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Showing content with the highest reputation on 03/13/2019 in all areas

  1. Holy ____! I'd be shaking if I found an 1918/17-S Standing Liberty. Not that it means anything, but that is my favorite 'error' coin of all time. Take a look at the VF-35 graded coin here. https://www.pcgs.com/photograde/#/SLQe/Grades It's an 8/7. Look at the weakness on the 'ER' of 'QUARTER DOLLAR'. That's likely a die weakness which helps authenticate your coin, not that there is much doubt with how strong the overdate is. I'm not going to try and grade this from your photos, but it's safe to say if you sell it you can buy any modern production MD short of the GPZ7000 (ok, probably not a GPX5000, either, but I'm not feeling sorry for you ?). BTW, in terms of rarity this probably isn't close to being up there with the 1850's and 1860's -S mintmarked quarters that have been shown here in the last few weeks. But in terms of value it's probably well above those. This is a good example of demand. Lots of collectors out there want an 18/17-S Standing Liberty. "Find of a lifetime" may be turning into a cliche'. But consider this -- you might be the only person ever to find one of these with a metal detector. I don't know what else I can say, except be proud and enjoy!
    5 points
  2. Between work and projects I've managed to get out on a few hunts. I bought my buddy an equinox 800 since he has been kind enough to let me run all around his ranches as if I own them myself. He has showed some interest in detecting...he thinks he's going to find a 1 pound gold nugget . After spending some time showing him how it works...I'd mark a target and then have him go over it and then dig it...he started to get the hang of it. So on our second outing he goes and finds a 1855 seated quarter (like Deathrays) but not in nearly as good condition. He was stoked and I wish i had brought my camera with me so I could get a pic of him smiling and holding the coin. Been hitting some other locations near where I live. Old homesites and street tear outs. Day before yesterday was a quick but pleasant hunt. Dug the standing liberty and put it in my pocket so it would not get banged up in the pouch. I never look at items much in the field but wait till I get home. I was glad I put this coin in my pocket. I'm going to have to get it looked at just to make sure but I think it's the real deal. If anyone knows what the sun god thing was? kinda cool digging it and have that smiling back. HH to you all strick
    4 points
  3. It wasn’t on their radar. A PI detector is not something they had their sights on - then this opportunity presented itself and they went for it. Pretty bold move for what is, after all, like all the detector builders, a small business. They bought more than the design, they hired the team. Their own development goals proceed - I have no info on what that amounts to, my only insights were about the PI.
    4 points
  4. Busting bedrock hasn't panned out that well, so I decided to heed Bill Southern's advice. I broke down the crust on the first pile, and started swinging the EQX 800. 15 minutes into it, and "bingo", nice little 3.2 grain nug, all rough and course like it hasn't traveled far? "This is going to be an EZ day" I'm pretty sure ran through my mind, since there were plenty of tailings' around? I guess the penny is somebody's idea of a "cruel joke"? At least it was shallow. Brett
    3 points
  5. 3 points
  6. Hi Gerry, Do you have a link to the statement? Or was this something sent only to dealers? Personally I have no doubt the SDC was very finely tuned to the 8” mono coil. Some loss of small gold sensitivity may occur with other coils. But if you believe ground coverage matters, and I do, giving up a little to get more coverage.... well, we have been making that trade off for as long as there have been detectors. Edit: found it https://www.minelab.com/usa/customer-care/product-notices?article=353456..... SDC 2300 PRODUCT NOTICE & WARRANTY STATEMENT Recently, Coiltek has introduced aftermarket coils that can be retrofitted to the SDC 2300. These have been developed independently of Minelab and Minelab has not had any involvement with these coils. Minelab cannot and does not provide any information or support regarding the use of these coils. Minelab does not guarantee the SDC 2300’s performance when used in conjunction with these coils. The SDC is manufactured by Minelab in a standard configuration designed to be robust and offering easy to use high performance; any changes to the product may alter its performance. Further, such modifications may materially impact the ability of Minelab to support and warrant your SDC 2300. The SDC 2300 is not designed for changing coils nor for use with other coil sizes and specifically any damage which is assessed by Minelab or its Authorised Service Centres (ASCs) as having resulted from such modification will not be covered by the Minelab warranty. All Minelab detectors are engineered in Australia, manufactured to exacting standards in ISO 9001/2000 quality accredited facilities, and backed by up to defined transferable warranties. Review the full Minelab warranty period, terms and conditions on our website.
    3 points
  7. When I was reading the beginning of this thread the GPZ came to mind. It has no TID screen. How many tones does it have? We consider it to be the best, most sensitive gold detector out there. Could someone use it as their only detector? Sure. Would I be digging a lot of targets that would be a waste of time? Sure. As Steve says it is a judgment call and sometimes you only have a limited amount of time to hunt a site and you or it will be gone. Sometimes you only have so many holes you want to dig for that session. Minelab (and all manufacturers) has made many 'judgment calls' for us by the way they set up the machine from the factory and the controls they allow us to change. Ground balancing is a 'judgment call' of sorts and 'Iron Bias' is another judgment setting, etc, etc. All of that being said there are times (quickly walking a beach line) when going less than 50 tones to cover an area faster is a better option for me. I believe on the beach I sometimes miss targets if the machine (and my brain) is trying to process everything too quickly. I would compare this to the 'find patch' setting on the GPZ which lets it process differently. The 50 tones are king after you find that patch. Mitchel
    3 points
  8. Had just an hour yesterday but given the bad weather coming our way (considerably worse other places, though) I decided to take advantage. Went to my recent best producing site, a school yard. 11 inch stock coil, Park 1, ground balanced, recovery speed = 5, iron bias = 0, gain = 20, no discrimination (i.e. horseshoe toggled), 50 tones! Dug a few moderns in the first 15-20 minutes. Then I got a solid mid-20's signal. Did the usual 90 degree angle of attack method. One direction was steady around 25 or so. The other direction was swinging from about 23 to 28. I didn't notice any obvious nearby iron grunts but my brain is pretty good tuning those out. Six inches later I saw the sweet white color (see photo below). This one is well worn -- probably About Good condition. No mintmark (Philadelphia) and weighed in at 2.22 grams. Compare that to a freshly minted dime of 2.50 grams so 11% loss due to wear. Best WAG is that this was dropped in the 1940's. Nothing special in terms of scarcity, but silver always gives me a good feeling. "Beginner's luck" (with 50 tones) is a serious candidate for the reason I got this nice result. But I was surprised at how smooth this hunt went. It's not my trashiest site by far but anthing with ~100 years of lost items that hasn't been searched to death is going to have trash. I still have a lot to learn (actually that goes without saying, always) but for the first time ever I have a good feeling using multitones, and that includes previous attempts with other detectors. Thanks, again, for all the responses. I can't wait to get another decent weather day (next weekend?).
    3 points
  9. Because of heat waves, vehicle trouble and well, almost a complete lack of motivation, I have done very little detecting this year. In the early days of the 5000 I got the bigger speci at Moliagul and it`s got about half a gram of gold in it. Since then I have gone over and over and over that area with the 5000, 2300 and 7000 for no result. Yesterday I was out there again and about 15 feet from the first specimen, I got the smaller one with the 7000. Very faint signal that just broke the threshold and about 6" deep. The bottom picture is the only bit of gold visible in it and is almost impossible to see with the naked eye, but the signal it`s giving off says there`s maybe a half a gram to a gram of gold in it. Once the better half has seen it I`m going to bust it open to see what`s inside but I think with this one I`m going to end up with a heap of small bits of quartz with a little bit of gold in them. Dave
    2 points
  10. Dear fellow hunters, I am running my new Nox 800 for about 2 months now. Trying to go out nearly every day for 2-4 hours. I did find some nice coins and other cool stuff and some not so cool stuff. Learning the detector is fun. I found a several times when being in AUTO ground tracking the machine got a little loud/unstable. When I looked up the ground tracking it was telling me a number in the 90ies. Switching off AUTO and do manual tracking (pumping the coil) the machine went quiet at 12. I was expecting the AUTO ground tracking to be "up to date". Did you make similar experiences?
    2 points
  11. While I agree this is true when it comes to Minelabs, I've seen other detector vendors try to add "99 tones/delta pitch/fill-in-the-blank)" tones to their detectors, but the audio they convey is harsh and digital sounding, whereas Minelab has proven itself to be able to give us smoother, analog like audio which is more pleasing to the ears. My point being that just more tones, doesn't always equate to better audio intelligence, sometimes it equates to audio fatigue.
    2 points
  12. Yeah and I know a few things also JP. The same was said about Minelab when they first came out. It will be a few years before NokMak goes toe to toe with Minelab. They are going to eat First Texas, Garrett, and White’s first on their way there.
    2 points
  13. I doubt Minelab cares as much as you all seem to think. This is just a standard “cover your posterior” statement. Frankly, Minelab would be negligent to its stockholders and customers not to let people know that if you screw something up doing this, you are on your own. People might think this would be obvious, but I personally have a lot of knowledge about warranty administration. I will never forget the guy that felled a tree on his Husqvarna chainsaw and wanted me to warranty it. His rationale? “If it was designed properly it would not have broken”. Minelab does not produce enough coils fast enough, period. Why there is not a 6 x 10 coil yet for Equinox or small coil for GPZ is beyond me. Take a look at Nokta/Makro for a lesson in how to do coils. They launch new detectors with a half dozen coils out the starting gate, and a dozen aftermarket coils follow in a few months. It is just one of the strategies NokMak is employing to win customers and it is working. People are still vastly underestimating that company.
    2 points
  14. For me MLs basically saying the SDC is unique and the first of its kind, being made "tuned" to one coil, but is that going to hold water if as we`ve found with MLs PI range from the SD to the GPX, aftermarket coils rule. Will the Coiltek SDC coils prove MLs "tuned" SDC is no different to its other PIs? Look at the new flat wound coils and how they`ve narrowed the difference between the Xs and the Z. Warranty concerns? I think a lot of us go for performance first and if these aftermarket coils prove successful, market force will rule, as it will with the Zs aftermarket coils. For me ML rules no doubt with gold detector tech. but not so with coils.
    2 points
  15. To do freq shift, the mode switch is placed in the Nois cancel position and the pulse delay/noise cancel switch is rotated to find the quietest position.
    2 points
  16. You have to remember that Eric Foster was the person that invented the PI technology. Ones something is invented, other people will find ways to make it better. Having use the Aquastar for a number of years. I can not wait to have a Manta to use.
    2 points
  17. I would love to participate a forum outing. I'll be in CA in Sep 2019. Attached a picture of my AZ finds. The burro shoe and the grandsons of the original owner...for me the best thing in prospecting is camping in a tent, Joe's special coffee with that little "extra" in the morning and spending time with friends and making new friends. If I found a nice nugget in AZ but did not have such a good time the nugget could not make up for that. Julie, if the good lord grants us more years to be on this beautiful earth and if we both put our time in we both will find gold.
    2 points
  18. Yes without the aid of the French, we'd still be a British colony. I have nothing against the French, I've been to France many times, it's one of my favorite places to holiday (and arguably the best food on the planet)....my point is let's give credit where credit is due. Fisher didn't design the electronics, they may have designed the physical package, may have tidied up the electronics a bit, but they bought the electronic design. Nothing wrong with that, we live in a global economy, our history, past and present is chalked full of foreign technology being realized in the U.S., acquisitions are common place. I'm sure it'll be a fine detector, but I'm a bit disappointed that with all the engineering horsepower at FTP, of all the American companies they couldn't design something on their own.
    2 points
  19. The Americans are fighting back with a French designed detector ?
    2 points
  20. Tracking can mess you up if you're detecting around a lot of iron as the detector will start to track to the iron (nails). I've found that unless I'm hunting in highly variable mineralized ground, the detector works best by doing a manual GB, or just turning it on and hunting works better than using tracking.
    2 points
  21. For me the key to using ground tracking is that the ground must be highly variable. It is not how highly mineralized the ground is but how variable it is that matters. If the ground is relatively homogenous I don’t see a need to track the ground and in fact I would tend to recommend against it. In very low mineral / low salt ground there may not be enough mineral content to track to and the machine could run away with itself as you have described.
    2 points
  22. Hello all and there are some good points and discussion in this thread and I thought I'd jump in for a chat... Feel free to ask questions as the more you know the better you can make your own decision whether you think the new GOLD EXTREME coils are for you. from this thread the main queries are: Why aren't the new coils water-proof? We thought long and hard about this and decided to not epoxy fill the 10x5" coil due to extra time and weight from this and essentially if you wish to keep the unit water-proof then keep the 8" coil on or revert back to this. (time and more materials mean more $$$) For those that hunt the water this (8") is all you need. But you never know what the future holds... Warranty - is it voided? the short answer is no but as Gerry stated in a previous reply as long as there is no misuse or damage made during the conversion. Like any product under warranty - if it is deemed a fault of the user then it will not be covered. our coils come with a 2 year warranty - if you have an issue with our product we deal with that separately - if you have a warranty issue with the SDC unit itself revert the unit back to standard and send it back to Minelab - simple. Does the conversion require any hard modification to the unit? NO. there is no cutting, slicing, cracking or any type of firm modification required. Just undo two hex screws, undo two flat head screws, help the plug around the corner in the shaft and drop the coil away - then attach our shaft piece using the clamp and screws we supply, wrap the cable around the shaft like a GPX unit or any other treasure detector, plug in and screw up the plug collar, install the Coiltek cover over this area and use the hex screws you took out before to tighten up the cover over the plug area. turn on and go! Why does the cable wrap around the shaft and not go in the middle? We didn't want to complicate the install. I am sure even Minelab would say that getting the cable up the shaft and around the elbow of the unit is tricky and requires a cap and ball chain to pull it around. We supply a cap and ball chain in our attachment kit so you can get the unit back to standard whenever you want. Essentially we didn't want to have a user make the cable go up the shaft every time they want to change a coil, its far easier to interchange coils like we have made it. How does the shaft work? It has been designed to fit straight in to the carbon shaft once the standard coil is removed. the holes line up and the clamp we supply fits to help keep it in place. one of the main benefits of this shaft attachment is it now makes the unit around 4-5 inches longer so if you are 6'2" or there abouts the unit is now extended and when I hunt with it I no longer feel like i am stooping or at risk of stepping on the coil (figure of speech!) We will have a full attachment video coming out soon which will help guide you through the fitment process. So in short we have thought long and hard about this set up and certainly spent a lot of effort creating the right shaft attachment. Of course no one is forcing anyone to buy the coils and if you think they are not for you then this is perfectly fine. Coiltek is all about providing more options for the Minelab Detectors as this is what we do and I for one am excited to see these coils get out into the market and start to provide the user with more coverage, more depth, more opportunity and hopefully more gold! Trevor.
    2 points
  23. I came across this topic on Wednesday and on Friday I experienced the same thing. After every hunt I fully charge my detector and headphones. This time I did a partial charge on both for a 6+ hour hunt on the next day. I get to the beach and I turn the detector and headphones and they are not pairing up. I tried twice to pair them up as if it was a new set of headphones and nothing. I did a factory reset and still wouldn’t pair up. On my 3rd tried after the reset they finally paired up and I was able to get down to business. That day started bad right off the bat. When I got there I went to get my scoop and found out I had left it the night before. I was lucky to have parked two spots from the night before. There were some people doing work on a house and they found my scoop and returned it when I asked about it. The day started quite bad but there was a silver and gold lining at the end.
    2 points
  24. This is a killer post. It says more in a paragraph than whole threads. Detecting is hugely comprised of judgement calls. Anyone who thinks it's a matter of empirically following tones and vdi's is missing a gigantic area of detecting knowledge; experience, judgement and many times intuition and sometimes flat out guessing.
    2 points
  25. I don't count on purity of tone - it's simply something I look for. If you do not want to miss targets get a GPZ and dig everything. Everything short of that is a judgment call but attempting to explain nuance is near impossible in writing. That's why it is kind of pointless to weigh in on these sorts of things. Everyone calls their own shots and everyone has a different idea of what makes a good target or a poor one. I am either digging everything, or I am making judgement calls and without exception anyone that does so is leaving good targets behind due to bad calls. Anyone thinking otherwise is kidding themselves.
    2 points
  26. Hi all, This is my first post here but been lurking for a while.It's not often that you can pin a find to the owner but this is exactly what happened after I unearthed this gold medallion from pasture on a farm near my home.It gave a solid 18 on field 1.I live in south wales u.k..On the front is a name and the reverse gives details of a walk that it was presented for.After getting home I did some research and uncovered this news article from a local paper dated 1903.The last sentence gives the name D.T. Davies and the time of 7Hrs 1 Min as detailed on the medallion.I then searched the 1901 census for Builth Wells and found details of his address and family.He was one of nine children and an apprentice tailor.Now this medallion was found 50 miles away from Builth Wells so how did it get there?I then searched a later census for the village near to the find and discovered that the family had moved here at a later date.Anyway to cut a long story short he got married here,had nine children of his own and died in 1954.I also discovered a nice victorian shilling on the same day.I have had the nox since October and I have found a lot of silver with it including william 3rd shilling,william 3rd sixpence and a george 3rd shilling to name a few.Thanks Minelab for a great machine.I love it!
    1 point
  27. Just up the road from where the Lytle Creek GPAA claims are they have a few near Coolgardie. When I got there the temperature was around 39 with a little bit of wind. I bundled and my hands in gloves still ached from the cold. I went to a patch where we had great success for a couple of years but I managed yet another skunk after using the 7000 only for 10 hours. There were days in the past when I got as many as 12 nuggets on a trip. I tried hard in the wet ground and found lots of trash, some very tiny but no tiny gold from the old places or newly opened ground. I did manage to get some nice pictures of our deserts which isn't New Zealand but not too bad either. I enjoyed the day. Click on the panoramas for best viewing. They get a little bigger.
    1 point
  28. I recently returned from a Beach Hunt and was able to put some time on my new White's TDI Beach Hunter. I'll be posting photos of some of the finds as time permits. This interesting discovery had me laughing all the way home. Not exactly sure what it is, but about 5" long and looks to be a snorkel with a 2 headed and 8 legged octopus on the side. One end has a breathing mouth hole piece and the other has a small hole with brown stain around her rim. I'm sure you can't go down vary far with such a short snorkel, but I'm no expert either. Anyone have any clues?
    1 point
  29. Yeah tis all good for the user, competition certainly has shown the way. Just is good to see detectors becoming popular enough for this to be happening and I believe we owe ML for a lot of this without doubt.
    1 point
  30. Steve, there is a huge difference in the tech these guys are selling compared to the tech ML are selling. There are very valid reasons why Minelab seem slow on the coil variety front.
    1 point
  31. This is always going to be a complex subject but at the end of the day demand will drive supply. ML have every right to be concerned about an add on that is taking the product away from its original function (in this case getting away from being compact, foldable and water proof). Aftermarket coils have been available for many years, funnily enough I was on the ground floor for ML PI machines after seeking permission in 1995 to have coils hand built under licence which then highlighted the demand and need (amazing how things haven’t change much in 24 years). Over the years I’ve seen a lot of aftermarket coils that were far from ideal, a lot of detectors they were attached too often went back to ML under warranty at ML’s expense, quite often it was more than once due to nothing being found wrong with the actual unit. Obviously things have improved over the years but from Minelab’s perspective there is a very good reason why there is a chip in the GPZ 7000 coils. I have not tried the new Coiltek coils so currently have no opinion on the subject but as a dealer I’ve ordered a few which I will trial first on out of warranty units and make my own conclusions on stocking/promoting them or not. I will say I’m not a huge fan of flat wound coils (I doubt if the new SDC coils are flat wound) but they have put a lot of life into the GPX product line as a VERY viable solution to improving sensitivity and depth, using them in variable saturable ground however I can easily HEAR the “Cheat” of the forced early demodulation and the way it causes the detector to behave, if there was no GPZ then of course I would use them but it would be under duress. The key point in the case of the SDC is MPF (and I’d say Minelabs chief concern), FAST means very tight electronic parameters which means the coils are critical to the equation, get them wrong and the detector is not going to play nice. Coiltek seem to have done their homework and are confident enough to go to market in spite of the need for removal of components and special tools required to revert back to original. I’d say early adopters will be the people who have SDC’s that are out of warranty, their feedback and successes will be what drives demand. JP
    1 point
  32. Now Minelab comes out with a statement saying how precise their detectors and coils are made for certain machines (SDC-2300). I agree with some of what they are saying. At the same time, other coil options will find me more gold. Just like with the new Flat wound coils of NuggetFinder and Coiltek, they perform better in many situations to allow the end users more gold. Just like the very popular Coiltek 15" WOT coil for 15+ years, which is still popular today, it will allow your detector to do more things. I'm not going to get into a Yes or No, Right or Wrong here as I just try to give detector and coil options to my customers. Here is what I would do. Those who use their SDC-2300's on land for Prospecting, I would not hesitate 1 bit of getting an accessory coil to allow for more options, terrains, depths of different sizes of gold, ground coverage and overall value. If you are one of the few who do hunt in the water? Keep on swinging and having fun/success with the machine they way it is. Minelab did the same thing to Doc years ago with his aftermarket battery system, which is very popular and both parties are still here with thousands of happy customers.
    1 point
  33. Yeah, if this ends up being over 2K I will probably take a pass and wait for more models to appear.
    1 point
  34. Yeah, will be interesting to see if the Coiltek extremes give the SDC that boost, doubt any PI will match the Z overall but that is a personal opinion and will be debated for many more years. Top debate because through it we are getting aftermarket coils for both PIs and Zs.
    1 point
  35. Nah, printed an arm cuff for it awhile back and put temporary one back on the Monster, now am waiting for a 11" Coiltek to complement it. Made a new year resolution to use it more but so far this year no score, time for the big gun Z.
    1 point
  36. At Yorktown we fought back with a French army - our oldest ally. There is a memorial at yOrktown to the 600 French soldiers and sailors who lost their lives in the cause of American freedom at Yorktown and the naval battle of the Virginia Capes which made the siege of Yorktown a success.
    1 point
  37. Hi @GaryC/Oregon Coast! I haven’t joined any yet but plan to hit up the Route 66 guys sometime soon. I’ve just been going onto the GPAA claims so far. And they’re getting access to a bunch of the AMRA claims as well. -Julie
    1 point
  38. It’s always nice when manufacturers pay direct attention to their customers. Good job Trevor and thanks!
    1 point
  39. Hi Horst, my ground mineralization is really bad. I have never used ground tracking.........and I have never just turned on my Nox and starting detecting. I have always done a coil pumping ground balance. It is great to hear that you are able to detect with your 800 almost every day. Many of us here in the US still have frozen ground or are just thawing out with another blizzard on the way for some of us!!!!! good luck Jeff
    1 point
  40. I hope they shave the excess hollow area off the bottom of the 4 x 6 coils like has been done with the 6" concentric. Never could figure that nonsense out - did White's never look at Gold Bug 2 coils?
    1 point
  41. I recently finished an intense work project that was a year and half long that seriously cut into my detecting time. Now that it's behind me, I'm finding more time to get out and swing. Researched a couple parks from the early 1900's yesterday and headed out this morning to see what I could find. We've had a tremendous amount of rain lately, making for very easy digging. Using a CTX 3030, I detected for about five hours. Almost right out of the gate, I popped a 1906 Barber "S" dime. Then nothing but clad for the next four hours, although it was a lot of clad.....$13.12. Then the last half hour, I dug a 1920 Mercury "S" dime and a 1943 Mercury "S" dime. Got six wheat cents to boot and a few junk trinkets. Happy hunting to all!
    1 point
  42. I've now used the 24K in the field for only 3.5 hours and although the gold is flowing, its all small bits on ground I've already flogged hard. But still fun finding a little bit every few minutes ? The iron discrim I haven't had an instance where I needed to change off factory settings yet. But that time will no doubt come one day. One thing I WILL say....that 6.5" concentric coil continues to surprise me with its ability to handle mineralized ground and its sensitivity. The threshold stays solid and hot rocks are easily cancelled out. 18 bits of gold and counting......
    1 point
  43. Mike, the Iron Cancel Mode on the 24k has 62 degrees of "iron" rejection. There are 6 bar settings: NO bar (1-4) one bar (5-14) two bars (15-25) three bars (26-41) four bars (42-61) and five bars (62). As would be expected, each higher number represents a higher degree of "iron" rejection, ranging from rejection of severe soil mineralization, then rejection of small hot rocks, rejection of larger hot rocks, small iron, larger (but still somewhat small) iron, and some steel alloys. Although not an exact science, due to varying circumstances, especially differing types of soil, hot rocks, and iron type/size/degree of rust, it is really an outstanding aid to eliminate the aforementioned "targets" WITHOUT undue discrimination "overkill" and extreme depth loss incumbent with other models of "iron reject/gold only" mode detectors. For example, here in the Mojave Desert my 24k can, optimally tuned, can find microflakes of gold as small as 1/15th of a grain. That's about 1/7200th of an ounce. With gold at $1300.00 per ounce, such a flake would be worth 18 cents. Employing "no bar" severe soil mineralization reject, such targets would be "iffy," but 1/4 grain bits (68 centers) still come through loud and clear. Using one-bar (small hot rock reject) 1/4 grainers are iffy, but 1/3 to 1/2 grainers sound loud and clear, with NO discernible loss of depth. Yes, with higher settings, there is a progressively higher loss of depth. BUT, thanks to the XGB ground balance system, combined with one-bar severe soil mineralization/small hot rock reject, I can hunt black sand washes which defeat lesser machines, can reject small "zipper" hot rocks, but still get sub-grainers, without the upwards of 60% depth loss with full-iron reject. Regarding hot rocks: some cannot be reliably rejected, but such even pose problems for PI's. Regarding "amping up" 24k performance: employ "b2" (boost 2) target volume, ultra faint threshold, medium self-adjusting threshold, and the highest gain setting which still provides the smooth, stable, operation for which the 24k is renowned. Hope this helps: HH Jim
    1 point
  44. I tend to key on tonally pure targets. I want lots of tones to allow things the ability to not be pure tones. Five tones artificially forces pure tones, defeating my main “tell” which is either the solidity or fluidity of the tones I am hearing. Round items tend to deliver pure tones and when doing anything but nugget hunt I tend to lean towards round items.
    1 point
  45. Everyone's posted some great tips, it reminds me of the days when they made audio CD's of the Minelab Sovereign tones. I'm mostly hunting relic sites these days, and what stops me in my tracks is when I get a mid to high tone. Sometimes it could start off as just a squeek, but doing the Minelab wiggle, walking around the target can often allow the Equinox to zero in on the target and bring up a repeatable signal. I just love to get a high tone blip and try to bring up the signal. Once your muscle memory's recorded this, you will not forget it. Also don't forget to invoke the horseshoe to help analyze a target. Great when you get an iffy (crappy) signal and want to tell if you're getting an iron false. I've been on hunts where I never even looked at the meter and only hunted by tone. I did a lot of that in the beginning so I could force myself to focus on learning the audio without having the TID talk me out of digging.
    1 point
  46. Steve has listed many valuable USGS books, publications and other items for you to obtain or find in a library so you can see where gold was found..This makes decisions so much easier about areas you might be interested in.. One bit of advice that I learned from these publications and I have had most of them for years for I studied the ones I was interested in carefully ... I soon realized these old time geologists that traveled to these sites many times on horseback is this, they were very thorough in their investigations... The language they used to describe what they saw made me realize this was the info I needed to successfully use a Detector in that area.. These words that you are looking for are Coarse, Shotty, Rough, Nuggety Heavy Etc..These are areas that contain gold that can easily be found by a persistent hunter.. Good Luck, Good Hunting and Never give up.....
    1 point
  47. That look like a pipe to me. Now I know where they get the expression Blowing smoke up your butt. Chuck
    1 point
  48. You seemed to have taken quite a lot of pleasure in the different photo angles!!! GaryC/Oregon Coast
    1 point
  49. Thank you Steve, I was either selling the SDC and getting a QED or changing it to what I believe is what most of us wanted. Especially with the hopeful release of the NF SDC coil. No doubt the Z is my main gold detector, now I also have a lightweight & easy to swing PI for those areas the Z just can`t get at, although a bit agricultural in looks it is very functional. I suspect I will use it a lot more now, well until ML make that smaller coil we seek for the Z. It was a very easy mod., the basic guts of the SDC have not been changed at all, so to put it back in its original form would take probably 2 hours max. No wires were cut, no soldering or alterations of the CBs, just so easy to do for anyone that is handy with their hands.
    1 point
  50. I wanted to try something similar but swore off after my last go of rebuilding a detector, so I am glad to see you tackling it Norvic! I split this off as a new thread from the one going previously about the SDC 2300 battery.
    1 point
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