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Showing content with the highest reputation on 08/27/2018 in all areas

  1. About this time last night I was loading up the 4Runner and starting my 3 hour drive to the goldfields of Barstow, California. (I did this same trip last week and got a skunk!) What has changed since last week? Well, I bought a Chromebook and now I can watch metal detecting videos and learn some techniques I had not learned. The first one was lower sensitivity and lower recovery speed. (When I first got the Nox and used it on the beach I had experimented with this but now it was time to use it in Gold Mode.) I arrived about 1:30 AM to a full moon desert which is great all by itself. I spent an hour with the Nox and the 11 in coil and then went to the 7000 for an hour. It was time for a nap and I woke up about 6 AM as the moon was just setting. Soon thereafter I broke my skunk with the Nox. I got a .09g little flake in a well hunted spot. It was not deep. I went back at it a bit later with the 06 but to no avail ... again. You can't hear what is not there. I kept the sensitivity between 15 and 20 ... mostly 17. Recovery speed was 4. It was time to go to a spot Swifty had told me about and about 11 he comes rolling in and tells me I'm in the wrong spot! (I went to the wrong spot last week also.) He gets out there with his Monster and 7000 and quickly puts me to shame getting 2 nuggets for .61g total (one of his nuggets was just to the right of mine). We've taken so many nuggets off this area that they are tough to find now with any coil/machine combo but we'll keep trying.
    19 points
  2. Hi all , and wasn't it great to see the sun shine for a day in Victoria on Sunday.? My gold buddy the dog and i took the Z and SDC for a run and came up with these little rippers last Sunday. Good luck to everyone. Cheers Rod
    10 points
  3. My brother and I drove to an old heavily detected patch on Friday and between us found over a dozen pieces/nuggets. Although we had our Minelabs with us, we just used the Gold Bug 2's as we immediately found a couple. Most of the pieces were within two inches of the surface, but the larger specimen (5.7grams) was down about 4 inches and was loud. My point is, I guess, don't give up on old patches especially if some time has passed to allow wind and water to alter the ground a bit. And we do have wind and thunder showers here in Eastern Oregon all the time. As usual stay tight to the ground and swing slow.
    6 points
  4. I think about writing books all the time! It is one of the few bucket list items I have left so I really do need to get with the program. In the meantime the third rewrite of the Treasure Talk article just got submitted so that's a start In the meantime keep digging that gold Lunk - the Equinox will easily find gold other VLF detectors miss. Here is a little rock that signaled - took me some eyeballing to see it is a little flake embedded in cemented gravel..... not all hot rocks are hot rocks!
    6 points
  5. I headed for the hills today to try out a recovery speed of 4 on the Equinox Gold mode, with the 6” coil, and I must say I was gobsmacked at the performance gain. I was also running the Iron Bias at zero and the sensitivity at max. I chose to grid an old spot that I’ve gridded with every machine I’ve ever owned. I hit the first flake right away, and the fun didn’t stop until quitting time. The last dig of the day was a whopper...0.7 of a gram at 5”...I was absolutely incredulous that A) the EQX hit so strong on it, and B) none of my other machines ever hit it; a real head scratcher!
    3 points
  6. One additional add (off topic) ... Curtis (my son who is almost 8 months old) likes it when his daddy brings home gold. He is telling me now to find a couple of places for him to go out in a few years! He already knows how to beach hunt. Mitchel
    3 points
  7. Sounds like a job for a GPX with the 5X10 Commander DD coil with Iron Reject on. I’ve had pretty good luck with that setup in heavy trash areas.
    3 points
  8. Ah, the classic dilemma! Ground really hot, so you need a PI. But lots of trash, so you need a VLF for discrimination. But the VLF gets no depth so you need the PI. But the PI gets the trash...... Steve's Law Of Target Depletion
    3 points
  9. Hello all! Based on requests from several folks who are curious, I went ahead and did some air testing with my new Minelab 6” coil, attached to my Equinox 800. I wanted to give some idea of the relative capabilities of this coil as compared to the 11” coil. While all the normal caveats of air testing apply – such as air-test results in no way mirror in-ground results, etc. etc. etc., I do think there is at least a little bit of value when doing side-by-side air testing of two different coils for comparison purposes. Anyway, how much value exists in such a test is up to each individual to decide; I simply wanted to provide the data. I also did a Youtube video, which I will post a link to as soon as it is done uploading. In the video, I did NOT record the testing of all the coins; I ran only the silver Roosevelt dime in the video to show you, audibly, what quality of signal I listened for in order to call it a “hit.” In other words, how repeatable of a signal I listened for before I assigned a depth value to that particular coin, with that particular coil. The rest of the video is just some discussion of a few points regarding the coil, and the testing. Anyway, here is the data… Minelab Equinox 800 11” and 6” coils, air-test comparison, done indoors Park 1 Mode Sensitivity 18 Noise Cancel Channel 7 All-metal mode (horseshoe button engaged) Ground Balance 0 Recovery Speed 4 (on the 800, equivalent to 2 on the 600) Iron Bias 2 (on the 800, equivalent to 1 on the 600) Here are the results: After this “apples to apples” comparison, where I tested both coils using identical settings, I then re-tested a couple of coins (specifically the silver dime and the silver quarter) on the 6” coil, but this time bumping sensitivity to 22. I found that I was able to run sensitivity about 3 points higher, as the 6” coil is (as expected) less affected by EMI. Since “18” is a rather conservative sensitivity for a 6” coil, (but that is as high as I could go with the 11” in my indoor testing, and since I wanted to keep it “apples to apples”), I wanted to see how much depth gain I would get on the 6” coil if I bumped sensitivity up some. Here are those results: In summary, you can see that the 6” coil (at 18 sensitivity) loses roughly 1 ¾” depth on each coin, in an air test, as compared to the 11” coil. You can also see that by bumping the sensitivity on the 6” coil up from 18 to 22, you “gain back” most of the loss of air-test depth, getting to within ½” to ¾” of depths achieved by the 11” coil, set at 18 sensitivity. SO…while you DO lose depth with the 6” coil, as expected, you may – in a real-world scenario – be able to gain most of that depth back, due to being able to run it at a higher sensitivity setting. Overall, I am thus far impressed with the coil, and can’t wait to use it “in the field,” where I can begin to get a feel for its REAL value – its ability to separate, in trashy sites. Steve
    2 points
  10. I recently hit a new permission here in rural Tasmania - the property housed the ruins of what the property owner thought was a Shepherds hut. The ruins themselves dated to the early 1800s, and I found some awesome Tokens hidden in the dirt. It really was a great day. Attached are some pics and you can find the video below.
    2 points
  11. My first trip to this location with the Nox gave me two nuggets a bit larger than the one I got yesterday. At the time Steve said I might be the only one who had found gold with the Nox other than him!
    2 points
  12. When playing cricket here in Australia , ya have to wear a box in case ya get hit in the Jax crackers ???
    2 points
  13. and we will leave it at that.
    2 points
  14. Hey guys, having come from a 705 to the 800 Im waiting for Mars MD to see if they bring out coils for the equinoxes. I had the 10x6 sniper and goliath coils, they were fantastic coils and had 2 frequencies. The goliath was deeper than an SE by far. The sniper was the perfect coil on the 705. I sold it all to buy the 800 but miss that coil. Check out MarsMD.
    1 point
  15. Tarnagulla has always been hit and miss for me but more often miss, but I rock in there the other day and get these 2. ? Dave
    1 point
  16. These guys would make a small fortune if they made Equinox coils. Heck here we're going a year since the Equinox reveal and you can't even get a 6" coil for it (easily), let alone any other coils, they'd practically have the market cornered on EQ coils.
    1 point
  17. I know some spots that are exactly like you are describing. California has some really hot serpentine areas. They are frustrating because they really do call for a PI type detector, but the trash levels mean most of the time is spent digging trash. Or I switch to a VLF, but now half the targets are out of reach. Ultimately it does seem to always boil down to just digging everything. The problem is a time issue. We usually don't have the time to dig everything, but get forced into it anyway. The good news is these are the types of locations where people will keep eking out a few nuggets for a long time. A nugget probably still remains until every metal target is gone.
    1 point
  18. Im going to say the Z is a bad choice for most creeks. You would be better off with a gpx and small 8x6 coil for creek hunts unless, you have flat bottom bedrock with minimal crags and cracks to allow use of a large 14" coil. The small coils will out-depth large coils because you can bring them in closer to the bedrock and stab the coil down into cracks. Thats my experience a least.
    1 point
  19. Thanks for the input. Going to have to weed the trash out piece at a time with the SDC. As to the above suggestions of the electromagnets, sweepers and such, not even close to being practical in the areas I prospect. Only access is by foot. I spend time shaving ounces of weight off my backpack with most of my packs weight being water.
    1 point
  20. Great work on some interesting looking ground! Chris
    1 point
  21. 1 point
  22. A Geiger counter does nothing more more than indicate that ionizing radiation is present. The best it can discriminate is to differentiate the three common forms of natural terrestrial originated forms: alpha, beta, and gamma. But there are enough sources of these (although dominated by Uranium, Thorium, and Potassium) that just knowing you have an emitter doesn't tell you what you have. Further investigation/testing is required. Think of U & Th (and their daughters) as the iron and aluminum trash that annoys detectorists (particularly those using non-discriminating PI detectors), except its abundance ratio compared to other radioactive elements (desirable or otherwise) is many-fold worse. IMO, finding precious metals with a metal detector is orders of magnitude more likely to be successful than the lucky off-chance that some valuable (precious metal) mineral associated with a radioactive mineral can be picked up with Geiger counter. And because of the secondary testing that would be required with a Geiger counter, MDing is less expensive in addition.
    1 point
  23. Crikey, you folks have mangled the language, didn`t they learn yas proper English.
    1 point
  24. Good One, Alluminati!
    1 point
  25. Good to see you find a gold nugget with the Nox, Mitchel...many more to come.
    1 point
  26. Good stuff Mitchel. Any day you get gold is a good day ? That`s great looking country. Dave
    1 point
  27. Trashy areas drive me nuts...only way to deal with it is going back and cleaning it out over a period of time.
    1 point
  28. A few groups sometimes referred to hillbillies or rednecks as crackers, but the origin is from the cowboys in north Florida who mustered cattle using bullwhips...hence the name, crackers.
    1 point
  29. Steve's Law of Target Depletion - All good locations with high value targets will be detected with progressively more aggressive means until no metal can be found. When any location contains items of great perceived value, detector technology will normally be applied in reverse order of aggressiveness. First will be VLF discrimination "cherry picking". This will be followed by varying degrees of "turning down the discrimination" to dig iffy targets and then on to using the barest of ferrous/non-ferrous discrimination. This will finally be followed by "all metal" detecting to remove masking effects with either VLF or PI detectors. If the location is considered good enough all targets will eventually over time be completely removed until no detector is able to acquire a target. At this point a site may be considered "hunted out" until a new technology arrives allowing for more depth or ground separation capability, when a few more remaining metal items will be removed. The key concept is that since discrimination is unreliable, all metal items must be removed from high value locations in order to rest assured nothing has been overlooked. Nugget hunters and beach hunters get right with the program. If a nugget "patch" is located it will be relentlessly pounded until no metal remains. Beaches survive to some degree by being a renewable resource but even on beaches the richer, older deposits of jewelry are worked out over time. Good relic locations can and will be subjected to the same attention given to nugget patches, detected relentlessly until no metal remains. The rule is that as long as you can find a piece of metal hope remains that good items can be found. If not you, somebody else can and will return until no metal remains. I have promoted PI detectors for all uses for this very reason for over 15 years now - see that last few paragraphs at www.losttreasure.com from 2005. Most people consider depth to be problem number one, but for many areas target masking is by far the more serious issue. Until detectors can actually see through trash instead of blocking it out, even the smallest surface trash can and will block deeper adjacent items from being detected. Superb discrimination only gets you so far and ultimately the only solution is to remove the surface trash to see what lurks below. The only real limitation we face in this regard is in areas sensitive to digging holes of any sort, like a well groomed park. Even there, slow careful extraction of surface trash over time can reveal old coins missed by others for decades. Beneath The Mask by Thomas Dankowski
    1 point
  30. Nice but small, and that's the point. I can easily hit bits of gold weighing under 1/10th grain (480 grains per ounce, so 1/4800th ounce) which puts the Equinox with 6" coil squarely in the league of the best VLF nugget detectors when it comes to tiny gold, and in mild ground you can get PI like depth on larger gold with the 11" coil. My GPZ is still my bread an butter gold detector, but my Gold Monster has not been used at all this year as I prefer the extra control and features offered on the Equinox. Most of all I like the fact that the Equinox is deceptively simple but as you learn more about it there always seems to be more to learn. The power is there in spades - it's just trying to control it in high mineral gold prospecting scenarios that is challenging. Especially with the 11" coil - the 6" coil is far easier to tame. The Equinox is still the best all around detector I have ever used, and it just keeps getting better the more I use it.
    1 point
  31. Great info Steve... thanks! There certainly are times a small coil works better than a large coil. Better see through in dense trash, and sharper hits on tiny targets. But I think we can sum up and say that on coin size targets in the open, the 11” coil gets a couple more inches depth than the 6” coil.
    1 point
  32. Geiger counters are used to look for radioactive minerals, and more specifically for uranium prospecting. They have no real application outside of that. Any information about something like using a Geiger counter to look for silver would involve some rare situation where a radioactive mineral is being used as a tracer. Anyway, not much use for gold but possibly of use for platinum group metals which may be associated with uranium in some cases. https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jres/64A/jresv64An1p107_A1b.pdf http://www.minsocam.org/ammin/AM38/AM38_463.pdf
    1 point
  33. Depending on ground mineralization you might get more gains at 3 or even 2, but I find the ground signal does get harder to deal with under 4. Three is not too bad (depending on the ground) but I would not use 2 unless right on the gold and at a crawl. Another tip - rejecting any target id numbers at all robs sensitivity but may be needed to deal with the ground. In milder ground you can get smooth operation with no target id rejected. Basically just tune up like you would any VLF all metal unit using a combination of Gold Mode, sensitivity and SAT. Sensitivity Control = Sensitivity (Gold Bug 2), Gain (GMT), Sensitivity (Equinox) Recovery Speed = Mineralization Switch (Gold Bug 2), V/SAT (GMT), Recovery Speed (Equinox) Gold can read as ferrous so dig all targets. Depending on the ground or the settings or both, ground signals can start showing up in the -9, -8, and -7 range and hot rocks at other locations, like positive 13 for example. The normal way to deal with this is just like with the Gold Bug 2 or GMT - tune to smooth them as best as is possible. The Equinox does allow you to do the same. Blocking these readings will come at a cost in reduced sensitivity. However, you can block these target id numbers, and then boost the sensitivity higher. In some places you will be better off accepting all target id numbers and just tuning appropriately. In other locations, typically more difficult ground, being able to block target id numbers and therefore part of the audio return can be a significant tool, but there is a trade off. I will be honest with you all - I have been sandbagging for quite some time as regards Equinox and gold nugget detecting. There seemed little point of getting into the subject much prior to the arrival of the 6" coil, although there is magic to be had with the 11" also once it all sinks in. A few bits found with the 6" coil....
    1 point
  34. A cracker = a rip snorter = a beauty = a ripper = the ducks nuts = the bees knees. Dare I ask Clay Diggins...what does a cracker refer to in the U.S?
    1 point
  35. As a Christmas present, a friend of mine asked around amongst many friends/acquaintances and received five positive replies for permission for me to search their properties. Last weekend I went to my 3rd (actually 3b since this is a property now owned by one of the original five, but a second property). I find it interesting to compare/contrast two of these properties which I'll call 3a and 3b. 3a) small (<1000 sq ft) home built about 1940 on a corner lot. Total property size ~0.1 acre. There is a detached garage, part of the yard is fenced off for farm animals, and although I had permission to search in with them (goats and chickens) I didn't do as thorough of a job searching their space as the rest, for obvious reasons. I was expecting good results but a 4 hour hunt only produced one old coin -- a late 1930's Wheat Cent. It's possible this site had been searched previously but I think it's less likely than a second theory -- whoever has lived there just didn't hang out much in the yard and/or didn't carry coins in places where they could be dropped. Regardless, I was disappointed to the sparsity of finds, but that just makes me hungrier for other sites and more excited when those produce. To my surprise and appreciation, that home owner told me she was in the process of buying a rental and said I was welcome to search it. Proceed to... 3b) similar size home and lot, but this time no farm animals, built ~1955. Assuming the 'old' coins I seek stopped being circulated by the early 1970's, this property only offers about 15 or so years to have accumulated these targets as opposed to twice as long with 3a. After my previous experience I wasn't expecting a windfall but still was hopeful. Last Sunday I was able to put in 3 hours of searching and covered a little more than half of the searchable ground. During the hunt I was finding a moderate number of coins, mostly copper Memorial cents, a few clad dimes and quarters and a couple Jefferson nickels. I was discriminating hard against Zincolns which might have been a mistake. Two of the copper cents I found (I think both were Wheats but not sure) hit 20-21 ID on my Equinox 800 (Park 1, 5 custom tones, ground balanced, recovery speed = 6, iron bias = 2, gain = 18). When I don't expect Indian Heads I tend to discriminate at 21/22 ID break. I don't like trying to clean coins in the field so although I knew I had some Wheaties I wasn't sure how many. Turns out 7 of the 21 pennies I recovered were Wheats. My standard procedure is to soak in just water for several hours and then use just my fingers (including fingernails) and a soft toothbrush to figure out date+mintmark. Soaking removes the loose grit (think 'abrasive' which is why I don't mess with coins in the field) and a fingernail is soft enough not to scratch the metal. As most of you experience, copper coins that have been in the ground a long time tend to build up a scale which doesn't come off easily. 95% of the time I have to scrape the date area with a fingernail. It's kind of a fun process because rather than seeing a date immediately there is a gradual revelation. For example: "looks like a 194x, no maybe 191x (scrape some more), OK 1942? or is that a 3 or 8? I'm seeing a mintmark but can't tell if 'D' or 'S'. Hope it's an 'S'...." Part of this process is driven by poor eyesight, even using magnifiers. That's exactly what happened with the coin shown below. It looked like a 1924 but there was too much scale to see a mintmark. As usual I hope for the best "please be a -D" but my dreams almost never reach fruition. However, this time, bonus!! Just as I had begged for, a -D (Denver mint) showed through. Of the >200 business strike Lincoln cents, the order of rarity (based upon mintage) is 1909-S VDB, 1931-S, 1914-D, 1909-S, 1924-D. I found the fifth scarecest Lincoln (not counting the rare and sometimes valuable 'error' coins such as the Double Dies and off-metal planchet errors nor 'proof' coins issued for collectors only). In the 1960's I searched bank rolls and pocket change religiously for my collection. I estimate over the years I looked at 25,000 or more Lincoln cents and not only did I never find a 1924-D, but no cents as valuable either. (Actually the value even today is quite modest. Given its wear, even if I can successfully clean off the scale it would only be worth about $15 on Ebay.) Since restarting metal detecting 3 years ago I've found just over 100 Wheaties. 1/100 beats 0/25,000 every day of the week.
    1 point
  36. Hey guys, we are hoping to have a white paper write up on XGB soon. We don't want to give too much away, but basically it allows the machine to track more than one ground balance point at a time.
    1 point
  37. Lou's Theorm: For every VDI # (or range of #'s) you wish to dig, there will be an infinite number of misshapen (or not) pieces of aluminum to produce it exactly.
    1 point
  38. thank u steve for your interest ..... right this minute am working on samples to be tested at a lab .... may be then i know what questions to ask ....so far i think if there is gold its very small same with the platinum .... my vision very bad and i dont have a microscope .....the reason i got interested about gieger counters was the worlds greatest find a few years back was in this area ....Palladium ,,,,,from 200 miles up was discovered in the sea to the north in 12000 feet of water .....if i remember right some platinum group metals are alloy together and i think one is radioactive if not 2 of them ....so u got tracers AS , bi , te , sb if i remember right for AU ... well maybe a gieger counter could help find , RE , PT , PD , IR , OS .....i dont care about U , and TH they are illegal here anyway and worthless to me ...once again thank u steve wish i was in may creek ....so look at 21th century prospecting from above i dont have the time right now
    0 points
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