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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! 🙂

Just remember you can only ever be running in one Timing option, so if the Special selection in the menu says Fine Gold, but your front panel switch is sitting on Normal, then you are not in Fine Gold. The first sentence in the instruction manual about the Special timings is pretty good: "You can select which timings will be activated by the Special switch on the control panel." Get a label maker, and on the smallest font setting write MENU SELECT and stick it above Special. That will aid as a good reminder that the Special position is tied in with the timing selection in the menu.

Anyone who has used a White’s TDI much knows that the ground balance can be manipulated to exclude certain targets. This is less about conductivity as White’s sells it, but about target size. What that means is you can exclude high conductors and large ferrous and concentrate on smaller low conductors and small ferrous. Or you can exclude small ferrous and small non-ferrous and go for higher conductors and larger ferrous. The system does not make gold hunters happy because to dig small gold you still dig small ferrous stuff. Or when you are digging larger gold you still dig nails. My guess on the Impulse is that it is using at least two “ground balance” points to bracket the most common ring responses, which tend to be lower mid-range targets. It would be quite a balancing act tuning out both the smallest stuff and the largest stuff and just hit the sweet spot. I personally think this could be a powerful method for essentially cherry picking rings while eliminating most small ferrous and large ferrous. There still will be a class of mid-range ferrous targets that read good - I promise the system can’t be perfect. The flip side however is that at least two large “holes” are going to have to exist as a result. One that misses smaller gold targets, like earrings and chains, and possibly the smaller thin rings. And then on the top end very large heavy men’s rings and silver rings, and most coins may also be lost. The solution will be to turn off the discrimination and go back to digging everything. Hopefully there will be some ability to tweak the discrimination as target / trash mixes do vary somewhat and shifting the accepted range up or down would be beneficial. I am just guessing based on what I know about how a PI works and how one could potentially discriminate out a class of targets. I could see a very acceptable trade being made, more depth at the expense of certain target classes. Yet I wonder how the general public will react to videos displaying numerous gold items, especially large ones, being completely undetectable by the Impulse in discrimination mode? The wiser among us may understand what’s going on and the trades being made, but if I know one thing about a lot of folks, the idea the machine misses good stuff won’t fly too well. Witness the silver dollar on edge fiasco with the Equinox, or the similar issue with the early Gold Bug models. Anyway, don’t take this as being more than speculation, but it is something that the more knowledgeable among us will want to find out quickly once the Impulse hits the streets. It should be easy to find out, just air test with a large range of jewelry targets running from tiny to large and check the results. And the same with ferrous. Unless a Pulse Devil miracle machine is in the works, and I am betting that’s not the case, there will be some definite caveats to deal with when employing the discrimination system. For me it’s kind of a non-issue. I’d be happy with the machine as a straight up pulse digging everything. It’s the ergonomics and price along with the finely tuned low pulse delay that have me looking more than some magic discrimination system. Anything it does there will be just a bonus. I will actually be surprised if the nugget hunting terra version has any discrimination at all due to the possible issues I am outlining. It would tune out most natural gold nuggets. Optional blocking of high end nail type signals would be of more benefit to nugget hunters in small gold areas. It would risk missing large nuggets but in some places that’s not much of a worry. Fisher Impulse AQ Data & Specifications Fisher Impulse AQ pulse induction metal detector

Art get a fine/coarse whet stone from Home Dump....grind down a dime size bit....if you see flecks of nickel/iron it will be some type of chrondrite...if not, it is just another love stone! this is almost foolproof.... fred

Ok, the look is 'good' with the bit of reddishness but you mentioned something that probably just makes it a hot rock. You said it 'stick like glue' to the magnet. Meteorites that we find other than the irons in Franconia typically have about half the pull of 'stick like glue.' The other thing you mentioned is Pahrump and probably on the GSSN claims. That is not really known for any meteorites. I could be wrong an you could look at metbull and see a map of known meteorites but Gold Basin and Franconia are the best bets to target unless you go to dry lake beds. That is a different subject but now that you are in Vegas I'm sure you'll be able to get in on some hunts where gold is not the primary target and meteorites are. I'll let you know when I hear about one of those hunts. We might be visited by Dolan Dave on the forum here and he would be a great one to hunt with. Mitchel

Well had to see if the area I did last time out would continue producing silver. I was planning on slowing down a bit and going past where I left off. The depth of the first couple of copper pennies let me know that time is running out. The beach is sanding in again and more areas are beyond my machine's capabilities. I know it's all still down there, since I was hitting it before.. Now the signals were far and few between. Also the deep and big iron now sounds coin sized. I still managed to squeak out some good targets, but not many. One of the nickels was a 1901 Liberty Head V nickel. 6 Silver dimes and a tiny silver ring rounds up the silver tally. Copper penny to zinc ratio was excellent again. That one zinc was along side, just under a huge rock. Took me a while to remove it and when I did BAM a zinc penny😆.....😡 The GPX, like probably any other PI, can keep you digging quality targets, although you will be digging a lot of iron. I watch a couple of other detectorists come and go quickly due to lack of targets. They are always shocked to see the quantity of coins I get. Then I showed them my iron and everything was better 🙂 Hopefully I can sneak out thus week for another hunt.

Completely agree with everything you have mentioned Steve. Manufacturers mustn’t get too cute with a PI.......let them be raw and powerful as they were designed to be. I will never detect having the knowledge that I am walking over a nice fat gold ring and that is why I run my TDIBH with GB Off........no “holes” and better depth. The beach version of the AQ should be a straight PI...... and it would be cheaper to buy. Don’t let the AQ try to be all things to everyone. If Fisher plan to develop other versions then the case for a simple, powerful, straight PI for the beach is even stronger. White’s did a very good job on the TDIBH......Fisher could learn from them. Tony

I think Minelab may have pulled the extra early intro trick one time too often. The machine is not supposed to actually be available until sometime next year. In the meantime the Nokta/Makro Simplex+ is actually shipping, stealing the thunder. The gap between announcement and actual shipping dates on Vanquish is so large that people will have almost forgotten about it by the time it's available, or at least it will just be old news. It seems to me Minelab is squandering a certain amount of excitement that results in people making quick impulse buy type decisions. Given too much time people calm down and find reasons not to buy. I can't say I am a big fan of machines being announcement way before they are available. Hopefully the trend reverses. It may be Vanquish proves to be the time it went to far and we we go back to manufacturers keeping a better lid on things until we can actually buy them. Minelab Vanquish 340 Data & Specifications Minelab Vanquish 440 Data & Specifications Minelab Vanquish 540 Data & Specifications Minelab Vanquish 540 metal detector

The local public TV station KCET has put together a series about gold in the Mojave Desert. I think there are only 3 parts and I have not watched the episodes yet but I have skimmed the online portions and they are fantastic. I've been to many of the places depicted and now I'll know a lot more about them when I make time to read and watch this history of my gold hunting areas. https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/desert-gold-part-i https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/desert-gold-part-ii https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/desert-gold-part-iii

I've read a number of threads on the best way to cover and protect the coil and there's been a lot of good ideas for sure! I thought I'd add mine for those who primarily hunt sandy beaches like I do. Over the years, I've tried several ways to keep sand out since a build up between the coil and cover could and will result in a degree of false signals/chatter. What I finally determined was that sand is the "cleverest" of all elements with which I've had to contend. It can and does get into everything. No matter how well I thought I'd sealed the cover onto the coil, sand still managed to get in there...granted not much but my thinking is that if it's not supposed to be there, I want it outta there. And the one time I tried sealing the cover, it was he** to get the cover off! Conclusion; Sand will always get in but with most methods of sealing the cover, there's no way for it to get out! I decided to find a way to give those clever grains of sand a way out. I came up with this solution about 5 or 6 years ago and it's worked well for me on my Florida beaches. I simply drilled holes in the cover which allows the water to rinse out the sand while still protecting my coil from bumps and scrapes. After searching the dry and wet sand, a few swipes in the surf and the sand is rinsed away. When I get home and remove the cover, there is only a very few isolated grains between the coil and cover...not nearly enough to cause me any trouble whatsoever. Works for me but your mileage may vary and I'm always open to better ideas. Note: I drill the holes from the inside out so there are no ridges on the inside which would inhibit efficient draining. Just one method from my sandy foxhole.....

I found this medal in a private 1800's yard and thought it was a military medal but could not locate anything that matched. It appears to be copper with material that was apparently inlaid on the front. Any help or ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

It’s mainly me who has teased everyone by posting stuff about this since June 2018. Fisher showed a prototype at one show in Germany this last winter. It’s a totally new thing for them. The entire design team was the subject of an “acquihire” of Alexandre Tartar and his fellow “Manta” team members. It is by all accounts a more complex and tighter tolerance device that First Texas is used to producing. That and the likelihood that a dedicated beach PI will be a “niche” machine and therefore not a mass market seller, and the likely high production cost - make it understandable why they are proceeding very carefully.

Minelab is probably going to make them waterproof now that the Simplex is out. Why would any Equinox owners buy a Vanquish? Yes they have smaller coils that we want for the Equinox but still would an Equinox owner buy a Vanquish. Guess I can't say that because I have an Equinox and have a Simplex coming on Monday lol. I guess Equinox owners will be buying the Vanquish. Hope they make it waterproof.

Yes, a sand scoop is essential and a finds pouch is a "very nice to have" item. I've yet to detect in Hawaii but here are some general thoughts regarding beach hunting: Before you go, do the update 2.0 and use the F2 Iron Bias feature and then test a few targets you're most likely to find so you're familiar with what your EQX is telling you regarding a variety of those targets--coins, gold and silver jewelry. When you get to the beach, select Beach 1 mode and do a noise cancel first then ground balance. You'll most likely run into some very unfriendly sand conditions so you'll have to "dial in" the EQX to run as stable as possible. The relationship between recovery speed, the F2 setting and sensitivity will be key. Start by using Beach 1 on the dry and damp sand and Beach 2 on the wet sand and surf. Observe where the most people are on the beach...towel line, walk line, activity centers and about knee deep in the surf at low tide. Look for cuts in the sand where the surf has eroded the beach, low areas and ripples. Hit those areas with your coil low, level and slow. Grid the area to cover the area as thoroughly as possible. When you hit a target, I suggest you spiral around it to see if you have a coin line or other valuable targets in that same area. Good targets like gold tend to sink to similar depths. If you hit lead sinkers, stay in that area...its a good sign that gold is lurking nearby. I'm sure others, especially those who have hunted Hawaii, will add their thoughts, The folks on this forum are very friendly and eagerly willing to help! Good luck

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......

Well done, dredge tailings are tough, thats for sure...

Well done, and thatbiss hard work for sure...

A big thanks, I’ll be joining them too. i probably need a new thread for these but my success ratio on meteor finds has been 0% so first I’ll post my latest mineral pocket hitch hikers from Pahrump area here, no quartz that I can see and they stick like glue to a magnet, not iron scrap but I have no idea...???

Just the best, Peg. All cylinders firing smoothly. Congrats on a great season.

You are not allowed to do anything these days here in Australia now I know why. https://1drv.ms/v/s!AqiKyrTQ2zQ3rAYN5Y7CSS8YkNVd?e=7Dj8Yp

Weird, worked on my phone but not my tablet. I can see why they live there. Pre-flight 10 people or so could defend against an unlimited sized army.

Mitchel, WTG, well done! Franconia is not an easy location to find meteorites. I remember the Meteorite Men show where they got skunked at Franconia. I hope to get out there at least once this winter.

That Simplex is a lot of detector for the money. The Field mode seems to be outrageously strong. Looks well made. I'm impressed with it based on the video. I like it's "language" too, the audio sounds very good. I know a lot of you guys are Equinox fans, and I had one myself but this Simplex seems to be a really nice unit. When I get some spare money will look into getting me one.

38 minute detailed video review of the Simplex+ 12 minute park hunt follow up

This was not Gold Bug Pro versus Go Find 44, but new detectorist versus experienced detectorist. It beautifully illustrates why I always bet on experience and not the machine. Thanks for posting!

As of today , Treasure World in the UK are listing a lot of Tesoro and Laser machines + coils !!, if you are not sorted you may get lucky

Wait for the new fisher to come out : GOLD RUSH WORLWIDE REBOOTED season 1 RR

Very unlikely lol. Fred, Tyler and myself.

Nice looking nugget sir, congrats!

It's about $40 difference, but with the 2-in-1 you get the hard case and extra probe tip so you can use it as a normal pin-pointer. I just think it's a case that the Scuba Tector has been around longer, so more know about it.

I would would be more inclined to believe those are knock offs. If they came out of a reputable dealer with some sort of certification I'm sure they wouldn't be that cheap.The last places I would buy a coin is Ebay and Amazon hehe.

Thanks to Davesgold and the X-Coil manufacturer, I got a gifted 17x12 Spiral Wound coil. The manufacturer took notice of my multitude of problems with the connector modification and sent me a new coil from Russia. Bravo Zulu X-Coil for prospector support. The weather has improved here in Sunny Yuma so I replaced the 17" round with the new coil and took it for a spin. I balanced it over the ferrite with no problems and I experienced no bump sensitivity. The first thing I noticed is how well the coil balances on my modified hip stick rig. I do a lot of detecting in the walls of desert washes, putting the coil on its side. The 7000 tends to get the "wee waas" if you don't keep them flat, but this coil seemed to really tone it down and it balanced really nice for less strain on my arm and shoulder. On relatively flat ground I think I could swing this coil all day for less wear and tear on my 65 yr old frame. I ultimately didn't find anything in the walls, but I hit some old hillside drywash tailings and popped these 3 nuggets. All were at moderate depths but I was amazed at some of the deep iron bits I found. Without some side by side target comparisons I can't say that my depth is improved, but I'm getting a lot better ground coverage and I can poke it in between rocks and obstructions. Even if this coil is no better than the original Minelab 14", it's a lot more versatile. This will be my go to coil from here on. I'll stick the 17" round on over worked out patches, but this is my new secret weapon. Again, many thanks to Davesgold and X-Coil X Coil 2021 News

A interesting article with some good videos. http://golddetecting.forumotion.net/t26534-home-made-skid-plates-easy

I was running the 7000 hot as I could maxed no filters normal hi yield semi auto SP1 enhancer, this was a soft sweet signal that finally sounded like something other than surface trash down about 4” on a hillside just above a wash in what i latter learned is a heavily pounded old patch with little left to give. It came out in one piece looking rusty and worthy of tossing aside except it was not magnetic so I began scraping, chewing and bending. Yellow began to emerge and that’s when I should have slowed down except it looked more like pyrite to me so I kept working at it and I was surprised it only bent a little before breaking, looking at it now it appears spongy and that may be why it broke the way it did. I’m not actually 100% convinced yet that it’s gold seems like it could be perhaps mixed with something else? This would be the first piece in a new area for me and I’m unfamiliar with hmmm the gold there and host rock and well everything. I was finding a lot of lead and bullet fragments so it seems there should still be more although today only the one (now it’s 4) for me, if in fact it really is gold and not mostly pyrite or something. my scale is in Santa Clara so I don’t know the weight?

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Well, much gold has been found on that GPAA set of claims. With your skills I'm sure you will find more. Another group to consider (I am right now) is MPA out of Kingman. They are the 'forgotten' big claim holders of the basin. I don't know how many people jump them but I don't see people on their claims when I'm there.

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.

Hi guys, my name is Cristian, I'm from Argentina, my detector is a Garret AT Gold, I use it to search for gold nuggets in the Andes mountain range. I have very good results with very small, tiny nuggets, but I think I'm losing some depth, I compared it to the Garrett AT Max and apparently it has a little more depth but not so much sensitivity to small nuggets. I want to change the AT Gold for another detector that gains depth in larger gold (2gr, 5gr, 10gr etc). Do you offer me minelab equinox 800, makro gold kruzer, goldmaster 24K, xp orx, which recommend me to have greater depth in large or acceptable nuggets and not lose much effectiveness in small nuggets? I found the gold nugget in my hand with the AT MAX at 20-25cm, with the AT GOLD I had no signal I leave some photos to see the gold that took out the AT gold. regards p / d: sorry for my english, I used google: D

Just a reminder, if you see any quartz it is not a meteorite ...many rocks are full of magnetic attractive stuff. Bill Southern’s Meteorite Forum has many knowledgeably people that know way more than me. read and learn fred

I hoped you’d chime in on this and well I didn’t think they were but I kept trying to talk myself into it the two small ones have a lot of iron in them and attract a magnet like a piece of metal, but did streak lightly blackish brown, the large one initially left a light brown mark that could have been just from the surface then it was hard to leave a mark after a few passes on my tank lid, so I had to ask because obviously don’t know what I’m doing? Eventually I find one out there and the difference will be obvious, it’s hard to go by pictures cause there’s always one you can find to create doubt in my own mind if I look to long, lol.

Not meteorites! some of the hot rocks in Gold Basin can fool you. if in doubt just use a whet stone to grind off a small area. If a meteorite you will see flecks of nickel / iron.... fred

They look more like your standard earth rocks. Looks like some quartz mixed in on one of the rocks, but I do see iron on another one.

There are great number of these "Lesche-alike's" out there, everyone from Garrett, Whites, Deteknix/Quest through to Predator, Raven, and names that you've never heard of. The detail is what's important - in this case it's the blade material and any associated heat-treatment/induction-hardening etc. It would be pretty easy to make a copy cat tool from mild steel, maybe make it thick to make up for the lack of strength, paint it a cool colour and sell it. Far better to make it from something like 4130 cro-moly steel, but the public don't seem very clued up on materials. It's commonly thought that stainless steel is really strong stuff .... no it's not, really. It's better than plain carbon steel, definitely, but still some way below 4130 cro-moly. It would be too expensive to make these tools out of anything more exotic, I think, like EN24 (4340); and the fancy Aermet and Maraging steels all require careful complicated heat-treatment, liquid nitrogen baths to do the age-hardening, and of course being very hard, they require more effort to bend, punch, cut, grind.

OP - that’s how we get $10k toilet seats. No company can afford to spend that kind of money testing every unit of a sub $1k detector. You have to just design it right to start with, then qualify a production process which yields six sigma quality units.

The case may be perfectly sealed, but if opened to change batteries in very humid conditions moisture can enter the case. Then when the case is submerged in cool water condensation can occur. The Beachhunter case has more air inside than most waterproof detector cases, and also unlike most others the battery compartment is not separated from the electronics compartment. That is the root issue here really, not the case itself leaking.

When I was a Whites dealer I felt they had 2 solid performers. I pushed the M6 and MXT/MXTpro. No need to carry every machine they had. 15 to 20 years later they are still the best they have in my opinion. Kind of sad actually.....

I went out to the Franconia meteorite strewn field last Friday. It is an area I know pretty good and I know a fair bit about the types of meteorites you can find there. One of the major types of meteorites is what they call an iron. It is a small meteorite that was blown by winds to their present location after a main mass burst in the atmosphere. They landed away from the main strewn field. Prior to the 8th of May I had never gotten more than 3 irons in a trip with various detectors and coils which includes a GPX 5000. Many thousands of these meteorites have been found over the years by hundreds of hunters. When you detect them the larger ones can scream at you. They are never very deep. This was a good and different trip. I had a Zed. I found 25 of the irons and a couple of larger meteorites. The largest iron at the top of the circle is .8 grams. It ends up with a tiny meteorite that I can't weigh. The total of all irons is 4.1 grams. The two larger meteorites are 46.7 grams and 114.4 grams. They were found in the same area with a depth of less then 5 inches. The Zed had no problem distinguishing them from the hot rocks. Now, bring on the gold fields!

I sent you a PM 2Valen....