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The X-coil Has Landed


mn90403

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Good work Mitchel.  I think if you are swinging over old ground that had given up everything and you start finding new targets then that is a win.  

Just a shame some weren't yellow.   

Better luck next time  👍

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I know I'll be able to put that coil into places where the 14 will not go.  Of course I'm still learning it.  I did a combination of cruising (going fast) between patches and gridding (going slow near my targets).  I changed some settings and I did some testing.

There is only one area in these several square miles where gold had been lodged in rocks (a combination of granite and quartz) where I hoped to find unseen gold.  I tried that area for about 30 minutes hoping the X would see something that was oriented differently than the other coils and detectors did not see.  I call it Tortoise Hill because when I found my first nugget there years ago one of our ground turtle shells was near.  You don't want to get caught disturbing them but roads all over this area are being shut down to preserve the habitat.  Most of that same shell is still there.

I included one of our hotrocks in the picture.  It is the type that sticks to a magnet as hard as steel.  I think the X saw fewer of them than the 14 but I'll know when I go back to Gold Basin and I look for meteorites.  I want to see a space rock and I forgot to take a meteorite with me to test.  I know it is difficult to distinguish a meteorite with the Equinox.

The weight of the X is really not an issue.  I used my hipstick as always but I now have replaced my old bungee.  This one is now a snap at the hipstick which I never open to release it (that was a pain) and I just have a loop that I put over the handle kinda like an open laso and when I bend over to dig a target I just slip it off the handle.  It works for me.

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I hope you enjoyed the high desert area in Barstow regardless and obviously you made good use of the Xcoil. Yes, there is still alot of trash out there which makes me believe there is still a good chance for gold to be found since not much detecting has apparently been going on. What worries me a bit more is that this whole area is not known to produce larger nuggets but rather more fine flood gold. I think digging to the caliche and drywashing might be a better choice there. Check out the Desert Queen claim from GPAA, that's where I found the most. It also has some sizable hotrocks, strangely mixed in with fine sand around them. El Pasos have higher potential, but you need to go where. And I won't tell you 😉

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10 minutes ago, Gold Catcher said:

El Pasos have higher potential, but you need to go where. And I won't tell you

I love it...

 

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1 hour ago, mn90403 said:

I think the X saw fewer of them than the 14 but I'll know when I go back to Gold Basin and I look for meteorites.  I want to see a space rock and I forgot to take a meteorite with me to test. 

I think you'll have some luck finding new meteorites with the X Coil. My 17x12 was definitely hearing deeper rocks that were not audible at all on other GPZs which covered the same ground and used pretty much identical settings. I think there are more meteorites in the 3 inch or so depth gain interval than there are gold, they were not uncommon for me to find out there.

I wasn't able to turn up more than 1 or 2 missed bits of gold and 1 or 2 missed bits of trash in any old patch. But I didn't go to any club claims, so if you know where the old 90's patches are in those spots then you'll be the first X Coil over many of them. I'll be interested to see how you do.

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3 hours ago, kiwijw said:

Bad luck Mitchel, But the amount of rubbish you got tells you something. I don't see any BB's.  Any one of those could well have been gold. 

Better "luck" next time.

JW 🤠

There are 2 BBs there in the center and the little tiny wires really sounded off good.

I chose this location over any of the others because I have found more total nuggets around this area than any place I've hunted.  I can't take the nuggets I've found and those of others and find them again.  It was a good area for about 2 years.  The occasional nugget that might be left now would not let me think it is still a 'gold producing' area so I would have to go to completely new spots next time.

It is like what you said when you and Simon went to a spot way up in your mountains ... it may not be worth a trip back up there anytime soon.  I don't need any more proof that we've gotten 90% of the nuggets that had been there.  I can still go to spots where there are still 20% or greater or even find that 50% patch!

I'm sure there are some Rye Patch nuggets in that coil's future.

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3 hours ago, phrunt said:

It's also good you've found a guy in the US that can make adapters for people.  Did he say he was happy to continue making adapters for others? What did his charge end up being?

The splicer did spend some extra time on making the adapter, looking at the online video and looking at the files from you and Dave.  He still didn't have the time to do the 19" coil end but I am to report to him this week and tell him everything is fine.  He was willing to fix any problems but there are none.  He checked for shorts and the wires are a bit fine so it probably exceeded my basic skills and now I am confident in his work and so can he.  (If there had been a serious problem there would have been nothing he could have done to fix the board!)

When I tested the adapter it was first without a coil.  Because of the chip in the adapter the Zed did not say there was no coil attached.  It wanted to go through the settings.  I didn't want to do that but I'm not going to attach a coil while the Zed is on.  I shut it down and put the coil on and started it back up.  I have no falsing or anything other than normal touch sensitivity.  I can make it sound like a target if I strike something hard but I didn't do that often.  It balanced well with the ferrite. 

I asked him if he might want to do more of these and he hesitated a bit.  I think that was because he was doing it as a 'one off' for me.  When I go back to him to get the 19 I'll ask him what a profitable price would be for him to do more.  He can't feel like he's doing favors all the time.

Then there is the logistics side of things.  I went to his shop and dropped it off and it took 2 weeks.  What would he want to charge if someone sent him a coil and he had to ship it back out in under a week.  Would he want to do it?

I'll let everyone know and give his name if he is interested.

I had considered learning how to do it and what would I charge?  haha

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Ok, I have a working 15x10 X-Coil in Southern California.  I'm willing to meet up with someone within a 3 hour drive of Santa Monica (Bakersfield, Arizona border to Yuma) and you can try it on my Z (preferred) or your Z (at your own risk) and see how it performs.  We can meet at a place of your choosing (if you want to know how it performs in a specific spot) or we can go to one of many well known spots.  I belong to several clubs and I can take a guest.  We'll both be detecting and keeping what we find. (No pool and split because I don't know how to divide equally. haha)  You can use the X-Coil half the detecting time and I'll use it the other half.  

If this sounds like a day of detecting for you let me know and we'll see if we can set up a day.

Mitchel

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5 hours ago, phrunt said:

That's very king of you Mitchel, people should take you up on that offer.  A great opportunity to see an X-coil in action.

Yes, I want to see more patches come back to life as they have for JW!  I've just had my initial day with it so far and there are many more to come.  I've got a couple of days lined up with friends so I thought I'd make the same offer to forum friends.

All days out in the field are enjoyable and finding some yellow pieces makes it more so sometimes.

Mitchel

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