Goldquest purchase or not to?

[cabochris]

Hi to all. I do have some detecting experience and am looking for the edge in the field. For most of my saltwater hunting I use Excaliburs and have found lots of gold with them. I have also tried several pulse machines including PI Pro, HeadHunter PI, Sand shark and Infinium. I sort of liked the Infinium and felt it went the deepest on a gold wedding band. But in the water it made too much noise! The PI PRO is very nice and a very fast detector. But the headphones pinch my ears and the volume is not very high. The HeadHunter leaked water on the battery side, because of the poor O ring set-up and nearly electrocuted my fingers in the sea, with first use! My verdict is still out on the Shark.

I'm sure that I could work with any of the above pulse machines, but again I want the edge in the field. For my style of hunting in the waist to chest deep water I'll stick with the Excaliburs. They seem to work for me there and every time I tried a pulse detector in the water, I found far less gold and platinum and too much junk in the surf! Where I find 10 pieces of gold with an Ecalibur in several hours, I find only 1 piece with a pulse! On such vacations my time is limited, so I feel discrimination is better served.

BUT, I am also interested in Beach hunting and Gold prospecting from time to time and feel for thos applications Excaliburs are like fish out of the water! For gold prospecting I have used MXT, Gold Bug 2 and Infinium and like the MXT the best. For beach hunting I have a Sovereign XS/WOT.

So here is my question. How well would the Goldquest serve all my beach hunting and gold prospecting needs? I realize it does not have a ground adjust, yet from what I read on this forum, it still detects small nuggets in hot ground. My thinking is this. With the Goldquest I have several coil options, including those for Minelabs. That means at the beach I could cover lots of ground with a Larger ML/Coiltek coil or, search for thin diamond rings at waters edge with 8 inch mono. So at the beach I should do better with GQ than with the other above mentioned pulse machines. In the gold fields with GQ a smaller/DD coil would be used, and I should be able to leave my VLF gold machines home- since one hunts for gold in all-metal anyway.

I like the price of the Goldquest and the interchangeable coil ability. Plus I often travel with my detectors to remote places and favor the use of standard batteries over recharge-ables, where there may be no power! Sorry this is long, but is my thinking on Goldquest as a replacement for several of my detectors and for my use off base? If not then I might purchase 2, one as back-up on expeditions.

Thanks, Chris.

 

[Gulf Hunter]

Well cabochris, I cannot help you much from a nugget standpoint, as I have never been involved in that aspect of the sport. I am a water hunter exclusively. I also own an Excal 1000 and an Aquasearch Goldquest. I believe in their respective classes they are the best available. I use the Excal for intermediate/trashy (ferrous content)surf areas/lakes where the sand is not too deep and there is a clay base at some point and some wet sand. I use the Aquasearch in clean/intermediate surf areas where the ferrous iron content is less. I still find some, but there is much less out deeper, in between the bars, at least in my area. I don't think the Goldquest SS will be a good wetsander for you, because the shallower water will have lighter weight targets, like nails & bobby pins. Don't get me wrong, gold/silver is there too, but from what I see lighter weighted targets tend to be in closer to shore and the dense targets like coins, lead, silver and gold are out further. Of course, this area gets less pressure as well, so that is an advantage for you, The Goldquest Aquasearch is not cheap, but I believe there is no finer, more sensitive submersible available. The wave action is simply overcome by turning the SAT up fast. The other PIs I have used were very noisy when waves came over. I had MrBill change out the stock 11" for an 8" and it is MUCH more stable in deeper water and easier to handle. The 11" coil was floppy in the surf and there was a lot of static in my area for some reason. The 8" still gets scalding depth and the deepest ring (120 baggett diamonds and 10.4Gs of 10K), was over the 2nd bar and past my elbow in the sand.
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Savvy?

 

[desertdon]

You have used and have a nice array of detectors to answer your question in part, I think the Goldquest will do what you want. You need to use DD coil in goldfields, it will do good in most all average ground, in really hot ground and any basalt areas less so, one way to minimize effect is to lift coil some. It is not waterproof so will not handle water hunting other than waters edge. On the beach it will equal or exceed anything you have.

The Infinium needs to be ground balance properly to work correctly. You need to balance on wet sand by starting with "Fast" and give it time to balance comletely, five minutes, then go to "slow" and do the same and then "lock", just lay in on ground while it comes through balancing, you need to use discrimination control if necessary to further remove salt signal, you will not have great sensitivity to small gold in water generally, like thin rings, or chains unless there is medalion on it.

Good luck with your hunts. Don

 

[cabochris]

Thanks guys. I need to do a little more thinking on this. I am leaning towards trying a GQ. The price seems right. I once read an article where a fellow used a ML 2200 on the beach and cleaned house, because he could hit small rings and gold down deep! Other detectors on the beach never stood a chance!

After storms I thought that might be a good thing to try? But rather than a ML, use the Goldquest with same larger coils? The AS will not allow for coil swaps and only is good to a depth of 6 feet. Plus every time I have hunted in deeper water with a pulse, I get fooled on bobby pins and dig lots of them! It is tough to did holes to China in 5 foot deep water, to come up with a bottle cap or pin! Perhaps after learning the GQ at the beach, I might give the AS a go?

I am also hoping that in the gold fields the GQ would be better than a VLF, despite lack of GB.

CC

 

[Reg]

Hi CC,

I use a GQ clone in the gold fields and I like it. I do use a DD coil almost exclusively though. There are a few places where you have to be a little more careful to keep the coil level, but in many areas you can be reasonably sloppy.

If you can do basic soldering and willing to try, you can build coils such as the ground and noise canceling coil. I have built a few and found the depth to be reasonable while being extremely quiet.

So, there are alternatives to ground balance that do work quite well. No, you will not match the ML for depth, but the GQ will do better then the VLF's for depth and ease of use. Loud negative responses from hotrocks like those heard on a VLF will be a thing of the past. The GQ ignores those rocks.

Now, I recently built a concentric coil for my GQ clone and found it to be a little more sensitive than my DD coil. So, it looks like I need to build a few more of different sizes.

Reg

 

[cabochris]

Thanks Reg, this is wonderful news! CC.

 

[colt]

Hi Cabochris

I have been using my GQSS V2 for about 2 months and it is a pleasure to use in the nugget patch here in AZ, it is light weight and thanks to some help from Reg and Mr. Bill I can hunt in areas loaded with hot rocks with no problem. Some of the areas that I go to will drive a VLF detector crazy, hot rocks will eat them for breakfast.

I use a mono coil for about 80% of my hunting and a DD coil for the areas of off the chart minerialization. The best thing about having the GQ to Minelab adapter is I can buy used Minelab coils at good price, I also recommend rechargable AA batteries and you are set.

colt

 

[au4greg]

I have used most of the aforementioned. Since we Salt Water and Fresh Water Beach Hunters are faced with Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Targets, both of which can be a High Conductor or Low Conductor, Pulse Detectors will react to them as they don't have a VLF Discriminator.

You have to listen carefully to the response characteristics of the target, but its still a guess as to whether it is in fact ferrous or not, especially if it is a Low Conductor or Small Ferrous Target.

The Goldscanner 5 is about the most sensitive on the low conductors I have used to date, and the deepest.

I tried a Minelab GP Extreme out at Half Moon Bay's Surfer Beach and found it quite noisy on the black sand stringers. The Goldscanner 5 was by far the quietest in that thick rich black sand. I tried the Garrett Infinium and was disappointed as I found it too reactive to to the Black Sand at Surfers Beach and Montara.

The Detector Pro Head Hunter PI couldn't handle that same heavy black sand at all.......very reactive, and I had to lower the Pulse Rate Tone to Midway to get the 11" Mono Loop closer to the surface, but doing that lost the smaller low conductors.

Away from the Really Black Sand, the Head Hunter PI exceled in depth finding small tear drops over 8". For a PI under $1000.00, the Detector Pro PI is really a super PI. It does need a gain control to handle the really intense black sand but anything less conductive, the Gain Levels are set up optimum.

The White's PI and Tesoro Sand Shark both have gain control and no pulse width delay, but both seem to require low gain setting to keep the reaction to the sand under control. White's took off the Pulse Delay which I used to use as a Crude Discriminator in their newest Surfmaster PI substituting a Gain control. Sand Shark has a VCO Audio Circuit which I really like.

Still, the GS5 is the Deepest PI I have used on Low and High Conductor Targets.