searching its obvious we are loosing depth as the water has worked its way down deep,there is a definite lack of deep targets unless they have a bit of size to them.The question for us is really whether we want to get out for a bit of exercise or catch up on home maintenance.
The only gold turning up for us is small shallow or the very odd larger piece shallow which are few and far between.Its going to take a good long hot summer to dry the deeper moisture.Over the last few outings I've resigned myself to small coils over shallow hilly ground or surfacing's.

It has been a totally different machine for me since the upgrade as far as ground balance and stability are concerned.

My one complaint is to do with a point Steve Herschbach first highlighted, at least I think it was him.
He said that the audio controls are not named right, the volume control should be the threshold.

I actually came to the same conclusion myself. I use headphones a lot because of wind and water noise, and found that when the machine detects headphones inserted into the wireless module the audio settings become very weak.

I've found that unless I have the Threshold set on 21 or 22 or 23 (not less than 21, and not more than 23) 24 is to loud and less than 21 signals can be missed, they will often sound off on the second pass but very often not on the first.
With this in mind, I found that I needed to use the Volume setting as the threshold, but when it is set to what I feel is the correct level, weak target signals become almost imperceptible, but they are there alright as I've built a couple of amplifiers that I'm presently testing, and it extends the range a few inches on very small or deep targets.

I just wish Minelab would take a look at this and beef up the audio for us headphone users, the power of the Zed is not being fully utilised. I hope Mr Herschbach has pointed it out to them so we might get other options in the future, because it is a big weakness, audio systems on many Minelab models have been.

Other than that, no grumbles from me, except longing for a bigger coil.  

Cheers.

g'day all, i have to say the upgrade to the 7000, has made an incredible difference.  i also thought it logical that they have to have a further upgrade when the big coil is issued.  hopefully this will not only incorporate the ability to switch from the 14 to 19 coils, but further fine tune our machine.

recall the gp extreme, it enabled us to use large mono coils on previously dedicated dd country.  it was noisy but very effective in getting better depth.  my first few months with the 7000 was challenging, but the upgrade turned it into a deadly machine and very quiet in "difficult" soil timings.

but three weeks back i had run out of known spots to ping the deeper smaller bits that were left to find in difficul quiet mode, so i challenged myself to run in "normal".
it was like going back to the extreme, a noisy bugger that found every hot rock, burnt clay, deep charcoal, and worst of all that pocket of orange slate that is normally down 8 to 12 inches. they all give a similar - dig me - signal to a larger piece of gold down deep.

the good news is on the first days outing i was lucky to find a 52gram specimen of fine grained gold down 16 inches, { i am pretty sure the GPX machines wouldnt have heard this one} so naturally i have stuck to the noisy - normal - setting to try and find his mates.  i have found a similar specimen of  19grams down 15 inches, a 4.2gram specimen, and four more solid nuggets of 2.6 1.75 1.6 and 1.5 all over 12 inches deep.

guess who has a smile on his dial........

the "bad"news, if you can call it that, is i havent found a single small surface nugget, but then again, no shot pellets, tin is easy to bypass, and only a few bullets.  and the real bad news is all the hundreds of false signals from all the ground noises was a hell of a lot of digging - just call me backhoe.

so by now i have confused a lot of you experienced people, who are probably thinking i have finally gone totally stroppo, heres the SECRET ....  i have been running in DEEP.

it has in fact "opened up the flogged ground to as new again".

so heres my hope for the new 19 inch coil, and the hoped and expected upgrade to go with it. ---  you will remember in the initial add on the 19 coil, they made the statement that most have probably forgotten,  --- it will be quieter ---

just like the extreme was improved with quieter detecting modes right up to the 5000,  i am hopeing they will iron out the obvious ground noises with improvements, heres hopeing. ... kev

P.S.  the above skiting actually happened, right here in the flogged to death clermont qld goldfields.  whats your answer to that jim?

The 7000 is the best detector I have used in the tablelands/central west NSW goldfields ground. It was almost unusable on the sections of wet salty loam you get n WA during the recent wet detecting season.

I have found that contouring and walking to stay on the same type of ground in an area as much as possible for as long as possible has helped keep the machine balanced. (ie not continually walking over changing ground types where possible ) has helped.

The Software upgrade and me getting more experienced with the machine has resulted in better tallies. Pinging the small deeper nuggets is a big part of it.

I don't like the WM speaker and have gone to headphones with great results. The audio on the speaker seems to lack clarity and definition. I detect very slow with a high "gain" and I am hearing deeper signals with headphones.

So despite the issues of the machine not having a cover on the speaker outlet, the feet breaking and the charger lead breaking and the speaker giving poor audio quality and range and the coil cover always coming loose and the coil nuts loosing their ability to stay tight and the shaft being too short I am happily detecting away with more success then I have had previously.

The thing/skill I have had to learn with the 7000 compared to earlier models is that a slight almost undiscernible pause or murmer in the tone/signal often means a deep small target is present

CheersTributer