The West Australian Adventure Video Blog - Part 3

Our third week was inter-mixed with confused emotions about the trip; we were on the home stretch with the days now being measured by how long before hopping a flight home. Both Steve and Chris were feeling the effects of the time away, both from a comfort point of view due to their mattresses being too thin for the hard Aussie ground, but also due to the effects of being away from loved ones and familiar surrounds. With this in mind I decided to head for a camp site where we could access the internet so the guys could keep in touch with the outside world along with exposing them to difficult to work areas, particularly ground with a high trash content after hearing Steve talk enthusiastically about the Iron Reject feature on the GPX 5000. I have to admit I do not use discrimination a whole lot with the Minelab detectors, mainly due to always being a Monoloop coil user, but also preferring to use my ear as the means to making an informed decision about whether to dig or not (this method has its drawbacks if nuggets are lying right on the surface of the ground).

The only way to use the Iron Reject on the GPX 5000 is to use a Double-D coil and select the Double-D option on the Coil/Rx switch then making a selection on how much discrimination effect you need in the Iron Reject menu with 1 being the least aggressive and 10 being the most aggressive (10 runs the risk of missing a good target; see page 74 in the owner’s manual for more details).

So with this in mind I took Steve and Chris on a cross country excursion to an old dry blowing patch that had been pushed and scraped, leaving nuggets mixed in with trash for acre upon acre of gold bearing ground. Since the inception of the GPX series the new Smooth group of Timings have been the mainstay of detector operators negating the need to use a Double-D coil to help deal with mineralisation, however a Double-D still has its place especially for discrimination purposes as is evidenced by the inclusion of the brilliant 11” Commander Double-D coil in the GPX 5000 box.

Steve Herschbach prospecting using a Double-D coil and discrimination on the GPX 5000 metal detector

On this spot the nuggets were trending on the small side with the chance of a lump or two, so it was decided to use the Special Sensitive Extra Timings to lift the signal response of smaller gold nuggets that might be missed due to the reduction in signal caused by the use of a Double-D coil in Double-D Coil/Rx mode. Sensitive Extra can almost match a Monoloop in the Smooth Timings for performance if an operator pays careful attention; especially the smaller Commander Double-D coils like the supplied 11”. It is also a good idea to back off the Gain to around 11 (FP suggestion in the General Search mode option) as Double-D coils will react to a lot more ground signal than ‘Smooth type’ Timings will. However, operators need to realise a Double-D coil manifests its signal response differently to a Monoloop coil, so a more measured and controlled steady swing rate of the coil is required to assist in getting the signal to stand out, listening for a faint murmur in the threshold whilst imagining a straight line through the centre of the coil, from the front of the coil to the back, where the response manifests helps.

Why don’t you take a look at the third video blog titled ‘Dealing with trash’ for some insightful footage of our experiences during ‘The West Australian Adventure’.

Post Note: I had a detecting mate ring me recently to inform me he found with his GPX 5000 a solid 2 ounce nugget winking in the sun at the location in the video, like Chris said ‘... it’s about the gold you get, not about the gold you miss’. 

Jonathan Porter

The Outback Prospector

Aurum Australis