WHITES GMT Goldmaster information and questions

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Newbie said:
I am looking for others that maybe using the goldmaster.. Any one got tips or hints how you get the best out of the machine.
i have one.and love it.the best thing is to ring the coiltek gold centre in Meryborough' thay have gmt in there shop, and told me the setting for it .sorry for meryborough.thay do sell them as well.3 in store when i was there 5 mts a go, the little arrors on the gmt are for usa.not for vic.so the seting will not be the same.keep playing with it u will work it out..ps sorry its Dunolly not meryborough.i had big day out there went there to.got my miners rights at coiltek.ooop.lol thanks
 
Is everyone using earphones ? I can,t stand the darn things I seem to end up in a complete tangle of detector,cord,pick and anything else within 5mtr of me. But perhaps I do need to use them as so far I haven't found any gold.Would love to hear other thoughts on this from more experienced operators especially.
Cheers
 
Hey falcon I definitely used earphones. Prior to that I didnt find any gold. I ended up buying a set of jogging earphones the ones that sit on the back of your neck. I would thread them through my jacket though. Def increased my tone sensitivity. Everyones different though.
 
It's very hard to hear subtle threshold fluctuations without headphones, so they are a must on gold VLF's. Especially on windy days with lots of ambient noise, plus it helps your concentration without any outside distractions. Some people prefer full ear headphones to cut noise, especially during the colder months, butinner ear headphones are advantageous in summer months if you hate sweaty ears.

If you hate headphones, the other option was to run a pair of powered amplified speakers up near the arm cuff, from memory the ones some guys were using on the gmt were the small round Nokia units purchased off ebay. :)
 
mbasko said:
I used Nokia MD-11 speakers when I had a GMT which I found had better audio than the stock internal speaker. The MD-11's have a built in amplifier & run on 3 x AAA batteries. Cost about $10 each. You can hook them up together to get a dual speaker set up or as many as you like. Each one has a socket to plug another one into. Downside is they don't have a volume control but I thought they worked well.

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/655/1383689584_gmt_speakers.jpg
Photo of my set up before selling 8.( Still see spots where it would be nice to have it. You could easily set them up to attach onto yourself if required.
Edit: I have these attached to the arm cuff screw on either side. They fitted there nice & neatly + weigh nothing that would worry your days swinging :) You also need a 6mm plug to 3.5mm socket adapter - about $2 or $3
 
Thinking of buying a gmt just would like to know how good do the gmt discriminator work, it would be use in junk areas on the gold fields regards john :)
 
I found that 99% of the time when it made the iron "grunt" it was iron. I did however have one prickly, small nugget that I could get the GMT to "grunt" on so I never trusted it 100%. I don't 100% trust any discrimination in gold areas anyhow.
 
Yeah works pretty good some iron targets don't grunt until you dig em up a little but overall 'good'
 
My old GMT was giving me a little trouble with bad ground balance. In desperation I called goldsearch for advice. Dean suggested checking the connections and giving the motherboard a clean. Sometimes dirt gets in and causes a bad ground balance alert. He even offered a loaner coil to test it. I don't usually write recommendations, but these guys went above and beyond. After reading some horror stories from people seeking help from the US I can only give these guys a big thumbs up!!!!!!!
 
Zuke_Lynzy said:
The trick is to get the gain as high as possible by increasing the SAT speed.
They are very impressive detectors and iv done quite well with mine the last few years.

Yes I would agree......I set my SAT nearly up full and increase gain till she starts to chatter in the hot ground, back it off half a turn and spot on!

The threshold hum from the fast SAT recovery is perfect and at 3/4 noise I can hear the slightest change even with no headphones in the middle of the bush.

The best VLF on the market without a doubt ;)

I gave my minelab x-terra to the kids for coin shooting.
 
Only drama by memory running the SAT speed so high like this is the iron grunt isn't as good, yes they are excellent detectors
 
So after a fun weekend away with the young fella he has been on youtube watching all things "GOLD". He currently has a $20 Kmart special metal detector he bought with his christmas gift voucher and he wants to upgrade.
kids-metal-detector.jpg


I wouldn't mind a decent detector either and it looks like i can kill two birds with one stone.I doubt i could be bothered to rummage through the park digging up ring pulls so i would mainly be chasing gold. The whites GMT caught my eye and i have had a scour over the forum and seen they are quite good at picking up small when tuned right.

My question is what sort of price should i be expecting and also the option of importing from the states.

If anyone has any other suggestions for a detector in the same category i am open to suggestion.

Thanks
Ryan
 
Keep an eye out for a second hand unit if your in the market unless it is definitely not an option. There's been a few go through here on this forum that have been great deals vs retail. Perhaps it's an upgrade Avenue machine, by most accounts that seems to be the case one the bug has bitten it's quite common to be swapped out for a pi. In the right hands and conditions they area great machine. My brief experience running one has been overall positive and I've seen some good gold found by one bloke in particular that I've been out with regularly. I gave up on it due to the conditions I ran it in, nothing beats experience. In the end I'll leave the serious detecting to the serious detectorists.
 
There are actually a couple of GMT's on aussie ebay at the moment, second hand they tend to pop up at between $500-700, depending on age and included accessories, and whether you are fussed on a warranty or not. Also remember that the GMT was made for finding small shallow gold, so you have to use it in areas that best suit the machine.

There are always GMT's going at good prices in the US, most sell for around $500us plus shipping, I bought mine from the US on ebay.

Another option is the Fisher Goldbug 2, probably the most sensitive gold vlf you can buy, but you will have to get used to manually ground balancing vs the auto tracking on the GMT. As with the GMT, the goldbug2 is most suited to detecting around shafts and mullock heaps, shallow bedrock, or for quartz speccies.

The last option in the high frequency range of detectors is the Minelab Eureka, but pricing for these always seems to be at a premium, heading towards $1000.

Alternative options to consider if your also want to do some coin shooting or detecting for jewellery, include the Goldbug Pro, Teknetics G2, Garrett AT Gold and Minelab X-Terra 705.

Don't be fooled by how easy it seems to find gold from you tube clips, gold vlf's take a lot of experience and detecting time under your belt to be competent at finding the yellow stuff, and dealing with hot/cold rocks, and noise from ground mineralisation. If fact, I would go as far to say that detecting in parks & beaches with a vlf would actually be easier than scouring the goldfields these days, hence why most opt for a pulse induction detector on the goldfields.

So I am not trying to warn you off buying a gold vlf, I just wouldn't want to give the young fella false hopes of how easy it is to use one of these detectors, as they can be frustrating to use at times, and in some highly mineralised areas, completely unusable. If you can stretch the budget, possibly look into a second hand PI detector (garrett infinium, minelab SD series), or maybe a new Whites Sierra Pulse Pro, which is very lightweight and affordable. :)
 
My brain is hurting......
Trust me when i say i have no expectations of going out and finding anything. I love the fact that he has an interest and it gets us out and about. I just want to feed his passion and get outdoors so i figure sticking with gold ground will see us doing a bit of travelling and getting away from the crowds. He loves watching youtube videos of metal detecting, gold sluicing etc. the look on his face when people dig up a can is priceless, and the commentary about the signal being rubbish is comical.
I have had a swing with an xterra 305 and spend a day digging hot rocks..........so im pretty much an expert..............hahaha

So i figure my question is:

You have $500-$700 to spend on a gold detecting machine and age,warranty, and used are not an issue. What would you buy?
 
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