downunder1
New member
I am brand new to the detector world and have just purchased the X-Terra 705 Gold Package. It hasn't arrived yet. I thought I might share with you the reasons for my decision to buy the 705 Gold Pack (it might be a useful summary for other newcomers to detectors) and also to ask a few questions.
I am retired now and live virtually next door to an old gold field in south east Queensland, Australia. This opportunity seemed too good to pass up. This gold field reportedly had 700 men working on it at one stage. Not a great amount of gold was produced and what was found could generally be regarded as fine gold, not big nuggets. It has been worked over fairly well so it will take some effort to find gold, but that is my intention. The priorities that affected my detector choice were 1. to find gold. 2. to choose a detector that would be suitable for a beginner to learn on. 3. to find coins etc. 4. to use for study of the geology of an area. 5. as a prospecting tool for use in potential new gold areas. 6. to be useful to supplement a more expensive detector if I move further into this pastime and perhaps for use by another who might accompany me who was not familiar with detectors or who only used mine occasionally (my wife came to mind).
As regards priorities 1 and 2, my choices tended to also include detectors like the Fisher Gold Bug 2, the White's GMT and GMZ, and the Minelab 4500 and 5000. I read that the Fisher was the best on fine gold but took some time to master. The 4500 and 5000 also could take time to master and were expensive and a big jump up for person who has never used a detector before, but their reputation for being the overall best detectors seemed unquestioned in the literature. I may still eventually buy one of these minelabs in the future to use with my purchase (priority 6). The White's appeared good for my purpose and probably I would have gone for the GMT had it not fallen into the category of being a somewhat dedicated gold detector. Priority 3 led me from the White's to the X-Terra 705 as a more general use detector, although how good it is on finding fine gold is something I could not explicitely find in the literature, especially when I tried to find a comparison to detectors like the Fisher and the White's. As for priority 4 and 5, I used to be a geologist a long, long time ago. It was a career I wish I could have stuck with and is now something I am drawn back to fill my "bucket list" as I grow older (I hope readers are aware of what I mean as a bucket list). I not only want to look for gold but want to study the geology of the area, perhaps try to identify the reasons for the deposit, and to use this to look for other potential gold bearing ground in the area. I realise that a major problem in Queensland will be gaining access to likely properties (because of our laws) but I will look at that problem when it arises. I wrote to Minelab about use of a detector for geology and prospecting and I include their reply because it may be of interest to others. "Giving a different mineral reading on differing ground types is not possible with the GPX5000. The X-TERRA 705 has a digital display, and when in the Tracking Ground balance option you can actually keep track of the ground balance reading. This will allow you to trace specific gold bearing mineralization through different areas, and/or help you to determine abrupt changes in mineralization. Although not as immune to Mineralisation as the GPX5000, this sort of information can be valuable when prospecting in open (un-mined) ground, where the terrain visually looks quite similar."
The questions I still have in mind that I hope someone can help me with are: 1. how does the 705 compare to dedicated gold detectors like the Fisher and the White's, am I still going to find most of the gold that the Fisher and the White's would have found, and 2. If I want to concentrate a search on coins etc, will the coil that came with the gold pack be able to be used for this purpose or should I buy another coil, and which coil would that be. I hope I haven't bored you with my thoughts.
I am retired now and live virtually next door to an old gold field in south east Queensland, Australia. This opportunity seemed too good to pass up. This gold field reportedly had 700 men working on it at one stage. Not a great amount of gold was produced and what was found could generally be regarded as fine gold, not big nuggets. It has been worked over fairly well so it will take some effort to find gold, but that is my intention. The priorities that affected my detector choice were 1. to find gold. 2. to choose a detector that would be suitable for a beginner to learn on. 3. to find coins etc. 4. to use for study of the geology of an area. 5. as a prospecting tool for use in potential new gold areas. 6. to be useful to supplement a more expensive detector if I move further into this pastime and perhaps for use by another who might accompany me who was not familiar with detectors or who only used mine occasionally (my wife came to mind).
As regards priorities 1 and 2, my choices tended to also include detectors like the Fisher Gold Bug 2, the White's GMT and GMZ, and the Minelab 4500 and 5000. I read that the Fisher was the best on fine gold but took some time to master. The 4500 and 5000 also could take time to master and were expensive and a big jump up for person who has never used a detector before, but their reputation for being the overall best detectors seemed unquestioned in the literature. I may still eventually buy one of these minelabs in the future to use with my purchase (priority 6). The White's appeared good for my purpose and probably I would have gone for the GMT had it not fallen into the category of being a somewhat dedicated gold detector. Priority 3 led me from the White's to the X-Terra 705 as a more general use detector, although how good it is on finding fine gold is something I could not explicitely find in the literature, especially when I tried to find a comparison to detectors like the Fisher and the White's. As for priority 4 and 5, I used to be a geologist a long, long time ago. It was a career I wish I could have stuck with and is now something I am drawn back to fill my "bucket list" as I grow older (I hope readers are aware of what I mean as a bucket list). I not only want to look for gold but want to study the geology of the area, perhaps try to identify the reasons for the deposit, and to use this to look for other potential gold bearing ground in the area. I realise that a major problem in Queensland will be gaining access to likely properties (because of our laws) but I will look at that problem when it arises. I wrote to Minelab about use of a detector for geology and prospecting and I include their reply because it may be of interest to others. "Giving a different mineral reading on differing ground types is not possible with the GPX5000. The X-TERRA 705 has a digital display, and when in the Tracking Ground balance option you can actually keep track of the ground balance reading. This will allow you to trace specific gold bearing mineralization through different areas, and/or help you to determine abrupt changes in mineralization. Although not as immune to Mineralisation as the GPX5000, this sort of information can be valuable when prospecting in open (un-mined) ground, where the terrain visually looks quite similar."
The questions I still have in mind that I hope someone can help me with are: 1. how does the 705 compare to dedicated gold detectors like the Fisher and the White's, am I still going to find most of the gold that the Fisher and the White's would have found, and 2. If I want to concentrate a search on coins etc, will the coil that came with the gold pack be able to be used for this purpose or should I buy another coil, and which coil would that be. I hope I haven't bored you with my thoughts.
so no need to spend 6K spend 2K and your on track 
where we end up no one will know 