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Showing content with the highest reputation on 07/06/2016 in all areas

  1. We decided to detect the high country with the idea that we would be out of the smoke from the Trailhead fire that was burning near Foresthill. We arrived at our destination with clean air and blue skies, yahoo! I started the day hunting the trashy areas with my discriminator. After a few hours and only digging bullets, I was getting a little worried about the possibility of a skunk. Next, I brought out the GMT. This is my anti-skunk machine! I detected an area that I knew had an abundant of small gold. Again, after a few hours, nothing but hot rocks and one bird shot. Wow, not looking good and now the smoke is beginning to fill the valleys. I really don’t enjoy the two hour drive home when I don’t have any gold in the poke. Finally I decided to finish the day with my 5000 and the Sadie coil. Normally I like to hunt with a large coil, but I had left that coil in my car which was parked in Truckee. So I detected my way down the mountain finding two nails and half a bullet, about 6" deep. It was now 4:00pm, and time to head back up the hill when I came across an area with a lot of small quartz rocks. I thought to myself this area looks really good. So I began detecting the quartz and immediately I got a huge signal by a tree. I thought to myself, must be a nail since it’s so loud. I scraped the ground with my boot and the target moved, so I knew it should be an easy recovery and probably trash. Well, after an embarrassing recovery that took way to long, I had a 6.9dwt quartz and gold nugget in my hand. The nugget was basically on the surface and had two friends below it. I detected the area only to find one square nail, but I think there is definitely more gold there. The hike up the canyon is never fun but the drive home was great and the wifee was super happy. I whinked the gold for three days and now the nugget weights 6.3dwt, but it’s much prettier now.
    6 points
  2. I use one, really like it. Butl I never ran a Minelab. Still trying to figure out best applications for the 3 coils. I have found some pretty good southers NV nuggets.
    3 points
  3. Probably only a few of you have not noticed the upward movement in gold since the first of the year. Starting the year at around $1040 in early January, as I write this gold is at $1367, a 31% increase. I only wish my stocks had done as well! HBC Bank predicts that gold will hit a ceiling of around $1400 in the near term. http://www.kitco.com/news/2016-07-05/HSBC-Ups-Gold-Forecast-But-Sees-Potential-Ceiling-At-1-400-Oz.html I was having lunch with a prospecting friend last week and he was saying he thought gold might hit $1800 next year in 2017. I am of a mind that is less excited, and I think gold may hit $1500 next year. Still, either way, things are getting better and it seems like the bottom of the cycle is over and we are on the way up. What do you gents think?
    2 points
  4. Within a year, two at most we'll be in the midst of another worldwide recession. It will be fueled by the weakening economies of China and Europe, yet will be felt in North America, too. Historically, a lot of money goes moves into gold to weather the storm of such events. So, gold is on an upward trend until the world comes out of the next recession. I'm still a working man so don't take my economic advice. The above is from the smarter people who now manage my meager retirement account since I've quit squandering it
    2 points
  5. There is middle ground between no mining and unregulated mining. It is called responsible mining. We need minerals to sustain our way of life, but let's do it right.
    2 points
  6. I have a very different take on this. We live in cities formed by leveling forests, tearing down mountains of building stone, destroying animal habitats and draining lakes and wet lands. The poverty stricken residents of these lands want a better life for themselves and their children. Why is it a horrible environmental tragedy that these people want to develop their natural resources and develop a better life? It is EXACTLY what we have done. Unless you are living the total technology and lifestyle of 500 BC., you are a hypocrite to deny these people the opportunity to better their lives the way our forefathers did. I can tell you as a writer and some one who has long been involved in environmental issues that articles like this are pure propaganda pieces which ignore the facts to gain converts and donations.
    2 points
  7. I was in Oklahoma coin hunting with a friend with my MX Sport. I had the 950 concentric coil on with it in the Coin & Jewelry Mode. Had the Sensitivity set at 5 and had it on 4 tones. The reason for the concentric coil is I just like it over than a DD coil when coin hunting.. With the sensitivity set at 5 gave me more depth for the ground I was digging in. The ground was like you had stack flat rocks on top of more of the same. I've seen lots of rocky ground but this was beyond rocky. On the number of tones I may up it as time goes by. Like old home sites most can be a high trash ground to hunt. I found I could pick out a coin in between trash being on both sides without any trouble. The Sport would give me a good reading on my target with no trouble on it's ID. I've hunted with a lot of solid coils over the years but I really like this concentric with the hole in the center. When you pinpoint a coin you can almost see the date through the hole in coil.Haha. My friend sure like the different tones for each coin I would detect. I have White's TRX pinpointer and the only time had trouble when it got within about a foot of the coil. Over all I find the MX Sport to be a great coil hunting detector. I've yet to do any nugget hunting so that will come at a later date. The only thing I think that could be better and that is the detector stand. Unless you put it on level ground it will fall over. I'm going to see what I can come up with to correct the problem. The detector sits so low the elbow hits the ground when put down. This is just below the hand grip. I put a leather wrap to protect it from damage over time of hitting the ground. This is because of the short stand too. Chuck
    1 point
  8. Silver is a good buy too.
    1 point
  9. True, we're not that much in disagreement. It's really a lot like it was in North America when the west was wild and I guess we made it out of that ok. I just think it's not 1849 and a government of a country like Peru should be taking better care of business, it's in their best interest to do so. I'm 50 years old and still somewhat naïve I guess. There's the way I think the world should be and then there's the way it really is!
    1 point
  10. I don't think that we are in much disagreement. I believe that the indigenous people's should be allowed to develop the resources in their own areas. I disagree with you that this development benefits only one generation. Here in the USA, thousands of miners who did well used their new wealth to build businesses, construct cities and railroads, found ranches and farms thereby creating ongoing streams of wealth that still benefits the local economy here 150 years later. One of the local miners who really struck it big built a mining school at the local University - I graduated from that school about 80 years later, so I benefited from his wealth. Even for those poor areas with great potential, in order to build a prosperous society, money is needed to start business and get things going. The seed money to build better communities can come from developing the natural resources. Nature heals itself at an amazing rate and the areas that were worked here are nearly completely reforested. Many have become tourist attractions where people come to see what the early miners did.
    1 point
  11. Nice nugget Chris Ben!! I have found stock coil to be best overall and use 8" mono for surf detecting. The 15" x 20" mono had so little advantage over the stock coil I sold mine. About all it is really good for is ground coverage and an edge on very large targets. In my opinion. Well, at the time the ATX was released the SDC 2300 had not appeared yet, and the GPX machines were still at much higher prices. The ATX circuit in my opinion is second only to the Minelabs as a ground balancing PI detector. If I can't use my GPZ for any reason the ATX is a credible backup, and another reason I own it. It actually does better than the GPZ in salt ground and in basalt hot rocks. My tests of my ATX vs my old GPX 5000 left me sufficiently impressed that I was able to sell my GPX 5000 without fear of being caught out were my GPZ to fail. Garrett had one heck of an opening and I think they blew it. The SDC 2300 was introduced and if money is no object, is a better gold prospecting machine than the ATX. Then Minelab lowered the GPX pricing and we are now where the ATX does not look so great by comparison. If Garrett came out with a Garrett LTX tomorrow there is still room in the under $2K market for a better alternative to the TDI. I think Nokta/Makro knows this and is hard at work on an under $2K alternative, and probably Fisher also. The TDI is what it is and it is the only real option under $2K. Unfortunately it lacks a bit of punch, and I would go head to head with my ATX gold prospecting against anyone with a TDI of any type and feel I have an edge with same size coils. Where the TDI smacks the ATX is on coil options. An ATX styled and priced more like a TDI SL would be a great little machine and I would have one in a heartbeat were one available. If Garrett waits much longer however somebody will beat them to the punch. The wildcard is always Minelab. Their old discontinued machines still beat the competition, and a repackaged SD 2200D or better at under $2k would beat any alternatives. Something like that could really take the air out of any attempts to unseat Minelab for PI gold prospecting primacy. Don't know, just an early morning ramble really. I do know if all I had were the two detectors below I could do pretty much anything anywhere as far as metal detecting goes and be quite happy. My First Year With The Garrett ATX
    1 point
  12. https://www.facebook.com/groups/270817552932590/ Ok, I'm going to try something here. I'm not sure it will transfer over to the forum or not. This is a VERY cool movie that was shot sometime in the early 1930's. It shows the road from Yreka (essentially) to Happy Camp, Calif. Note the narrow, one lane, rock slides, old cars and buildings, and especially, about half way through, a bucket dredge working the Klamath River. Note also the multiple tailing piles all along the river. There is no sound so don't try that. This was posted on a Yreka facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/Yreka.News/videos?ref=page_internal I've no idea how someone found it but it shows how much has changed, and yet how little. Digger Bob
    1 point
  13. Unless I'm mistaken, that was a drag line feeding the hopper and trommel of a barge mounted sluice with stacker. Man I've never seen anything like that in operation, only the pieces in museums and bone yards. That old footage was really cool and thanks for sharring
    1 point
  14. Sorry but Minelab didn't patent the use of Litz wire in coils, they patented a low eddy current coil. Bruce Candy discovered that excess metal in a coil responds as if moving relative to the coil when the coil passes over magnetic ground or ferrite type rocks. Third party coil makers could in fact use Litz wire or stranded wire and not infringe the patent if the coil contained large solder joints or metal shielding or any other excess metal that would normally give a signal if moving relative to the coil. Some third party coils were hopelessly noisy on some ground and this was wrongly blamed on the detector. To demonstrate this, place the coil flat on the ground away from metal and then place a coin on the ground at a distance from the edge of the coil where it would normally give a response if moving. Then pass a ferrite rod, or piece of soft ferrite over the coin and it will give a response as if moving relative to the coil. You can also try placing a 1 gm nugget on the coil and it will give a response if you pass a piece of soft ferrite over the nugget. And Minelab do not use Eric Foster's ground subtraction method. The late sample in Eric's method must be amplified, which means that any target signal in the late sample is also amplified and then subtracted causing a substantial depth loss. The late sample in ML's method doesn't require amplification thus very little depth loss. A little bit of thought and knowledge of nugget modelling should make it clear why this method works better than first thought. Minelab also patented a method that compares the result of one pulse length with the result of a different pulse length, another first, and they also developed the smooth timings that rely on knowledge only disclosed in ML patents and can cancel two different ground types with one setting of the GB. The new salt mode is also novel. To spend a fortune researching and developing these methods and to not patent them is just plain crazy. BTW, one of the few who actually understands Minelab's patent in that Geotech thread is a guy called Clancy, those who expressed a negative view obviously have no idea at all.
    1 point
  15. I haven't looked at this patent so I have no opinion on it one way or the other, but I'd bet heavily that it gets approved. The US Patent Office, and the patent process in general, is widely recognized as thoroughly and utterly broken. USPTO is so overwhelmed and understaffed that most applications get only a few hours of examination; approval doesn't mean the patent has merit, and I'd guess that over half of all patents have little or no merit. Minelab is well-known to have patents on already-existing techniques, such as Litz coils and Eric Foster's ground subtraction method. They're gaming a broken system.
    1 point
  16. We live in a society where many people file a law suit at the drop of a hat. Spill some hot coffee on yourself? You're not a klutz, its McDonalds fault and you should take them to court for millions - because there is no warning on their hot coffee that its actually hot. Same holds true about plague and all sorts of other hazards. Officials and others feel obligated to warn you for liability reasons. The plague has been in North America for centuries. Now you are being warned so you cannot file suit or otherwise complain that no one warned you. I once saw a hand made sign at at the entrance of a campground that said something like: Beware of rattlesnakes, scorpions, black widows, bears, mountain lions, plague, Hantavirus, Valley fever, lightening, poison plants, broken glass, falling rocks (and the sign then listed at least another dozen or so known hazards of being outdoors) - then at the bottom said "Be safe and have fun". Yes, there is risk outdoors, but if you take reasonable precautions, you will be fine. There are just as many if not more risks at home.
    1 point
  17. So we here in the US want to stop dredging because the mercury in our water. You get people to sign a paper and they don't know what end is up let along what they signing are what's behind it You get a dredge in a river and it's going to pickup that mercury that's in it. You get a lot of people dredging in that same river and in a short time that river will be free of mercury. You won't find any dredger throw that mercury away because it's got gold in it. Steve said it best it's called responsible mining . Chuck
    1 point
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