Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 05/01/2019 in Posts

  1. I hate to distract us from the spirited discussion of ZED aftermarket coils and new gold detectors, but I've been working on a plan to spend a few months downunder detecting WA. I sold some gold to finance the operation and convinced my Baja detecting partner we need to get us some Aussie gold. Just so you know I'm not a idiot and going off half cocked here, I purchased the premium edition of Nurse Paul's primer "Yank's guide to plundering Aussie Gold". Some very helpful information..."when handling sharp digging tools, always wear flip flops". Or the timeless, "When drinking a few cold ones with the locals, the acceptable ratio is 3 to 1. Buy 1, drink 3, it makes them feel superior." What could possible go wrong with that kind of wisdom at my disposal? Yeah I know, $16,000 worth of detectors got stolen while he slept on watch, but that could have happened to anyone. He's matured alot since then. Seriously though, we leave May 19 and don't expect to return until my 90 day visa expires. Paul has in fact helped me get a handle on the geography, Ute selection and basic gear requirements. We'll be boondocking it, living on road kill and brown snakes with a case of Vegimite for emergencies. I've already purchased one of the new X-coils 17" for the Zed which will be waiting for me when I arrive. I had a sacrificial coil cable for the jumper connection since I destroyed the original 14" stock coil, long story, but apparently you're not supposed to drag that coil behind the Rokon at cruising speed down desert dirt roads for a couple miles. Who knew they were so fragile? Wore right through the plastic housing and exposed the copper windings, bummer. But, I've got me a $900.00 Minelab chipped coil cable so the glass is half full. Nevertheless, an adventure is at hand. I'll post updates and photos as opportunities present.
    11 points
  2. Contemplating such an adventure without local Aussie support would have been far too ambitious, even for me. Paul's experiences having been helped along by Norvic, the GoldHounds and now Trent have given us a path and a certain confidence that if everything goes to "sheet", we have distant forum friends to turn for help and guidance. Finding gold is really just the catalyst and an arbitrary goal to justify this pioneer spirit and lust for adventure. My sincere thanks in advance to all our Aussie friends from this forum and especially to Trent for helping make this adventure of a lifetime possible. Also an acknowledgement to our Moderator for making and keeping this forum a place of knowledge, friendship and civil discourse. OK, dry your eyes and harden up out there. I got 19 days to kill before wheels up. Paul leaves in less than a week but he got the sniffles and thinks he dying of pneumonia. I think he allowed his blood alcohol level to drop too low and the germs found a foothold.
    6 points
  3. Wow, I am very excited for you Steve and I admit a little jealous. I am sure it will be quite an adventure and I hope you find a pile of gold!! Seems like half the forum members here are headed to Australia this year. I am proud the forum has been able to facilitate some connections made around the world. It does not get any better than that! ?
    4 points
  4. Don’t worry Condor we will look after you, I have already set up a bar tab for you, you currently owe 3 cartons. Paul almost done a similar trick to his zed , first 5 minutes of meeting him he pulled his zed out and stuck it on the roof of the car with 1 rotten old strap holding it ?. Swapped an ounce of gold for your prospecting vehicle today, when I transferred the registration they asked if we were taking it interstate, I just laughed ‘she wouldn’t make it that far’ so I got a discount and added another carton to your bill ??
    3 points
  5. Which metal detectors have the most reliable target ID numbers? Target ID is a function of depth - the deeper the target, the more difficult it is to get a clean target ID as the ground signal interferes. Other items directly adjacent to the desired target can also cause inaccurate numbers. The more conductive the item, the higher the resulting ID number, but also the larger the item the higher the number. Silver is more conductive than gold, so a gold item will give a lower number than the same size silver item. But a very large gold item can give a higher number than a small silver item, so numbers do not identify types of metal. Gold and aluminum read the same and vary in size so to dig one you dig the other. Only mass produced items like coins produce numbers that are more or less the same over the years but a zinc penny will read lower than a copper penny due to the change in composition. In general iron or ferrous targets produce negative numbers or low numbers. Aluminum, gold, and US nickels produce mid-range numbers. And most other US coins produce high numbers. Other countries coins, like Canadian coins with ferrous content, can read all over the place. The scale applied varies according to manufacturer so the number produced by each detector will vary according to the scale used. The 0-100 range for non-ferrous targets is most common but there are others. Minelab employs a dual number system on a 2D scale with thousands of possible numbers, but they are now normalizing the results produced to conform more closely to the linear scale used by other manufacturers. White's Visual Discrimination Identification (VDI) Scale Increasing ground mineralization has a huge effect on the ability to get a good target ID. Ground mineralization is nearly always from iron mineralization, and this tends to make weak targets, whether very small targets or very deep targets, misidentify. The target numbers get dragged lower, and many non-ferrous targets will eventually be identified as iron if buried deep enough. Small non-ferrous readings and iron readings actually overlap. That is why any discrimination at all is particularly risky for gold nugget hunters. If you want target ID numbers to settle down, lower sensitivity and practice consistent coil control. The target number will often vary depending on how well the target is centered and how fast the coil moves. Perfect ground balance is critical to accurate target id. Outside issues factor in. Electrical interference is a common cause of jumpy target id numbers. In general small coils will often deliver sharper, more consistent target id returns. Higher sensitivity settings lead to jumpier numbers as the detectors become less stable at higher levels. The interference from the ground signal increases and interference from outside electrical sources also increases, leading to less stable numbers. Higher frequency detectors are inherently more sensitive and are jumpier. So lean lower frequency for more solid results. Multi frequency detectors act like low frequency detectors and tend to have more solid target numbers due to the ability to analyze a target with different frequencies. Another issue is the number of target categories, or ID segments, or VDIs, or notches, or bins (all names for the same thing) that a detector offers. For instance here are the number of possible target id categories or segments each detector below offers: Fisher CZ-3D = 7 Garrett Ace 250 = 12 Minelab X-Terra 305 = 12 Minelab X-Terra 505 = 19 Minelab X-Terra 705 = 28 Minelab Equinox 800 = 50 Minelab Manticore, Fisher F75 and many other models = 99 White's MXT and many other models = 190 Minelab CTX 3030 = 1750 Fewer target categories means more possible items get lumped together under a single reading, but that the reading is more stable. Many detectors will tell you the difference between a dime and a quarter. The Fisher CZ assumes you want to dig both so puts them under one segment along with most other coins. People who use detectors with many target numbers usually just watch the numbers jump around and mentally average the results. Some high end detectors can actually do this averaging for you! But I think there is something to be said for owning a detector that simplifies things and offers less possible numbers to start with. The old Fisher CZ method still appeals to me, especially for coin detecting. So do detectors like the Garrett Ace 250 or Minelab X-Terra 505 for the same reason. The problem is that as people strive to dig deeper targets or smaller targets the numbers will always get less reliable. But if you want to have a quiet performing metal detecting with solid, reliable target numbers look more for coin type detectors running at lower frequencies under 10 kHz or at multiple frequencies and possibly consider getting a detector with fewer possible target segments. And with any detector no matter what just back that sensitivity setting off and you will get more reliable target numbers. ads by Amazon... Detectors often use tones to identify targets and often use far fewer tones than indicated by the possible visual target id numbers. The X-Terra 705 for instance can use 28 tones, one for each segment. However, most people find this too busy, and so simple tone schemes of two, three, or four tones may be selected. I think it is instructive that many people often end up ignoring screen readings and hunting by ear, using just a few tones. This ends up just being an ultra basic target id system much like the simpler units offer. Reality is that most people do not need or care about huge numbers of target numbers. For many just three ranges suffice, low tone for iron, mid tone for most gold items, and high tone for most US coins. The meter could do the same thing, but for marketing purposes more is better and so we get sold on detectors with hundreds of possible target ID numbers. Perhaps this is a digital representation of an old analog meter with its nearly infinite range of response but the reality is we do not need that level of differentiation to make a simple dig or no dig decision. Finally, a picture often says it all. Below we have a shot of the White's M6 meter. I like it because the decal below illustrates a lot. You see the possible numerical range of -95 to 95 laid out in the middle. Over it is the simplified iron/gold/silver range. Note the slants where they overlap to indicate the readings really do overlap. Then you get the probable target icons. -95 is noted as "hot rock" because many do read there. The M6 can generate 7 tones depending on the target category. I have added red lines to the image to show where these tones sit in relation to the scale. It breaks down as follows: -95 = 57 Hz (Very Low) Hot Rock -94 to -6 = 128 Hz (Low) Iron Junk -5 to 7 = 145 Hz (Med Low) Gold Earrings, Chains - Foil 8 to 26 = 182 Hz (Medium) Women's Gold Rings/Nickel - Small Pull Tabs 27 to 49 = 259 Hz (Med Hi) Men's Gold Rings - Large Pull Tabs 50 to 70 = 411 Hz (High) Zinc Penny/Indian Head Penny - Screw Caps 71 to 95 = 900 Hz (Very High) Copper Penny/Dime/Quarter/Dollar Note that the screen reading of +14 is noted as being a nickel or ring but it can also be the "beaver tail" part of an aluminum pull tab or the aluminum ring that holds an eraser on a pencil, among other things. The best book ever written on the subject of discrimination is "Taking A Closer Look At Metal Detector Discrimination" by Robert C. Brockett. It is out of print but if you find a copy grab it, assuming the topic interests you. Always remember - when in doubt, dig it out! Your eyes are the best target ID method available.
    2 points
  6. Puttering around in the park and came across this.
    2 points
  7. Paul sez the grammar is no different that he larnt in Tennessee public school, they just have a funny way of sayin thangs.
    2 points
  8. Mr. Condor ; Would you like to barrow my "How To Speak Australian In 137 Easy Lessons" tapes? They are only One hour and fifteen minutes long each.
    2 points
  9. Have a great time, Condor! The Aussies don't worry about things like spiders, ticks and snakes so just remember to keep your stuff off the ground and closed up...or you may get a surprise! ENVY...is my middle name best wishes fred
    2 points
  10. On ya Condor, WTG. BBs going to have a busy season.
    2 points
  11. I have been working an old area that mostly has fine gold, though I have detected and recovered a few nuggets up there. But it's not a big producer. There are bench deposits of old river gravels on bedrock above the main channel, so naturally I worked to bedrock. The deeper I dug, the worse values turned up. Bedrock is key, right? Not here. Turns out the gold is actually sitting on top of the ancient hard pack! Once I learned that whenever the gold was deposited, it could go no deeper than the crunchy stuff I was able to get some nice chunky gold out to add to my collection. Hope this helps someone else out. Interesting that it must have weathered after the river bed was cemented, and it's rough enough to show that it hasn't travelled far.
    1 point
  12. There is on-going field testing of the Fisher Impulse AQ in progress trying to improve the discrimination. This despite the machine getting ready to go to production at any moment. 2020 Edit: The Impulse AQ has been revealed - see details here For those that do not know metal detector development never stops. It just gets to a point where it is good enough and you launch. Engineers can improve for eternity if you let them. This does raise a concern however. This machine is as far as I can tell using a new premise for what it does, and is obviously up against deadlines to get out the door. There is nothing here about internet update capability, and in fact it seems I recall somebody at FT saying there never would be such a feature on their machines. But given that nearly every serious platform released by FT sees software bugs and updates in the first year, including the recently released F-Pulse, the odds are this machine would benefit from an update once it gets into user hands and the inevitable bug is found. It really is a set up for having to mail machines back to be updated. I would like to be one of the first to jump on one of these but given the First Texas poor track record in this regard a lack of update facility does give me pause, especially in a detector that will likely be over $2000. I get a cheap detector having no update facility, but First Texas may end up regretting not putting the capability in this detector. Forget the unhappy customers - it costs the company money if it ends up having to physically reprocess every machine sold to perform some kind of software fix. In this day and age internet update capability is an expectation - every Nokta/Makro machine no matter the price has it, even the upcoming under $300 Simplex. I am a bit amazed that there is no mention of this capability on what appears to be the most expensive First Texas metal detector ever made. Source thread at Dankowski Forum Fisher Impulse AQ Data & User Reviews Fisher Impulse AQ metal detector
    1 point
  13. Ok, let's see a few of the forums members recent finds. Be sure to include detector settings and GPS coordinates. ?
    1 point
  14. Metal Detecting an Old Homestead - Join Jeff as he Metal Detects an Old Homesite looking for hidden Treasures. Hope you enjoy the video, Jeff
    1 point
  15. I Know Paul but they won't let me retire from my work here on the ranch .
    1 point
  16. I've seen this kind of adjustment on alarm clocks (as in the above image). If you Google search "antique alarm clock back" you will see many more. It would be surprising for this to be on a pocket watch unless it were under a 'door', else you would likely unintentionally slide the lever when taking it in and out of your pocket. It's small for the (entire) back of an alarm clock but it could have been attached to the (larger) back plate, I suppose. Interesting find but it's seen better days. ? I have no idea of its age. Sure appears to have been in the ground a long time. WAG is that it is from the hotel era.
    1 point
  17. Steve, you are so eloquent with your words. I'm always inclined to read every word you post, ever learning and never becoming an expert at anything.
    1 point
  18. Steve, I am so envious of you guys right now but all the best down under and can't wait to here some good tall tails in Yuma next winter.
    1 point
  19. I'll just nod my head and use the slack jawed vacant stare. I find it discourages pointless conversations on such things as politics, religion and my (fill in brand) coil/detector is better than yours.
    1 point
  20. I don`t know the go with lingos, I can understand Paul`s written word but be buggered if I can understand his spoken word, and it isn`t only about deafness. Not to worry Condor, we`ll learn ya OZ.
    1 point
  21. I`d like to barrow them too KL, and see how the hell you managed to condense our lingo so much.
    1 point
  22. Gain and sensitivity normally are the same control. Reducing sensitivity always increases stability but obviously it is a trade off. You have to find the best balance between raw power and stability - useable power. The old rule of thumb is increase gain/sensitivity until the machine becomes to unstable/noisy, then back off a hair.
    1 point
  23. Yep, it would be ‘interesting’ but I’m not sure that it would be any great advantage (or disadvantage) than your 4500 in actually finding gold. Can run all the same mono coils but the 4500 gives you a bit more flexibility with the DD’s. The advantage is the lighter weight, lower price point, updatable software, good battery set up, etc, etc.
    1 point
  24. Minelab is suppose to come out with the MDS-10 soon also I thought... It was trademarked last year. Also they just trademarked in Australia on April 17th something called Super-D, which they currently call their 19" coil for the GPZ, but why trademark now ????
    1 point
  25. I check this place more often then my e mail strick
    1 point
  26. I highly doubt the public would be included in the release of a countermine detector for the military.
    1 point
  27. I dont personally use any of the dedicated gold machines be it VLF or PI,so as such i cannot comment about your questions,here in the UK as such we dont have gold nuggets,so this is the main reason why i am not clued up as most of the other folks on this forum. But what i do have and use and totally agree with you is the TDI Prothat is a superb machine and use it exactly the same as yourself ie low conductivity and by fine tuning the settings for the most part i can just dig my desired targets ie silver hammered and gold coins as those are the main targets that i am after and it does a surprisingly good job of knocking small iron and nails etc its that good but wont miss a decent targets.Most of my coils are GPX ones which of course work a treat on the TDI Pro,although i have 8 coils for the TDI my main 3 are the 10x5 folded mono,Coiltek 14x9 Mono my favourite and the bloody humongous 20'' Jimmy Sierra mono for maximum depth. Also have a GPX4500 coming as well,but if i am honest i think the TDI will still be the No1 use machine.
    1 point
  28. Only Aussies and Kiwis know how to find gold with a metal detector and so have pictures to prove it. Yanks are all talk and no pictures.
    1 point
  29. But Sourdough! Don't you remember the last time I tried to take close ups of some nuggets and the hot flash bulb landed in my shirt pocket! Nosiree your not getting any pictures until I upgrade my equipment. the folks here will just have to take my word for it when it comes to nugget finds. Does GPS stand for "Gold Prospecting Spot"?
    1 point
  30. Im new to detecting and have the nox 800, I've learned that the numbers dont mean as much as tone. That being said I dig everything and try to call the target before digging and the only thing I can consistently call are dimes and quarters, other coins I can call but not as accurately. I take a silver bracelet with me to test before I get started and I get different readings depending on the location and which mode I'm in. The only times I've passed on targets is an obvious tacklebox spill (split shot scattered everyplace) or someone did a mag dump and all I find is brass
    1 point
  31. Another Steve H. quote to frame and hang on my wall. Now please excuse me while I fight and claw my way out from among the masses. Think I'll head out this afternoon and work on it. Thanks, Steve!
    1 point
  32. No, it’s simply having the coil and mind integrated as one. The detector and coil by extension literally become part of my body. I have an inherent sense when I sweep a target correctly and the target id seems correct as opposed to making a swing that seems a little off center or too fast or too slow..... whatever. Sweep speed can be very fast, very slow, or anywhere in between depending on the detector. An experienced detectorist should know without even having to think about it that either slowing the sweep or increasing the sweep will improve the target id. It depends purely on the exact scenario as to what will work best. In most cases I find after getting a target that speeding up my sweep will help “sharpen” the target id number. Other times I may need to slow down. I think that connection between the mind and coil is one of the things that sets the best detectorists apart from the crowd. It is also almost impossible to define in words. It’s like trying to describe how to be great at swinging a golf club. The Minelab Equinox is a good example. I see people comment about the target id being inaccurate. I personally consider the machine to have an extremely accurate target id. The difference I believe is that some people think a detector should deliver very tame numbers that are always or nearly always the same. They see the Equinox numbers jump around and blame the machine for being inaccurate. I in turn am hearing somebody say they really don’t understand how an extremely fast, extremely accurate detector actually works, especially when sensitivity is being pushed to the edge. It’s all about coil control and knowing that you have “hit” the target correctly and knowing internally that the target id delivered is a “good one”. The truth is the Equinox is delivering the reality of the nuance under the coil. The only question is whether the operator can develop the skill required to accurately understand the machine and what it is saying. Coil control is critical to that ever happening.
    1 point
  33. It takes on average around 3 - 5 years to get genuinely new platforms to market. Not counting rehashing the same old thing or making most VLF detectors which is just sticking old tech in new boxes. This has been on the radar since 2015 so the time frame is not unusual. It’s just been visible and like a watched teapot that makes it seem forever. But I agree First Texas has been stuck too long on single frequency VLF. Why no digital CZ in the last ten years will always be a mystery to me. Nothing new, just convert the analog version into something more compact with a modern target id system. Same performance would have been just fine. Just update for the 21st century.
    1 point
×
×
  • Create New...