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  1. I sell a lot of detectors to people with hearing loss and in most cases have found hearing aids to be ineffective for detector use unless the person is extremely deaf, they tend to lift everything especially wind noise, birds calls human voices that type of thing which tends to drown out the Threshold. The key to detecting with hearing loss is to be able to β€˜hear’ the threshold pitch, if you can hear that in all conditions your fine. Most men have hearing loss in the higher frequency range so I usually suggest they use a lower threshold pitch. In my case in my younger days I used a threshold pitch of 60 but since my late 40’s have found a lower threshold pitch of 40 is better (I actually go as low as 20 in the right conditions especially when I’m chasing low/high deep nuggets at depth). Too low a threshold pitch (below 40) and I usually recommend headphones over speakers as the low frequency sounds tend to have a lot of competition in the natural environment. Just my 2cents JP
    5 points
  2. Made my annual deer hunting trip with my 84 year father and we did very well! Only hunted evenings this year! We also do a fair amount of property maintenance, and stand relocation during the day! Dad mostly works in a supervisory role now!🀣 I detected most mornings for a couple hours each day! I sampled several new locations which included 2 parks, 2 playgrounds, 1 baseball field, and one farm field where i have sight hunted for flint and arrowheads in the past! The ball field i found both rings about 10 feet from one another on the same pass! Both signals were iffy, but i was digging most everything anyway! The one looks to be and engagement ring! Ill have to get the stones checked! The playgrounds and parks only produced modern coins! It seems that the silver and low conductors had been cheery picked, because i found no nickels, silver, or gold there! Oldest coin was 1960 D penny! The other items were older, including lead, copper, and bronze, and iron! and a few toys that were pre 1960! The farm field produced the maddock, and some flint pieces, but no arrowheads this time around! Found some of the copper and slag items on the site of an old tobacco barn on same field! But this area was heavily covered in nails, so tough hunting! I only spent a limited time at each due to time constraints! But intend to return next season to finish them off!πŸ‘πŸ‘
    3 points
  3. I figured out, way to late in life, that I wasn't indestructible. The last time I took my commercial drivers' medical exam I nearly didn't pass because of hearing loss. The funny thing was, I realized I was more concerned about the effects on my detecting than I was about loosing my C.D.L. J.P. Would you like to have your 2 cents in cash or wired directly to you Swiss account? Thanks for the tips
    3 points
  4. At this point they missed the Christmas selling season so it does not matter much from a marketing perspective at the moment. A spring 2020 release along with other machines like the new Time Ranger Pro would be a good reason for a website revamp and a new set of 2020 literature. The website in particular is really looking dated. FT should hire me as their webmaster/social media guy - I would kill it! There are probably more moving pieces here than we are aware of.
    3 points
  5. Not a fossil in my opinion. It appears to be either a geode or a nodule of quartz that surrounded a softer material thats since eroded out of it similar to a concretion. In the second picture there appears to be banding like that of agate's and some crystal formation towards the center. A slab cut off the open face and a light polish would make the internal structure stand out and help identification.
    3 points
  6. A couple friends in Louisville invited me down to search a spring on one of their properties. Louisville (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisville,_Kentucky), being on the Ohio River, was one of the earlist settlements in the USA west of the Applalachian Mountains, founded in 1778 by Revolutionary War hero William Rogers Clark, better known as the older brother of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition which explored the Louisiana Purchase (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Purchase) at the commission of Thomas Jefferson. It's likely the spring was in existence well before Europeans arrived but how long it has been visited by humans isn't known. Of course I was hopeful of finding some very old coins and relics. There is currently a catch pool a few square meters in size. I didn't know its depth until I carefully stepped into its murky waters. Fortunately my hip waders were just high enough to keep me dry. The bottom of the pool had a hard (rock?) floor but a layer of mud and decaying organic matter was next and 30+ cm deep. I was swinging (more like probing) the Minelab Equinox 800 with both 6" and 11" coils. Once finding a target I (blindly) felt around with the Garrett Carrot. Searching the pool was difficult and besides a couple electric lights (unknown to the current owner) I surprisingly got no hits. I didn't search the entire pool as it was quite difficult to traverse the mud. I decided to move downstream to a manufactured series of steps (mini-waterfalls). In the very first one I got a 30 TID and was able to recover the metal disk shown in the photo. My first thought (make that 'hope') was that I had found a US half cent (first minted in 1793 and last in 1857). It appeared to be about the correct diameter. Those were made of pure copper which was consistent with the TID. I quickly noted how thin it was, but rationalized that was due to wear. I recall a story my uncle told me from when he was in the Army stationed in Puerto Rico in the early 1950's. He said that the silver coins circulating there at that time were Barber dimes, quarters, and half dollars and had been worn down to literally half their original thickness. I imagined half cents getting that much usage.... I could see no detail, but again, heavy wear can do that. Always skeptical, I wasn't ready to claim victory. The excitement began to fade when my friend pointed out that the edge was reeded. I was pretty sure that USA half cents and cents have never been reeded. As I later found out, reeding was implemented to discourage the unscrupulous from nipping off the edges of coins made with precious metals. Copper didn't qualify as precious. When I got home I measured the diameter (~23.9 mm) and thickness (varying between 1.2 and 1.3 mm). The diameter was just a bit large for half cents (which were minted with three different diameters over their years of production, from 22.0 mm to 23.5 mm). Weight was 3.38 grams. The lightbulb eventually turned on in my head. Equinox TID of 30, appearance of copper, ~1.25 mm thick, and especially telling: reeded edge, Can you now see the light? Here are the nominal size and weight of the pure copper core of a US clad quarter: 24.3 mm diameter, 1.17 mm thickness, 3.78 grams in weight. What still surprises me is the question: what happened to the cupro-nickel top and bottom layers? Unlike Zincolns (copper coated zinc pennies) and the 1943 zinc coated steel pennies, the cladding on modern US coins is rather thick and makes up 1/3 of the coin's weight and thickness. Then I recalled another discovery I had made this fall while hunting one of my local parks: I chose the oldest looking tree I could find (and it was definitely an old hardwood) and started hunting around its trunk. I recovered three coins in different locations but all within inches of the trunk, one a US 5 cent piece ('nickel') which was quite discolored (red) and corroded. I've always thought this was a sign of time in the ground and was hopeful it was an oldie. Imagine my disappointment when I got home and found it was from the late 1990's. How did it get so deteriorated? My hypothesis is that it's the decaying leaves which are more likely to survive (away from lawn mowers) next to the tree's trunk. Apparently the clad layers of this modern quarter had been attacked by the acid from the decaying leaves in the springs catch pool! Even moderately dilute acid can eat away metal if you give it a lot of time to soak, and that coin had spent most of its lifetime bathed in acidic water In one point-of-view, a disappointing find, but another learning experience to compensate. Postcript: I did search the land around the spring a bit and found the following advertising pocket knife with readable wording. I also show a pristine one whose photo I found on the internet. I really don't know the age but the company was in business from the late 1800's at least through the mid-1960's. My WAG is that it is from the 1940's or 50's.
    2 points
  7. 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
    2 points
  8. Kinda hard to tell what your looking at in many of the pictures. Close pictures with good focus on the area's of interest in natural lighting will help. For the ones that stand out good pics 5, 6 and 7 are iron minerals either hematite and or limonite. A streak test would help but 5 and 6 have good form and luster. The last 3 pictures are pyrites. Overall a very heavily mineralized area is on display.
    2 points
  9. No release date has been announced and it would not surprise me if they haven’t decided yet. LE.JAG will know when Fisher announces it, if he has any β€œinside” info, I am sure he will respect that it is competition sensitive information and keep it to himself - just like I would. It is coming - when - nobody who knows will say and anyone who says, doesn’t know.
    2 points
  10. That is not a rock! I believe you have found a bone of some type of animal. You could take it to either a vet to confirm what I am saying or even to a museum that might have dino bones. That is not a rock.
    2 points
  11. I have looked and looked for a link to the videos but I'm still not seeing it. Today I got an email from the author and there is a link to a very similar description but it also includes some maps. http://mojaveproject.org/dispatches-item/desert-gold-part-i/ http://mojaveproject.org/dispatches-item/desert-gold-part-ii/ http://mojaveproject.org/dispatches-item/desert-gold-part-iii/ Tax deductible donations are being sought by the project and you can read about that here: https://mojaveproject.wedid.it/
    2 points
  12. withes preferred a higher delay just because it's easier to manage and easier to calm him down impulse AQ / starts at 7us the other possibilities are there, for extreme cases EMI significantly higher than normal extreme mineralization or volcanic beach playing on sensitivity on recovery speed / SAT rejection mode it is very easy to get a perfectly smooth threshold and with a very low delay greater sensitivity on gold the TDI had a different specification multi-use detector / beach / nugget / relic silver coin search = delay 20/25 on different types of terrain impulse AQ has been developed with one goal / to be the best on a gold ring = at the beach πŸ™‚
    2 points
  13. Gold Nugget Detecting with the Minelab Equinox Metal detecting for gold nuggets is one of the most difficult detecting tasks, and learning to run a VLF detector in highly mineralized ground will challenge even the best detectorists. There is more to this subject then can be covered in a brief article but I will try and offer some tips to get people started with the Minelab EQUINOX for gold nugget detecting. Minelab Equinox with 6" coil at work gold nugget detecting Tiny nugget in scoop - the Equinox can find very small gold nuggets! The EQUINOX 800 has two modes that are not available on the EQUINOX 600 – Gold Mode 1 and Gold Mode 2. The two Gold Modes as far as I h e been able to determine are identical except for the default settings. Gold Mode 1 is set up with a default Recovery Speed of 6 and Gold Mode 2 is set up with a default Recovery Speed of 4. These modes employ a boosted audio that increases both in volume and pitch as a target is detected. This in turn accentuates the signal on tiny gold nuggets. The threshold is also different than the β€œreference threshold” employed in the other modes and is more responsive to ground changes, providing important audio feedback about changing ground conditions. The Gold Modes are similar to the threshold based all metal modes available on most VLF nugget detectors with a major difference. A target id number is displayed for strong targets and each target id number can be independently set to accept or reject. In this regard the Gold Modes are a hybrid mode with more discrimination capability than is available in normal threshold based all metal modes. Normal VLF nugget detecting relies on the operator having their ear very tuned into the threshold sound of the detector. Slight variations in the threshold tone can indicate potential targets. The threshold tone is also very sensitive to changes in the ground mineralization. This includes the so-called β€œhot rocks” which have mineralization different than the ground they reside in which makes the detector react to them as targets. The challenge is to get the detector to operate with a relatively smooth threshold as the coil is swept over the ground so that desired targets will stand out. If hot rocks are signaling with every sweep of the coil, then progress will be extremely slow if not impossible. Tuning a VLF detector to hunt nuggets starts with the theoretical most powerful settings, and then reduces those settings until the detector becomes stable. Every setting is a trade off, because making a detector more sensitive to gold also makes the detector more sensitive to mineralized ground and hot rocks. The key settings for the EQUINOX 800 in Gold Mode are: Frequency. Multi frequency is the default and the most powerful frequency setting, with 40 kHz and 20 kHz single frequency options. Multi is the most sensitive to gold, but also reacts the most to bad ground and hot rocks. The goal is to get the EQUINOX to run well in Multi but if bad ground or hot rocks make that impossible, going first to 40 kHz and then to 20 kHz will make the EQUINOX progressively less reactive to the ground and the hot rocks. Ground Balance. The default is ground tracking on. Tracking attempts to keep up with and smooth out the variations in the ground. In doing so it has a filtering effect and can possibly tune out the slight audio variations that come not just from the ground but from very small or very deep gold. Tracking off is therefore the most sensitive setting, with adjustments made via the Auto (pump) method or manually. Sensitivity. The range is 1 – 25 with a default of 20. Increasing sensitivity increases the audio response from all targets, plus the responses from things like electrical interference. Most importantly, too much sensitivity makes the ground itself into one giant target, and so if the detector refuses to ground balance properly then reducing sensitivity until a proper ground balance can be obtained is critical. The default of 20 can easily be too high for the worst ground, and settings in the mid to low teens may be necessary. Recovery Speed. The range on the EQUINOX 800 is from 1 – 8. The defaults are 6 for Gold Mode 1 and 4 for Gold Mode 2. Recovery speed as regards nugget detecting can be viewed as a smoothing filter. Higher settings act to smooth out audio responses from the ground and hot rocks. Lower settings enhance audio responses from weak gold signals, but also make hot rocks and bad ground stand out more. False signals from the coil bumping a rock also increase at lower settings. In general the EQUINOX will be easier to handle at higher Recovery Speed settings, with more careful coil control required at lower settings. Iron Bias. The range is 0 – 9 with a default of 6 in both Gold Modes. Lower settings reduce the chance of gold being identified as ferrous, while higher settings reduce the chance of ferrous items being misidentified as gold. Accept/Reject. The default is -9 through 0 rejected, 1 through 40 accepted. The discrimination range on the EQUINOX runs all the way into the ground signal, with ground signals in highly mineralized ground normally coming in at -9, -8, and possibly -7 though it depends strictly on the ground itself. Hot rocks can read almost anywhere, even in the positive number range in the mid-teens or elsewhere. Electrical interference is also likely to exhibit in the low negative number range. Any offending numbers including trash targets can be blocked directly, but the more numbers that are blocked or rejected come at a cost of slightly less signal strength on desired targets. Threshold. The range is 1 – 25 with a default of 12. This is normally set to be just loud enough to hear, but no more. Just a barely discernible tone. However, the threshold can also act as a backend filter. Once all other tuning has been completed, the threshold can be set lower until it is silent, or set higher than normal. Running silent can suppress small variations in the ground signal but also the weakest gold signals. Running the threshold higher than normal can smooth out weak variations, again with a subsequent loss on the faintest gold signals. My starting point (initial settings) for either Gold Mode are: Frequency: Multi Ground Balance: Auto (pump method) with manual tweaking Sensitivity: 20 Recovery Speed: 6 Iron Bias: 0 Accept/Reject: -9 through 40 accepted (either through the settings or by hitting the β€œHorseshoe button”) The main thing I am going to try and do is operate the EQUINOX in Gold Mode without blocking out or rejecting any target id numbers. The goal is to find settings that reduce and smooth out ground responses while reducing the signal from gold as little as possible. These two things fight each other and there are no perfect settings, but simply the best compromise possible. For some people that will mean making the machine very stable, while others may prefer hotter settings that require more audio interpretation from the operator. The first step is to find an area clear of trash, and walk a bit waving the coil over the ground. Chances are you will get lots of ground noise. Go into the settings and adjust the ground balance. This normally means pumping the coil over the ground while holding the accept/reject button (see the manual) until the ground response evens out. If the ground is highly variable with mixed hot rocks, waving the coil from side to side may work better than pumping the coil. With any luck the machine will settle right down. However, in bad ground it will not, and the solution normally will be to lower the sensitivity setting. Basically this just takes some experimentation, lowering the sensitivity and adjusting the ground balance until the detector reacts very little or not at all to being waved over the ground. If you can get the EQUINOX set to where no target id numbers are popping up at all as the coil passes over the ground but where you can still hear faint variations in the ground, you are there. Then it is simply a matter of going detecting, and digging every target that stands out above the faint ground variations present in the threshold tone. Gold can read anywhere from negative numbers all the way up into the 30’s so typical nugget detecting involves digging everything. However, most nuggets weighing under 1/10th gram will give a target id number of 1 or 2, nuggets under a gram in the single digits, and several gram nuggets reading in the teens and higher. The smallest or the deepest large nuggets will produce no target id number at all, just a variation in the threshold. In real bad ground you may have to not only reduce the sensitivity setting, but possibly even increase the recovery speed setting to 7 or 8. In ground that refuses to behave, switching to first 40 kHz and then 20 kHz will progressively detune the EQUINOX , making it easier to get a stable ground balance. Engaging ground tracking may also help smooth out the worst ground – you have to experiment. In severe ground all this may not work, with ground signals still coming in around the low negative numbers and possibly higher. Some hot rocks may read as positive numbers. This is where the EQUINOX can go to the next level. Go into the settings and reject or β€œnotch out” the worst offending target id numbers. This will usually be -9, -8, and -7 but may include even higher numbers, including positive numbers. Block as few numbers as you can. Simply rejecting the bottom three negative numbers will usually settle the machine down a lot, especially if there is any residual electrical interference being encountered. Rejecting target id numbers does come at a cost in reduced signal strength on desired targets, but you may find now that the sensitivity level can be increased from one to several points, reclaiming that lost sensitivity. In theory if you can get the EQUINOX running stable with no target id numbers rejected you have the ideal situation. However, EQUINOX allowing some offending signals to be rejected with an attendant increase in the sensitivity setting may be the better way to go. It just depends on the situation. So far we have been trying to deal with bad ground by using various detuning methods. In low mineral ground you can go the other direction. If the detector ground balances immediately with a sensitivity setting of 20, then try higher settings. You can also try reducing the recovery speed setting from 6 to 5 or 4 or even lower. Each reduction of the recovery speed setting is fairly dramatic and you will find it suddenly very hard to get and hold a decent ground balance if you go too low with the setting. In mild ground however it can add substantially to the signal strength of the weakest targets. Finally, for the worst ground and for EQUINOX 600 owners we have other alternatives. There is no reason at all why the other modes cannot be used to nugget hunt. Park 2 and Field 2 are both very hot on small targets and offer the ability to use tones while nugget hunting. Prospectors who encounter salt lakes/salt flat situations would do well to remember the Beach modes as possible last ditch settings. Either Park 2 or Field 2 can make for very good nugget hunting modes. I prefer to use Park 2 as a base because by default Field 2 blocks out or rejects the key target id numbers 1 and 2. Small gold nuggets read there, so using Park 2 makes sure somebody will not accidentally reject nuggets in that range. You can use Field 2, but beware those blocked numbers and adjust accordingly. 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) I have suggested accepting everything, and then using the two tone mode to hunt by ear. If trash is minimal then set the tone break lower than normal, so that 0 and several negative numbers read as non-ferrous. This way you can have ground signals reading as low tones (and possibly at a lower volume) and signals from gold as higher tones. Again, this works well with both EQUINOX models. To sum up, I suggest trying to use the EQUINOX 800 in the Gold Modes with no target id numbers rejected. Tune up just like any normal nugget hunting detector, and dig all decent audio signals. Some nuggets may deliver a negative number response or no number at all. A secondary method for more difficult ground is to reject or block out offending ground and hot rock signals. And a third method for both EQUINOX 800 and 600 owners involves using the Park 2 mode as a nugget hunting mode. That should give people plenty to experiment with. Nugget detecting can be very challenging, but learning to do so means you will learn how to wring every bit of performance possible out of your EQUINOX , and that can benefit you in other areas of detecting as well. Good luck! Steve Herschbach DetectorProspector.com Earlier post on same subject Gold found in Alaska by Steve with Minelab Equinox Gold found in California and Nevada with Minelab Equinox
    1 point
  14. The "holy grail" of metal detecting has been a detector that can offer VLF type discrimination to PI detector depth. Many years ago I put it as "a White's MXT that can detect as deep as a Minelab GP". I once offered $10,000 for such a detector, back when it seemed ludicrous to think detectors would ever reach such a high price. We have had a lot of progress in the last 30 years on sheer depth of detection, but really not much at all when it comes to how deep a target can be detected and identified with decent accuracy. When it comes to accurate target id at depth multi frequency units set the standard for performance in all soil types. The Fisher CZ and Minelab Sovereign both came out in 1991, and in my opinion other than refinements nothing has really changed since then when it comes down to the classic question of "how deep can you detect and correctly identify a U.S. dime?" For single frequency detectors my old Compass Gold Scanner Pro back in 1989 punched as deep on a dime as anything made today. We need some sort of real breakthrough. What this would really mean is a machine that handles and eliminates ground better to deliver depth as close to air tests as is possible while retaining good discrimination. The long rumored (since 2015) Fisher CZX promises "groundbreaking technology" in the form of a two frequency detector that is "deeper than current VLF, this detector will also see through red dirt, and highly mineralized soil." For even longer we have known about the White's Half Sine Patent that states "A new hybrid metal detector combines induction balance and pulse induction technologies. Target signals are generated from a transmitted wave that has both induction balance and pulse current inducing characteristics and uses pertinent sampling of the receive data. Combining the two data sources provides eddy current target identification while excluding ground permeability and remanence obscuration." Now, the Fisher price target was said to be in the $1000 - $2000 range. Frankly, that seems way too low for something that would knock the industry on its ear if it came to pass, but it may be we are all assuming the CZX to be more than it really is. The talk is mainly about being simple and handling bad ground well, but how well it can identify targets at depth is really not discussed. All the CZX may turn out to be is my long hoped for ergonomic detector that outperforms the White's TDI in the $1000 - $2000 price range. The Mosca machine mentioned on the same thread has different engineers involved and so these are probably two separate projects. OK, long lead in to the AKA Intronik STF as described at http://md-hunter.com/aka-intronik-stf-price-starts-from-12000-the-most-expensive-detector/ and said to be selling for $12,000.00. Another thread here states "AKA succeed working out VLF detector working 2 frequency at once. This detector sees no differance if ground is heavely mineralized or it's a non salty sand or even air, it's not being influanced by mineralisation at all. It's deep as Signum MFT but with right identification at any depth." Looks to be translated poorly from original Russian, or at least I hope that's the excuse for the butchered English! However, what the AKA Intronik is promising is a two frequency machine that ignores ground mineralization, and that sounds a lot like what the Fisher CZX is promising. The White's is a different beast but same basic result being discussed - a breakthrough in the ability to discriminate targets at depth. And in my book all that means is something clearly better than what we have, not results so close that endless videos and arguments on the internet produce no clear winners. We want something that when put up against a Fisher CZ and F75 and Minelab CTX everyone clearly agrees "this thing accurately sees a dime deeper" Many nugget hunters may be ignoring all this, but the applications for a detector that really can get the depth and identify trash better are huge. In fact, I am willing to bet many of the best finds remaining in the United States at least are in those areas that are full of so much trash that PI operators have barely put a dent in them. Clear open trash free patches have been pounded to death, but there are many places where the volume of deep nails alone continues to defeat even the most patient hunters. People are/were will to pay $8000 - $10,000 for a GPZ 7000. How much is a GPZ with discrimination worth? Quite a bit perhaps to many gold hunters. What I wonder however is what the limits are for the coin and relic hunters. My gut feeling was that the coin hunters were not as willing to spend big bucks as the gold hunters. It is easy to rationalize high price gold machines if you are the sort of person who is confident you can find enough gold to pay for your detector. The thing is I never thought the GPZ would sell very well because it as priced so high. Then I opened my eyes. There are people here in the U.S. buying GPZ detectors that have found little if any gold in the past with detectors. There are people that show up at outings with a 24 foot motor home pulling a side by side ATV behind. There are people for whom buying a $10,000 metal detector is no different than buying a high price set of golf clubs or a snowmobile or a boat. Yes, I understand many people have tight budgets, but it is also obvious many people have lots of money to throw at their pastimes and playthings. The GPZ 7000 shocked me with how many people bought them. I was honestly hoping the price would limit the numbers seen in the field for at least a year or two. The relic people seem to be the same way. There was little resistance to moving up to the GPX 5000 back east in the big relic hunts when it became obvious those machines would deliver the goods VLF detectors missed. The GPZ has not has made as much impact there simply because it is too sensitive to tiny trash so a relic hunter is normally better off with a GPX, which has more ability to deal with at least some trash. Lots of beach hunters are using GPX detectors now. And even some park hunters in the never ending quest for more depth. So I am wondering just how much more I would be willing to shell out to be the first kid on my block to have a real leg up on the competition with a machine that could make silver coins easy to find again in U.S. parks by offering better discrimination at depth. I then of course I figured I would ask you all the same question. What is the most you would shell out for such a machine if it really delivered the goods? Me, I looked at the $12,000 for the AKA Intronik and initially thought that was crazy. The more I think about it however I am not so sure - if it really worked. Sure, that would price many people right out of the thing, but oddly enough that would make others crave it even more. There is always something attractive in basic marketing 101 for people having possession of something other people can't afford. What say you forum members? Would you buy an AKA Intronik if it really performed as advertised and for such a high price? If not, what would it be worth to you? Please note - I am not saying the AKA Intronik does do what it says in any way. I truly have no idea. But if it does, what is the "right price"?
    1 point
  15. Received my Equinox 800 yesterday. Charged the detector and headphones up yesterday. Took my time putting it together and inspecting it. Rain and cold yesterday so no hunting. Today was different. Didn't even read the manual. Got it out this morning in the house and turned it on for first time. Ran a couple coins across the coil then went to tinkering a little bit. Park 1 stock except for threshold which I set to 3. FE to 3, left recovery speed at 5. notched out 39 and 40 , took the T1 volume down to 3 paired up my headphones and that was it. Took it to a place I had been one other time with my other detectors, and had really racked up with the other units there. Well.. The Equinox was doing really well today. 18 dimes, 6 quarters, 17 pennies 4 nickels, and a gold plated silver ring(my wife found that by eye!). less than 3 pulltabs dug today ( ID=14=pull tab for me). Used park 1 and nothing else. Didn't make any changes other than above. Ran sensitivity at 16-18. Some EMI was present so varied it according to that. Ground Balanced too. I did try 0 but found an actual ground balance did better. It handled that dreaded red dirt with gold specks like a boss! deepest find today was a copper penny at 8.5" down and under 3 different types of material (wood chip top, red dirt with gold specks, and sandy clay). I'm very happy with today's first outing and have no doubt I made the right choice in getting this unit. Seems I'm finally ready to appreciate all it has to offer. Gotta say the EQ600 I had earlier this year ran NOTHING like this unit. This thing is smooth and I can understand it. Almost forgot. I also had a piece of Skinomi techskin screen protector left over from when I bought it years ago for a tablet. Took a piece of paper and traced out the equinox control pod front as a template. Then I cut a piece best I could that would fit over the entire front, or most of it anyway. Managed to have just enough to cover the screen and buttons. So far that is working like a charm. Really cut down on the glare problem so many speak of. Had no trouble seeing the screen today.
    1 point
  16. Was out to a baseball field today for a couple hours. I have found another silver ring and a class ring on the same field in the past. I wanted to be on the football field, but there was a group already occupying it. I was mostly focusing on signals in the 5-19 range, but if a strong signal came in above or below those numbers, I would dig it. I can't remember the pendant's ID, but the ring was a very solid 30, almost the sound of a couple quarters that are stacked. The ring was fairly shallow as you can see from the pic with the Pro-Pointer. Park 1, recovery 7, 18 sensitivity, all metal mode on, ground balanced, and using the 15" coil.
    1 point
  17. Had a couple warm days and field was thawed, nice and muddy to stomp around in. Found this about 10" down in the muck. Has all it's detail but missing the ball inside. Think they should bring them back for the electric cars out on the road so we can hear them coming? Worked on the horses back in the day.
    1 point
  18. Radio Shack had a 9volt amp, with volume control that many used in the early PI days...coupled with the first coiltek enhancer they made great music together...I doubt you could get either one now... fred
    1 point
  19. It definitely looks like a spinal collum vertebra. If it's heavy it could be petrified.
    1 point
  20. Very cool, thanks for sharing. I am in the Mojave Desert often. Fantastic landscape with many Placer deposits. Has brought me good gold over the years. Too bad that most of Death Valley is off-limits for prospecting.
    1 point
  21. That is unusual, I have collected rocks, minerals, meteorites for a long time, I have no idea, almost a geode like formation.
    1 point
  22. Since I'm down and out with a broken ankle for a few weeks and have plenty of time on my hands. I decided to do a EX2 chest mount mod that I saw on You-Tube by IDX Monster, thank you sir for paving the way!! I have a bum shoulder that needs to be rebuilt next year, I needed to adapt my machine to extend my hunting time until then. I used a Teknetics S-rod for the stock 11" coil and a White's MX5 S-rod for the 8" coil. I'll be using a Go-Pro chesty to mount the control head and I bought a 3' extension cable to connect the control to the coil. I cut the battery housing from the handle, but, I have a more compact and lighter battery pack on the way. I ordered a 1/4" stereo headphone jack from Amazon and will run my phone cord under my shirt to keep it from getting in the way. This set-up is as light as feather to swing and I can't wait to heal up and take it on it's maiden voyage.
    1 point
  23. I believe it was back in February I made this post and have still had excellent results. The Equinox 600 easily pairs with my hearing aids and has worked well for me, I now have over 250 hours using this set up and over 2,800 coins for the year. Latency is a non issue, and it is beneficial I believe working in some environments. https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/8663-can-you-hear-me-now/
    1 point
  24. The hearing aids will not mess with the GPX 5000 in any way. In general the GPX will not mess with the hearing aids unless you get real near the coil with your head, in which case currents could be induced into the hearing aid enough to interacts with them and be heard as interference in the hearing aid. At normal distances I would expect no issues. As a side note I just got a new set of Costco KS 9.0 hearing aids (made by Phonak) that have Bluetooth that connects to my phone, plus I bought the extra transmitter box. It will be interesting to see if they will pair directly with my Equinox, and if not the transmitter box will... but how is the latency? Something for a new thread soon.
    1 point
  25. Probably similar. But you do have a certain amount of rights regarding development , use, infrastructure, roads, dwellings, water etc. Crown land can be covered by a number of different leases at the same time. Pastoral, Mineral etc. Each type of lease is covered by different acts of parliament. Basically, if crown land is covered by a lease you cannot just do as you please, you have to abide by the acts governing those leases. Some times sounds complicated but in reality it is rather simple and quite workable. Vacant crown land is open to anybody, and anyone can peg a lease upon it. However you still have to abide by the regulations in the Crown Lands act.
    1 point
  26. Congrats on that gold ring Mitchel !!! I live an hour away from the ocean and 1/2 hour from the mountains where the gold is.... and I've never hunted either. Since day 1, I've only hunted parks & lots and permissions here and there. I dug a couple of nice gold jewelry pieces but would I have a much larger gold collection if I would have spent some time at the ocean? Just way too many MD opportunities out here, not to mention the great weather.
    1 point
  27. A good find. I found one very similar in size with a ball inside it on the Vic gold fields. Never knew what it was, now I do thanks.
    1 point
  28. My wife usually throws in the "I DON'T NEED A METAL DETECTOR" to find good stuff, and she doesn't. She's constantly finding coins on the ground in parking lots, store floors, coin starr machines, you name it, she tops me everytime!! It's all good! I give her due and she gives me my space. GaryC/Oregon Coast
    1 point
  29. I usually don't get harassed until I get home.. On those rough days when you're prospecting new areas and come up with nothing to show for the long hours and wasted gas. I'll unload the truck, putting everything neatly into my messy gold equipment corner, and go to the refrigerator for a cold one. "So did you find anything?", comes an echo from our living room couch. "Not today, but it was gorgeous out", I say trying to sound positive. "Sounds like you're a LOOOOSER, today." My wife and daughter bust out laughing, and of course I bust out too because you just have to laugh about what we go through for gold. Anyways …. probably not the point of the thread, but I thought I would lighten it up. πŸ™‚
    1 point
  30. Chase-LOL I agree with you about the ORX, should have taken that statement out before I posted it. Yes I tried the zero disc mode and the signals were still choppy. Steve-I'm able to run Tom's settings at a recovery of 3 but not 2 in fairly clean ground as in not much iron trash and even at 3 it takes very controlled sweep speeds to make it work in my ground. Id is all over the place on deep targets but it is definitely deeper if you can work slowly. When I get in trash, recovery of 4 works better but still pretty amazing depth and separation is achieved. But I would have to agree that Minelab must have been looking at performance in mild ground and yea why would they undermine Equinox sales with the Vanquish.
    1 point
  31. Nah, you've just grown smarter, Norvic. I carry a small 9mm (that doesn't bother the GPZ) in case I run across people who shoot first. But if someone asked me to leave, I would avoid the trouble, as well (keeping my gun hidden) There are still plenty of other places to search.
    0 points
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