First Go At Detecting (Minelab GM 1000)

[NorCal7]

After 7 years of prospecting, I finally bought my first detector and went to a well known dealer. After a lot of research, I had the search down to the Goldbug 2, or GMT. After talking to the dealer in person, I left with the Minelab GM 1000. The ease of use was appealing and he was leaning that way FOR me, which made me more comfortable (Not to mention the reputation for quality gold machines they produce).

I couldn't get any leads from him on WHERE I could try it out for some success, so I went to a "pay to play" claim in Tuolumne County. On factory quick start, I couldn't take two steps without a target- most targets would scream and bounce between full non-ferrous, then back to ferrous... Once in a while I would see the machine was picking up full ferrous and not make a peep. I began digging all of the targets that seemed schizophrenic in the readings and recovered a ton of nails, tiny foil bits, a very old spike and bottle caps.

I know this is the norm for most "gold" detectors, and you should dig every target to be sure, however, this machine from everything I have read and watched should be able to discriminate, even in high trash, or highly mineralized ground?

Anyone else having these issues with the readings? It didn't matter which coil I used (I tried both for about 4 hours each).

Any help is appreciated!

 

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[NorCal7]

Just Curious,

I’m having the same issue with mine. Part of the reason I chose it,( selling point ) was it took care of the balancing and descrimination nearly %100 for you. The instructions it came with were literally 3 pictures I think and one line under each to something of the affect of - turn machine on, give it 10 seconds to balance itself, start swinging...or something like that. I got more info watching YouTube videos, but that info didn’t help much because there are not a lot of ways to play with settings because there are only a couple. I’m not giving up on it yet. It could be the ground I’m on, the fact I’m not used to “the sound” of the right targets and I mostly used it in the quick start mode, so I’m going to take the advice I’ve gotten here and try the deep sensitivity+ option a little and just see what happens. Also, I’m going to stop watching the screen the entire time and start listening more, since I’ll be digging all of the targets anyway. It was able to sound on tiny bits of foil, so I have to believe it will find gold.

My wife gave me a pass to leave for two days this weekend to prospect, so I’ll report back on what I’ve learned playing with the machine.

 

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[Gravelwasher]

That's the ticket get out and about enjoy the outdoors and being away from all the crap life throws at you and listen to the detector.
Maybe even find a little gold as a bonus.
Best of luck!!

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

A reputable dealer should be very familiar with the detectors they sell and should include some training to get you started.
Did they offer any training or was it just "good luck"?

Learning how to use the detector is only half the challenge. Research determining where gold can be located in detectable size is another.

 

[NorCal7]

He turned it on, swung it over a few items- one being a small specimen and showed me a couple settings and said that’s pretty much it. I went to this dealer because he’s well known in Northern California. He may be right, maybe that’s all there is to it other than getting out and using it. The only frustrating part of the deal was I asked if there was somewhere in the area I could use it, to get a feel for it because I live two hours away and he didn’t have any suggestions. I started picking up what he was putting down- here’s the machine, now you do the leg work, which I understand. However, when you spend almost $800 on anything a little advice really makes you feel better about your purchase. I’ve located a couple spots to use it this weekend and I will keep searching and looking for open areas and do my best to get a better feel for the detector and hope there’s not some thing within it malfunctioning.

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

After 7 years of prospecting, I finally bought my first detector and went to a well known dealer. After a lot of research, I had the search down to the Goldbug 2, or GMT. After talking to the dealer in person, I left with the Minelab GM 1000. The ease of use was appealing and he was leaning that way FOR me, which made me more comfortable (Not to mention the reputation for quality gold machines they produce).

I couldn't get any leads from him on WHERE I could try it out for some success, so I went to a "pay to play" claim in Tuolumne County. On factory quick start, I couldn't take two steps without a target- most targets would scream and bounce between full non-ferrous, then back to ferrous... Once in a while I would see the machine was picking up full ferrous and not make a peep. I began digging all of the targets that seemed schizophrenic in the readings and recovered a ton of nails, tiny foil bits, a very old spike and bottle caps.

I know this is the norm for most "gold" detectors, and you should dig every target to be sure, however, this machine from everything I have read and watched should be able to discriminate, even in high trash, or highly mineralized ground?

Anyone else having these issues with the readings? It didn't matter which coil I used (I tried both for about 4 hours each).

Any help is appreciated!

Hi NorCal7… there is a lot of frustration and discouragement expressed on this thread. I will suggest a few measures that you can employ to help you get back on to the right path.

Join a local club with claims in the area. Let others know that you are new to the hobby and ask if you can tag along to see how they do things in the field. This approach will significantly shorten your learning curve, so don’t underestimate its value. Do this, and meanwhile practice with your detector whenever convenient, your backyard is a good place to start.

A newcomer searching with a high frequency detector in excessively trashy areas is akin to plunging into deep water before you have learned to swim. Initially at least, put yourself on ground that is reasonably free of trash. It will reduce the frustration, and help you to concentrate on evaluating each target signal that you do come across. Keep in mind that before you can put any trust in visual target ID or discrimination, you must acquire a reasonably strong signal. That normally means removing some surface material to get the coil closer to the target. Make a guess as to whether you think it is ferrous trash or something non-ferrous, then dig it to find out.

On tiny targets, including gold, don’t put any trust in either target ID or discrimination regardless of the signal strength. Unless such a target produces an obvious negative hotrock signal… a “boing” signal typically produced by magnetite-bearing mafic hotrocks as you sweep back and forth across it… all such small targets must be dug.

Discrimination should never be used as a primary search mode unless you are searching an excessively trashy area or an area inundated with hotrock signals, and have good reason to believe there is gold present in sufficient size and at a detectable depth to warrant doing so. Using discrimination costs you too much depth and sensitivity, and especially so as the soils magnetic susceptible iron mineralization increases. That said, you can certainly use it as you wish to spot-check signals found while searching in the motion all-metal mode.

Otherwise, in all other field conditions, use the true motion all-metal mode and make use of your visual ID meter to help with target ID on decently strong signals. Pay strict attention to the audio, learn to distinguish positive signals from negative hotrock “boing” signals, and wide blaring rusty iron signals from the more discrete non-ferrous signals. If in any doubt at all, dig the target… especially as you’re initially learning about your detector responses to different types of targets.

Keep the sensitivity adjusted properly to the ground mineral conditions for stable performance. Initially keep it adjusted such that normal sweeping in target free areas does not produce excessive ground signals to the point where you can’t hear a small target signal at depth because you can’t distinguish it from the ground noise. As 63bkpkr noted, practice with a suitable size nugget made of lead or part of a nickel attached to a poker chip or something that you can’t easily lose. It is not quite the same thing as detecting undisturbed targets in the field, but it will still help you with adjusting the detector’s sensitivity feature.

“most targets would scream and bounce between full non-ferrous, then back to ferrous... Once in a while I would see the machine was picking up full ferrous and not make a peep.”

The targets that “wrap around” are larger ferrous items. Due to a combination of their inductance, conductivity and magnetic characteristics larger iron targets usually will oscillate between full non-ferrous and variable ferrous readouts, That is your visual tip-off but also do listen to the wider blaring audio and become acquainted with the signals produced by such iron.

Iron discrimination will normally handle most small nails, and other non-descript small iron targets. These may very well generate a full ferrous readout and as you observed, they will “not make a peep” because such targets have been effectively filtered from producing an audio signal. Just remember that as the dirt’s iron mineral magnetic susceptibility increases, and as the target’s depth increases, the reliability of discrimination and target ID substantively decrease.

To search high trash areas, adjust your ground balance by pumping the coil over clean ground that is free of target signals, and then set it to the “fixed” position so that it is no longer in autotracking mode. Frequently check your ground balance by pumping the coil over clean ground and adjust it as needed. Then turn it back off. This prevents the detector from repeatedly autotracking into subsurface rusty or disseminated iron and ensures you remain reasonably well ground-balanced to the dirt. This factor alone probably contributes a good many of the false signals that you guys are experiencing when hunting trashy areas.

In high trash areas use a smaller coil to help with target separation and target ID, and as mentioned earlier here, don’t forget to make good use of your pick magnet when digging targets. The pick magnet is your most reliable discriminator.

When searching highly magnetic susceptible iron mineralized dirt, keep in mind that small coils see less dirt and therefore less magnetic susceptible iron mineralization, thus permitting you to use significantly higher sensitivity levels. In any event, small coils are more sensitive to small gold under any conditions.

I hope these ideas will help you. Learning high frequency VLF units and nugget hunting can be frustrating at times for the newcomer, but stay the course, be patient and enjoy the great outdoors. With experience everything will eventually fall into line and make perfect sense.

Jim.

 

[JOe L]

On top of the post above with Jim, who always gives top notch info and help, I add....

Just a tip from someone who has had a few detectors and detected for awhile even though not for gold..It takes a while to learn what a detector is telling you, no matter if you're coin shooting or relics or whatever. If you look in the classifieds, its a lot of folks selling detectors cause they just didn't give it enough time to learn it. One of my hardest for me to learn was a Teknetics Omega 8000 but, once I did, it spoke to me.
My tip, don't get discouraged, it takes time. It will talk to you but it may take a while of use. Don't give up.

 

[oldkoot]

Just checking if the auto ground balance can be turned off when wanted.

The GM 1000 you can not do a manual ground balance the GB is done automatically when you turn the GM 1000 on the first thing it does is do a auto frequency set and then to do a ground balance you pump the coil up and down no higher then 6 inches off the ground and then do three figure 8s over ground that you know is clear of any targets everything is done automatically from the frequency set to ground balance the GM 1000 is always tracking the ground you are searching on to maintain stability
If you lift the coil off of the ground to high you need to re do the GB again as I described because it will get out of adjustment and takes it a bit to re align everything.


there is no threshold sound or anything you pretty much have to trust that everything is working as it should the only setting that you can mess with is the sensitivity,volume and discrimination mode the sensitivity settings are as follows

There is a Discrimination mode and a deep all metal mode which is what I run m y GM 1000 in pretty much all the time unless the ground is to hot and then I am in discrimination mode

Manual sensitivity to 10,auto sensitivity all sensitivity bars plus center are black, and auto plus which is the same as auto but while in the auto plus you will here a bit of ground noise and seem to be a deeper mode than the Auto sens mode

I will usually start out running in manual sens at 6-8 depending on if the ground is noisy or not if it is noisy I will start backing it down I have ran as low as three on the manual sens settings if the ground is till to noisy I will switch to auto sens and that usually quiets the GM down

while in the auto sens setting or auto plus setting in discrimination mode you should not hear any ferrous targets but the non ferrous targets will hit vary loud and hard,if in deep all metal mode and auto sens or auto plus sense you will here everything ferrous and non ferrous

The Auto plus sensitivity setting is deeper then the auto sens setting and will give you ground feedback but not much

I have dug lead,brass and aluminum targets down to 10 or 11 inches with the GM 1000 so I know it is a vary capable detector

Like I stated in an earlier reply to this post there have been reports of bump falsing on both coils but mainly the small coil the only time I did get the bump falsing issues was when I had the sensitivity set to max and when I did not have the coil cable rapped tightly enough,but while in auto sens or auto plus sens I have never experienced any of the bump falsing issues reported by others

I hope this helps those on this post that are having issues

One other thing I want to add to this with the GM 1000 being a high frequency (45 KHz) gold detector less sensitivity setting equals more and what I mean by this is if you are running the sensitivity to high (manual 10) it is going to be noisy on most ground accept ground that is void of any hot rocks,black sand or any and all metallic objects

and what I mean by to high max manual sensitivity is to high err on the side of less sensitivity and I believe you will find it runs way better

 

[dfallis1]

First thing I do with a new detector is lay out some test targets in my back yard and get familiar with the tones and VDI numbers. I usually dig small 6 inch plugs and test various metals in and out the hole as a surface find. Make a cheat sheet until you remember each tone and VDI. GL & HH

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

With experience everything will eventually fall into line and make perfect sense.

Jim.

That was about the best advice I have read on VLF gold detectors!
You have clearly has spent some time swinging a gold detector.
It should be pinned for future reference.

I'd suggest ALL novice nugget shooters to read that carefully several times over the first year.

MANY good things have been found UNDER ferrous targets.

 

[NorCal7]

Awesome advice you guys!!! I’m really excited to try out some of the tips on here. I’ve read and re-read all of these responses and am feeling A LOT more confident heading into this weekend. Thank you all.

 

[Assembler]

Awesome advice you guys!!! I’m really excited to try out some of the tips on here. I’ve read and re-read all of these responses and am feeling A LOT more confident heading into this weekend. Thank you all.

Great tips from everyone thanks. Don't let a noisy detector scare you as you may learn in time how to 'Read every noise the detector makes'. Then you may love it.