A
Anonymous
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As the Goldquest SS is finding other applications in addition to beach hunting for gold jewellery, I thought it would be an idea to recap on some of the similarities and differences between hunting for rings and nuggets with this detector.
The Goldquest SS started life as a more sensitive version of the Beachscan Mk2. The initial objective was to make a detector that was more sensitive to small gold jewellery in a salt water environment. This would enable thinner, lower carat rings, earrings and chains, that were poorly detected previously by PI units, to now be found at reasonable depths. The main limiting factor to sensitivity in a beach detector is the electrical conductivity of the environment in which the detector is used. A compromise has to be made in the electronic design between getting the best sensitivity to the above wanted objects, in the presence of an acceptable level of background pickup from the environment.
The small object sensitivity of a PI is largely determined by the small delay between the switch off of each transmitter pulse, and start of the receiver sampling. In the case of the Goldquest, this delay is ten millionths of a second, or 10uS (microseconds) in technical language. By comparison, the Beachscan that it superseded was 15uS. This seemingly small difference has a large impact on the smaller objects that the detector can now sense. If it were practical to reduce the delay even more, then further increases in small object sensitivity would be had. However, to go shorter than 10uS on a detector that was primarily designed for beach hunting, would result in big problems with ground conductivity signals.
A few detectorists have tried the Goldquest in environments other than the beach, to see how it fares as a nugget hunter. Generally it has received favourable reports provided the ground is not heavily iron mineralised, and one is not expecting to find anything much under 0.5grams weight. Some environments will be too tough for it, without active ground balancing, particularly in parts of Australia. However, the tests that Tony Shere, Bill Munro and Robert Craig are doing, plus Reg Sniff and Scott Hughy in the US, provide valuable information for future development. Even if it involves
The Goldquest SS started life as a more sensitive version of the Beachscan Mk2. The initial objective was to make a detector that was more sensitive to small gold jewellery in a salt water environment. This would enable thinner, lower carat rings, earrings and chains, that were poorly detected previously by PI units, to now be found at reasonable depths. The main limiting factor to sensitivity in a beach detector is the electrical conductivity of the environment in which the detector is used. A compromise has to be made in the electronic design between getting the best sensitivity to the above wanted objects, in the presence of an acceptable level of background pickup from the environment.
The small object sensitivity of a PI is largely determined by the small delay between the switch off of each transmitter pulse, and start of the receiver sampling. In the case of the Goldquest, this delay is ten millionths of a second, or 10uS (microseconds) in technical language. By comparison, the Beachscan that it superseded was 15uS. This seemingly small difference has a large impact on the smaller objects that the detector can now sense. If it were practical to reduce the delay even more, then further increases in small object sensitivity would be had. However, to go shorter than 10uS on a detector that was primarily designed for beach hunting, would result in big problems with ground conductivity signals.
A few detectorists have tried the Goldquest in environments other than the beach, to see how it fares as a nugget hunter. Generally it has received favourable reports provided the ground is not heavily iron mineralised, and one is not expecting to find anything much under 0.5grams weight. Some environments will be too tough for it, without active ground balancing, particularly in parts of Australia. However, the tests that Tony Shere, Bill Munro and Robert Craig are doing, plus Reg Sniff and Scott Hughy in the US, provide valuable information for future development. Even if it involves