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Showing content with the highest reputation on 11/06/2019 in all areas

  1. Time flew by up at the cabin and on my little claim this season. I continued to clear, detect, and drywash the decomposed granite bench areas. Here’s a nice clean out from one drywash session: I also reworked the sides of some oldtimer Diggings, filling in their ditch as I go....lots of work here for little return lol! Found some nice nuggies when I uncovered some crevices in a different bedrock...biggest piece was almost .6gram, decent size for up here: A highlight of the summer was having my nephew’s boys visit. They learned drywashing, running the concentrates through the recirculating sluice, then how to pan. Each ended up with a couple grams(hmmm....maybe a little “salt” in those concentrates lol): AND the season ended on a positive note! Found a nice handful in this small scraping from a new spot....definitely will setup the drywasher here next year! Ended up with just shy of 12 grams total up here for the season....not much gold, but tons of fun and memories! 🙂
    19 points
  2. Nice today so I headed out but the sun never did come over the mountain so I cut it short as my feeties got cold....lol Dredge piles gave up this cute little .800 gram noogie!!!!!! I managed 1 more bit and this specimen outta the same area yesterday and got skunked today......
    17 points
  3. My brother knows I'm trying to build my own machine and sent me this diagram. Thought it was pretty funny 🙂
    3 points
  4. Or maybe they compared the AQ to a 14.8v TDIBH..........and collectively cursed in English and French 😳😳😳😳😳 Tony
    3 points
  5. Every year my Alaska Gold Mining Claims For Sale page skyrockets into number one position for the website as TV viewers around the world dream of getting a gold claim in Alaska and striking it rich. Because everything you see on TV is real!
    3 points
  6. From Wikipedia: "A long-range locator is a class of fraudulent devices purported to be a type of metal detector, supposedly able to detect a variety of substances, including gold, drugs and explosives; most are said to operate on a principle of resonance with the material being detected." There is more at the link, but "a class of fraudulent devices" says it all as far as I am concerned. I just wanted to post this so people can find it in the search results in case they are looking. For me these devices have always failed the most basic test... the experience of hundreds of thousands of prospectors and treasure hunters around the world. Treasure hunters and gold prospectors will give anything a try that might work, no matter how crazy it seems. If it works, the use soon spreads to other prospectors. You can Google genuine successful results for regular metal detectors all day long. The internet is full of successful people using normal metal detectors to make great finds. Except for a few obvious promotionals, the success stories of people using LRL devices are glaringly absent. All excuses for why this is so flies in the face of the simple common sense answer - they don't work. In almost 50 years of metal detecting and prospecting I have met a lot of successful people, and none of them got that way by relying on a long range locator. Part two of the common sense test is if they did work, there would be at least a few users of these devices that would be fabulously rich. The few I have met are anything but... just the opposite. Again, excuses made about why these rich LRL users are invisible fly in the face of common sense. Like wanting their privacy, as if we are not a country that brags about every tiny thing we can think of! The only people getting rich are the people selling these devices. I personally refuse to purchase anything from a company selling long range locators. It says something about the management of the company that makes me prefer to do business elsewhere. If you want the absolute best information on these device anywhere visit the website below. More at Geotech
    2 points
  7. How good is that. And good on you keeping the kids interested. A little bit of salt never hurt anybody 🙂
    2 points
  8. 2 points
  9. That's great Idaho Peg, i would be very happy with 12 grams and the good memories. Thanks for sharing 😀 ht
    2 points
  10. Phrunt, try a master reset to see if it makes any difference to the sensitivity.
    2 points
  11. I bet Parker used one of those radar thing-a-ma-jigs!
    2 points
  12. The stories George could tell if we could just pry them out of him! I was with him when he found his last Celtic gold back in 2010.
    2 points
  13. Great topic! For me any place that is well known and hammered it has to be a crawl. Learned that the hard way about 7 years ago when I made my first 3 trips to the fabled Rye Patch where there was supposedly gold laying around everywhere. Each trip I spent 3 or 4 full days and found zero nuggets and would have sworn the place was fished out. Trip 4 I decided to go back to an area where I had noticed dig holes on an early trip and slowly and methodically cover every inch of the ground around them. Within an hour I found my first Rye Patch nugget and a few more before the day was over. Since that day I still try to make 3-4 trips there per year and have had very few skunk days. When I look back on it almost every time I hit a long dry spell I realize that I had lost focus and was moving too fast. I don’t have the latest and greatest machine or the best technique and definitely do not have anywhere near the knowledge that many on this forum have. I also don’t think I am particularly lucky or intuitive, but I do have a not so secret weapon that not everybody has – I am naturally blessed with Patience & Persistence. All else being equal he who has his coil moving the longest will find the most nuggets and even without all being equal they will still find their fair share.
    2 points
  14. I reached out to Jimmy through his website for Discovery Tours. http://discoverytours.us/ Here was his response: Hi Walter, We are still doing our Discovery Tours to England. In fact this was our 29th consecutive Year .I have personally missed participating in the tours for the past 4 years for "health issues" ....I turned 89 years old this year, but I hope to make at least one more trip if I can get a better handle on health. Meanwhile, I do all the paperwork from here. Get the participants, collect the funds, keep all informed of details and handle the return of the finds to the participants when I get them back from David and Trish in UK. So the only difference is that I don't get to participate in England. I hope to make one more trip at some point when health improves....but age is not on my side, sorry to say. Our website is still active and David and Trish keep it up to date with pics and finds and info, as always. If you are interested in a future trip.........let me know and I will keep you on my mailing list. Best regards, Jimmy Thanks! Walt
    1 point
  15. Fred made a comment on one of my posts to Mitchel and I feel it needs more input from a variety of hunters and their styles. This is results from my last day at Rye Patch (last Saturday). My 5 days of hunting had me doing the hoping and looking for an indicator nugget...and I also snail crawled. Here are my results. The 2 days I want Prospecting and covering a lot of ground produced 1 nugget. The 3 days I snail crawled with 7000 produced 25 nuggets. In fact, my last day was spent in a very small area of approx. 20' x 30' and I found 12 pieces of gold. 10 of those were signals most others have missed and including myself a few times missing them, as I have detected that exact same piece of ground twice. I'm much more fortunate than most folks who hunt Rye Patch, NV as I've been doing it for 20+ years and I know the history of the old patches. Sometimes I go back to those old patches, pick a small section of ground and work the crap out of it. I especially like sites where I was pulling deep nuggets in years past, as I know those deepest pieces of heavy metal might only make a peep within a small 1 to 3" width. Don't ask me how or why, but overlapping at least 1/2 and sometimes 1/4 of coil size, per sweep with the 14" coil on the GPZ can produce. Lunk and I spent the last day crawling with our 7's and here is a photo of the results. Both of us and some other well known hunters have been in the wash before. The old saying it true "You can never get them all". I just want to make sure I get my share. How do you other Prospectors do it and what is your results when covering ground and snail crawling with a detector? I look forward to hearing everyone's comments. Nuggets on top of dime are Lunk's and the ones on bottom were found my myself on the last day.
    1 point
  16. I’ve recently had a few emails regarding my TDIBH so I thought I’d hammer out a response. I’m going to try and summarise with some dot points; I have close to 500 hours on this machine and run the 14.8v (nominal voltage) Lithium battery pack. Details in my earlier posts. The detector has found me quite a lot of big and deep gold. I don’t use it much in the water as conditions down here are generally quite rough. The 12” coil is physically too big in waves and white water. Also, digging 18” targets when you are being swept around by waves and swell is almost impossible even with 30 pounds of lead. The detector is now mainly used on the lower beach and low tide areas. I have had no issues running the 14.8v pack. I charge overnight and let the voltage settle down before using the next day as this avoids the off the charger voltage of 16.8v. My run time is about 6 hours before I swap out for a fresh pack. I have had no condensation issues within the detector. I do have a large silica gel pack in the battery compartment. The detector is quieter than other PI’s with the low delays when used in the shallow water and saturated hard pan. The SAT is very good in keeping things quiet even at low delay settings. Maybe it is the new Flux Capacitor that White’s now use 😉 I have several layers of yellow Plasti Dip on my coil to keep it well protected on the coarse shells and exposed reef areas. My ultimate power setting is minimum Delay and maximum Gain, threshold a fraction below audible with volume up high. Frequency is usually at the 12 o’clock position. I have only ever needed to change this once. My deepest ever finds have come from this machine. GB is always OFF unless I hit a rare patch of black sands. You need a BIG and STURDY scoop..............Tony
    1 point
  17. Found this about 10" down with my Vaquero. Thinking drive chain link of some kind.
    1 point
  18. That's gold that was found on a lease in Corindhap. The first week they were in Vic and filmed in Creswick (only found a few tiny bits), Corindhap (on a lease) and then filmed some stuff in the Ballarat Gold Museum. They then went down some old mines with the Victorian Historical Mine Shaft Chasers group before heading up to Qld where they are filming now. Tyler from Aussie Gold Hunters has joined Parker as well as a new guy named Fred who you will see around Episode 13 of this seasons Gold Rush.
    1 point
  19. Burma Thai Railroad... Pows died here building this railroad, very solemn sorrowful place... Good to know History and never forget these heros who gave their all...
    1 point
  20. Some like a lot of hard work but fun for all involved.
    1 point
  21. What’s fake about it? The Chinese text? The Equinox comes with a multi language set of screen protectors / menu labels. Nice thing about that is you have extras if the English one wears out. You can cut the other menu language section off before applying. This person did not bother... or speaks Chinese! EQUINOX Multi-Language Screen Protector Pack Low-reflection screen protector pack. Keeps the original screen free from scratches. Available languages: English, Russian, German, Dutch, Polish, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Mongolian, Turkish, Arabic. Part No. 3011-0379
    1 point
  22. Sounds like you have a little piece of heaven there Peg - good for you!
    1 point
  23. Never heard of a White's High Sierra. Are we talking about the Sierra Gold Trac SGT? That is the stripped down GMT model.
    1 point
  24. Go to mouser.com and search either SL-404MX of SL-404FX. One is male the other is female. Can’t remember which way the delta coils are wired.
    1 point
  25. From my article referenced above by phrunt are my suggested starting point for gold nugget hunting without using Gold Mode. This gets away from VCO audio for those that do not like it, adds tone capability, and very importantly low frequency options. There are places where these settings can be more effective than Gold Mode. You can also use Field 2 as long as the settings are the same - beware the preset notching of target id 1 and 2. Notching those two numbers will be fatal to your nugget detecting, which is why I suggest starting with Park 2. As far as I have been able to determine there is no difference between Park 2 and Field 2 other than the presets - performance appears to be identical with identical settings. Both the Equinox 800 and Equinox 600 have identical performance when using the same mode and settings. For Park Mode 2: Frequency: Multi Ground Balance: Auto (Ground pump method with manual tweaking) Sensitivity: 16 – 25 Recovery Speed 800: 4 - 6 (default is 6) Recovery Speed 600: 2 - 3 (default is 3) Iron Bias: 0 Accept/Reject: Everything accepted, rely on tones (alternative reject -9, -8, and -7 if too much ground feedback) The settings are a starting point to be adjusted as needed. More sensitivity obviously adds more sensitivity but can add instability. Lower recovery speeds will add sensitivity but also add to any coil knock issues being experienced. Increased iron bias may help in trashy areas and with some hot rocks but could filter out the weakest non-ferrous signals. Judicious notching can help with certain hot rocks. Ground tracking and/or lower frequencies can help deal with the worst ground. Every adjustment is a trade-off and comes with a cost - learn your detector! See the article for details. The 6" coil is both more sensitive to the smallest targets and less bump sensitive.
    1 point
  26. This is a great point Simon. Whether I’m using a multi-frequency or a single-frequency detector my finds all look the same.
    1 point
  27. Welcome to the forum! I’ve been detecting for coming up on 50 years now. One thing I can promise you is the detector you are using is not nearly the biggest factor in success. That’s the marketers at work. I can use any, and I mean any of the top tier coin, jewelry and relic machines made by any of the manufactures and basically do just as well with any of them. The tech is mature and it’s splitting hairs with all the over $700 models these days, and what you get for the price is dropping by the day. Nugget detecting gets more technical but for the vast majority which detector model you use is largely a popularity contest. I choose detectors based on basic factors like feature set, weight, waterproof or not, audio, etc. not whether one is magically better than all the rest at finding stuff. There are people out there doing better with a Garrett Ace 250 than some other with a much more expensive CTX 3030. How is that possible? Easy. Learn your basic skills which translate to any detector. Coil control and target recovery. Then put yourself in good locations, put in lots of hours, and dig lots of targets. That’s it, just good locations and hours. It’s not rocket science. So my advice is keep and use what you have. If you are dissatisfied with your results, it’s not the detector. Work on your detecting skills and finding better locations. Or get another detector if you want... but don’t expect that simply doing that will really make any difference. Best wishes and good luck! Edit: I hate it when people don't simply answer the question asked. So for what it is worth I sold my CTX 3030 as soon as I got my hands on an Equinox 800.
    1 point
  28. I can take a few more pics tonight to give you better idea...
    1 point
  29. The unit your seeing is a mini sluice to strip the cons down... Back to the other table, under the funnel are to small holes to spray water , just to the right of the funnel is a open port, and follow that around is the spray bar but the holes only cover half the belt, so Im thinking the missing part cover the rest of the belt...but Im not sure on that because of the hole under the funnel...
    1 point
  30. The overall cost of a detector does not necessarily imply that it is the best detector for yourself nor for the areas/sites that you will detect. I would put more weight on the person who learns their given detector inside out vs someone who simply goes out and purchases the most expensive detector available expecting to make immediate good finds. Also a lot has to do with the types of detecting sites available to you, and the likelihood of making good finds on them. For some people buying the most feature packed/expensive detector available can be a recipe for being overwhelmed with the number of settings available, or to find that they never require all those settings to be successful in the first place. Sometimes keeping it simple will allow you more time to detect and less time fiddling around with endless program options and settings. If you do not have overly mineralised soil and do not beach detect, then there may be no advantage to extending yourself to purchase a CTX, the Anfibio is pretty much top of the range from the Nokta/Makro stables and should serve you well. In my area quite a few detectorists have actually moved on from the CTX to lighter detectors including the XP Deus and Minelab Equinox, as not only are they more enjoyable to swing for longer periods, they also perform just as good if not better on the older sites with abundant junk and iron. Personally I think you need a few good months on a detector to see whether you gel with it or not, if you don't then it may be time to move onto something different. The tones on offer is a real killer for me, if they don't suit my ears or offer descriptive audio then I won't expect to get much further on that particular detector, and once again that is something you only learn over time.
    1 point
  31. The best Australian nugget Parker had was that hottie he used to hang out with. She probably bailed on him...
    1 point
  32. On one of the "Gold Trails" episodes, in an auriferous floodplain, Kevin Hoagland used a GMT in the black sand mode to locate and flag several small spots. These spots, totalling several gallons, produced early 2 DWT of fine gold. Similarly, a buddy of mine, doing the same in a Big Bear area wash (Jacoby Canyon) in 45 minutes accumulated 2.5 gallons of 1/8th inch screened dirt, from which over 2 DWT was recovered. It works. But it only works well where surface flooding produces clearly defined paystreaks in auriferous washes. I use a dry wallers trowel to scrape up the thin paystreaks. Hope this helps; HH Jim
    1 point
  33. Your recovery speed affects depth also. I think Park 1 defaults to 3 (fastest) on the 600. Dropping that down to 2 or 1 might get you another 1/4-1/2 in depth, but you lose some separation speed.
    1 point
  34. Dang Steve you make me want one.... as always, a complete and excellent review! I am late to the party, but still good reading thanks
    1 point
  35. Awesome find! Nothing like finding gold....especially 18k and heavy!
    1 point
  36. Good catch GB. It is an honor to be compared to Lunk. The amount of hours he has on gold detectors has to be in the highest % in US. Actually, he pulls me 3 out of 5 times. But then I've beat him by a nugget or two 2 days straight. Then he'll hand me a 3 day whoop ass lesson. It's all good in the end as we both respect each other, our capabilities....and most importantly the friendship and commoraudery. But thanks for noticing.
    1 point
  37. Finished my battery pack mod today and got to test it along side the Whites stock NiMH rechargeable pack. This test was done with targets in the ground. 1 foot long 2" diameter PVC pipe buried vertically with a 1 foot long 1 1/2" PVC insert. Inside the 1 1/2" insert is a removable styrofoam tube with slots at 1" increments cut into it that can hold coin sized targets. Ground around it is 4 to 5 bar Fe3O4 (F19 reading) dirt that reads -2 to +3 ground balance on my Equinox. TDI SL with ground balance on 7, gain 8, pulse delay 10, frequency 12 o'clock, conductivity low Clear 2 way tone (not just threshold waver) Nugget Finder Sadie 8X6" 11.8V stock NiMH battery 14.8V four Panasonic 18650B 3.7V Li Ion rechargeable batteries .25 gram flat lead 2" 3" .5 gram flat lead 3" 4" .75 gram flat lead 4" 5" Nickel 4.8 grams 9" 10" Miner John folded mono 12X8" with the same settings Nugget Finder Advantage 17X11" 11.8V NiMH 14.8V Li Ion 14.8V Li Ion .25 gram lead 1" 2" 2" .5 gram lead 2" 3" 3.5" .75 gram lead 3" 4" 5" Nickel 4.8 grams 9" 12" 13.5" Jeff
    1 point
  38. The fact your son made that for you makes it doubly awesome!
    1 point
  39. Two points, first I would love to have found that amount of gold in a month. Second, good way to explain the difference between models of hunting. I slow only if I find two in an area. Otherwise it is patch hunting speed. I do need to try this 1/2 coil overlap.
    1 point
  40. No right or wrong, it purely depends on the situation. Are you trying to find a new patch, or trying to extract gold from a known patch? Are you hunting a natural gold patch, or highly disturbed ground like tailing piles? If I am hunting a known patch I am like Lunk, crazy methodical slow. My normal mode is to hunt a week at a time, on one location, basically not moving at all. I find most people can't stand this and want to run all over the place or hop in the car and go someplace else after a day. Not me, just leave me in one place for a week, as long as I know there is gold there. The old saying is "never leave gold to find gold" and as a rule I find it to be good advice. But put me in Alaska hunting tailing piles looking for lost over-sized gold and it is all about ground coverage. The nuggets are few and far between, not in a limited area like a natural patch. And miles of ground usually. Low and slow is not the way to go. If you are hunting for a new patch in a desert, better have a large coil and cover ground like no tomorrow looking for an indicator nugget. Low and slow is no good in 100 square miles of desert. Patch hunting versus known patches, real world result. I spent exactly a month of hunting days in Australia, with JP putting me on a known patch every day. Dawn to dusk. I was in Australia to find an Australia sized nugget, you know, the fist sized type. I figured the pounded patches were not a good bet for that, and so I devoted dawn to lunch each day on a long loop swinging an 18" coil on my GPX 5000. I don't take breaks, I swing for the 4-5 hours I have. I covered about 5 miles per half day on each of those loops. Then after lunch it was hit the patch low and slow. At the end of the month I had 2.33 ounces of Aussie gold. If I recall correctly, like one or at most two of those were found on my exploration trips. I would have bet, did bet, that I would have found some tiny patch or stringer of gold somewhere off the main patch locations. Instead I essentially wasted half my trip for basically no result. I can't say I regret that - go big or go home - and I do have to learn some things for myself. But in retrospect I could have easily have doubled my gold take just by staying on the patches. And frankly maybe got a whisper that proved to be the big nugget I was after. If I go back to Australia again, unless it is specifically a trip to find new ground, I would stay on the patches 100% of the time and give it my all. If I have done that last trip I would probably have found 5 ounces instead of 2.33 ounces. 2.33 ounces of Australian gold I do quite a bit of wandering in Nevada, and have found quite a few isolated nuggets, which apparently are far more common in Nevada than Australia, or at least where we were in Australia. Just one nugget, then hunt there for two more hours and nothing else. And I did find a little virgin mini patch once that gave me about an ounce of gold. But more normal was one week I spent in a gold bearing region but not on a known patch, just hunting dawn to dusk trying to find that fabled virgin patch I know is out there someplace still. A solid week, one nugget of a couple grams. Man I was excited when I found it, but once again it was a one off. It is very hard to patch hunt like that knowing you can drive a few miles and be on gold. But if you want to be that person who really, and I mean really scores, you have to give it a go every once in a while. But realistically, getting on known producing ground with the absolute best machine possible and hunting as slowly and methodically as is humanly possible is what puts gold in the poke these days. Unless you are in tailing piles in Alaska!
    1 point
  41. Hey Tony, congrats on a great find! Love hearing those stories on the deep finds with the TDI's, and Beach Hunter versions. Jim
    1 point
  42. I'm over 70. I'd rather have a shorter-lived detector, with greater ability, than a longer-lived unit with less ability. I'm going on 4 years with my 16v battery pack. Jim
    1 point
  43. I wanted a second opinion from White's so I went straight to the top! This was his reply: "Dear Walt Evens White’s TDI SL is designed to operate on 12 volts. All Pulse Induction models show some increased performance with added voltage. However, the price is lowered longevity of the electronic circuit, and voltages over 14.8 Volts can immediately damage the electronics. White’s doesn’t recommend overpowering the TDI SL electronics. Sincerely Steve Howard White’s USA" Thanks! Walt
    1 point
  44. A little place we found. I'm excited to search the area
    1 point
  45. RobNC I’ve sold silver two times over the years when the price was up . I don’t have a lot of silver anymore but I have the memory of finding it. I may been detecting longer than you are old . That being over fifty years. I guess you could say I cheated being I didn’t wait on you. The year I started detecting was the first year they stopped the silver coins. The Indian Head penny I like and I’ve found a fair amount but here is some. The Flying cent I’ve yet to find.
    1 point
  46. I use the 7.5'' DF coil on my TDI Pro,probably about 50% of the time,mainly use it on a roman trading villa site which is possibly one of the hardest mineral content sites that i have ever detected its basically like black sand but inland.Very few VLF machines apart from multi freq can get any depth on this site,so its ideal for the TDI and the small DF coil......this same site over say the last 12 years has produced i guess nearly or possibly more than 10,000 roman coins as it was a trading site for 400 years. So yes i really like the 7.5'' DF coil,cannot recall the last time i used the 12'' DF as my main coil is the 14x9 Coiltek mono
    1 point
  47. Something I will have to play with I guess. I have never found an actual practical use for the Ground Scan Mode or the "Trace the Black Sands" mode on the GMT so off the top of my head I don't have any idea for what the audio does when using this mode. My gut tells me you have to eyeball the screen. From the User Guide: "Ground Scan is enabled by holding the LOCK button. The display will change to display the ground strength on the top bar, increasing from right to left. Full bars equates to very strong mineralization, and one flashing bar alerts you that no ground information is present. The two-digit numbers displayed are the ground phase. Solid ferrite will read around 81, alkali will read between 50 and 30, but you may encounter any range of phase numbers depending on the area you are in. In Ground Scan you can also set a ground offset by using the UP and DOWN arrows. This selection will affect the ground offset in normal search mode whether using XGB or locked settings. Ground Scan is very useful in prospecting dry washes or creek beds for black sand deposits. One trick you can use is to carry some landscaping flags with you, placing one down where the mineralization is the strongest about every 10 ft. That is where you would want to process material through a sluice or dry washer. To return back to the regular search mode, tap the LOCK or CROSS HAIRS." White's Goldmaster 24K XGB Ground Tracking Explained
    1 point
  48. I think tan is more for their prospecting machines. I definitely prefer tan for desert use. Black not only shows the dirt more but turns the inside of the detector into an oven. As detectors go I think the 24K is an attractive machine. For what it’s worth I ended up selling my Gold Monster and kept the 24K. I can’t swear one is better than the other at finding gold, but I have always preferred detectors with more control options. The 24K has those options, and in my opinion is ergonomically superior to the Gold Monster, with a much better feel on my arm. And it doesn’t fall over!
    1 point
  49. Looks to be based off the Fisher F4, very similar.
    1 point
  50. In general with all detectors and pinpointers, start the pinpointer and sit close by. They do a frequency scan with detector. That should do the trick in most cases.
    1 point
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