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My research starts with mining reports and articles. Internet searches and downloads which all help a lot. At the end of the day I need to get out of my chair, get in the car and have a look. Google earth images only go so far. A classic example is the Illabrook area in Victoria, Australia. Outside the Golden Triangle, outside of the packaged map books on offer. The areas has deep lead mines but also shallow alluvial flats, hill tops and gullies. My interest was focused on the Bulldog Diggings Historical Area. I don't always start off by swinging a detector, sometimes the aim is to simply satisfy my curiosity. You read about an area and you just want to walk the ground and have a look. I know from reports that the area produced nuggets measured in the ounces. The ground varied in depth from two to four feet in the shallowest areas. Large areas were surfaced and that miners were making 'fair wages'.. The Bulldog area showed a lot of surface work, heavy dirty quartz was present mixed with other indicators. Since work provided the opportunity to 'take a look' I did. I was not discouraged. Should thank the boss for the extended lunch break whilst he snoozed in the car. Pity he won't let me take my detector to work.. I will return and see what is hiding in those cracks.. Images show surface workings on the hill top and sides running into the gully. Map shows the areas examined and the Google Earth images also cover the relevant ground, the scars in the landscape clearly visible from space.. Those early miners put in a lot of hard work to alter the landscape to this extent. Hope this has been of some interest, I certainly enjoyed my lunch break. All the best.

I finally found my first gold ring and a couple of silvers too! I was using the Nox with my 6" coil in a super trashy park and found two silver rings down about 5-6 inches under the trash layer and the 14K white gold ring was mixed in with trash just under the sod layer. That was a happy day. 😉

I know- gold is always a surprise but when I'm not finding many targets it is even more so. On my last hunt targets were few and far between- even junk was hard to come by. However, I stuck with the plan and at my 4th beach I had what I would call a fluke find in a patch of wet sand where I really wasn't expecting much. The ring has been re-sized and the markings were distorted in the process. When I first found it the back was clogged with sand and the stone looked black so I thought it was an onyx. When I rinsed the sand away I was pleasantly surprised to see the beautiful green color. Other than that I only found 2 quarters, a nickel, some zinc pennies and a little trash in about 3 hours of detecting. Hopefully, there will be a couple more golden surprises before the year ends. GL&HH!

Be alert but not alarmed! I believe I will be able to prospect with a metal detector for some time. The ability of a metal detector operator to move earth or alter the landscape is somewhat limited. The areas looked at were altered by motivated men who used picks and shovels combined with sluicing. The lust for gold combined with sweat and tears has reshaped the landscape. The Bulldog Diggings are well over a hundred years old. The 'tone' of the report does not target electronic prospectors directly. Through our membership of relevant prospecting clubs and organizations we can hopefully participate in the discussions and have our voices heard and interests protected. I follow the prospecting code and always attempt to leave an area the way I found it, hopefully leaving no trace behind. There is in Victoria enough public land available for electronic prospecting to keep us all swinging along for some time. Yes, we need to keep informed and make sure our voices are heard. Interesting to note the mining methods that would be considered environmental vandalism today, the surfaced areas. Are today rightly considered of historical value and worthy of preservation.

This area is easy to miss, at 100 kph if you blink you will miss it. The grass is tall and the season warm, so I was careful about snakes. The ground on the hill and sides was best regarded as shallow, even in areas not surfaced. There was signs of wildlife with one Wallaby giving me a suspicious look. Large trees were absent with only a couple exceptions at most. Too many small areas of interest hidden away, too easy to blink and you miss them. All the best.

Mr. karelian Because I have never strayed very far from my tiny little corner of the Sierra Nevada mountains posts like yours with photos, history and personal experiences are my favorite in this forum. You Aussies might try passing the law that we have here, which is "All poisonous snakes must have an audible warning device attached to their tails".

I will now post a finding with the AQ. There are those here with the AQ who have expressed their liking of the mute mode over tone mode. I would caution you about the mute mode and the volcanic mode. On my beaches there is some iron, bobbie pins, fish hooks and tent stakes. During tourist season lots of coins and junk rings as well as gold. In this situation I prefer tone mode over all metal as the depth loss is little and more than enough for recent drops. You can tell pins and hooks as well as some stakes with a double ping and or broken signal and iron grunt. The gold always comes in as a solid high tone with the exception of those heavy high k pigs which will give a iron grunt. This is where your beach knowledge of classification comes into play. The coin grunts will be much higher up the beach than most of those heavy rings. Now for mute mode and volcanic. If you set up your detector the way Alexandre does your ATS will be between 7 1/2 & 8 1/2 with reject around 3 or 4 for maximum depth. This will give the iron grunt and solid high ping for gold. If you now change to mute mode, the detector will mute iron and ping high on gold. Same for volcanic. Now if you do an air test with say a Carabiner clip the machine will mute due to the metal spring clip. Now hold the Carabiner and any gold ring at the same time and cross the coil. The gold ring will mute in mute and volcanic. Only in tone mode will you get the high ping on gold while the iron is present. I think you could miss many golds if iron is present running in mute or volcanic. How big of iron does it take for this to occur I can not say. There are exceptions to everything. Just something to think about and you can try this at home. During the off season and out waist and chest deep I would say all metal is the way to go. Good luck everybody.

I sent the whole thing in describing two problems I thought I had. The foremost was intermittent decrease and / or complete cutoff in one earcup opposite the side where the wire attaches. The other was a positive sound / reaction when touching the outer right hand plastic housing on the pod while partially submerged in saltwater. The AQ was returned to me with a note saying "circuit replaced". I went hunting with it and the first time out after about an hour or so, the volume suddenly cut off on one side again... I was bummed.... I gently wiggled all wires and knobs, checked all connections and no difference. I then pressed in on the faulty earcup and suddenly the volume was working again. I let go and off it went. It did this several times until I could no longer fix it. At least I was relieved that the problem / source had been absolutely determined. I contacted Rick and FT and another set of headphones were quickly on there way. I have used the machine about 14 hours now in and out of the water and everything is working perfectly.

One thing I suspect has annoyed coin hunters in the USA for a long time is how close (sometimes equal) the VDI of aluminum trash is to that of the 25% Ni, 75% Cu 5 cent 'nickel' coin. I tend towards the "if in doubt, dig it out" camp but it has been mentioned (Jeff McClendon comes to mind) that minimizing digging can be a big plus in some parks where the employees and users notice and are bothered by any sign that digging has occurred. That's not much of an issue where I live, partly because our parks don't seem to get much attention when it comes to the quality/plushness of the grass/sod. But even I prefer to avoid digging aluminum as it wastes time and I've been hunting this year in an old park that is absolutely loaded with pulltabs. My Minelab Equinox coin hunting search mode has always been and continues to be Park 1. I notch out nothing and custom my 5 tone breaks at tone-1 ends at TID 5 or 6 (put the lowest non-ferrous in with ferrous), next tone ends at 11 (keep the foil, etc. below nickels), 12-13 only (nickel sweetspot), 14-19 (most pulltabs), and finally 20 and up (most coins along with some associated trash, most common being aluminum screwcaps which tend to be 21-23 but can fall outside both ends depending upon size and whether or not they've been flattened). One more point -- these settings are for locations where I don't expect anything earlier than Barber coins. If 3-cent pieces (both kinds), silver 5-cent (" half dimes"), or any gold coins are possible I would listen for and dig most everything above TID ~5 to not miss those. A couple months back I started using the User Profile option. At first I was playing around with Iron Bias (both FE and F2) settings, but decided for my sites and style it wasn't worth the possible loss of deep, iffy targets to warrant sufficient advantage of discerning crown caps or scraps of sheet metal (what some people call 'tin'). I don't know if they help with nails or not, but most nails that have been in the ground for a long time seem to grunt ferrous and I just live with (i.e. dig) those few that trick me. So after deciding to leave IB at F2=0 I then had an open 'slot' as to how to configure the User Profile. I decided (seemed to make sense...) that going with something quite a bit different than my search mode of Park 1 would be contrasting and might help identify good/bad targets. I went with Field 2, 50 tones, wide open (no notching). For the recovery speed setting I used Park 1's setting +2, so if I run Park 1 at RC=4 I set the User Profile Field 2 to RC=6. If Park 1 RC=5 I set Field 2 RC=7. (Those are the only recovery speeds I ever use in Park 1.) I typically come from two different angles of attack, especially in Field 2 which seems more sensitive to the shape/orientation of the target. (Important note: I always pinpoint and then check VDI's after that as I've noticed being off-center often doesn't give the most reliable VDI reading, and that seems especially the case in Field 2 when using this technique.) (Finally!) here's something I discerned after ~50 hours of park detecting: when I get a signal in Park 1 with TID in the {12,13} window (no 11's or 14's) then investigating further with Field 2 gave a 'tell' as to whether I was seeing aluminum or a USA nickel. If a nickel, the Field 2 TID would also be in {12,13} (although not necessarily identical to Park 1, in fact averaging a bit lower than Park 1). If Field 2 showed any 11's or lower then the target was aluminum. I never saw a case where Field 2 hitting 14 that was a nickel, either. (I did notice some crown caps which looked like nickels in Park 1 would hit 14 in Field 2.) In Park 1 most of my nickels are either solid 13 or (much more likely) a combination of 12 and 13. I have found a few that were solid 12. It's those solid 12's I'm most concerned about leading to false negatives, but since I've been experimenting with this technique I've found only one nickel that just nicked 11 in Field 2, and possibly I was off-center when I got the 11. I mean it was just a momentary tick, not repeatable. So false negatives (targets that this method says are not nickels but turn out to be) seem to be very rare. But what about false positives -- both Park 1 and Field 2 say it's a nickel (both are in {12,13} exclusively) but it ends up being something else? Those definitely happen. The most common in my sites are broken off (i.e. missing the ring) beavertails which have been folded/rolled over so that they mimic a coin in shape/extent as opposed to when they are elongated. Also this technique gets fooled by the smallest of the still intact ring-and-beavertails, particularly the ones without rivets. (See my avatar for an example. 😁) Warnings: 1) Most of the targets I've investigated with this technique were't very deep -- say 4 inches or less. If the signal indicates a deeper target, either from the volume of the Park 1 signal or the number of bars on the strength meter, I tend to dig if more than half the Park 1 VDI's are in {12,13} and nothing lower than 11 or higher than 14. Those occur infrequently enough that I just dig 'em. 2) This technique might be ground dependent. My soil is moderate so definitely not typical beach sand / Florida soil conditions but also not the difficult heavily magnetic type soils of some beaches and some Western USA locations, etc. 3) I don't know what happens if a coin is on edge. I need to test this in my back yard teststand which I'll put on my to-do list this week. That could throw a monkey wrench into things. 4) Here's a danger in this type of method. I thought I found another 'tell' with this technique -- largish iron pieces (not nails but things like pieces of can, pieces of cast iron pipe, say the size somewhere USA quarter to silver dollar size, but deep) could be distinguished. I found such a target which read VDI in the high 30's in Park 1 but dropped to the teens in Field 2. If I could eliminate those, that would save digging a large, deep holes (and the time involved). Then yesterday I got a similar signal (this time varying mid-20's to mid-30's in Park 1 and teens in Field 2) and decided to confirm my 'discovery', expecting a moderate piece of iron. It was an early Wheat cent (TID low 20's out of the hole)!! So how many good targets like that have I missed since "figuring out" that Park 1 high and Field 2 teens meant deep iron so don't dig?? My oversight is that I should have investigated this particular (uncommon) situation much more before reaching the conclusion that it was a good discrimination technique. Oh, we learn from our mistakes but I'd still rather not make them....

I have had people doubt some of my finds before and I actually feel sorry for them. If they don't believe that something is possible it is unlikely that they will ever have that kind of success. I don't even mention that there are many hunters out there that do better than me.

Marcasite.

Out of the 30+ years of detecting under my belt, I have never really gone out on a hunt at a park and told myself I was gonna just concentrate on finding nickels and other possible lower conductors (gold). Sometimes, while at home, I think about how a day will come soon enough where I hunt that will “force” me to have to concentrate more on deeper low conductors because there will be a lack of deep, higher conductors to make my drive/trip worth my efforts. Maybe I think about it because I’m dreading that day (I hope it never comes)....Our parks, like most heavily populated, older inner city parks, are just loaded with low conductive trash, so “angling for nickels”, or even gold is an arduous task, that will cause one to repeatedly empty out their trash pouches at the nearest trash can!! I’m an old coin/artifacts hunter, and dig most every deep target >= 20 ID at depth, in addition to any ID >= 27 at any depth. I will concentrate on solid sounding 12-13 ID deeper conductors from time to time (only when the lack of deep high tone targets gets too few and far between for the area I’m detecting. I’m a very patient hunter (gotta have that trait to be a successful old coin hunter), knowing very well that the older sites are not easily hunted out, so I spend a great deal of time hunting at snail pace, spots I have found “oldies” at countless times over the years.......and still find them with my Nox. 💪🏼👍🏼 Because I prefer to hunt for deep high conductive targets (Indian pennies, wheats, silver, etc), I prefer hunting in Park 1 or Field 1 on my Nox. If I wanted to concentrate on low conductors, including nickels, I’d probably hunt in Park 2 or Field 2. Park or Field 1 gives better, more accurate ID’s for higher conductors than Park/Field 2 does. What I really like about the Nox in Park/Field 1 is that a super deep high conductor will ID higher than it typically would at a shallower depth. For instance, a wheat penny at 8+ inches will typically ID at a higher value (sometimes in the mid to upper 30’s), as opposed to where it typically ID’s at 24-25 at shallower depths. Similarly, I have dug numerous silver dimes that have ID’d way above a typical US Quarter signal, even as high as 39....it’s this up-converting of the ID for lower frequency weighted Park/Field 1 modes that will never allow me to pass up those targets (since I stated above I never pass up ID’s above 19 in deeper strata). I can’t think of an instance I will be hunting in Park/Field 2, for my hunting preferences......unless maybe that day will come where I’m only gonna angle for low conductors such as gold and US nickels. The Nox 800 has been a “BIG” upgrade to my Explorer SE Pro.....I’m finding numerous old coins from areas I had stopped hunting with my Explorer....just the other day, I managed to have a 13 silver coin, 27 wheats day (6 hr hunt) at a park I pretty much gave up on with my Explorer. Many of these targets were in higher mineralized(noisy) ground, with depths the length of my propointer.....this wasn’t an isolated instance with my Nox either....this machine has re-opened up many local sites for me since I purchased it this past June. Some may be asking, how can this be possible? Aren’t the FBS Minelab machines supposed to be superior to the new, Multi-IQ technology in the Nox, with regards to deeper higher conductive targets? ( I remember even Minelab stating this two years ago when the Equinox first came out). Had Minelab openly stated 2 years ago that this multi-IQ technology was superior to FBS with respect to “deep high conductors” , I probably would have pre-ordered a Nox before they hit the market.....I was “a holdout”......I waited to buy this machine, and really only purchased it because I was getting older (and more achy) and wanted to swing a lighter machine...I also had a buddy that purchased one early this year, and his finds from areas I hunted started to impress me. Since purchasing my Nox, I have been so impressed at the depth of the machine along with it’s ability to hit the tiniest of deep high conductive targets...I have found so many “pieces” of chopped wheat pennies and silver coins at depth (yes, lawn-mower clipped old coins) with the Nox, along with tiny copper/silver charms....Sure I found plenty of chopped old coinage with my Explorer, but it has been much more frequent with my Nox. I’ll be honest, many of the very deep targets, are not your typical “dig me, I’m an oldie” signal....they are very obscure signals, but I guess with all the years of hunting I had with my Explorer, it has helped me to hone in on these obscured, iffy sounding targets better....when I say “Iffy”, I mean the target that can’t be easily construed that one has a bonafide signal under one’s coil....with signals like this, one has to caress or coax the signal by wiggling your coil back and forth at just the right cadence to even get it to repeat enough so one can hear it....wiggle too fast or slow, and you won’t hear a beep/chirp, and that’s with hunting in all-metal, which I always hunt with my Nox.....so the deepest signals are not blanking because there’s a co-located target (i.e. iron) with it that I’ve notched out...these targets are just at the upper limit of detection with the mix of settings I’m using along with the ground I’m hunting at.

I absolutely love the extra ground coverage it gives me. Still playing with the settings, today it was running smooth at 18 sensitivity/4 recovery speed underwater and 23 sensitivity/4 recovery speed in the wet sand. After scoring 3 .925 peices doing up and downs on the shore line (found a rusty screw line not a coin line lol), I decided to continue them into the water. Low tide was half an hour away and dawn was slowly approaching. About 10 feet in, on my first line into the water, BAM! Solid 9, 2-4 inches down. The excitement start flowing through my veins. First scoop, Cartier platinum ring. 🤑 Gotta love that Fresh Drop Factor.

Thanks. You give that GOOD luck! Here's another platinum ring with diamonds i got on my next outing!!

Hi all. I'm new to this site as well as detecting. I waited my whole life to do this after retirement. However, It took me 8 years to figure out how to actually be retired, but spring of 2020 turned the page. First book I found while out browsing mining supplies was "The Nugget Shooter's Field Guide" by Reese Townes. Excellent book, well written and illustrated. I contacted the author via his website just to say thanks. To my pleasant surprise, about ten minutes after submitting, my phone rang and it was Reese. I had 90 minutes of some of the most information filled dialogue I've had in a long time. If this initial exposure is any indication of the camaraderie to be found amongst prospectors...well, this is going to be fun! Reese also mentioned he'll be giving a field class sometime in 2021. Sign me up, I'm all in. I plan to do some travelling and camping in different areas this coming year. (just joined GPAA) I look forward to meeting some new acquaintances out in the field. Be well, all. Paul - Montana

I enjoyed your posts.I know your results are believable because if you are a good hunter and you are in a good spot the gold can pile up.

I've found the ability "hone in" on the signal as Raphis describes is what separates the Nox from it's older FBS cousins that just don't have the recovery speed ability to do this. It takes some practice and in fact I have to "re awake" my muscle memory in doing this technique if some time has elapsed between hunts, but this target interrogation technique has paid off for me in terms of being able to extract deep keepers, especially at junky (both ferrous and non-ferrous junk) sites.

I have posted just a few pics of some finds. Only because others have and I thought it was fair. But it doesn't bother me if I'm doubted on pics or what I say on forums. I believe your streaks because I have them too. That's all that matters. In person though it's a bit different with some friends. I hunt more than them therefore I usually find more. But I have detected a bit of animosity at times. So now I toned it down some. One thing is i have never showed or talked about ALL my finds , never will. About the AQ. I feel the same. Probably best to wait it out for the machine to be perfected. But at the same time , why ? I do pretty good with my PI. After all that's what the AQ is anyway. So maybe it goes a few inches deeper , idk. Is that truly worth it , IF the gold isn't there anyway ? I don't hunt bays or inner tidal zones enough. As you know Compass , when we talk "sanded in" , it's not measured in a few inches. Sanded in here to me and my buddies is measured in FEET !!! Last big storm a month ago had some massive 8' vertical cuts. A little over a week later , same areas have 8-12' of sand. Very few targets now and NO machine is gonna hit it. It's just being lucky finding a piece that hasn't fully sunk yet. But as of now I'm not willing to drop $2-3k on another detector with accessories to hunt the dry. HH !

Great post, Raphis! It's these kinds of details I wish more people would express. Multiple things you said (I just quoted the sweetspot) are news to me while some confirmed what I've noticed but wasn't 100% convinced from my own observations. To find these whispers, how slow do you hunt? Can you give an estimate of how much ground you cover in an hour? I've always strongly suspected (many would say 'known' but I'm not that overconfident) that in every place I've searched there are still good targets remaining, either deeper than I've been sensitive to (and here 'sensitive' refers to the overall package of the detector and me) or masked. In both cases are there things I could do (different settings, different swing speeds, different angle of attack) to squeeze out an indication that I should dig? I'm sure the answer is 'yes' and although it won't get all of the remaining goodies it will get some. But I have to do the right things to accomplish that. I've read so many talk about VID consistency of signals, good signals from different angles of attack, no associated iron grunts, etc. as requirements to dig. Sure, sometimes I get all that, but so did most of the detectorists who hunted the same location, they just missed getting their coil over a few and those are the easy ones for me. But what about the difficult ones you describe? You answered that. There's nothing 'pure' about the signals you get from those, just hints. I got a silver quarter (only my second in 5 years of detecting) a few weeks ago and it gave me nothing I expected (VID, consistency, pinpointability,...). It wasn't even that deep (5-6 inches) although I'm pretty sure it was on edge. When I switched over to Field 2 (recovery speed 7) it was nothing anyone (well, I can't say that anymore after reading your post 😁) would dig. I think I had even covered this spot previously but I'm not sure. Chances are multiple other detectorists had their coils over it. I'm starting to understand why you've been so successful at pulling out so many coins even at the end of the 2nd decade of the new millenium. I wish you could come detect my parks and schools. I want to see what you would find and how you'd do it. It would be worth it to me to have you clean out (relative term even for you) half of my locations just to be able to learn how I can harvest the other half.

I can understand that reason myself, as I hate rush hour in large cities. Here in the country area all we have to worry about is trains, farm equipment on the highways, and grandmothers on Sundays.

You might find this link worth reading and what you are up against. Some good history and photos in the article. .....LINK.....

The Whites Hi-Q coil is an elliptical dual field, not the same design as any of the Miner Johns offerings. The Hi-Q's are similar to the Round Whites Dual Field coils only elongated. Reg Sniff helped in the design perimeters for the production of the Miner John coils as well as many upgrades on the TDI platform. Reg worked with Luke Lindsay from down-under to make ongoing improvements to the TDI Pro platform and Luke is a big proponent of the Miner John coils. Independently Karelian did some good testing on a rather extensive number of coils. His test results favored the Nuggetfinder Advantage 8X6 Sadie coil over a wide variety of targets. Nenad Lonic (Phase Tech) has done comparative tests with coils on the TDI and of the offerings currently available for gold nuggets his leanings are to the Nuggetfinder EVO series coils, the 12 round, 12X8, and the 14X9. Your mileage may vary according to the targets you're seeking and the ground you are covering. Note the EVO series are flat wound and do not detect on edge to aid in pinpointing. For a first coil I'd recommend the NF Sadie.

Nice looking ring! I went to the beach once and the first target I dug was a gold ring. I thought ... Here we go!! After 3 hours I had one gold ring and one penny. You just never know.

Japan is looking for its precious cargo taken from an asteroid. “The capsule carrying samples entered the atmosphere just before 2.30am Japan time (5.30pm GMT), creating a shooting-star-like fireball. It landed in the southern Australian desert, where it will be recovered from an area spanning some 100sq km, with search crews guided by beacons emitted as the capsule descended. People who gathered to watch the capsule’s separation at public viewing events across Japan cheered the success. “I’m really glad that the capsule has been successfully released. My heart was beating fast when I was watching,” said Ichiro Ryoko, a 60-year-old computer engineer who watched at Tokyo Dome.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/05/japans-hayabusa2-sends-capsule-carrying-asteroid-samples-towards-earth

Looking for advice on a small elliptical coil purchase for a TDI Pro. As someone pointed out in the Classified section Serious Detecting is having a clearance sale. Looking at the Coiltek 10 x 5 Joey Mono, and the Whites 7.5 x 12 TDI HI-Q Dual Field. See lots of good reviews for the Joey, but not much is posted on the HI-Q. I guess that initially the HI-Q was only available as part of a TDI-SL package and some were hoping that it would be available separately in the future. It appears that when it became available on its own that it was possibly misleadingly labeled as for MX series detectors, and I was wondering if that is why you don't find much feedback specifically on that coil. Any feedback on either or both would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Bill

15.8g

Think a cheaper, simpler, waterproof or at least highly water resistant Equinox 300 based on the Vanquish 340 platform. Others have already mentioned the RNB pack option on the batteries which I think is ~$60 or so. Check out Sea Ghost on Facebook, You Tube, Instagram, etc. He makes boxes housings for various ML products, including the Vanquish. I think this guy has the right idea of what I would like to see.

Well we were there for three days and returned with a nice collection of small geodes and thundereggs I have yet to cut open. It is a really interesting area with numerous extinct volcanic plugs and basalt flows. We also went closer to Blythe north of Palo Verde, where a deposit of rounded and polished river cobbles were left by a once untamed and ancient Colorado River as it meandered through the area. The river formed miles of benches and desert pavement terraces with these pebbles, of which were from many different sources along the river’s course. We found colorful jasper and quartzite pebbles, along with quartz, opalite and even petrified wood pebbles. I swung a detector here only briefly, hoping to find a pebble with a hint of gold in it too... maybe one day! This trip would make a great outing weekend for anyone in So. Cal and SW Arizona. The geode beds are remote, so bring the typical supplies. 2wd is good enough for both areas mentioned, and Hauser and the Wiley Well area does have some trails that also require 4wd, but you can get to almost all of the good places there to dig with just 2wd and even with standard clearance. The pebble terrace has a new paved road through it not mentioned even in the most recent online guides, so access is now very easy. Just take the new road that leads north from the I-10 frontage road to the solar field a mile or so west of the Palo Verde airport. Both the Wiley Well area and the more remote areas of the pebble terrace are on BLM land, so remote camping is available. There are some private property parcels at both places, so use good judgment where you go to collect and camp there. Feel free to PM me or post here if you want more details.

You will feel naked when you switch back to the standard coil!. Tim

"One I felt like a braggart since only two at first were posting finds," Even though I don't have the AQ yet I have felt this way at times. This summer I was on a hot streak finding gold 4 days in a row with the best find on that 4th day. I never posted that ring, in part, because it just seemed too much to believe. It was even hard for me to believe my luck that week. As far as the AQ goes, I had the chance to get one but decided to wait. It was a tough decision and I even wonder from time to time as to whether or not I made a mistake. I mean, I wanted one of these for years. I still do, but to be honest, I wonder if the AQ Limited would really be that much better than what I am using now, the TDI Beachhunter with which I am having a great year with. On top of that, it does seem like there have been a few problems that warranted people having to send their machines back for repair. Granted, it does sound like the response from Fisher has been prompt and thorough but perhaps the next generation of AQ will be even more reliable.

Not sure if they are waiting for legal papers to finalize like any trademarks, patents etc but all that might be slower than usual from the pandemic. They may also have to sort out supply chains too, if I remember correct didn't Whites have trouble getting supplies? Be nice to see some the models start rolling out.

If you can't find a NF Sadie or Coiltek Joey (that price from Serious Detecting $106, was absolutely crazy, no wonder it's sold out!!!!) Serious Detecting is also selling the Detech 6" and 8" monoloops for around $200. That is a great price for two excellent, very sensitive and lightweight coils. At least on the TDI SL, I was never particularly impressed with any Miner John or Razorback small or medium sized coils. The NF Sadie kicked their butts in all of my testing on smaller gold and for sensitivity in general. If you aren't prospecting those coils might be fine.

Thanks VL, I wanted to stay at least until low tide and also avoid rush hour traffic!

Thanks o.g., Yes, that happens but gold early in the hunt sure makes the rest of the hunt more enjoyable.

Beautiful find for sure, glad to see you didn't give up on the hunt. Good luck on your next outing!

If the metal makes a sound... I'm digging it from the ground!!

Let me know ahead of time so I don’t follow you down the beach Bob. Right now I’m hoping you are getting the trash out of my way before you totally learn it lol.

Just checked and, Yep, sold out. Snooze ya lose! Hope you all now tell me it wasn't that good . Open to other coil purchase suggestions as well. On a side note, I have a line on a Razorback 'Piglet' coil, 5x3. Any feedback on that coil would also be appreciated. Cheers

Thanks GB. I had read all of the HI-Q threads, but really didn't find good feedback on how it performed, mostly speculation, folded, dual field, what makes it HI-Q, would it be available separately? Haven't found a good discussion of the net on performance. If the Joey is sold out, I would still like to hear feedback from anyone who has used the HI-Q. Seems like Serious Detecting is the only dealer that has it in stock. Thanks

Got out yesterday to a beach with the AQ and the GPX for about a 6 hour hunt. A bit breezy, but generally nice conditions. I used the Fisher AQ for about 4 hours and the Minelab GPX 5000 for the last 2 hours. The beach had exposed rocks, but unfortunately not the deep ones. I think the ocean pulled them from the top of the beach. I could tell the area was hit for low conductors, since they were hard to find, compared to the high conductors. Not a bad day, as I found a silver bracelet, 2 war nickels, a .925 heart ring and possibly a silver, very tiny ring. The usual clad was found along with a very unusual quantity of Canadian coins - 20 in all. At first I thought they were recent drops, but some were rather green. So now I'm thinking that someone had a roll of pennies and they were buried in the upper banks. The ocean is slowly eroding the banks, so I'm thinking that's where they came from. The newest penny was 1967, and the rest ranged from the 40's to 1964. I wish I had found that area earlier, as it was almost time to get going home. No gold, and no bling jewelry, lots of junk, but some decent silver. That's more than I expected with all the detectorists that live in that area. Was nice to get out and hunt again.

I can understand reason two but reason one is ridiculous. You should never let those thoughts stop you from posting your finds. If you do well, we want to see it.

Ryan, If you get some plastic tubing, I think it is about 3/8 “in diameter in old language I think, then cut of enough to go right around the coil. Then carefully lay it flat and mark the inside curve in the centre and cut along that line for the hole length. If you then open it up and fit it around the rim of the coil and cut it so the two ends just meet. Use a small hole punch to put two holes in each end and use couple of small plastic ties to pull the two ends together. I have never had to replace a coil cover, usually the area of the cover which becomes worn and damaged is the edge. This treatment prevents this damage. Regards John

I'm hunting a semi private park on the lake, the swimming isn't concentrated in one spot but spread out over a 2-3 block long area. The lake level is raised and lowered every year. Right now the water is down 10-15 feet which has exposed 80-100 of beach. The jewelry is spread out from the old beach line to the water and from one end to the other. There are 3 of these types of parks and the conditions are the same. So far this year, I'm the only one hunting it and have done pretty good. I'm just convinced there are some gold chains and earrings waiting to fill my pouch lol.Here's a picture of a couple spots with some of the finds.

Sorry Joe, just realized I skipped this one. The name comes from a roleplaying game I played as a kid. I adopted it as a handle then, as it seemed appropriate (The glasswalkers were an ancient tribe which adopted modern technology and were outcast for it because it was contrary to the ways of nature followed by the other tribes, while they tried to find a balance between the natural world, and the technological one). At the time I was a nerd, into Science, and Tech, and Computers, etc... And had trouble fitting in. So I thought it was an appropriate moniker to choose for myself, as I also had hobbies that involved outdoors, camping, hiking, fishing, (and metal detecting at the time!). So I balanced the natural world and technological one as well... I held onto it from a pretty young age, and while I am no longer socially awkward, or have trouble fitting in, the name's stuck for several decades, so now it's permanent 🙂

Ben had a fair size house that overlooked the Beehive that you can’t see from Rich Hill side . Below that house was a valley the he plowed up with a dozer . Then he and his wife hunted it with metal detectors. At one time I had pictures of them doing that. Chuck

Hi, this collector web page looks pretty good, and has about mid-way down what looks to be your example in pieces to show the manufacture. http://hglanham.tripod.com/metalinsignia/collardisk1.html . 1937-1943 seems to be the rough date. A similar issue (the fixing method) occurs with British army badges. Many changed over time from a simple start point, and some were adapted from day 1 because nobody had thought the design through - so the fixings can be a nightmare to put a date to. Interesting is that over here 1942 saw us go into 'wartime economy' production of brown plastic army badges because of the shortage of brass.

Those guys knew each other so there is more to this than the police are going to release. If it wasn't a 6 hour drive I would be up there more often. I know plenty of people that camp up there for weeks and never had an issue.

Well done. Lots of swings and time eventually pays off. Mitchel

Teknetiks G2 -its designed as a gold detector - so in Mode Discrimination mode is its ground filter built to be very resistant to mineralization and good identification-ID and excellent stability ..... It's a high Ground filter .. - therefore has a limited detection depth ... The only possibility to improve the depth properties of the ground filter at Teknetics G2 ... is to use a large coil ...in my case 13 DD"ultimate...