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Showing content with the highest reputation on 12/11/2020 in all areas

  1. Vanursepaul recently posted in a thread somewhere a picture of a pair of thongs he had. I posted some remark about how they looked ideal for out here as the Double Gees nail regular thongs to your feet and asked what brand they were. He replied how they were not off the shelf and he had them made...most likely at some expense. Low and behold this morning I find a private message asking for my size and mailing address as he was going to get a pair made and send them to me. I've declined (hopefully politely) as I've ran with his idea and will make a set myself. I just wanted to acknowledge the calibre of a bloke who would make such a generous offer to a complete stranger on the other side of the world. Thankyou sincerely Paul for the very kind and generous offer. Cheers, Steve
    10 points
  2. Given the high value of these books I think it is wise to preserve an individual digital copy. Keep it on you phone or Ipad and the original safe at home. Personal use only, not for sale or distribution. Ok it is not a rare manuscript or rare hand written bible, but Larry Sallee's book may possibly be even harder to get. Took me years to find a copy that the seller was prepared to ship over to Australia. I've read mine over and over again. Highly recommended regardless of what machine you swing. Electronic prospecting requires a broad skill set and I found reading books on the subject very informative. Partnering up with more experienced prospectors is the best way, but reading sure does help. All the best.
    6 points
  3. This was my first multiple gold day since my 7 gold ring day in July. Both the earring and cross are 10K. The cross has 120 small diamonds on it. Sure makes it shinny in the sunlight. The bracelet is SS and is a 2020 Graduation bracelet. Other earring is a junker. I used my Equinox today. Impulse AQ has been sent back to First Texas again. ☹️
    6 points
  4. Went back to the same place where I found the AQ's first gold earring. Targets were few and far between. Found the tiny 14K, .6 gram, size 3 1/2 ring. Delay was 8.5 and ATS 1. Bob
    4 points
  5. Quick video of a recent trip that had a long list of sites to check out, and wouldn't you know it an old back pocket site of mine turned out to be the best of all.
    4 points
  6. Exciting Dig!😆Cheers from 16f Idaho! Ig
    4 points
  7. Excellent point, and one Steve H. has made so many times that I think he got tired of saying it and just bows out on the topic. I do think native gold detectorists in particular are especially sensitive to this. They typically have to deal with such different ground conditions (even widely varying on a local scale) that they tune their detectors for the site every time out, and sometimes even in the middle of a hunt. Many carry nuggets or pseudo-nuggets (small lead) with them and start the day by putting those in the ground at varying depths, tuning the detector to maximize their signals. The key, IMO, is to know what the different settings mean and how that affects performance. For the Minelab Equinox, the key settings are choice of modes followed by Recovery Speed and Iron Bias. Even selection of single frequency vs. multifrequency and which single frequency to choose can apparently squeeze out some targets that might otherwise be missed on occasion. Secondarily (for the 800 model), setting # of tones, tone breaks, tone volumes, and tone pitches help one's brain focus in on the targets of interest. (Notching has similar effect, and most modern detectors have some level of that.) So, yes, tune your detector for your site conditions. A good mantra that unfortunately many of us (myself included) too often forget to apply. P.S. I failed to mention Noise Cancelling and Ground Balance adjustment in my 'keys'. I guess those are so second nature to me, and they typically tell you when they are set incorrectly. But according to some knowledgeable detectorists, sometimes they can remain silent and still not be in their best positions, leading to suboptimal performance. Simultaneous Multifrequency detectors (at least the ML Eqx) use the multiple frequencies to effect a ground balance which is why the Eqx manual downplays the need to go through a ground balancing procedure. But there is evidence that taking the extra step helps.
    4 points
  8. Alas its not as easy as picking other folks brains on what settings to use,what settings works for someone will not necessary work for anyone one else.How a machine is setup across the pond for the local coinage and conditions in your specific location can be totally different to how we setup a machine here in the UK. Things like ground conditions,metal used in the coins and coins size ie for the most part in the US the coinage is milled and to a certain extent a consistent standard in the metal/s used so you can be pretty certain of the consistency but here in the UK for many 100s of years the coinage was hammered and not milled and the size although pretty standard for each specific coin/s the purity of the gold and silver can vary by a massive margin and is basically dictated by how the economy was doing at the the time if it was going through a lean time then the silver quality could be reduced by a fair amount and i guess gold could also be as well but not to the extent of silver coinage and other silver artefacts. Also another factor and a major one as well is what is the ground conditions and also are the soil condition pretty clean or is alot of trash due to human habitation around the detecting site,if its a trashy site then one would not use the stock or large coil so this then could also means possibly using the smaller coil and then you would also need to adjust settings accordingly. In detecting no one set of settings do it all,you can also get a high amount of different suggested setting that folks could post up but non may work as we dont have the full knowledge of your condition.
    4 points
  9. Given that the latest crop of detectors can be updated with new features simply by downloading software updates, how long will it be until manufacturers offer a cheap base model with pay as you go additional features and capabilities. Want more tone options, prospecting ability, custom frequencies, simply pay a small fee and download to your detector. On the same token have to ability to remove unused or unwanted features to de-clutter your detector, and with the ability to load them up again at a later date as needed. This would give the ability for a beginner to grow with their simplified base detector, adding new features as experience is gained and as budget allows, whilst still maintaining a budget initial purchase price. We also often talk about detectors being too overwhelming or complicated to learn for newcomers, so sometimes less is more. The downside for manufacturers is that it would do away with multiple models of detectors, often earmarked by minimal incremental changes to justify producing a new or improved detector. Good for the consumer, maybe not so much for profit margins. In a way it is already happening with detectors like the XP Deus, with constant updates to extend the lifespan of the platform, though hardly a budget detector and the updates are actually free. Any extra costs/profits are made via accessory coils and other add-ons like pinpointers vs charging for added features alone (some new features necessitate the purchase of new accessory coils to be activated). You do have to appreciate that the Deus's lifespan amazingly started out in 2009, proof that a single platform can last the test of time and still be relevant even today. Imagine a base version of an improved Simplex with added hardware/software ability to run multi-frequency and/or individual frequencies, then being able to unlock MF ability down the track as budget allows. It is not always the case the one can afford the initial cost of a fully loaded detector out of the box, nor want to purchase multiple detectors to gain added features and performance. Silly idea or does it have some merit?
    3 points
  10. A problem software vendors (in general) had in the past with charging for upgrades is that someone would buy a copy/license and then pass it around to friends/coworkers. Even when there was a built in limit on the number of times the software upgrade could be used, eventually someone would hack into it, removing the valuable upgrade parts and posting them on the internet. I don't know if the software security designers were ever able to close these loopholes. Given how often metal detector hardware and software is pirated/counterfeited now, my guess is that the manufacturers aren't keen on creating one more seemingly profitable path only to have it stolen and then need to involve lawyers and courts. As it is now, a certain (significant) percentage of metal detector sales comes from units that hardly get used ('closet queens'). And if you're not sure which model in a particular line (e.g. Minelab Vanquish) is best for you, many will choose to get the most expensive one from the start. Those who buy low at the beginning may end up 'upgrading' to a higher end model, effectively buying two detectors. The manufacturers have us trained! Bottom line opinion is that I think your idea works, just not profitably.
    3 points
  11. oneguy - I'd come out west for silver dollars as well. Most of the guys I know and hunt with have found one or more silvers dollars. More than a few have found a gold coin and couple - more than one. In speaking to my parents and grandparents prior to their passing - silver dollars were in very common usage here in the UTAH area. My grandfather owned a bowling alley and ice cream business. Both very popular. The till was emptied and frequent trips to the bank made with a big heavy bag containing the silver dollars (and other silver). My mom was one of those that had to haul it to the bank. Large transactions of silver dollars would be awkward due to weight, but my parents and their parents all had coin purses or pouches for the silver and other coins. It is common to find coin purse hardware (the frame for the working / opening end that has the snap) while out hunting the ghost towns and such. But I've yet to turn up the hardware and the silver / coins from a lost coin purse. When I was young in the 60's, the little rubberize squeeze coin pouches were popular with the kids for lunch money. But those faded out in 70's and change was eventually just kept in the pocket and bills in the wallet. Many women still have small purses kept inside their larger purse for coins, bills, earrings, credit cards and such. Here's hoping there are plenty more silver dollars and gold coins for us to find. Rich
    3 points
  12. I agree big silver does weigh a good bit. I can't imagine carrying around $40-50 of silver in my pocket today. I'm completely ok if somebody back in the day swapped those heavy silver dollars out for a few gold coins and then managed to lose, misplace or stash them. I could do with finding another gold coin or more. When you see that reeded edge 🙂 ! Back to the original post - a big congrats to Cal Cobra for taking the time to put together the video. Glad to see Tom out putting the Deus through the paces in a ghost town. Interested if he's going to keep at it or retreat back to the Explorer 2 or maybe go another route. The Deus and 800 are my go to machines. I've used and had success with both in the ghost towns. Rich -
    3 points
  13. I agree that over the entire country they weren't popular. The 'Wild West' contained a different breed in the 19th Century and apparently that carried over into the 20th Century. (See Tom_in_CA's post.) Want to find gold coins? Are you better off searching in the Eastern USA or the Western USA? Back then the population in the East completely dwarfed the West. Now California is the most populous state and many Western cities like Seattle, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver, Dallas Fort Worth, Houston, Austin,... are among the largest, and I didn't mention a single California city. If I want to find old paper money I'll stick to East of the Mississippi. If I want to maximize my chances of finding gold coins and silver dollars I'm headed West (after the pandemic's over, so you Western USA guys have several more months before you're threatened ).
    3 points
  14. (Annual Christmas Poetry) Santa’s Fate One winter’s day, in ’82, Well, things were lookin’ mighty blue, Cause Santa’s sleigh was runnin’ late, And this produced an awful state. The kids was feelin’ mighty down. ‘Cause Santa might not get to town! An avalanche had closed the way To block their local Christmas sleigh. Now Santa’s name was Honest John, A muleskinner off and on, He cussed and chewed, he liked his booze And in a brawl, he was bad news. So, not your average Santa, no. But Christmas set John’s heart aglow That he could freight the gifts and toys To all those little girls and boys. His mules he’d garb in greens and reds, With antlers mounted on their heads, Then off they’d scoot to meet the train Down far below, out on the plain. So once again they did the same, But Fate had run a crooked game And choked the pass with tons of snow. So, Honest John was stuck below. A telegram he quickly sent, And this is how the message went: “Just meet me at the closest spot Where all that snow just ain’t quite got.” The folks was stumped just how to go Through all the piled up winter snow. Why, snowshoes might just do the trick To meet their hometown Old Saint Nick! The Sheriff rounded up a crew Of miners, ranchers, gamblers too With packs and bags they quickly went. This telegram to John they sent: “We’ll get to you just at that spot Where all that snow just ain’t quite got.” This news was something mighty big! So John, he danced a merry jig To know the good he done each year To fill that town with Christmas cheer Would once again get carried out, On Christmas Eve, without a doubt. Well, Honest John, he met that crew And filled their bags and packs up too. He turned his mules out far below Then snowshoed off across the snow. ******************************* On Christmas morn, the kids they found, With wondrous feelings quite profound, Their toys and goodies 'round the tree Just like the way things used to be. But Honest John was fast asleep. His promises that he did keep Had left him tuckered, plumb worn thin. Yet on his face, a peaceful grin. All the best, and a Merry Christmas to all, Lanny
    3 points
  15. I have heard that There were certain states, like Montana, Idaho, and Nevada, where silver dollars (albeit common date morgans and peace dollars, etc...) circulated up till the early 1960s. Something to do with the reluctance to accept paper dollars. Or that these were silver mining states, which sought to bolster the silver mining industry. Or that the slot machines still accepted silver dollars. Or something like that. Hence Cal-Cobra's silver dollar is nothing but a 1940s/50s loss, and thus .... We can all take back the high -5's and atteboys. Ok ? 😉
    3 points
  16. I'm betting that most of you detectorists have found a large number tobacco tags, just as I have. Up here the most prevalent tags are "stars", but from time to time others pop up as well. As a Museum manager I get almost as excited with a tag as a nugget. So, I started a collection of this chewing tobacco advertisement. Most 19th century miners smoked either a pipe, a cigar or chewed. I liked to hear from you guysabout your tag finds, if you care to. I've attached some examples and an ad from the 1890's. Oh, and a little poem from the era: When weary I are, I smokes my cigar. And as the smoke rises, Up into my eyes, I thinks of my true love And Oh, How I sighes!
    2 points
  17. I found a prospecting entry today from the summer of 1997 that I’d like to post: “Most of the prospecting I get to do is in the summer (up here in Canada) because that's when things thaw enough to get out and root around. Well, one summer in the Omineca region of British Columbia, I was working with some miners who were stripping a large placer cut in an area that had historically produced coarse gold in quantity. They got down to bedrock and as they worked the excavation of the pit, the gold got better and better as they worked from the front (south) to the back (north) of the pit. When things got real interesting (that is when nice nuggets and coarse gold were turning up in the sluice) they hit a massive series of what the local miners called drift mines (they described drift mining as tunneling from a lower elevation in relation to the pay-layer to allow for drainage from seepage). Once the old-timers hit the pay-layer, they worked back and forth following the good pay. It could be done underground all winter long and the stockpiled material was then processed in the Spring. In fact, the entire back end of the pit had been roomed out (roomed is the term they used when the tunnels were so close together they went back and forth in a series of parallel tunnels literally taking all of the material from a pay layer, thus leaving a large underground pillared and lagged [wood that forms the roof of the room]. At any rate, the placer pit was now abandoned and scheduled to be refilled. They said I could poke around, but to stay out of the old drifts as they were dangerous. Well, that didn't take any convincing on my part. I have done a bunch of caving and rappelling but the tunnel works were there for well over a hundred years and the wet lumber had changed somehow and broke in chunks with the consistency of celery, nothing like wood at all. As I poked around, there was seepage everywhere, and the lagging on the ceiling of the tunnels was all cracked and caving. In addition, the pit was rapidly filling with water from the front to the back where I wanted to prospect, so I didn't have much time. The modern miners had displaced a bunch of the large upright pillars (large hand-hewn logs) with their machinery when they hit the drifts. I panned some of the material from the false bedrock and true bedrock they had scraped. There was a little gold, mostly small flakes. I reasoned that when the old-timers were putting in their pillars and posts they must have covered up some pay, even if it was a small amount. As well, I knew from all the work they had done (extremely difficult manual labor) that the pay had to have been excellent; the modern pit had proven that as well. So, I found a nice fat displaced pillar, levered it out of the socket with a large bar and carefully collected the material from around it and in the socket forming the bottom of the hole. I panned it out and man you should have seen the pickers! I scratched around the base of another pillar but I couldn't move it out of its place and yet I still found some more coarse gold. However, time was running out. The seepage was real bad and the upper bank material started to slough off from above, and let me tell you, when that starts to happen, it’s time to get out fast! All the gold in the world isn't worth a lick if you’re dead. Standing above the bank I watched as the wet material oozed down into the pit which then collapsed the bank, with a slurping sound, down into the cut. There would be no more getting the gold there anymore, it was kind of sad, but I had found out something truly valuable: anytime I come across old drift workings that are exposed by modern mining, if the conditions are safe, I'll happily gather the material from around those old pillars and pan it.” I found out more about the type of gold some of that false bedrock (I mentioned earlier) was holding on another day, but that’s a story for a later time. May you all find something golden to smile about, and all the best, Lanny
    2 points
  18. That's a sweet find for sure, a real heart-stopper. All the best, Lanny
    2 points
  19. I pointed on my screen where the signal was strongest, even told him to clean off the sticks and rubble...lol Finally he listened to me, and dug a nice a big chunk!
    2 points
  20. I can say, that several times I was invited to a company that was engaged in checking the ancient city of the times "Kiev Rus" (Ukraine) (about 1200 AD). So, I checked the rest of the protective rampart around the city (what was left of it). It was mostly clay (not wet), gray-yellow in color, and I was able to find remnants of burnt (fire and carbon-soot) bricks. They were at a depth of about 1 meter from the surface, metal detectors showed nothing (we had Lorenz with a 2.5 meter antenna carried by two people). I was interested in the picture on the radar, and I reported that under us there may be hundreds of stoves, where there could be something interesting. We dug the object, and indeed there were burnt and covered with twisted soot stones. Small metal objects are visible during post-processing of the radar profile (when you are in no hurry and can play a lot with display palettes). In my experience, approximately 30% of objects are in real-time when they pass in the field (field shooting). The rest 70% can be detected during post-processing, when there is time for many profile runs in a processing program with different mathematical filters. For example, an object near the city of Kaliningrad. (former Germany). In this place, there was a suspicion of an underground bunker, in which there were some objects. We managed to shoot. Filming (see the profile picture) showed the presence of an underground cavity with some boxes inside of which objects have a chaotic orientation. It is visible as "ripples up" above the boxes. See the picture. Pay attention to the area (picture above) 300-450 (green numbers at the top of the scale). This is a screenshot from the georadar screen, Easyrad program. I have a "source file" of the footage and can play with it using different palettes and filters. If I apply other filters, and cut the frequencies of the rad to high (cut off the low frequencies, i.e. leave only the return of frequencies from small objects), then I will get this picture: Pay attention: it was the reflections of a higher frequency (from 480MHz to 800MHz) that appeared here and the "ripples" created by multiple reflections became more distinct. If we leave only low frequencies (80-500 MHz), then we will more clearly see the bunker itself and something big in it (300-450 in green numbers): Unfortunately, the bunker had a "secret", when trying to excavate the bunker, the excavator damaged the waterproofing, and the bunker was flooded with water ... Unfortunately, the fate of the object is currently unknown. Due to the outbreak of the 2014 war.
    2 points
  21. Such a paid detector upgrade capability has been here in the past ... for upgrading the first Whites prectra Vision and V3 models to the newer V3i model, as well as Fisher for upgrading various F75 models to the newer F75 v2 DST model. Rutus on the Alter71 v.1 detector also gave the possibility to upgrade the software to the Alter71 v.2 version - which I consider to be very successful... The idea is good only if it is mutually beneficial for both sides of the Manufacturer, as well as the user-detector ... don't expect that every upgrade can still be free ... so it can't work indefinitely .., software and hardware development takes money..and it's not free .. It's similar to a lifetime warranty on a product ... it can work for several years, but not endlessly .. several companies have already paid for it .. First of all, if you want to upgrade something meaningfully ... then the hardware of the product must meet a certain technical level..and then it makes sense .. sometimes the entry level detector does not make sense to upgrade strongly ... because technically this detector will not reach the required parameters that we would expect after the software upgrade .. But ..We can expect this with detectors that are technically prepared for such possibilities .. Another option is the sale of additional hardware .. - for example, the company XP is the sale of new HF coils and X35 coils .. which move the detection options further compared to the base ... On the other hand, there is a limitation in backward compatibility with older LF coils in the lower model XP ORX detector ... which I consider a logical step.
    2 points
  22. No worries mate I get close to you when I’m in Meeka, but have never made the trip up to the station. Maybe the next year. i can only watch so many YouTube videos of that red dirt and hearing the wash gravel when someone is getting close. ✔️ i love that . Or when I hit the cap and my arms vibrate.. hahaha 🤠 If you change your mind I have to get the” Taskmaster” another pair. Should have known he could destroy them. Hope you have a great year!!! Lots of weight mate!
    2 points
  23. Park 1, Recovery 3, Horseshoe off (accept all targets), 50 tones, FE2 at 0, and sensitivity as high/hot as you can possibly run it (and still keep it "stable" with respect to EMI). Steve
    2 points
  24. One day after coil rcvd in Alum, PA I was notified a new coil is on the way! Cannot ask for better service
    2 points
  25. Positive thinking is more important than most folks realize. When I am out in the middle of nowhere and talking to my detector, the gold gods and horny toads...I am at peace with my surroundings. This is when my ears/eyes/senses are most alert and the little beauty nuggets decide its time to quit running from me and surrender. If a prospector is worrying about what someone else is finding, or if there is even gold in the area, chances are they will walk over a soft sounding deep target. If you get to a point that needing a drink of water or needing to take care of other business (where's the toilet paper), then most certainly take the break as needed. As you say, "it is like your detector is a dowsing rod" Self confidence and positive thinking should never be ignored.
    2 points
  26. The joys of summer heat 🥵, early first light starts, gulping of coffee then the inevitable knuckling of sleep out of rheumy eyes as you ‘head fog’ drive the 20 minutes or so to secret dusty locations only ever visited in summer after the sweaty crowds have gone home to roost. I prefer it if there has been a few thunder storms to wash away all the tyre tracks and footprints, the myriads of patterned phycological evidence that beta-blocks the feeling of success right out of your very soul before you even start the first swing of the coil. 🥴 Argh yes the joys of summer bring on the freshening. 🤣 It’s been 2 years since I scored anything decent at this location, I’d given it up for dead but always find myself drifting back to try something new, just that one more time.
    2 points
  27. And there's MORE where that one came from! Great to hear from you, Lanny! Gary Long
    1 point
  28. That weekend was a hat trick that will be tough to top, especially at that particular site as Tom and I have had plenty of hunts there where we've found zero coins, but they just lit up on this hunt with a rare date $1 gold coin and two good date seated dimes too boot for an easy $5000 in coins from that trip. I don't sell my finds, but those are the kind of detecting trips we live for (makes it a lot easier to get wifey buy-in on future trips 😂
    1 point
  29. Software piracy would be a big issue though the machine could be required to be logged in directly to the update server which may help but I'm sure there is always a work around for hackers to reverse engineer it. I never understood the cost benefit of charging so much more for what most of us consider basic features for a machine between models. Doesn't it cost more to make and distribute multiple versions of the same machine with just features turned off? I assume without naming names that they are simply updating a rom between units. Then add in the confusion to the new user with too many models to choose from.
    1 point
  30. Yes, but these were implemented by returning the detector to the factory for the upgrade, right? There have also been reports here of First Texas upgrading the Teknetics Omega 8000 to the 8500 for free when in for repair for other reasons.
    1 point
  31. By the way, here’s a package I received yesterday evening from my mates over in FNQ.. the Dave Wright and his son Jakie plus the rest of this extended family.. took me in like a member of the family. Another good mate Norvic took me in and let me use his home.. There are others, but they are too smart to want to be associated with me on the internet... 🤣 Anyway thanks Jakie!!! The XLs fit perfectly!
    1 point
  32. Kind of a Bobbydazzer in looks but in reality not much in value. But it might make a great Christmas gift! 🙂
    1 point
  33. Wow! I wasn't sure if I'd seen a better haul of yours this year and thus my question. You guys do great research and your results show that. Keep it up (as long as you tantalize us with your finds photos 😉).
    1 point
  34. The odd part was, about Brian's 1914 s quarter, was that our entire trip was fueled by a desire to get seateds, and hopefully a gold coin or whatever. Like, the sites we hit were predominantly sites that dated back to the mid to late 1800s. Oh sure, this one particular site had some usage up till the 1930s. Yet our goal was to get coins from the earlier usage (1880s founding). And although his barber quarter was on the later usage of the time-line, it turned out to be the money-coin. Anyone care to venture a grade ? I'm guessing an easy $700 ? Nice going Brian !
    1 point
  35. Thanks! Covid has limited my detecting this year, as many times I can incorporate a detecting trip along with a business trip and all of our business travel has been canceled until the coast is clear.
    1 point
  36. Actually these coins were not popular at all with the public back in the day. They were bulky and also heavy. The bulk of the silver dollars ended up sitting in bags, many uncirculated, on the bank floors. Then the meltdown came. Even after the mass meltdown of many silver dollars came and went there was still a ton of them "out there". In the numismatic arena....that's why there are so many MS60+ quality silver dollars out there. That fact there are so many silver dollars out there is also a big reason they are such a popular coin to collect. They are a very cool and affordable coin to collect because there's so many out there and quality ranges that people with a low budget can afford a "slider" and/or common dates to start and move up to higher quality coins in the future. Bottom line is there are tons of them out there because they were a very unpopular coin. The Barber coins were the workhorse of a lot of that era....and you'll notice it's a lot harder to find high quality Barbers because they were actually being used and not sitting in the banks in bags....
    1 point
  37. That is very high trash density. Have you tried the 6" coil? Less ground coverage but compensated for by fewer co-located signal headaches.
    1 point
  38. It was a tough trip, all the sites we thought were going to be great turned out to be duds, glad this one was good. There’s still more there, I’d detect it again.
    1 point
  39. Earlier last month I attended Diggin in Virginia. It's an invitational relic hunt that takes place around Culpeper, VA that about 200 people attend. The ground is very hot there, as many know, so the detectors of choice are usually PI machines like the TDI, ATX and GPX. Some VLF's work but get significantly less depth than the PI's. I have taken my Deus, Equinox and Tarsacci and found stuff with all of them. This time around I used the GPX most of the time but did pull out the Tarsacci on a rainy day for about 7 hours. I'll give a more detailed report about the Tarsacci in the Tarsacci section at a later date. I also meet up with forum member Hugh Campbell so maybe he'll add some details when he has time. Some of the highlights of the hunt you will see in the pics below were shell frags, an 1863 IHP, complete 3 piece Shaler bullet, star based .58 minie from the Washington arsenal, Schenkl combintion fuse and Eagle I cuff button.
    1 point
  40. The probing signal emitted by the GRLPZ antenna propagates under the earth's surface, attenuating as it propagates, and, encountering an inhomogeneity, is partially reflected in different directions, including in the direction of the receiving antenna. The level of the received signals depends on the reflection coefficient of the signal from the subsurface inhomogeneity. The reflection coefficient depends on how much the electrical parameters of the inhomogeneities differ from the parameters of the environment. The larger the difference, the larger the reflected signal. Part of the signal travels further and is reflected from the next discontinuity, etc., until the signal is completely attenuated. The table below shows the electrical characteristics, radio propagation velocity and attenuation coefficient of the media most commonly encountered in practice. Table: Physical properties of natural environments: As you can see from the table, (the last column of the table) Ice and Granite can be equally transparent to radar. The most transparent is "dry sand" and "distill water". Georadar specifications: Maximum sounding depth (at a frequency of 100 MHz), = 24meters Resolution in the vertical direction, = <10 centimeters Resolution in the horizontal direction, = <10 centimeters Error in the analysis of electrical constants and the speed of propagation of radio waves in the ground, =% 15-20
    1 point
  41. Now that you've posted a better photo (thanks for that) I've noticed that the title is "VETERAN OF FORE N WARS" (sic). It makes me wonder if this tag/medallion is a generic format that allows the customer to enter letters and numerals (up to a limit) to be printed in certain areas -- here above the flag and around the lower rim. I also only count 36 stars on the flag, and seven (not 13) stripes. (There was an official USA flag with 36 stars but the layout of rows was different than shown on your medallion and it was only in use from mid-1865 to mid-1867.) Kinda strange someone would go to the trouble of making a meaningful medallion with such misrepresentations.... And now I'm even more curious to read what the VFW post responds!
    1 point
  42. I use the Sea Hunter II on South Florida beaches and if you like digging Bobby pins and nails like I did yesterday - along with treasure - it's for you. Whereas, the Infinium is a two-tone machine giving you some discrimination abilities - along with ground balance function. The Infinium will save you some worthless target digging but it's not a panacea - I.e., not a perfect solution. Match the tool to the task. On the beach, or even elsewhere? Want a factory warranty? Then get a Minelab Equinox. Or even a new, from dealer, White's TDI Beach Hunter. They have a one year warranty on them from now wholly-owned-by, Garrett. Or, even locate a Minelab Sovereign GT, but they're difficult to find, and you may have better luck mining for diamonds in your bathtub than finding the GT. LOL. I know, I tried.
    1 point
  43. Doesn't the SeaHunter MKII use similar/same multi frequency as the Infinium? Never noticed it having any benefit but it does hold a smooth threshold here in the NE.
    1 point
  44. I would have liked to have seen the TDI in the water-Proof "Sport" platform with a variety of coil sizes. Whites really missed the boat by just modifying their Beach Machine. When I first started selling Metal Detectors I was confused by the Infinium's 96 Frequencies. It's Pulse Induction. It doesn't operate on a Frequency, right. Then I realized it was like a cordless phone with 96 "Channel's". There would have been less confusion if they would have used THAT terminology instead.
    1 point
  45. Lake Placers #4I knew there were signals in the bedrock, and they sounded sweet, so I headed off to gather tools. We had a small sledge back in the truck, an assortment of rock chisels, and the Estwing pry-bar, the one that has the pointed chisel end on the bottom, and the flat L-shaped head on the top. Moreover, the “L” can be used to scrape or be used as a chisel as well to hammer into a crevice—absolutely beautiful little tool.Having rounded up the tools, I hustled back to the site. The most amazing part was that once I started to chisel out bedrock chunks, the original bedrock was indeed solid, but there was a natural cement of fine-grained, crushed black slate that had been running with the gold in the stream channel that created a perfectly camouflaged matrix, the matrix rock hard as well. In this way, Nature had hidden the original crevices perfectly.Using hammer and chisel, I worked my way down well outside the edge of the signal’s midpoint. I usually had to go down two to four inches to get below the signal, but then I’d insert a longer chisel and reef on it until the piece of bedrock and matrix popped out. Sometimes the piece would flush up in the air just like a game bird! (It makes sense now why my partner was on point like a bird dog.) After the first nugget flew, we made sure to block the flight path with a large gold pan. We couldn’t risk losing any nuggets in adjacent cobble piles.After recovering the nugget-rich matrix, I took the chunks and carefully tapped on them until they started to fracture and crumble. (As the matrix and the bedrock were of the same hardness, I never knew where the piece was going to fracture.) Having reduced everything to small pieces, I passed them under the coil to pinpoint the gold-bearing ones.After tapping away to remove the remaining residue, the gleam of gold was unmistakeable. Moreover, all of the nuggets had wonderful character, nothing flat, featureless or hammered. It was incredible fun liberating a dozen of those long hidden multi-gram nuggets.Did I smash any fingers while reducing the chunks? Absolutely. Did it hurt? If a fingernail goes black and falls off later, would that qualify? Regardless, the gold adventure was well worth the effort.In another instalment, I’ll talk about detecting the test-piles farther up that same placer claim and what I found in them.All the best,Lanny
    1 point
  46. Return to the Gold Fields.It couldn't have been almost nine months since we'd hit the goldfields, but that's what it turned out to be. Yes, Co-Virus has made for one crazy year, with various places requesting outsiders not to travel due to health concerns and worries about hospital beds in small communities, so we respected those concerns.Not long ago however, we got the green light to return, so we packed up the detectors (my wife and I), the gold pans, some grub and camping essentials, and headed off for the mountains.It was an overcast day, with the threat of rain, and the closer we got to the mountains, the darker the clouds. The heavens opened briefly; it rained enough to use the windshield wipers, which turned out to be a great way to clean the bugs off the glass.We went through the high mountain pass, and the rain stopped as we headed down the other side. The sun came out, the sky turned a welcome cobalt blue as a few puffy clouds floated across that clean ocean of air.When we got to camp, I didn't know what condition I'd find our trailers in, but as it turned out, they were all tight and dry after our long absence, no insects or mice, no bears had broken any windows or flattened any tires, all was well. With the camp in great shape, and with the beautiful weather, it was shaping up to be a fine day.We went to visit some friends that have a large mining concession (think of any of the large reality show mining operations you've watched on TV). After years of working with them, they call me their mining consultant. (I always get a laugh out of that.) They have me check the bedrock in their placer mining cuts with my detectors to see how effective their recovery methods are. However, we were told the previous week there wouldn't be any open bedrock to check, so we were planning on doing some general prospecting where there was a large gold rush in the 1860's.We returned to camp that night after a great visit, but with no expectations of any gold chasing other than what I've described above.Early the next morning, everything changed.I looked at my messages, and there was one from the mine owner. He told us to get our butts out of camp quick and get to the mine site as soon as we could. He had some bedrock open, and he needed a test done to see if it would be worth using a new piece of equipment he'd recently bought.My wife and I flew around camp gathering all of the items we'd need to check bedrock: pry-bars, sniping tools, buckets, gold pans, sucker bottles and metal detectors. We loaded up a lunch, as well as lots of liquids to stay hydrated in the summer sun.We fired up the Cummins diesel, and we headed off for the seventy minute trip to the mine. We had to be careful on the road as the logging trucks have made quite a mess with several bad spots where the ground has turned to a soft mess that will drop the front of your truck deep and fast into a nose dive if you're not careful, so slow and careful driving got us through safely.Summer here in the north is beautiful, with green growth everywhere, large forest animals in abundance, as well as a profusion of songbirds, hawks and eagles, with the whole scene punctuated with a riot of colourful wildflowers.We got to gold camp, looked at their morning cleanup and saw a beautiful collection of nice nuggets, the largest two were both over an ounce and a half, with a 27 gram nugget being the next biggest. Lots of nuggets in the six to seven gram range, and a whole collection of meaty pickers as well.We idled the diesel along the mining road down into the excavation, then parked in a deep ravine and unpacked our gear.I set my wife up with the Gold Bug Pro which is an excellent detector for shallow gold on bedrock, and I set up my Equinox 800 with the small sniper coil.I sent my wife to one end of the finished excavation, and I went to the other end.A geologist was also there. He's retired now, but he'd just bought a shiny new Minelab 2300, and I helped him ground balance it and gave him a few solid detecting tips for how to work such a spot. However, he didn't have a super-magnet with him on a pick or a wand, and I knew that would be trouble as the bedrock was iron-hard, and there were bits of bucket and blade everywhere because of that.He only detected for about half an hour, and then he quit as he'd had enough. The 2300 is supersensitive. Moreover, it doesn't have discrimination, so he was hearing every tiny sliver and piece of waste steel, and he had no way to remove them from his target zones.My wife and I were detecting with discrimination, a necessity on the first sweeps of the bedrock due to the countless bits of steel, and not long after we started, my wife gave a shout and asked me to hurry up to her end of the cut.She had two small nuggets she'd found with the Bug Pro, her first ever nuggets with that detector! I decided to poke around a bit in her area and soon I'd recovered seven small pieces in the half gram to gram range. My wife abandoned the detector and decided she'd do some panning as there were little gutters of dirt in the low spots where the excavator buckets could not scrape due to the hardness of the bedrock. From her first pan on, she had gold in every pan. It seemed impossible, but she just kept hitting the gold.One of the miners came along then, grabbed a pan, and he joined her. He got the same results as she did. (He and several other mine workers had tried all of the bedrock up to where my wife was working with their pans, but they hadn't been able to find the gold.)I went back to detecting the remainder of the bedrock away from my wife's lucky strike, but I could only find hot-rocks and countless slivers of steel, no gold whatsoever.After three hours of careful scanning with the detectors, I went back to where my wife was working. The miner was still there panning as well. He wasn't quitting! They were still on the gold. There was a sticky, yellow clay that was holding the gold in small cracks in the bedrock, from the top of the cracks all the way to the bottom.I took over the Gold Bug Pro and went to work. Steel, steel, gold. Steel, steel, gold. I soon had a nice rattle of nuggets in the bottle. My poor super-magnet kept growing a thick beard of steel shavings that I had to keep cleaning off, but once I'd quieted an area, I could hear the soft, sweet sounds of the gold underneath.I hit a spot that had a broad sound, not the spiked signal of a single target. I've experienced this before as the detector is responding to a collection of flakes and small pickers all nestled together. So, I dug down into the V's in the bedrock where I hit those broad responses, and sure enough, when I panned the material, lots of small flakes and little pickers of sassy gold!!We pulled out 13.7 grams, the miner panned out another 4 grams himself, so it was a fun day.The next morning, the mine owner moved in a vacuum truck, a pressure washer, a 1.5 inch pump to create a slurry, and they went to work on that bedrock in all of those little gutters because of the test results we'd provided. We'd found the sweet spot for them, and they made a nice haul that they otherwise would have missed.It was a great day, and we came home with some nice gold.All the best,Lanny
    1 point
  47. Prospectors One and TwoHello to all, just a quick little story from a past prospecting adventure.Two budding prospectors visited the claim one sunny day. (Both show quite a bit of promise as they both have a knack for finding gold.) They were working a patch of fractured bedrock that had produced consistent flake-gold and pickers the previous summer. Moreover, they had spent time with me on previous trips at that spot, and they'd learned a few tricks about how to find the gold.Well (I’ll refer to them as number one and number two), number one really went to town cleaning off the overburden on that bedrock: the cobbles, the clay, the boulders, the gravel; he went hard at it, working a couple of feet right down to the bedrock. It was a lot of sweaty work with chunky boulders jammed tight into bedrock pockets. After he'd removed all the bigger stuff, and had scraped the bedrock down, he ran his dirt through a little sluice. He had a nice catch of bright-yellow flake gold, with a few chunky pickers.Not long after that, prospector number two came along with his detector, and he asked number one if he could detect the bedrock he'd just cleaned off. Number one said he had no problem with that, as he'd carefully cleared the cracks and scraped everything clean. He told number two to go ahead. So, number two ran his detector along the bedrock and got a nice signal that really screamed! It was a sassy nugget, right on the bedrock’s surface, covered in some muddy clay.Well, number one really worked the bedrock hard after that. He cleared off another four feet of bedrock, really making the dirt and rocks fly! He took his time to make sure the bedrock was super clean, as well as removing any clinging clay. As he’d done before, he had a nice take of gold in his sluice-box. Prospector number two came along yet again with his detector and asked permission to check out the new workings. Number one, confident he hadn’t missed any gold, let him detect.Prospector number two ran his detector over the bedrock and got a nice soft signal in a crevice. Number one was getting nervous. Prospector two got out his pick and broke off some perpendicular sheets of bedrock and scanned again: the signal was much louder. He cleaned the crevice out, popped the signal on the coil, along with a little water to remove the clay, and there was a buttery-yellow, pumpkin-seed-sized nugget! To say that number one was not a happy camper is gross understatement (things went flying, dark words exploded with vibrant colors, the wild animals fled, etc.). Nevertheless, prospector one was a good sport about it, and they both had some great stories to tell back in camp that night. (Prospector one invested in a metal detector soon after that.)All the best,Lanny
    1 point
  48. The Stretch NuggetNow, this is a nugget story that’s a bit different from the average hunt. It took place in a steep canyon with a black slate bedrock rim. The top of the rim was about eighty feet above the cold, glacial river.As for nugget hunting in that location, the pitch of the canyon walls is about sixty-five to seventy degrees. In contrast, trying to climb rock walls of forty-five degrees is risky, but when an even steeper slope is littered with loose, jagged bedrock slabs and cobbles, it’s worse. So, if I had to climb that 65-70-degree slope, it would be mighty sketchy.A bit earlier in the day, I’d been detecting a bench above the rim and had found a pile of square nails, along with some rarer targets: big bore black powder rifle slugs with grease grooves; and round, rifled, black-powder pistol balls. But, no gold.However, even without any gold, the day had been exciting. I’d been spooked twice by the loud snapping of twigs close behind me: the first time, two mule deer, and the second, a cow moose.The day was hot and sunny. It was a glorious summer day with a gentle mountain breeze that let the pines and firs gossip lightly back and forth in the deep greens of the forest. Breaking the spell of calm, an angry squirrel scolded me for being too close to his tree.Refocusing on my detecting, I took another look at the ground I was working. Stretching before me was a massive area of hand-stacks left by the Old-timer’s from the 1800’s. Piles of cobbles and boulders littered the bedrock in every direction. The bedrock itself was heavily fractured in places, but in others, it was smooth and iron hard.Having already worked some of that fractured bedrock next to the lip of the canyon, I knew those traps held things very well, like the trash I’d found earlier. So, hoping to find some gold, I poked along the rim detecting some more. As I worked, I noticed areas where the old-timers had pushed overburden off the canyon edge, probably while setting up sluice runs. Suddenly, it struck me that stray gold might have either been pushed or washed over the edge as well.However, I couldn’t detect my way down that steep slope to look for targets. That slope was a minefield of loose material and razor-edged slabs of black slate. So, I walked along the rim to where I knew an abandoned road would take me down to the river.Hitting the river bottom, I strolled along inspecting the cliff face. I noticed high up a patch of river-run clinging to an out-thrust of bedrock, not far below the rim, directly below where I’d worked earlier.Detecting my way upslope, I came up with the usual trash as I tried to get to the out-thrust. I constantly slipped and slid in that loose, steep material. At one point, after losing my footing, I reached out with my free hand as I rocketed downslope, only to get a quick gash in the meaty part of my palm.However, I kept at it and cut some steps into the slump below the bedrock out-thrust, and at last I had a toehold. Taking advantage of it, I arced the detector around as far as I could from side to side. I hit a couple of targets, but they were junk: the head of a large square nail, and the tip of a smaller one.Hacking more steps, I moved ever higher. Then, to help me reach the rest of the way to my chosen spot, I extended the detector shaft to the max to get my little mono coil as high above me as possible.At the top of that stretched out swing, I got a scream that sounded a lot like iron close to the surface. But, to see what it really was, I hacked some new footholds and moved up a bit more.Stretching carefully, I soon had the signal in my scoop (only several tablespoons of material were in it), the dirt taken from some crumbled bedrock hanging onto that out-thrust.After a bit of shaking, quartering, and sifting, I had a sassy 2.25gram nugget in my hand. It was quite flat, yet curved and crinkled all along one edge (likely why it made such a racket). That piece of gold, my stretch nugget, was just the right shape to get itself flipped up and over the riffles of a sluice.All the best,Lanny
    1 point
  49. Golden Grams of Goodness: Part 3Even though the bedrock was super hard in that location, it did have some fractures, but it was a rare exception to find any breaks in the stone that had much depth due to the hardness of the rock. However, what that bedrock did have was lots of little gutters with bends indented into it, decorated with twists and dips, and those made for some great little gold traps for sassy pickers, lonely nuggets, and juicy flakes, and there was lots of gold to go around, and I do mean lots! (Pinnacles in the cut)When conditions would allow, we scrubbed the coils right tight on the bedrock listening for faint breaks in the threshold or for those aforementioned broader signals, and every time we’d get a hit, we’d shut off the detectors and go to work with the sniping tools. After cleaning the twists and turns of the little gutters, we’d detect them again and find gold that could now be heard because we’d removed so many ironstone chunks with the sniping tools and the super-magnets.However, the non-magnetic dark hot rocks (one less oxygen molecule from the magnetic ones I believe?) still caused trouble, but there were less of them compared to the the truly troublesome ones we’d got out of the way. (The iron bands couldn’t be dealt with by detecting though, and I’m sure we left gold behind along their edges when we finally ran out of time.) By continuing to scan the bedrock, we hit some nuggets in the 2-3 gram range as well, and a few bigger ones to boot—right sassy, beefy brawlers. Regardless of the bigger pieces, lots of flat nuggets were wedged down in any crack they’d been able to work their way into while travelling over that iron-hard bedrock, and we really had to work to liberate them. (Some smaller pieces of liberated gold)In addition, we took our time to carefully scan any clay or channel material that was stuck to the sides of those bedrock pinnacles I mentioned early in the story, and by careful scraping after we got a positive detector response along those sides (when we could), we captured a lot of additional pickers from their slopes. Having already learned from our previous finds in hot ground, we’d shut down the detectors after finding any detectable gold on around or near the base of the pinnacles as well, and it sure paid off with lots of nice gold we would have missed electronically. In retrospect, it was somewhat ironic that we had to revert to age-old gold gathering techniques used thousands of years ago because our modern electronic wizardry was overwhelmed and outclassed, but that just goes to show why it’s good to be well-rounded in gold getting techniques, with a healthy collection of excellent tools as well to use for specialized purposes; because, does anyone really know what they’ll be up against when Mother Nature’s been scheming and plotting to hide her gold?On a different note, we used the waterproof coils to search the bottom of the pools and we found some gold that way too, but not much as where the pools were, the bedrock had been softer which allowed the excavator buckets to dig deep. A Cheechako (greenhorn) and a Sourdough (seasoned miner) joined us in the excavation for a while, and they too found gold, with the lucky Cheechako hitting a nice multi-gram nugget (the size of my thumbnail) with his detector, a chunk that had been drug, with some larger rocks, off to the side of the bedrock drain that was channeling water into the culvert of the drain. We were happy for him, and happy for the Sourdough (a veteran of many a gold chase) too who sniped like a man possessed with the pure golden fever, a sight to behold! Well, he walked away with a nice catch of pickers and small nuggets in his bottle as he’d set up a little high-banker so he could process more material. However, neither of them came close to our tally in weight, but they sure had fun, and we did too.It was a great day, and I walked out with lots of nuggets in my gold bottle (that bottle had weight issues, good ones though) and my son did better than me as he went back the next day in the rain and rescued a third more gold than he’d gathered the previous day. As for me, I was content to just hunker down in my wet-weather gear and watch him have fun in the drizzle, and then I helped him haul his equipment out of the excavation up the boulder strewn slope back to the waiting 4X4 diesel. However, what should have been an easy exit from the site got highly sketchy in a hurry as the rain had caused a big slump right across the road by sliding muck down the north side of the excavation, with the mess beginning about seventy-five yards from where we were working. Moreover, it’s a good thing my diesel has lots of clearance or we’d still be glued there in the goo, but with the high clearance and the awesome torque of that diesel, it chewed us safely through. Now, if I’d have been in my gasoline-powered 4X4, which has lower clearance and not near the torque, it likely would have been a bad ending to a great gold trip. (Ironstone and gold) (High-torque, high-clearance blue mule.) All the best,Lanny
    1 point
  50. Beachunter - you seem a tad taken aback by all the questions, so let me frame this for you. I have owned a Deus for more than 3 years. It took me well over a year, bootcamp class, extra handbooks, numerous forum visits, and hundreds of hours to get a handle on the nuances of the machine. On the other hand, I was able to take it out of the box on stock settings and find $5 in clad on the first day I got the machine. People are asking you these questions because the Deus is notorious for not being the most stable machine in wet salt sand. Typically, if you are hunting between dry and wet sand (actively being covered by surf, not just damp) typically requires you to manually shift ground balance to wet beach mode to shift to the lower salt ground phase readings (Deus does not seamlessly track between normal ground phase settings you use on dry sand and wet salt beach ground phase settings). People are interested in how you have tweaked the machine to be successful in wet beach mode - it is kind of a big deal if you have successfully done it on a consistent basis. The fact that you are using stock dry beach mode and the fact that you don't know the operating frequency with a coil that can be set anywhere between 13 and 80 khz (a HUGE range that can totally alter the machine's performance and what targets the machine can actually "see") yet are being successful is very counterintuitive to those who really know the Deus. People aren't "concerned" as much as wondering how you are managing to pull that off, and as a result, you are going to have a lot of experienced Deus users asking you questions. I have found the new HF coils to be quiet and stable overall compared to their low frequency predecessors. I still have not cracked the true wet beach nut with the Deus and is one of the things that first attracted me to Minelab's first fast, yet relatively inexpensive, multi frequency machine. Had to get that last line in there because this is an Equinox forum after all. lol. HTH
    1 point
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