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Thats gross. What planet Phrunt? D4G

I happened to upload 8 or 9 images for one of my posts about an hour ago (roughly the time of your post) and had no issues. ….And literally “holy cr@p” on the snake poo!! That thing would clog a toilet!!

Made a trip to Auckland yesterday. Ate some of the green mussels and will be back in Los Angeles the same day I leave here. I leave here at 1 PM and get to LA at 6:30 AM! Thoroughly enjoyed the trip. I'll get a total on the miles/kms when I turn in the van. Thanks Simon, JW and New Zealand. I've got a feeling I'll be back.

It sounds like our dirt is pretty different. So, not sure I could be of much help, really. Curious how you are running the audio though. Very much personal preference. But I only run in 1 region all tones. I find the audio tells of full tones helpful. I do usually run ATHC in park turf. But in iron infested ghost town sites I prefer ATLC or maybe ATG, specifically because I get fooled by iron less in those modes than ATHC. In my dirt, running recovery at 4 is what I consider getting aggressive and less choosy about targets. I almost always get tighter ID's at better depth running at 5 or 6. Truly masked, is truly masked, and I don't know how to overcome that. At 5 or 6 recovery though, what may often sound like a single target at 4, represents as two targets. This is not what I'd call truly masked. More like co-located. But at this point, after using the Manticore a lot for well over a year now, I feel it's a good bit better at sniffing out a good co-located target than the 800 I used to use. My dirt just won't tolerate the kind of sensitivity you are running. About the only time I get over 20 is with the M8. In a nutshell though. My thoughts at this stage in my experience with the Manticore, I "tune" for stability and tight VIDs and let depth take care of itself. If I'm bumping up the sensitivity and bumping the recovery speed down, it's because I'm pretty much planning to dig anything that sounds deep. - Dave

Just tested with a small size image to not waste space knowing the threads getting nuked anyway, plus the image amazed me, a snake taking a poo in QLD, Australia. Nature is amazing.

Ok, I see the confusion now, the dealer is misrepresenting the coil, it's not an Elite at all, it's a DD Pro. No such thing as a DD Pro Elite. The DD Pro is the newer version of the now discontinued Goldstalker DD. Neither are spiral, neither are an Elite coil, which is the spiral range name. Goldstalkers are bundle wound.

That video was a real eye opener, the guy was a bit baffled as he was obviously going over the nuggets for the first time, not some staged video, he'd not seen the results before doing it and difficult really shocked him missing that nugget, when such an easy target for normal. I guess as Steve always points out, the more filtering, the more stuff you're balancing out there is a chance that gold could be in that balanced out spot. Difficult handles bad ground and hot rocks better at the expense of missing some gold that would otherwise be an easy target. As for the EM Ifix, still never heard of one person who has had it done and noticed no difference, even headphone only people.

Apologies in advance for a very long post. I’ve only been using the Manticore (MC) for a couple weeks, and I only have about 15 hours on the machine, so I’m a long way from being a master. I’m coming from 5 years loving the Equinox 800 (EQ800) and 7 total years detecting experience. I’ve seen many comments from more experienced detectorists stating that the MC is really a completely different machine than the EQ800 - it’s not just a “souped up Equinox”. Despite hearing that, it’s hard to resist the urge to draw parallels and try to correlate my previous hard earned experience with what I’m seeing and hearing on the MC to try and speed up the learning curve….and maybe that’s why I’m running into trouble! Like many others, I’m finding that I’m digging way more iron nails than I ever have with previous machines. Here’s the iron from my last few hunts, versus a total of $1.47 in clad and 4 Wheat pennies: I don’t mean that I’m getting completely fooled - often the machine is providing hints that the target has ferrous qualities. I believe my problem stems from my hopes of unearthing a deep, partially masked coin. I don’t put a lot of stock into air tests, and usually don’t waste much time on them, but when I first bought the MC, I did a series of air tests to help me learn what the 2D screen might look like in various situations. The shape of the target trace on this particular set up stuck in my mind (Barber quarter next to a square nail): Swinging over the above combination resulted in these pretty distinctive target traces: I was pretty impressed with the 2D trace’s ability in the air test to clearly show strong evidence of a good masked target. Unfortunately, once in the field, I quickly re-learned that air tests don’t accurately reflect the behavior of old iron that has marinated in the ground for a handful or two of decades. It appears that every deep buried nail in existence creates the exact same target trace! Here’s an example of the traces for a deep target that I hoped was a masked coin, but turned out to be a solitary, large iron nail: In the case above, I was originally searching using sensitivity set at 20, using the “less is more” philosophy suggested in other posts to help avoid iron falsing issues. Once I isolated what I initially thought might be a good high tone target, I turned 90 degrees at sensitivity 20, and still had a centerline non-ferrous, but slightly skewed to the upper left. The photos above show me progressively raising the sensitivity…only at 27 did the target truly start to reveal what it really was…just a deep nail. If I left the sensitivity at 20, circled the target, and then dug, I actually would have been genuinely fooled by the nail. Here’s another field example of traces - this is the only one out of dozens that turned out to be a masked target…a clad dime co-located with a large iron nail. Again, my initial target discovery swing was while using sensitivity 20, and I raised the sensitivity to 25 as a checker to see if I could coax out signs of iron falsing (I might keep this permanently as a soft key). Honestly, the traces at both sensitivity settings looked similar, but all the photos were taken at 25: As you can see in all of the photos above, I’m using ATHC, which is the mode most prone to falsing due to the very low frequency weighting. But I had the same experience using ATLC - I kept feeling enticed to dig each of these type of iffy targets on the hopes of uncovering masked targets, and instead coming home with dozens of iron nails and one clad dime for my efforts. Recovery speed was set at 4 throughout all hunts. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not blaming the machine…it’s telling me these are iffy targets. I’m the masochist that’s deciding to dig all of them! Of course, all machines false to a degree, especially on deep nails. On the EQ800, I developed a technique that worked well for me - when turning on a deep target, if I had an iron tone at least 50% of the way around the target, I confidently walked away. If the high tone continued most of the way around, with say only 25% or less of the circle giving some iron, I would dig - sometimes I would still be wrong, but often times I’d get rewarded with a good target. I rarely came home with more than a one or two nails in my pouch, and rarely was one a complete surprise. With the Manticore, it looks like I may have set my expectations too high on what I can discern from the 2D trace regarding masked targets based on the air test traces. But also, the Manticore seems to high tone alert much more enthusiastically and more frequently on deep iron in general. With the EQ800 with F2 set at 1 or 2, I was stopping to investigate these kinds of “falsing/iffy” targets a handful of times across a couple hour hunt. With the MC, this is a constant task - every other swing is giving me a high tone to investigate and spend precious time evaluating…even as I learn to ignore these as falsing, it’s incredibly time consuming and eating into my enjoyment as they all inevitably get discarded as falsing, or worse, dug. All this is to say, I’m looking for any advice from more experienced MC users to help keep the false high tones more under control, and better recognize a truly masked non-ferrous target versus falsing iron. Overall, the soil in my area is extremely mild, as determined by the mineralization meter on a Nokta Legend (consistently zero bars on the mineralization meter). I’ll try ATLC again, but my first few hunts were using that mode with similar results. Lowering the sensitivity doesn’t seem to be the answer, because I’ve actually had to raise sensitivity in many cases to get an iron response (traces in the grey zones) - otherwise many of these falsing nails would have looked and sounded dang good. Increasing my ferrous limits likewise doesn’t seem to be the right answer without completely eliminating the chance to hit on anything even remotely masked. Thanks in advance for any advice!

My wife is such an amazing woman. Before we got married she told me. I will work and help put you through college because I have no desire to go to college. Then I want to be a stay at home mom and be a professional house-wife. Well she has fulfilled that promise and then some. I live in an immaculate home. She is a mind boggling cook and a baker, and she loves going around the yard tending to the plants. Then she gets a bag and one of those grabber tools and walks the neighborhood picking up whatever debris has blown in. She is a bit on the OCD side when it comes to cleanliness. She actually loves the outdoors. She was from a small farming community called Morton Illinois. I always say I married a "farm girl." She says I did not live on a farm! I say, OK, then tell me what you did for a job for three summers when you were a teenager. (She worked detasseling corn!) I tell her only a farm girl would detassel corn We have three children and she gave birth to all of them naturally. Absolutely no drugs, she just did Lamaz. She is loving and family means everything to her. But she is tough as nails. Especially when you consider our second son weighed 9 lbs 13 ounces. The doctor was begging her to let him give her an epidural. She said no way, and if you say it again I will fire you. I said to the nurse, "She can't fire her OB right in the middle of giving birth can she?" The nurse said, "I have a feeling that your wife could do just about anything she puts her mind to." Doc

As in like right now? Sourdough Scott is having an issue but I can’t replicate it. Here is a test I'm uploading right now. This thread may get deleted later so don't upload any test images you care about going away.

Is it a mono or DD. Better yet I need an ANTI-INTERFERENCE because it's bad enough that she made me mop she had to keep telling me how to do it, and that I was doing it all wrong. Apparently, you have to put the mop in the bucket and get it wet before you start swinging it on the floor. "Who knew?" Doc

It filled up nice during the day, one day was so windy in the afternoon it cleared out, but it was not as packed as I've seen it. Also this is after Spring Break. It's South Myrtle Beach, called Surfside, you can see the city in some of my photos. Myrtle Beach is about 5 miles north. My RV is a 40 foot Grand Design Momentum 351M Toy Hauler, basically a palace with a garage. 🤔 My forum name is what I pull it with. 🙂

Not sure if you were trying to post a picture but I assume you are getting an error message. Reset the detector to factory defaults, and if the error persists, contact Minelab for assistance. Assuming we are talking the stock Minelab coil. If aftermarket, contact the coil vendor.

I took a long trip to Baja in the 90’s all the way south with a girlfriend and we camped out alone on the beaches. Everyone we met along the way were extremely nice and helpful, and most of all generous. We ran out our battery at one camp site and asked a local if he had jumper cables. He walked back from his house carrying a car battery and swapped mine out with it to get us started. It was his house battery from his solar system. I just assumed that he had a car, and didn’t even consider that his only vehicle may have been his fishing boat. Another fisherman kept leaving live crabs at our camp each day and wouldn’t take money for them (we gave him our extra canned food when we left), and at another camp we had neighbors- a military unit arrived and set up a camp next to us and invited us to stay. We had 24hour armed sentries posted on either end of the road leading to where we were and they’d politely say good morning and evening to us whenever we walked by them. They also set up what looked like some antenna poles up on the beach and to our surprise, they ended up being volleyball net supports and we played beach volleyball with them- have you ever played volleyball with fellow teammates who were still wearing their rifles? That was pretty fun. Overall, people are just pretty nice in Mexico and it’s too bad there are more problems now down there, but it still does not represent the majority. Thanks for the great write up Condor, it brought back some good memories!

Looking forward to the detailed field testing report ... And a comparison test with other brands ... 🙂

I don't think there is a winner. The amount of gold anyone gets is relative to the location. 8 more working days left till I 100% retire from health care. A few buckets a day will keep the doctor away.😁

Here’s the two. One says gold stalker and one says Pro elite

Nothing in the detectors manual about that !! I've always said, detector companies should have a final chapter or additions to trouble shooting charts 😆

You were right. There’s both are DD. They have a coiltek 14 inch elite DD that’s tan. And a coiltek 14 inch goldstalker DD the same tan color. I didn’t know if there was any difference in wiring. But as far as coils go I have a set of DDs I use for relics and a set of monos I am using for prospecting. I have a coiltek 14 DD goldstalker, 15x12 DD commander (second hand only used once on a paid hunt and sold the machine), 11 DD commander(second hand great condition), and 10x5 commander DD that is brand new that came with my other machine. The monos I have are the 11 ultra sensing detech, the 11 commander and the 15x12 commander mono that came with the second hand 5000 I recently got. I sold my 4000 to a friend of mine. He’s only got the stock 11 DD and I told him I’d let him borrow one of the larger DDs when we go out for relics or one of monos when we do some prospecting.

Great question...I just know that the Deus it is however a good machine and produced as well, but not at this rate. I complained about the low conductors ID's shown way higher in the numbers and Xp gave me the negative answer about a future mod. I feel still a rookie with this machine and aniway the damn light stuff pops out in places where an army of my competitors had been plus me. It is hard to remain cold in front of a such fine gold sensitivity...I measured pieces under the gram with a strong and clear signal like a common target or a coin. No matter the coil and the higher or lower sensitivity level. With lower levels you get silence and clear signals. With higher levels you get some more noise but again an unmistakable warning when something is under the coil. I use the beach LC program which is not the proper one for diving and doing well the same. No tones but a pitched sound in the depth mode with initial and final pitch to modulate and get an idea of target distance to dig. The prospecting audio theme remains to use above the surface with a calmer session and not rushing against the leaving slack. I just can say that is a more forgiving machine, cause with wrong settings I had the impression to make blind the D2 to gold. And trust me if I say that I struggled one year to make the killer program before to sell it...

Looks like you did good for how deserted the beach looks. Maybe you're finding leftovers from last summer when it's crowded? Off the subject a bit, but I'd like to see a pic of your RV/camper....

We live up high on a hillside in a canyon town in So. Cal. My wife has cultivated unbelievable gardens; we live in beauty. I got to terrace the hillsides on our property when I was younger, but that had to stop - yup back problems. But now, years later, I still go out and detect with my 7000, I've strengthened my back and know what not to do. But I always wear a back brace when I sweep, rake or mop. Eight years ago, my wife came with me for two nights camping up in the Mother Lode in breathtakingly beautiful country. As we were leaving I heard her say to herself "okay I've done that." Now, I often say her idea of being in the great outdoors is cracking the window open in our hotel room. Funny thread Doc.

Good thing nothing like that ever happens here in the civilized USA.

I believe Nugget Finder makes an aftermarket coil for that dust mop that is specifically for fine dust. You'll have to ask your wife how to adjust your sensitivity settings.

Found this on Nevada Outback: “Winnowing was the original dry placer method. This process involves screening out all the coarse gravel, placing the fines in a blanket and tossing them in the air, preferably in a good wind. The lighter particles are blown away by the wind and the heavier, usually more valuable minerals fall back onto the blanket. The weave of the blanket tends to hold fine gold. Winnowing is a very primitive method and is not used today. Basically, all it really does is remove the light clay dust particles from the mix. Dry panning is a similar winnowing process, and is only slightly better than blanket winnowing. Shaking the pan while gently winnowing allows the gold to settle in an action similar to a jig. A far better and more successful method is dry washing, also called dry blowing in Australia. The dry washer allows for the processing of gravels at a much higher rate than possible by winnowing or dry panning.” So far 1900 is the earliest date for use of the puffer type bellows dry washer found online.