Jp’s Gold Thread

[beatup]

Looks to be a great thread JP I will most interested in your thought processes as you hunt on .

[Walker]

Ha ha! I love the potato trick! Thanks JP! 
PS. ...... don’t eat the potato afterwards!🤣

[flakmagnet]

Isn't the potato trick also good when you have mercury coating the gold? The mercury absorbs into the potato.

[Gold Catcher]

On 3/11/2020 at 12:53 PM, Jonathan Porter said:

 I found myself coming back to Smoothing OFF and Sensitivity conservative. I also played around with High Yield Normal and even though the ground could handle HY Normal the target signal was seriously degraded by that mode so once again reverted back to Difficult. 

Thanks for pointing this out, JP. I have made a habit to screen a new area first in HY/normal (if possible) at whatever sensitivity is tolerated, and then in HY/difficult, with sensitivity increased a few clicks. However, I found that increasing sensitivity to make up for the difficult is often not needed. The ability to hear threshold variations in difficult better than in normal seems to make up for for the loss due to filtering. Great threads, keep it up!

[Gold Catcher]

JP, what are you thoughts on the ML 19 in coil with the extra deep setting? Any advice you can share with the 19 and how to best use it? Thanks

[Jonathan Porter]

Yesterday I had two training sessions back to back, first one was with a new GPX 5000 purchase and the next was a new GPZ 7000 purchase. I have a favourite training location for GPZ users that has produced a lot of gold for me over the years with pieces from 2 ounces and down. I take customers here because the ground is so variable and salty in places so I can show them the things that affect performance, like the importance of performing an X balance, how to recognise bad ground and then how to deal with it. This is the same location I originally took Davsgold with the Russian X coils when he came to Clermont some time ago.

When field training I swing the detector with the customer walking along with me listening to the audio, this way they get to see the things I pay attention to and the things I ignore along with the swing speed and coil control. Not long into proceedings I got a definite Low\/High signal right in the exact same spot I found a few nuggets with Davsgold using the early Russian coils, missed I’d say due to the elevated variability and most likely excessive X signal, as the early coils were not real good in this regard. I’m mentioning this because it is relevant to the story and the gold found so please avoid discussion on this point because this thread is still about my finding gold and not the politics.😬😳🤔🤫 This ground causes lots of gold to be missed, even by the standard coils so this is not a totally bad reflection, the area constantly turns up nuggets to the patient operator.😇

The customer was blown away on how stable his GPZ was and how clear the target signal was, I was also able to demonstrate the different Gold modes on the target before we committed to digging along with demonstrating using the User button to short cut to the Ground Balance function and then using Manual GB when committing to dig to avoid the GB drifting away from a known point. I also showed him how important it is in nasty ground to excavate carefully with no sharp edges to the hole till the target was definite and obvious. 

9 inches later out popped this solid ironstone coated slug

 

Today was an early rise to go check an area were I’ve pinged small pieces quiet shallow, the weather has cooled right off in the mornings so I found myself chaffing at the bit to get out and about as early as possible. I lost count of the numbers of tiny bits sitting right on the surface, piece after piece after piece just sitting there waiting to be put in my gold jar. The biggest one was quite deep but was the only one for the session that had any real size or depth to it. I did dig a lot of, and I do mean a LOT, of shot gun pellets, the pesky little blighters!!! 🥴 A really fun session before the humidity built up and Saturday chores came a calling.🤥

 

There is a 2 phase power line running over this spot so I cannot use too much sensitivity and have to go slow and careful making sure I keep the coil absolutely flat. Yes it is on private property with permission.🤫😎

The rest is just pictures of the pieces as they came off the ground. 

In the end not a bad little session of a few hours total, kind of left them biting for next time I’m in the mood for finding a few “sun bakers”😜

JP

 

[Jonathan Porter]

49 minutes ago, Gold Catcher said:

JP, what are you thoughts on the ML 19 in coil with the extra deep setting? Any advice you can share with the 19 and how to best use it? Thanks

The big killer for large GPZ19 coils on the GPZ is salt signal, the Gold mode least affected by Salt is Extra Deep, it provides similar outright depth to General without all the salt signal and surface mineral clutter but it comes at the cost of sensitivity to smaller pieces.

Extra deep samples much later that General, so when ZVT flips the poles the sampling point is delayed further to get rid of even more ground noise. Salt being a pretty fast time constant problem is also negated quite effectively. Large nuggets can be considered slow time constant so generally there signal will remain. 

JP 

[flakmagnet]

These posts are even more to-the-point than videos, we can ask a specific question and get a specific answer. Very impressed...

[mn90403]

22 hours ago, Jonathan Porter said:

When field training I swing the detector with the customer walking along with me listening to the audio, this way they get to see the things I pay attention to and the things I ignore along with the swing speed and coil control. Not long into proceedings I got a definite Low\/High signal right in the exact same spot I found a few nuggets with Davsgold using the early Russian coils, missed I’d say due to the elevated variability and most likely excessive X signal, as the early coils were not real good in this regard. I’m mentioning this because it is relevant to the story and the gold found so please avoid discussion on this point because this thread is still about my finding gold and not the politics.😬😳🤔🤫 This ground causes lots of gold to be missed, even by the standard coils so this is not a totally bad reflection, the area constantly turns up nuggets to the patient operator.😇

 

JP,

Thank you for your detailed impressions and style in telling it.  It really seems to be where the detector meets the target but the Z is without any digital screen help so you have to describe a sound as best you can.  That is a difficult task for all of us.  What is a murmur?  A slight break in threshold?  An iffy response?

My previous trainings have not included trainer audio.  One training session (Gerry's) included a hookup so the trainer could listen to my ground.  Mostly I've been given setting and put on my way for the most part.  It sure would be helpful to have a audio of yours or other detectorists to hear their catches.  Is there a way to hook up the second WM 12 and record audio?  If we could 'hear' what makes you stop when it is subtle or faint I'm sure I could know how you 'brake for gold!'  

Going on to the 'missed gold' from above, I've tried to be keen on 'missed' vs 'unseen.'  Missed to me would be not getting the coil over the target or not hearing or not knowing it was a target but the detector 'saw' it.  Unseen to me would be no matter how much coil control you have with a particular setting then the target was not 'seen' because of its depth, size, texture, etc.  Going over the same target with different settings or different detectors or coils would 'see' the target.  This might be a 2300 that is reputed to see gold that other PIs miss, especially on the mollock piles, right?

My last day in Bendigo I found a tiny little nugget that was not very deep but I got it from a pointy finger from Northeast's friend.  I was able to capture it because he told me he had found gold there with his 4500.

Mitchel

 

[Gold Catcher]

10 hours ago, Jonathan Porter said:

Large nuggets can be considered slow time constant so generally there signal will remain. 

Thanks, JP! I have not yet have much experience with my 19 in coil, but will do some testing to get a feeling for what nugget size will be detected with the slow timing and at what depth. This might even be advantageous in trashy areas with small surface trash (bb's, tiny wires...etc). The slow timing might simply make them go away...Should also work with the 14 inch coil I suppose. The question will be what remains still big enough to not slip through the time gaps 🙂