No adjustable ground balance?

[whylee]

Am I the only one questioning the air test results? 250 mm on a 3 ounce nugget? 250mm = 10 inches. So 10 inches on a 3 ounce nugget???
There's no way that can be right. My TDI SL can hear a 4gm nugget at 9 inches, and while I don't have access to a 3 ounce nugget I am guessing it could hear that at least at 12-14 inches.

My TDI SL would sound off on a 1 1/2 oz nugget air test at 12 inch's using the stock 12" coil. Using the 6" whites TDI elipticle coil, I could plainly hear it to about 8 inch's on a air test using the same nugget. Im pretty confident that the ATX will better the performance of the TDI SL and hopefully the Pro also. Im also sure it will better the infinium.
Time and useage will tell, I hope we hear something this next week on deliveries.

 

[Tye]

JP,

I do not know you so I can only go by your posts.

Yes, the quotes were taken out of context...I wasn't about to copy 4 pages of posts and put all that
Here ! These posts I quoted are not presenting any distortions as far as I can tell. I did read all the posts.

Being a homer is another way of saying your biased as you've admitted.
You also make money promoting Minelab products besides using them for prospecting.
I'd say your bias is potentially more than performance(OZ conditions) based on that fact alone regardless of the quotes I posted.

By drawing a comparison between two items, for what ever reason, it is always at the expense of one of the items...and it wasn't
the GPX in yours.

As for asking Chris or Steve if they agree with what you've said about the ATX,
I see no need for that. I do however subscribe, like Steve, to the notion that the best tester of metal detectors
that I am interested in is me.

Not that anyone would care...but I am not a brand loyalist ... I own a couple of Garrett's, a GPX5000 and a Fisher
and I am intellectually honest about all of them.

Just wanted some clarification for me and others who might read your posts JP.

Cheers,

Tye

 

[bearkat4160]

Yea I know, but that is as manual as the ATX gets...

 

[steve herschbach]

I found JPs conclusions quite reasonable myself. He is perhaps the most knowledgeable and proficient detectorist I have ever hunted with. Is it simply that nothing but glowing words about the ATX can be tolerated Tye? Everyone is biased, including yourself, by our life experiences. JP also, but to blow his observations off as bias is doing him a disservice.

 

[bearkat4160]

Yea; I thought JP's comments were quite fair...

 

[steve herschbach]

I would like to experiment with the ground balance system by using various items to force it to balance to certain settings and then test target responses. Purposefully misadjusting it, if you will. The tone break point is dependent in the ground balance setting. For instance, if ground balanced to salt water, all targets give a low/high response. In normal ground the break point is just above zinc pennies.

 

[bearkat4160]

Yes; I am a Garrett fan, but I don't bash Minelabs as I use them...I just prefer Garrett's. I like all of the brands actually, but the Garrett just performs for me better.

Like for instance when I was filming the ATX videos the other day, a dude with a Tesoro Sand Shark showed up and he was saying how great it was...so we just did a quick test on a quarter with ATX vs his SS...I just had to laugh cause he got it at about 5 inches and the ATX was well over a foot. He quickly put it back in his truck.

So what will I grab to go detecting that does not cost $5000 or sound like a whale? Mmm, My Garrett's.
A little brand loyalty here Steve, but if my Minelab GPX 5000 did better for me I would use it more.

I'm a big fan of yours Steve using your 5000 and your gold you get with it...Like your speciman you found a while back in California, nice one there. I think my Ace 250 might have hit it though, Lol

 

[bearkat4160]

Yee Steve! I have done that a bit with the ATX...nothing in detail, but I want to do more of those type test also. I GB on that iron seam that was in my videos, and detected the nuggets on the less hot stuff and seemed to ok still. I did not go much further in doing this as the nugget did not disappear, but the ground was not extreme to the extreme in difference, but different enough for more test in the future.

 

[Tye]

Steve,

I'm not blowing him off...I own and like his GPX DVD about the 5000.
It is clear to me he knows a great deal. I get that.
But as I said I'm my own best tester for what I'm interested in. I have learned many things from other people but
checking/understanding sources when gathering info is important if your are going to use that info to help make decisions.
I was truly confused by what I posted above. As I said it seemed like he wanted to have his cake and eat it to.
If you believe his suggestions are fair with what's been available..... that's fine by me...I see it a little differently.
Maybe I'm just a little naive...I just don't think those characterizations are all that knowable at this point in Testing or lack there of.
I think it possible for them to be misleading....that is the only reason I posted anything to begin with.
As I said ... I don't know him and nothing I post here is personal.

Are we REALLY all destine to be 'Hot Rock' kickers for the rest of our lives..if we buy a GTX and prospect in hot rock ville?...... LOL
I hope/bet not !

That's about all I have ....

Cheers,

Tye

 

[Fishers Ghost]

Yes; I am a Garrett fan, but I don't bash Minelabs as I use them...I just prefer Garrett's. I like all of the brands actually, but the Garrett just performs for me better.

Like for instance when I was filming the ATX videos the other day, a dude with a Tesoro Sand Shark showed up and he was saying how great it was...so we just did a quick test on a quarter with ATX vs his SS...I just had to laugh cause he got it at about 5 inches and the ATX was well over a foot. He quickly put it back in his truck.

So what will I grab to go detecting that does not cost $5000 or sound like a whale? Mmm, My Garrett's.
A little brand loyalty here Steve, but if my Minelab GPX 5000 did better for me I would use it more.

I'm a big fan of yours Steve using your 5000 and your gold you get with it...Like your speciman you found a while back in California, nice one there. I think my Ace 250 might have hit it though, Lol

Interesting comment re the Sand Shark.
My SS will go 12 inches on a quarter and an Aussie 10 cent (Similar size coins) with the coins resting on the slightly iron mineralised ground in my back yard inc some EMI.

Yeah the MLs do sound like dying whales. Maybe that is why the whales beach themselves of the WA coast now and again........They are trying ta hook up with all the GPXs in the desert.

 

[bearkat4160]

Very possible Adrian...

 

[steve herschbach]

You are OK Alan, got a sense of humor. I like that. Maybe we will cross paths detecting one day. Best of luck to you with your ATX.

 

[Jonathan Porter]

My bias is directly proportional to the amount of performance I can get from the detector I'm swinging. If any of the manufacturers made detectors more powerful than what I'm using to make my bread and butter then I could give a damn what the branding on the side of the box was, I would use it!! I find this all particularly funny in some ways because my integrity gets called into question a lot when anything new comes out including Minelab product, the thing thats funny to me is when Minelab sometimes ask me to test their detectors its because I'm good at giving them feedback without too much bias!! Go figure?

[size=small]Heres a picture of a 13.5 gram nugget I just found an hour ago, using a Smooth type timing in really noisy blood red clays!![/size]

 

[bearkat4160]

Hi JP,

I have used the ATX on 5 different 4-5 hours hunts now in hot California dirt...I have yet to hit one hot rock and the ATX pures like a kitten on full power in hot hot ground.

Maybe you should not even comment on the ATX until you use one...

Bearkat

 

[bearkat4160]

Yea hope to detect with you one day Steve... You will enjoy the ATX. Wont replace your 5000 I'm sure, but knowing you, you will find some nuggets with it and give it fair review.

 

[Jonathan Porter]

Hi Bearkat, fair enough but please remember I was dragged into having to be more specific due to cross posting of my comments off an Australian forum where I was originally remarking about the use of an ATX in Australian conditions!!

JP

 

[Reno Chris]

But as I said I'm my own best tester for what I'm interested in.

Of course! In the end its not Steve H. or JP or Chris Ralph or anyone else who is going to decide if you by a certain detector or not. You decide for yourself - and you are without question the best judge of your own situation.
But that does not mean someone who has a completely different opinion from you is biased or wrong about their own conclusions for themselves.
Its possible that if you buy an ATX you might use it for years and never have any significant issues with hot rocks - I dont know where you hunt. But here is the US, that is certainly quite possible.
I have spent time with him and JP does hunt in what, by American standards, is pretty wild, heavily mineralized ground with some amazingly nasty hot rocks. I would figure the same thing as he stated in the Australian forum - if he had an ATX, in a lot of places he'd likely regularly be having lots of problems with Hot Rocks and mineralized ground. Probably not in every single place, but many of them. There are very real geologic reasons for this situation and the geology of gold deposits in most of Australia is different from what we tend to see here in the US.
In the same way you are the best judge of your situation, JP is the best judge of JP's situation and its kind of crazy to say he is wrong about his conclusions about his own situation.
His statement does not exhibit bias, it exhibits a detailed understanding of his own situation and where he goes prospecting.
I've known JP for a number of years, and have spent a bit of time with him here in the US, and more than a month out in the field in Australia. I will agree with Steve and say that I have never met anyone more knowledgeable and experienced in finding gold with a detector. I've had long and frank discussions with him and certainly did not find him biased at all. I totally believe that if some unkown Acme detector maker came out with a detector that was clearly better than the GPX 5000, that JP would be using that detector as soon as he could get his hands on one.
The ATX is not intended to better than the GPX 5000 in all or nearly all situations - its one huge advantage is underwater (and as Steve saw this summer, there are possibilites underwater here in the western US). If the ATX really was head and shoulders above the 5000, the price would not be $2200 or so, but $7000 or so. If I were a detector maker and had something clearly better than the 5000, I'd price my new wiz bang detector above the 5000. Instead the ATX is targeted at the midrange. Great performance for the money and filling a gap that minelab left when they stopped making the SD detectors a couple years back. I sincerely believe that there are a good number of prospectors out there that cant really justify the cost of a 5000, but could pay $2200 for a good performing PI with some excellent capabilities. So I think the ATX will prove to be a fine machine for many detector operators and overall sell well.

 

[bearkat4160]

I undertand JP....reminds me of the good ole days in 2002 when the Infinium was released, Lol

Oh man, that was crazy...

 

[bearkat4160]

Well said Chris. I think the 12" DD coil hitting .1 gram nuggets on the ATX is pretty good performance for half of a GPX 5000 and no need for a small mono to do it.
It just closes the odds of not missing gold you walk over and doing that a lower cost. The Infinium you could walk over a few bits quite often, the ATX, not so much.

Bearkat

 

[GoldChaser]

Hi Bearkat, where in Cal are you hunting? Are you not hearing any hot rocks because there aren't many strong hot rocks where you are or because you have the ATX tuned a specific way? The reason that I ask is because I became concerned early on when I saw the video of the machine sounding off on hot rocks even after the guy GB'd it on top of the hot rock. Where I go in the Cal Gold Country there are tons of hot rocks especially near the rivers. I was wondering if that was where you were. Thanks for all of your reporting on this cool new machine!