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Finally got a video up that goes over and shows some the uses and benefits of lidar maps for the gold prospector and metal detectorist. I also delve into some drone usage stuff at the end of the video. Let me know what you think, and if your interested in some feel free to contact me. I will hopefully have a website up in the near future, when i do i will let everyone know here. Thanks for watching!

Here is a photo of the finds that I had mentioned in a previous post. Nearly all of these finds were found on one small ridge that we had come to think of as being hunted out (using a variety of non-minelab detectors). Thanks for looking, MT

I actually took in an EQ-600 that I'll offer for $550. Has less than 10 hrs use and comes with 2+ yrs of transferable warranty. I spoke with your wife and she said...you owe her BIG BLING. I said the EQ-600 will help make that happen.

Minuteman same as the Eurotek Pro with 8” concentric is $149 at Teknetics.com.

When conditions are right then slow swinging wins the day. The silver band is a half ounce! The other silver ring has a nice little amber stone. Mitchel

I agree with Jeff Mc. Have owned both. The Monster works and is easy...but...the Equinox is just as good, if not better, and infinitely more versatile. The Monster got sold.

Not really. An EQ just either amplifies or cuts a set of frequencies. My idea is to basically squeeze a broad faint signal from the sides making it more pronounced and having more of an edge. More of a compression style of circuit rather than EQ.

Right now it’s available with the 11” coil and a Tek-Point pp for a MAP of $299! Pretty good deal - and that’s MAP.

Just returned home from a crazy road-trip. We had a work event in Las Vegas last week, and we had some equipment to haul in.The company said they'd pay my gas, so I decided to drive it, and take a few extra days off and go to one of my old Spanish trail sites to detect on my way home. What a trip it turned out to be! Snow blizzard on the way to Vegas. Then from Vegas to California, was one of the worst rain storms in like 50 years...I was out on a little two lane, twisty, curvy road that routes you though the mountains and it started out as just small oozes of mud filling areas of the road, or wet slicks as water filled the roads, but as I progressed higher into the mountains, it was progressively worsening, now small streams and creeks and boulders were taking over the road, then massive mud slides onto the roads. The road would worsen. The roads were washed out and flooded with white water rivers now taking over, filling the road with a debris field of rocks, small trees and brush, and tons of sand. One one occasion I was blasting through what amounted to a massive river flowing across the road, and while trying to blast though it a massive sand bar under the water attempted to trap the car, but luckily the FJ is a very capable off road vehicle, and it was able to make it though this and many more obstacles to come. So after all this, I get to my destination and the motel had canceled everyone's reservations because they had no water or power. Great, now I'm out in the middle of BFE with no place to stay and I'm not driving back through raging water flash floods. I ended up spending the night in my FJ Cruiser in the middle of the desert. It was a weird night, to be made even more strange by the fact that the only radio station I could pick up out there was playing Indian chants all night - LOL Between storms, I managed to get in a day of detecting, but with an even larger storm system nipping at my heals, I decided to head back before it hit the fan! I managed a good day testing the 15" Equinox coil at a site that's been stingy lately. Tom and I hunted it the last time we were there, and neither of us dug a single coin, but for whatever reason the Equinox lit it up (tu) Enjoy! Flickr account is buggered up, else I'd post a still pic, but here's the video: GL&HH Cal

1st Off, Happy New Year to all, may Good Health & Much Wealth come your way this 2019 !!!!! 2nd part of 3, different creek same Highbanker. Used as a dredge this time no pontoons & very little water. This was on a friends claim year or so before I stake mine approx. 2000 ft above. A dam was built up above and redirected creek water into a pipe line to feed water into a lake for water supply to a hydro electric plant on a lower lake. Yes I have mentioned this in other post. So 1st some prospecting was in order to decide where to dredge. I was lucky & found a corner in creek that was actually a decent hole with the bedrock coming up at end of hole, so making dams was a bit easier, one dam to hold bck what little water the feeder creeks & rain run off would supply, and then a dam for pump supply water. Needed 2 dams because 1 dam would get suck up to quickly when dredge nozzle & water pump ft valve in same hole & I needed to keep my visibility to dredge. ( see photos ) Now my H.B. Sluice M.T. into my intake pump water supply so to not suck up big dirt into ft. valve then into my shaft seal I went shopping for a ordinary desk trash basket with small enough holes to keep shaft seal destroying materials to a minimum & water flowing to pump. At the end of each day I would have to dig out 2nd hole to make sure I was ready to dredge next day, but it also was a great way to check and see if I was loosing any gold out my sluice just by randomly panning as I dug out hole and used material to build up dams. This system worked great, the more I dredge in dredge hole the deeper the water got. It was actually getting to deep to snorkel dredge but this creek the water is crystal clear & the gold would smack you in the face as it fell out of gravels into your nozzle. Wasn't getting rich, but my overhead for the day ran about $40.00 & I would have clean ups of 4 to 5 penny weights averaging $60.00 a penny weight you do the math. Dredge time approx. 6 hrs. a day. Unfortunately I never did get to the bottom of hole, pulled my equip. next spring, my knees wouldn't let me climb up & dwn the 380 ft canyon wall And I was now a claim owner with very little climbing involved. So this is just another use of a Highbanker. Next the 3rd & final part. And a special shout out to my best mining partner ever Rocco may he rest in peace & watch over us all, he would actually check on claim owner once or twice a day & come right bck to watch me. I hope this answers any questions if you are considering a Highbanker I really liked my Proline 3".

Lots of misinterpretation in this post Steelphase and most of it is aimed at continuing the marketing ‘story’ behind the sales pitch that now seems to be taken as ‘fact’ because its been said so often. The GPX machines have filtering in them that condition the audio, its called Boost, Quiet, Normal, Deep, these are audio profiles designed by Minelab to make the audio sound different and perhaps improve personal preference and performance, you will note it is not included in the GPZ. These audio profiles are generated from the raw signal of the detector before being delivered, so could be considered first pass not conditioning after the fact. A ‘booster’ is required to amplify the audio because the audio out of a headphone jack just does not have enough grunt to power speakers, any amplifier can do that. Not all amplifiers do this well though, especially when the audio needs to driven louder in noisier environments. The audio out of the detector is provided as a whole unit with everything mixed in, I’ve spent enough time in video editing environments to know what a hassle it is to try and remove certain frequencies without the audio ending up sounding awful because of poor original audio recording. You have to look at the audio supplied from the detector as being ‘whole’, because once the detector has formed and delivered that audio there is very little you can do to change the underlying fundamentals. Filtering can remove or change certain frequencies which will change the overall way the audio sounds but you will always be affecting the whole audio supplied from the detector thereby negating the way the audio was originally delivered in its pure form. (I’m not saying this is a bad thing, just pointing out the restriction of trying to manipulate a delivered audio that has warts and all, and also the risk associated with changing something which will always has a flow on effect both negative and positive). My complaint of the Minelab audio is to do with the volume controls and how they affect the way the audio sounds, in the case of the GPZ the threshold sweetspot is 27 unless you use too much Audio Smoothing and Volume settings (Volume = Target Volume). Using the detectors volume controls are my main complaint because they are too steppy and coarse. For MAX performance, something that takes priority in everything I do, I always use the GPZ with the Audio Smoothing on OFF (Audio Smoothing = Stabilizer on GPX), this is the point where the noise floor of the detector is at its lowest point, where you get the MAX amount of target information with zero FILTERING, in essence RAW information with no colouring. If you introduce Audio Smoothing you then tell the detector you do not want to hear any audio below the filtering point, this audio can then not be recovered because it never made the cut to be included into the audio train in the first place, no amount of volume or audio conditioning will bring it back. What I am often seeing with people using Enhancers is they tend to introduce Audio Smoothing to soften or quieten the audio to make it sound more pleasing, because of this they then introduce even more Target Volume because they can’t hear the audio because of the muffling caused by the Audio Smoothing, this in effect causes a cascading of detector behaviour ending up with only shallow targets being prominent because when the coil passes over them they crash into peak signal almost instantly, in essence the GPZ is now just a souped up SDC. The audio provided by the Minelab machines is perfectly fine, it is designed well and sounds great, if however you go to town using the target Volume then things start to deteriorate. The key is to start from a stable point and then introduce volume, I prefer to do this via the B&Z but any decent booster that can deliver good amplification without distortion will do the job. The Target Volume control however has a tendency to zoom in on the threshold magnifying every little bump and jump in the threshold, operators running much past 8 on the GPX and GPZ are introducing all the minute little variations created by surface signals which then drown out the broader deeper signals. I feel every point above 8 on the Target Volume is like increasing the sensitivity by 2 points. Sensitivity above a certain point does not do much for deep targets if anything it can hide or mask them. This is extremely important if you are using the raw information provided by not using Audio Smoothing. IMHO a booster should sound crisp and clean, it should not colour the audio provided by the detector but instead should remain true. For best performance you should only ever use the booster as a VOLUME control not a sensitivity control, with that in mind you should always set the detector to be smooth and stable and then only ever amplify that smooth stable audio as cleanly and without distortion as possible. I use the word COLOUR in reference to anything that makes the audio sound different to what is delivered by the detector. Minelab machines have plenty of ways to make the audio sound different, there is Threshold Pitch, Audio Smoothing, Target Volume & Threshold. Saying or suggesting Minelab do not prioritise audio is just plain silly, the constraint is in the many ways a person can go about using the audio because of individuality, how we hear audio is very personal and as such impossible to design for. The intent behind this post is to bring to peoples attention the need to make sure the audio settings of the detector do not end up compromising performance especially in the case of the GPZ. JP

It seems, and don't quote me on this, as we simply don't dig large cents on the west coast, but from the tons of them I see Ladd and the Hoover Boys digging, it seems that once those old coppers come out of the ground, they are in a fragile state on the surface and details are easily lost if cleaned incorrectly. I've seen IHPs that have lost their detail after dug, perhaps the ground minerals, soil conditions, wetness, etc., breaks down the extraneous surface metals.

The audio design isn't bad. It just not as good as I think it can be. I dare say that Minelab probably have several engineers working on the project with each assigned a particular area. Plus the focus is probably on the detection side of things as well as cost vs overall advantage. Like with the auto industry, there are plenty of add ons that manufacturers don't have on their vehicles that can, and do, increase performance and usability.

Adrian Harris Published on Feb 17, 2019 - On our 4th dig at K C Rallys up comes a William 3rd silver hoard 51 in total well done Garry next step reporting the find to the Worcester FLO.

Small probably pistol caliber, havent found one like this before, any ideas?

I wanted to update some of you who do not take your handles apart. I mean the handle grip that has the control pod attached. If you detect in salt water like I do, then you'll end up with fine sand particles between the upper and lower handle pieces at the mold seams. This is expected so don't freak out and it is still 100% waterproof. But what you may not realize is the salt in there is not good for it and needs to be rinsed/washed. I personally take mine apart after each trip I do, as I know how corrosive salt is to metal. Good luck on your next hunt.

I just got my 6” coil, and a dedicated lower rod is on the way. To make on-site coil changes fast and easy I came up with the following system. Each lower rod and coil have the cord fastened near the bottom with just enough slack to flip the coil flat for my carry bag. Then I made the straps shown with adhesive backed Velcro from the $ store. The soft part goes around the middle rod by it’s adhesive backing. But then it extends 2” and the hard part of the Velcro goes on the sticky side of it so one side is hook Velcro and the other side is loop Velcro and then it is trimmed narrower with scissors. I have one of these on either side of the folding mechanism I installed on my box shaft. What saves time in the field is that these straps stay on during coil change and securely fasten the coil wire. Also, in my case with the folding shaft I used zip ties to make a loop in each coils cord to go where the folding mechanism is where the cord never interferes with the folding or unfolding of the shaft. I will keep the other coil in my detector bag so I can change the coil during a detecting outing it the situation warrants it. No big deal but easy enough that others may consider doing this method of strapping. A

As previously reported in the post: D’artagnon Jackson, Long Time Customer Of Doc, Scores First Beautiful Gold… Dar found a 1852 D gold U.S. dollar. I submitted the find to Minelab for their Finds of The Month January contest. Today Dartagnon received this email from Minelab. Congratulations D'artagnon! Doc

Hi Chase No worries, about the earlier post context confusions. On APTX LL these manufacturers don't make it easy for us do they! My advice to folk is to buy a copy that's been reported on this thread as being proven APTX LL before the supply dries up. Worst case they could be kept as cheap (but good quality) backups. Cheers Clive

I make them. The raw data is generally out there for free, but you have to have the right programs and knowledge to be able to turn the raw data into something useful. Took me about 2 years to figure it out and im still refining it and learning better ways to do things.

Hydrochloric Acid ?

Good to know, and I appreciate your kind sense of humour. All the best, Lanny

Then I guess as a newbie, I should leave my HCl at home when I detect, lol ?

It could be just a chunk of waste metal from casting either from a runner/spru or large air vent. When sand casting there are pieces similar where metal is poured into the mold (spru then runner) and where it exits the mold cavity on the other side of the spru. These extra pieces are lopped off the final casting and usually re-melted. If it is slightly soft and heavy and doesn't have the oxidation you would see on softer lead or harder zinc I would guess it is tin based. I do quite a bit of pewter castings and that looks very similar. Pure silver would be much brighter than that.

Found at a lake cabin with mining history, railroad and ferry. 1900’s

Thanks! Yes that is a J-hook off of a knapsack.

Here is a photo of this weeks finds with the new ORX (two trips). Includes one "taco" 2 piece eagle button. Thanks for looking. MT

Wow you did great for a "hunted out" site! Congrats on all the killer finds! We have a civil war era union army encampment out west that we've pulled hundreds of 3-ringers and other assorted bullets from, tons of buttons, hardy eagle hat pins, and other misc. military related finds. Only a couple of coins have come from there, a seated half dollar and a seated half dime, which is a bit perplexing, but I guess they just weren't exchanging money in the camp. I cannot wait to take my Equinox to this site. It has heavily mineralized soil, which handicaps my VLF detectors. Some worse than others (heavily handicapped my F75 LTD2), but my Makro Racers handled it a lot better). I think the Equinox is going to light this place up!

It's an inside joke..... the Hoover Boys videos use "Foo Foo" juice (water in a small spray bottle) in the field to field clean their finds. Bill Ladd makes fun of these guys as he thinks they ruin all their coppers by washing them versus toothpicking them clean, and calls it newbie juice.

Hi, I couldn't wait to get the Equinox 800 to Arizona for some gold prospecting especially since the area in Colorado where I live is frozen pretty solid. The first site I hunted was in the Little San Domingo Wash area which has been pounded by lots of people for over a hundred years. I used the Nox 800 exclusively in Gold 2 with the 6" coil due to an abundance of human metallic trash, with sensitivity at 15 to 16 (falsed over those settings) with -9 to -4 discriminated out, iron bias 3 or 4, recovery speed 4. Hot rocks were hitting in the -9 to -6 range and also sometimes in the 12 to 14 range with the classic boing sound just at the edges of the coil and almost nulling in the center. I dug every detected metallic target in roughly a 30'x40' area. Iron targets were consistently in the -9 to +16 range depending on depth, size and amount of oxidation. Many of them jumped that whole range depending on direction of swing. When I was not using the horseshoe (all targets accepted mode) the iron targets would have very brittle, broken, clipped sounding audio and would be easy to identify just by sound alone. 100% of the time I checked those targets by pressing the horseshoe button and iron was suggested with -4 to -9 numbers included in the very jumpy target IDs. After digging each of these targets, (60 or so) iron was confirmed. I detected 19 non ferrous targets which all turned out to be lead, brass, aluminum or steel bird shot. Small lead, aluminum and shot gave beautiful evenly rounded tones and target IDs in the -1 to 4 range which were very steady and repeatable even after checking the target from a different direction. Larger lead and shell casings came in between 8 and 20 consistently with even, repeatable tones and solid numbers. The two nuggets pictured were both found near other targets, which is probably why they were missed. The .5 gram nugget was 4" deep with an iron target about 2" away and above the nugget. I never heard the iron initially. I only heard the classic zip-zip with a solid 3 target ID. When the horseshoe button was engaged I could hear and see target ID evidence of the iron target too. The two targets were clearly and separately defined and easy to identify as ferrous and non-ferrous. I was really exited to find that small nugget attached to caliche in that situation! The 4.5 gram nugget was 5" down, up against a large piece of hot volcanic tuft/basalt bedrock. The Nox 800 gave soft boings on the bedrock in several places near the nugget but the nugget screamed out a fantastic round signal at a rock solid 14. I thought it was going to be a 38 cal. or bigger slug. I was really surprised when I saw that first bit of gold peaking through the dirt!!!!! I lucked out on one other tiny picker at this location too during final clean up with the XP Deus. I also got to detect near Stanton on some placer/pegmatite deposits with tons of hot and cold rocks, huge prickly pear cactus and my least favorite----cat's claw bushes=OUCH. I completely shredded a virtually new pair of gloves on those things along with my hands too. I didn't find any gold with either my GPX 4800, XP Deus or the Nox 800. The GPX 4800 is one deep machine and hunted beautifully in this rugged area. I dug several up to 1 foot deep, less than coin sized lead, iron and tin targets that could have easily been gold with a NF Sadie and stock 11" mono coils. Any thing bigger was just not very practical since this was a boulder strewn, thorny area with very little open ground. The Deus with 9" HF coil at 54kHz handled the hot and cold rocks fairly well and was reasonably quiet in Gold Field. It always gave excellent audio responses to detectable targets and gave a predictable horizontal XY graph line for buried iron targets and very angular zig zags on near surface iron. Lead targets had more of a rounded, almost cursive writing indication on the XY graph which looks a lot like gold responses. The Nox 800 with 6" coil in Gold 2 again gave very clear indications of what to expect from the targets under the coil and after digging, those indications were confirmed every time with no surprises. There was some nasty hot magnetic schist, cold ironstone and unbelievable amounts of magnetite which sometimes confused the Deus and especially the GPX 4800. The Nox dealt with them very consistently with the magnetite giving iron signals, the magnetic schist reading in the 12 to 14 range and the cold ironstone high pitched VCO screaming at 39. Special thanks to Bill Southern and Tammy and also Rob Allison for their guidance during my fruitful trip. The Equinox 800 proved to be an outstanding and very trustworthy prospecting detector! Jeff

Same here. I sold mine and regretted it as soon as I laid out some coins next to each other and the ETP was hitting on every one as fast as I could swing it. Great, inexpensive, simple to use detector.

That's a good way to go in my opinion.

If an opportunity like that fall into my lap I would fast be unemployed and on my way to dig! Sounds like the start to a fantastic trip. Shane

Hi, of course somebody like me has to have a different opinion. I found the Monster to be an excellent nugget detector, simple, efficient and deadly on small gold targets (also deadly on any ferrous/non ferrous targets). That was my problem with it actually. I wanted more information and more control of settings, waterproofing and built in wireless options. The Nox 800 gave me all of those plus with the 6" coil and 11" coil, very small to medium size gold targets were just as detectable. I believe I have a lot higher probability of determining ferrous vs non ferrous identification of targets, a depth meter and a pinpoint function along with target and tone ID. Plus, for me the biggest of all is manual ground balance capabilities and manual adjustable discrimination for hot rocks. There are probably more I forgot. Oh yeah, like a threshold and simultaneous multi frequency operation, DUH!, which I truly believe helps in detecting masked targets. That is a lot of differences for the money if you ask me. Then, you have all of the other detecting capabilities of the Nox 800 on top of that. Jeff

Good point on taking it apart on occasion and not every time. With me (in Idaho) I do not get to the beaches but 2 or 3 times a year, so my every time is actually limited. Someone who hunts the beaches weekly will now know what to look for. Another point I will mention as more than a couple of my customers have done this. I have guys in Hawaii, West Coast and East Coast who own both the EQ-600 and EQ-800. They use the less expensive EQ-600 in the salt water as their #1 Beach/Water unit and keep the 800 as their #1 primary land detector. Plus any trips they go on, they now have 2 units with identical parts to change out in case of an issue with shaft, coil, arm cuff, control box etc. Being prepared is much easier with 2 like machines on a big trip.

That snowball seems to be growing. Just ordered one from Gerry that carrier says arrives Friday. Weekend doesn't look great weatherwise but Monday and Tuesday do. Can't wait to take it to my hunted test sites and see what it will turn up. If I find a Barber dime as nice as yours I'll make sure to get excited. ?

Ive posted this before showing how it gets in thru the hole designed to keep the handle in place. I take mine apart ...... but not every time. I do it occasionally and rinse it with warm water. Most damage is caused by the user so I suspect im more likely to break or miss thread one of those bolts if im not careful. Again...... i look at it like this.... 3 year warranty and they need to know if there are issues from continuous use above and beyond normal use.

Found the answer to my question above. The QCC 3005 chip found in the latest model Soundpeats Engine headphones only supports APTX "Classic" which implies that neither APTX LL nor APTX HD are supported. Reference here: https://datasheets.globalspec.com/ds/3510/Qualcomm/73F98650-C624-4252-9AAA-3CED5DB51059 Good to know. Newer is not necessarily better. The Amazon US link to the "older" Soundpeats Engine earbuds that appear to support APTX LL is here: https://www.amazon.com/SoundPEATS-Headphone-Earphones-Sweatproof-Smartphones/dp/B07KPWCTDR/ref=pd_ybh_a_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=WGB8HP918NT0RTRZAHGK

I was very impressed at how well it sniffed out the silver dimes. Several great hunters and top end machines have been through here before, so it's interesting that it was able to pick out three silvers from this stage stop. I can't wait to try it at some of my other sites. HI Dave, A jar of gold and silver coins would be an incredible find! Unfortunately it was pretty windy, but what I was trying to explain with the cow pee photo was that the hundreds of cows in this pasture are likely the cause of making the silver turn black as not too far from here we have another site, same dirt, and the coins and artifacts come out in beautiful condition. I'd love to do more detecting on the Spanish trail, but I only get to that area once or twice a year at the most. HH, Cal Ha ha...old habits die hard ? ? Glad the cow photo is getting some laughs haha

I had a gun expert check them out, said they aren't worth much maybe a buck or 2 ea but still cool to find them. They came out after the musket balls.

It might be one of those spikes that railroads used to indicate the year when a wooden tie was installed.

The Charles Garrett Memorial Hunt is rapidly approaching, March 29 at Jefferson, Texas. Details here. February 1st is the deadline to receive a free hunt T-shirt in your hunt package.

From Facebook....

I use Paypal as do most. But some people insist on Family & Friends, which removes all protections. The ads are just ads - people have to use whatever payment methods make them comfortable. For me, PayPal verified address only or postal money orders. Bank certified checks are completely worthless. Perfect counterfeits exist of these and personal checks. Thieves avoid postal money orders as a rule because of the severe federal penalties and they have extra layers of protection including a verification service.

NUGGET SHOOTER JOURNALS Published on Feb 12, 2019 - In this video I am using the Minelab Equinox 800 in "gold 1", sensitivity "16 to 18", Multi IQ, and auto tracking. Rest of the settings are stock. It amazes me what this little beast if a VLF detector will do in hot ground (minerals) and finding the smallest bits of gold for the operator. Beautiful area with lots of Agate and other cool stuff just laying on the ground.

ColoradoGoldCamp Published on Feb 14, 2019. Rhodo nails the biggest nugget of the day with the Gold Bug 2 right on bedrock! What a great day out gold detecting! 54 pieces of trash and 3 count em 3! Colorado Gold Nuggets! Man, I love prospecting with my best metal detector! Did some arrowhead hunting too. We find some relics from the old gold mining days and some evidence of Colorado Arrowheads, all at Colorado Gold Camp.

I have had my Equinox 800 1 year this week and yesterday Sunday 10th February I celebrated with an extremely rare Celtic find from the period 100 BC (Over 2,000 years old) it is a 1st Century B.C. Celtic bronze "Eye type" toggle cloak fastener. Main body shaped like a human eye with a large bulbous pupil, the loop on the back would have once been stitched to the garment, It would function much in the same way that toggle fasteners on duffle jackets do.

From Facebook...

Xterra 705 a money pit? Yes it is is. Go buy coils. Go buy the low frequency coil sizes and types you want, then go buy the high frequency coils sizes and types you want , then go buy the medium frequency coils sizes and types you want. Adds up real fast. But, then again, if you can make do with just one or two total coils then I'd guess you'd be ok. Some aftermarket mfgs are building dual frequency coils you can switch with a nine volt battery so that cuts down coil prices a little bit. The ATPro works fine and does exactly what I need it to do. Speaking of coils I do need to get a larger coil for it. Can't decide what to get just yet. HH Mike