How to start detecting

Hi All

I got allot of basic tips when I started panning and river sluicing.
Im now turning towards buying a detector.
With soo many brands and different budgets its overwhelming!
Good friends of the forum, can you give me some sort of basic idea of what machine to get started, things to be aware of, and some links to helpful videos/ websites for instructions?

I dont mind putting in the months/ years just to find my first 0.25g chunk. Im more wondering where I should put my 800-1200$ budget for a reliable machine.

Thanks in Advance

I do not know what state you are in ,but in Victoria some prospecting clubs have detector that members can hirer ,plus members will help with info regards john :Y:

I hear the Equinox 800 is a good machine (around $1,200 new), but I have no experience with it.
Maybe let the forum know where you live, so that you can be invited on some camps.
They're fantastic and friendly gals and guys and have great group camps in the forests (or camp grounds).
That's the best way to learn detecting - and to get onto gold bearing ground.

BriansGoneBush said:

Hi All

I got allot of basic tips when I started panning and river sluicing.
Im now turning towards buying a detector.
With soo many brands and different budgets its overwhelming!
Good friends of the forum, can you give me some sort of basic idea of what machine to get started, things to be aware of, and some links to helpful videos/ websites for instructions?

I dont mind putting in the months/ years just to find my first 0.25g chunk. Im more wondering where I should put my 800-1200$ budget for a reliable machine.

Thanks in Advance

Click to expand...

Old hands advice i would echo. :Y:

BriansGoneBush said:

Hi All

I got allot of basic tips when I started panning and river sluicing.
Im now turning towards buying a detector.
With soo many brands and different budgets its overwhelming!
Good friends of the forum, can you give me some sort of basic idea of what machine to get started, things to be aware of, and some links to helpful videos/ websites for instructions?

I dont mind putting in the months/ years just to find my first 0.25g chunk. Im more wondering where I should put my 800-1200$ budget for a reliable machine.

Thanks in Advance

Click to expand...

G'day

My advice would be to try to increase your budget for the detector first and foremost, buying anything other than a pi detector to look for gold will leave you frustrated and disappointed, even the earlier minelab detectors like the Sd2000 and Sd2100 are still a better option than the likes of the equinox and other vlf's that are touted as gold detecting machines, even the american made pi machines like the whites and garrett are not well suited to our soils like the minelabs are so they a bit of a waste of time as well.

As advised if you are a clubby type person there are prospecting clubs in every state so getting involved with one of these may be of use to you, but just doing the research and heading into known gold bearing areas and doing the leg work will be the quickest way to get some gold, its basically a learn as you go process, one advantage you have these days is the amount of information and prospecting aids that are available online, back when I started there were just maps and old books to research no internet or google, most experienced prospectors would not want to have a newbie along with them, unless they just wanted another pair of legs to help them get on to the gold, otherwise you would be avoided like you had the pox, all the places I found and got gold were found by doing lots of driving and sniffing about known areas and then as I learned to recognize likely areas I ventured out into less known areas and just did the leg work, but even with all this you still have to have the best detector that your budget will allow or you might as well be walking the bush with a pointy stick.

Regardless of what people will try and tell you, gold is much harder to find now than it was when I started out because there have been many capable detectors since then and most areas that you will find would have been worked by any number of these detectors since the 1980's, it can be a hard game with even the latest and greatest machines at times, so any machine less capable is going to narrow down your chances even further, but in the end if its just about having some fun and getting out there in the bush then just do it.

cheers

stayyerAU

If you decide to purchase after exploring some of the other options suggested here.given your budget, and the fact that you are only just starting out, I would not go past the Equinox 800.

It is light, compact, and versatileand as a bonus, it does find gold.

Regarding your ambition to find your first 0.25g piece, I recently tested my 800 at home using a 0.22g piece from previous alluvial finds.

In All metal mode, the 800 gave a perfectly good signal through 100mm of dry sand/gravel/clay mix piled on top.

It screamed its head off when I substituted a 0.5g piece in there.

Of course, you can find gold a lot deeper than that with the more sophisticated machines.just depends whether you want to spend most of your day digging holes or not

The versatility I mentioned earlier refers to the fact that the 800 is, from all accounts on this forum, a very capable treasure/artifacts hunter as well. This is an activity that seems to be quite rewarding for many (both from a monetary and satisfaction point of view).
I aim to give that a go one day, as Im often out in country full of old homesteads, dairies, stockyards, and the like.
Just adds another element of interest if the gold aint being cooperative.

Strongly recommend that, if you go with the 800, you stretch the budget a little, and buy the 6 coil and a spare lower shaft.that way you can have the 11 and the 6 coils both mounted and ready to easily swap out as required. The 6 coil is a killer on small stuff, but a bit tedious if you want to cover a lot of ground.

You can have a helluva lot of fun with an 800, find gold and treasure alike, throw it in the back of the car ready to be switched on and used at the drop of a hat, and you wont have to worry about the bank manager wanting to have a little chat.

Just Google "Equinox 800", and you'll end up with more helpful articles and videos than you can poke a stick at.......but just to get you started, try: https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/forum/53-minelab-equinox-forum/

i have a 800 in the for sale section if interested .

Wayne

Bit of info to help you pinpoint your target:

Firstly, if you don't have a manual, download free and read it and read it again, and maybe again.
You will realise the mono coil search alters with depth, the probe forming a cone beneath coil to the max depth.
Spend a little time practising.
Tie a few separate small lead sinkers to lengths of fishing line/string with markings at various depths eg: 50mm, 100mm, 150mm 300mm.
Bury them so the marking is at ground level.

(1) Now approach the known target (we'll use imaginary compass) from the South, until you get a signal, draw a line in the ground East/West and a pencil mark on your coil directly above where the signal was first detected.
You will note the signal detection point will vary on position of coil at the varying depths: ie: It will vary from nose/tip of your coil when approaching target.

(2) Now step back and approach the target from the East and repeat above except this time line in the sand will be North/South.
Where the two line cross should indicate exactly where the target is buried below.

How we use the circle chaining method;