Gold Bug Pro

[Steve Herschbach]

Hi,

Just got new information from Fisher about the new Gold Bug model due soon. Here you go:

The new Gold Bug now has a targeted release of April. It will be worth
the wait.

There have been some questions regarding the name and some have referred
to it as the Gold Bug 3. The official name will be the 'Gold Bug Pro' and it will have a special
introductory price of $549 with a minimum advertised price of $499. This price will be for a limited time only.

The manufacturer suggested retail price will be $699 with a minimum advertised price of $649 after the introductory period ends. That is a $150 savings during the introductory period and a wonderful incentive to buy this high performing feature packed unit!

The Gold Bug Pro will come standard with a 5" round DD coil. There will be an 11 inch DD coil available as an option.

[Reno Chris]

I got to fiddle with one a little bit at the GPAA show in Phoenix. Its a nice unit, lightweight, easy to use and I liked it, but just in my brief exposure its definitly not as sensetive to tiny gold as the gold bug II. However it is very sensetive and will be a good first machine for many beginners or a decent VLF option for those prospectors who want to own both a VLF and a PI unit. It does have the automatic ground balance that the GB2 does not. I'm sure Fisher will sell a bunch of them.

Chris

[Jonathan Porter]

What sort of frequency does it operate at? Other than being slightly less sensitive than the GBII (which is over the top in a lot of ground conditions here in Australia anyway) what are the main draw card features of the detector (digital, auto GB that type of thing)? Many years ago I was given the first GBII to land in Australia a try, this was around the same time the SD2000 came out which overshadowed the Fisher, working areas I knew well up on the Palmer River (Very rich Goldfield in Far North QLD) I was scoring lots and lots of tiny bits that had been missed by our XT 17000's and Whites Vsat so it definitely had an advantage over previous units and not all of it could be put down to the 70 Khz frequency, because the detector just purred along in ground that upset the lower frequency Whites. Probably my only issue with the GBII was the gritty threshold which was very hard to smooth out.

JP

[Steve Herschbach]

Hi Chris,

Well, a ground "grab" function, which is interesting. It obviously is tracking the ground so you can hit the "grab" button to rebalance, but is locked into any particular setting until you hit the grab button again. Good thing at $499 it does not hit better than the Gold Bug 2 or Fisher would have a problem selling Gold Bug 2s!

JP, main draw is 19 kHz, light weight, iron disc, and mainly - the price. See http://www.akmining.com/mine/fisher04.htm for details. Should be a great little unit but who knows how it will perform in Australian soils. The key will be how well it ground balances.

[Reno Chris]

Right – its doesn’t have a continually adjusting normal tracking mode. But it does stay put at that point once its grabbed until the GB is grabbed again or it’s manually adjusted. I am not sure it is continually tracking the GB in the background as a lot of detectors with a true tracking mode do. I think it may just be that the Grab button activates a subroutine in the detectors program which makes a quick few second run through to look at the ground and calculate a GB setting at that point.

Still because a lot of the target market for this detector is new prospectors, I think the grab feature will be very helpful. I’ve seen a lot of new guys that simply have no clue how to manually GB their detector and so operate out of GB much of the time. As a result, about the only targets they really hear are large pieces of trash. The fact that the GB stays in fixed until it is grabbed again or it’s manually adjusted will also help eliminate tracking out faint targets when in true tracking mode – another common newbie problem.

Chris

[Steve Herschbach]

I think the grab feature will be very helpful. I’ve seen a lot of new guys that simply have no clue how to manually GB their detector and so operate out of GB much of the time.

Chris

Hi Chris,

You've got that right and more. If I had to pick the number one problem begginers face it is ground balancing. The grab function is easy and pretty much fool proof. People have a heck of a time with manual ground balance.

As far as how grab works...?

[steelman14]

Any opinion how this unit may work in the type of mineralized soil found in AZ.

[Steve Herschbach]

Hi,

I have to say that opinions do not matter for much on a question like that at this point. The only way to know how a unit handles bad ground and hot rocks is for people to get out and use it and report back. My biggest issue with non-PI units has been hot rocks so I want to see how the new Gold Bug Pro handles them. Units can bench test good but still have issues in real world prospecting situations. I'm sure I'll be putting one to the test as soon as the snow is gone here.

At the price point the unit will either have limitations OR it will put a serious hurt on more expensive models if not. Maybe we will finally see some downward pressure on nugget detector prices, which have been bucking the norm in electronics and getting more expensive over time. Used to be the better nugget detectors were $500 and now the average is more like $800, not counting the units running several thousand dollars. I'm all for that.

[Jonathan Porter]

Sounds very interesting, having a function that is simple to do to get the GB right is a very handy feature, I never had a problem with the GBII I used as far as GB was concerned although I did find the GM Vsat a hassle to get just right. A simple flick of a switch a couple of pumps of the coil and your away again sounds good to me. 19Khz suggests the GBII is still going to have a place in your collection for the tiny gold or the GMT at 50Khz?, then just use the Bug Pro for the heavy mineralised areas and the deeper ground or larger nugget chasing.

Nice looking little jigger.


JP

[strickman]

I have been following the bugs ,waiting----have also considered the infinium........but the price is the issue,so now I'm having to settle for the gold bug-should be the biggest bang for the buck.hopefully it will be a producer,atleast enough to pay for a infinium!