Jafnob said:
Thanks Pilbarachad, really appreciate the info, do you just run the same settings as with your other mono coils, besides the fine gold setting of course, or just run he factory settings?
For settings there were only a few that I ever played with and changed, namely RX gain which I would run as high as possible before getting EMI etc generally I ran that anywhere between about 11 and 16 or so, generally higher in the cooler months and lower in summer as you seem to get a heap more EMI. When I first got my 5000 someone told me to keep the stabilizer 2 points below your gain so I stuck with that for the first few months and never ventured too far from that too be honest. My settings were a bit hotter than a lot of my mates ie I ran it a bit noisier with my settings, but was always easily able to distinguish targets from background noise, I had a GP extreme prior to my 5000 so I was kinda used to a bit of noise. I also always ran my detector in fixed tracking and never ran it in deep (unless on salt flats).
What syndyne mentioned about overlapping your swings is another good point also- on several occaisions ive picked up nuggets on my own chain marks by simply coming back in the other direction. Also pulled a few nuggies out of other peoples holes aswell.
Some of the most fun ive had detecting is with that coil, like I said before if you find a spot where there are old detector holes or an old scrape- with that coil and some patience you are almost guaranteed gold (well before the SDC came out anyway).
Heres a story for ya- a mate of a mate found a very small patch probably 4m x 4m on a creek bed that he pulled 200+ sub gram nuggets from before it ran dry for him- im not sure what detector and coil he was using. My mate then put a bit of time into it, hand scraped a little and ended up getting about 50 little subbies before letting me know about- he was using a 5000 and sadie. Now the first time I hit it, I spent about 45 minutes going over that tiny little patch from every angle and ended up with a single tiny bit. Then over about another 7-8 visits I slowly raked off and inch or so at a time, and ended up with a few nuggets after each raking- many of them only just being able to be picked up with the 5000 and sadie, I started taking my goldbug 2 with me and got a mate out there with his GMT aswell, I must of pulled another 50 or so nuggets out of there-not much weight but real good fun. Now anyway moral of that story is that even after 2 others had flogged a tiny little spot like that, you would think that there would be nothing left at all, not a single fleck- but using the right coil, settings, detector etc and being persistant you will be amazed at how much gets left behind. Oh yeah quickly went over that spot a couple of months ago with my GPZ7000 and pulled another couple subbies right out of the middle of it. If a spots given up gold in the past it generally still will for quite a while.
Good luck out there- looking forward to seeing some pics of your finds.