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I found this on a quick adventure in between jobs. It’s the prettiest nugget in my collection. Weighs under a gram but man it was fun! I found that running the EQ800 in single frequency really helped stability in this red hot ground. Here it is fresh out of the ground. On the 6 inch coil which helped me get between boulders to find it. After some toothbrush action almost looks like one of the 50 fired bullets I found today. But I’ll call it a flowing hair nugget instead. Maybe the coin shooters will let me hunt with them. Weigh in on the cheapo scale. Wasn’t wearing gloves because I’m no Nancy boy. But maybe I should have been. I think there was a parable about the guy above and his friend. It’s ok I needed the exercise anyways. But next time I’ll bring my big saw just in case. Hand stacked rocks are sometimes a good sign. The poison oak was in bloom, the air was sub freezing, and the square nails and bullets were practically jumping out of the ground. But hey I got a cool piece of gold, paid for my gas and got some threshold meditation in so it’s a win win for me.

Last month I started to get a bit bored with my usual Snowbird gig of bicycling, paddle boarding, beachcombing, etc, so I decided to check out some creeks and the Peace River about 3 hrs west of me. This area was covered by shallow seas millions of years ago, and more recently saw the Ice Ages....so a cool mix of fossils can be found. Here is one of the creeks I hunted(cue the banjo music from “Deliverance” lol): So you kayak and/or wade in water of various depths looking for gravels in the bottom, then you dig and sift. All this is done in Gator and snake habitat, so one must stay aware of one’s surrounding while working the gravels: Here’s some of my favorite finds. A fossilized prehistoric bison tooth and a baby Megalodon shark tooth...the Megs are small here, as these shallow seas were the nursery. The next pic has a fossil tortoise leg spur, a crocodile tooth, and 2 extinct Snaggeltooth Shark teeth. Here’s fossilized stuff from my last hunt....upper left are turtle shell fragments; upper right turtle nuchal bones, a prehistoric tapir tooth, a broken Meg; then a whole bunch of shark teeth. I think I’ve discovered a new hobby and passion to enjoy while here in Florida half a year! And as a bonus, it’ll help keep me in gold hunting shape for when I’m back out west!😄

The weather may have turned for the better in Northern Nevada. It was time to get out and check how my GPZ 7000, would handle the moisture/salt from the Winter Storms. I pulled into the Burn Barrel to camp, but it was like pulling into a KOA. I unloaded my trusty RZR and hit the trail to find a nugget. I ran into several folks out trying their luck, all had smiles on their faces and enjoying our outdoor hobby. I was told that Gerry was having his training at the Burn Barrel which explained the crowd of RV’s. I did get time for a short visit with Gerry and Lunk, before heading out. The soil, is a little noisy with High Yield/Normal. Using Difficult settled it down perfectly, but not my preferred setting for dink nuggets. Anyways, I hunted in Normal and ground balanced often to give my ears a rest from the noisy ground. I didn’t find any dink nuggets which are the Bread & Butter to any poke, but did find a couple of Steak & Lobster nuggets before loading up and heading home from the short Dirt Recon Trip. There’s gold out there, you just need to get your coil over it, I need some Bread & Butter Nuggets to complete my meal. Talking about meals, my Dog Marley refused to eat his normal dog grub on this trip, and only wanted what I brought “Fried Chicken”. Until the next Hunt! LuckyLundy

I don't understand why you think it will never be published, even if the Earth stopped it would still be published, I haven't worked for the last fifteen years for nothing ... Many models will be created from this platform, with increasingly "high-end" and perform technologies.

Whooo, what a week. Back home from the beach, I didn't post my last hunt but I found .99 in change. 51 coins total, 3 rings, military button and some small stuff. No silvers. 😵 Got a 50 Centavos piece and 1 South African Rand, so I scored over $5. Oh, and an Anvil... My wife got food poisoning (she is ok now), my RV water heater element blew, and the outside faucet decided to crack and blow the knob out. Filled the underbelly with water. That lovely trifecta made us decide to head back a day early. I love beach hunting! It must be my luck but GB never went higher than 10, I only got EMI near a water tower with cell service on it. Clean, clean beach. You got what the Equinox said you did for the most part. Got many more beaches in my future! Today I hit the farm, decided to grid a farm house where scouting didn't turn up much. All I found in 4 hours was one 1994 dime and one button. I got a 36 on the Equinox, thought "yay!" And dug a huge crudely cast lead ingot. 😀 It's about 3" wide and is heavy. Yep, back on the farm. I guess we all have these days, you should see all the bottle caps and aluminum I dug to get this. Yikes! When I got home I had this waiting for me: It's a 1954 silver quarter cut to the Equinox coil shape. It came with a bead chain, I replaced it with a snake chain. Thus far I have only found two silver coins! Maybe it will be a voodoo talisman for the future. 😀 I thank everyone yet again for their advice and encouragement.

Well you missed your chance to visit with me as I struck out for Truckee to see Marty the Magnifcent. We did a BIG HUNT in the parking lot at the softball field and found at least 2 dollars.... maybe😂 but the weather was great e had a wonderful breakfast and always good to get back with old friends.... enjoyed reading about your hunt... sorry I missed you but I figured you would be over there.

99% of my detecting is done on central Florida beaches. Since it’s impossible to establish a well stocked test garden at a public beach, I sorta brought the beach home with me and developed my own private beach garden! I cut slots in two large empty chlorine tablet buckets at various depths as shown from 2 -16 inches. I then filled one with New Smyrna Beach sand and the other with soil...for the few times I land hunt around here. I embedded numerous examples of ferrous and non ferrous targets into paint stirring sticks. I also have several blank sticks I use for gold and silver jewelry as well as artifacts that I don’t want permanently attached to a stick. I then insert the target(s) in the slots, each at its desired depth, and start scanning. This allows me to rapidly change the targets, depth and relative position of each. I can now test for sensitivity at depth as well as separation of ferrous and non-ferrous targets in a variety of scenarios using actual beach sand where I do my detecting. If I want to test in wet salt sand, I just soak the bucket sand with authentic sea water that I also brought home from New Smyrna Beach...and the Atlantic Ocean never even missed it. 😉 Works for me.....

I suspect it will be released - too much invested to back away at this point - hopefully they have solved the production issues. If they have, they can sell them for 10 - 15 years at a nice quiet rate to serious salt beach hunters. Meanwhile everything learned throughout the VERY painful launch of the AQ Limited will be applied (I hope) to making the Impulse “Platform” a steady moneymaker for decades. We will see.

We headed out Saturday morning to the camp. Wife has given up on the Vanquish because all she digs is square nails. So we swapped detectors later in the day. She then found an ax head and a big chisel. I scored the dime and other stuff with the Equinox before the switch. We bought a curio cabinet to house our growing collection of history so I will include a photo of it. Hope everyone is doing well out there.

I guess I spend most of my detecting time chasing gold on granite. Sometimes this gold is miles from the nearest reef or other existing source. As you no doubt know, this gold is left over from the granite pluton emplacement process. For others who may be interested, as the vast granite plutons once pushed their way upwards through the overlying metasediments, they mobilised gold formation in this rapidly thinning and eroding capping. Eventually this sediment capping is almost totally removed by erosion (except for occasional isolated metamorphic "roof pediments" as they are called, still sitting on the granite) What remains are occasional scattered remnants of "palaeochannels" which still carry the gold. Longbush and "Berlin" goldfield are good examples in Victoria.

Jin: I'll be looking for different targets with the 26" The big loops were excellent at locating very large pieces (10 oz plus) at good depth (3/4 foot or more) I doubt they missed many, certainly not on the ground I've followed up on ever since. They were less sensitive to smaller pieces (ounce or less) at similar depth, and it's mainly these I will be targeting. The big CC's also punch deep but, due to the narrow field at depth, you need to be almost exactly over the target to hear it. The DOD (and monoloops) are far more forgiving in this respect. Out of interest, the last "Big Loop" I had experience with was used by John Hider Smith just before he retired from prospecting in the late 90's. It was 36" in diameter and spiral wound (way ahead of its time) Reg Wilson now owns this coil and it has been used successfully as a sled coil behind a quad. From memory, this was coupled to an SD 2200 box modified by Bruce Candy to target deep gold. This it did very successfully. At one point during a trip to WA, John called me over to listen to a "rumour" he had heard (a "pre" signal. Jim Stewart used to call these "gravity anomalies" and it's the one thing you must learn to hear if you don't want to walk over very deep gold. often it's just a faint repeatable instability in the signal) At the time I was having great success on deep gold in difficult ground with an SD 2200 detector coupled to a custom built 18" Coiltek DD. These coils were later released commercially. I heard nothing until about 4/6" had been removed, and it turned out to be a 2 oz piece down very close to 3 feet. Here's John at work in WA, filmed by me:

F350. The Bowie is a favorite of mine. Caprock the Deus came in today but the coil charge clip wasn’t in the box so I called them and it’s on the way. Tom, I have identified 7 cabin sites, only one is still somewhat “standing”. This area is very long and seems the cabins were in two groups. I haven’t found it on old maps but it’s in line with a few known sites. I’ll keep plugging away at it but damn those aching muscles.

No extra or special skills on my part, just keep swinging. Persistence, persistence, persistence, some patience, some luck, and eventually a bigger nugg will turn up. The old boys got most of em but not all of them. Usually a few crumbs but every once in a great while the whole cookie!!!!! Almost got skunked today. Found a spot on my first hunt that gave up 3 or 4 of those bits (in the pic) and figured I'd investigate further today? 4 hrs later at the spot turned up zippo so with only an hr hunt time left I went to another spot that seems to always kick out one more bit and luckily I popped out 2 pieces for 1.6g and salvaged the hunt...... Here's the 1.5er that salvaged the hunt today. Thanks everyone for the comments and good luck out there!!!!!!

Was getting my last digs in on some state property before they sell it off for housing development. The areas have been picked cleaned for quite a few years now so takes a bit of patients to squeeze anything out of them. Yesterday ran my batteries dry on the Multi Kruzer with external lithium pack and half way down on internals only to find a pewter figuring. Top and back are gone but was interesting anyways. Today I didn't spend as much time out because it looked like it was going to rain and I was using my Tejon with the 10x12. Hit a hill that I had picked up a reale on few years back and got this nice 1887 IH. The other thing is a piece of brass enameled on both sides, maybe a decorative tab to something (junk). Buddy and I went to another field where I snagged the degraded 1880 IH and this silver clip that looks like it went to a strap. Says Patented OCT 16 1888. Think it was on a carry strap to a tool of some sorts, maybe a gun holster? Did some research on items with patents granted at that date but the machines didn't show this part.

Hey GBA, As I've posted about, I have a similar site that I am hunting. Old ground (early 1900's), lower yields due to massive detection over the years, over fill (old coins recovered at Depth with a capital D - 10 -11"). I have attempted the PI run a few times, but discovered I need to work more at clearing the upper layer of trash before attempting it again. No question in my mind that the PI will go deeper than my coin machines, but it does find every small bit and bob in the soil... so be ready to dig. There was an incredible post by Tom D. on his site years back, talking about clearing a turf site with a pi machine, and his finds... it was fascinating and worth a read if you haven't already. I am about ready to take another run at my site with the ATX after spending some time with other machines clearing trash. When I fire up the ATX on the turf, I'm not thinking about conventional discrimination - even though the ATX does have the ferrous/non-ferrous tones (it is only accurate to a certain depth, which is actually above the layer I'm trying to punch down into) , so really what I try to do is set the sensitivity where the 12" target will give me a faint signal... and I use that to "manually discriminate" the digs. I don't mind digging iron... when I'm in the mood for digging iron... so I need to be in the mood for the ATX on the turf. I may be in the mood again soon. I'll post my finds. I don't know the TDI too well, but speaking strictly PI, I think there is a place for it if you are up to a long day with maybe a good find or two. I am interested to hear how you do at your old site (both with the large coil on the EQX and with the TDI if you decide to give it a go).

A potential look forward past the 6000 here. I just took a look at whatever Minelab had published recently in the patent arena and I thought I'd distill it down to a few simple paragraphs since these patents are quite complicated to read. (pdf direct download warning) Here's a real new one, just published basically last week. This one mentions gold nuggets specifically as targets, seems made just for gold machines, and concentrates on further decreasing the decay time in order to increase sensitivity to smaller stuff. It may be related to the 6000 (they say it can be used for DD coils), but the way it's written seems like it's intended for a new ZVT machine as the primary use as ZVT tech seems to be the focus. There is mention of nulling out (my term) salt/conductive soils. (pdf direct download warning) Here's another one, slightly less recent. This one has to do with depth determination and automatically altering controls/timings/ground balance based on depth determination target feedback as you detect, and sounds a bit like GeoSense except directly applied to maximize target detection depth constantly and showing the user exactly how each setting combination performs depth-wise on different targets. So, there is two components - determining depth via SNR, and automatically adjusting the timings/etc to maximize sensitivity and depth based on that info. A user is allowed to select different target types. Which makes me wonder if you can maximize gold, can you minimize sensitivity to iron? Or does the target type only apply to VLFs? This second patent appears to be general in the sense they say it can apply to ZVT, PI, and VLF. Though, the test targets used are coins in the graphs. But gold nuggets are also mentioned as a potential target. Also, they talk about giving the user the information directly to the screen to use manually (if I understand correctly), which means it's probably intended for a flagship level machine where users want a bit more control - since any lower level machines are eliminating controls and information right now. Careful coil design sounds fairly critical for some of this. ---- Distilled even further for simplicity: I think it could be likely based on these and prior patents, a new ZVT machine is on the way, and it (and maybe some coin/relic machines too) will be built to maximize depth via a GeoSense-type method, plus will provide real time depth information to the user on the screen to adjust settings manually or to simply monitor for information. Also, a newer ZVT machine may have some increased ability to deal with salt, as well as have increased sensitivity to smaller/speci gold.

GB : I know there are some coin/relic guys who will try to use those balls-to-the-walls pulse machines , for coins/relics. Since, sure, you can "get a coin to 1.5 ft. deep", blah blah. I saw a few of them guys at the Virginia relic shootout a few years ago. And asked them "Don't nails give you fits ?" They only gave rambling feeble replies. Lo & behold, at a few cellar-home antebellum home sites (which were a THICK carpet of nails), those guys were nowhere to be found. They steered FAR from any such area. Meanwhile, guys with standard machines (discriminators) were able to go fish some coins and relics from the mess. So I can't see the sense. Unless you're nugget hunting, or hunting the beach (where you're not likely to have ghost-townsy-conditions ), or some such exception. And as far as what kac says: Yes there's some "tricks" you can use to ID nails of some of those type machines. But guess what ? The moment you off-tune and start using those tricks, you can now kiss that fabled depth goodbye. You are left with no-more depth than a standard coin machine. So why bother ? Any iron-ID trick on those will only work for the top 6 or 8" or whatever (at best) . Everything beyond that starts to sound the same.

I'm not sure if this is the same reaction other PI's get, but on my GPX, coins hit louder and narrower than big nails do. Nails, for me, sound longer, and coins hit faster if that makes sense. Coins are a shorter signal but ramp up and ramp down quicker. Also coins sound the same no matter what direction I swing from. Nails can sound different from some angles. This for me has been true to about 9". After that coins are a smooth quieter sound while iron is a bit ragged and unsure and sharp. I can always get a nice sweet, quiet, even response on deep coins. Deep iron sounds unsure and iffy. Kind of like when you want to make a bad signal into a good signal. That works up to about 15" After that all bets are off. After 15" it may sound like ground noise, slight EMI, or kind of a wavy, distant ghost sounding signal. After 20" I just hear threshold 😄

I have been using the ORX and doing well but have not found any coins, and i think i have hunted this unhunted spot now 10 rimes or more, But this time i got out the big gun , the DEUS in full tones, using Coin fast, it started squeeking out shot shells and brass things, one after the other , then my 1st coin on the spot came out a 1923 wheat. and not long after that the 1872 shield Nickle, I was using 8.4 KHZ and it came thru for me .and its deep to

From what i can make out there were 2 partners in the X-coils business. One decided to sell his share. I would be interested to know if they both had coil building experience (the original owners) Reg Wilson (ex dealer wrote this) I discovered that the Russian partnership competed with each other and he wanted me to be his dealer and to sell all Xcoils. This to me seemed a mad arrangement. Then the partner (Elnur) who had been supplying Dave sold his share and Dave got the chop and Simon got dealt out of the picture. The new partner (Alex) would appoint a new agent (you there Jonathon?) to compete against me, who at that stage was the remaining agent. To add to the madness both Russian partners had websites supplying direct at retail. So I had to compete with them as well.

Here is an official X-coils response: They have confirmed the single owner model.

Thanks Chase. For me it was like using a new detector, it's a whole different environment. I'm just glad it was a bit easier. I find after one day back on the farms that relic hunting is a lot harder, involving a lot more analysis (and harder digging). Got waders, I'm going to hit the water before all the boat wakes and snakes and ticks. Debating mowing the landing so I'll have it all summer! 😀 I have heard recently that a lot o' pirates have been there nighthawking, probably why there isn't much silver. 😵 Glad you got one!

...well said. All detectors have plusses and minuses. Real learning begins when you deal with both. This is why, when a machine like the Equinox comes out--so many think that they can ignore basic skills and that the "tech" will take it's place. Fact is the more powerful the machine--the greater the need for basic skills. I agree with Alexandre though--machines that are based upon Eric's circuits give a lot of information that can be almost as accurate as a VLF in the right hands. My CS6PI tells ferrous from non-ferrous with ease. cjc

I too think the gravel layers are going to cause havoc for the VLF/ Multi's. Kind of like disturbed ground did on my E trac and CTX. I would pick a small area and go over it with the large EQ coil, then go over it with the Tdi and see how many targets it can hear (without digging them all). That will tell you everything you need to know about conditions. Cherry pick certain signals and see how it goes.

Quote "From aerial photos I see than in the 50's it was grass/sod covered but in the early 60's they put down gravel. The person who told me about the site (a person who walked up to talk when he saw me hunting a nearby park) said he was a student there 45-50 years ago and at that time it was (again) grass/sod. I did a one hour survey hunt with the Minelab Equinox (11" coil) and encountered a couple inch thick gravel layer about 5" down. I did find one Wheatie below the gravel, but 7" is getting deep for my detector + soil mineralization combination" I think the best option for depth and mineralization is to go for a larger coil size, but for me the gravel would be my concern as far as digging goes. As stated by others VLF is a better choice with a lower frequency design or option. They go deep and can discriminate saving a lot of holes that need to be dug. As the land is rezoned leaving no trace is less required.

It appears to be setting up nicely for a digital version..... that IMO will be when the magic happens. I for one appreciate Alexandres efforts on this machine. This needed to be done because a PI will get us where we want to be faster than a VLF thats watered down for Multi use. It maybe a niche machine..... but once they go digital that all could change and could very well get a little competition going..... thats where we win.

Well - I missed this machine. At the moment the sand is pretty darn deep in NZ - maybe the constant onshore winds. First water hunt with the ATX. a 15ct ring (looks like two older rings fused together) I think I became a little lazy without the pulse and was just not getting the required depth. The ATX is still a killer in the water with the 8 inch mono!

Thanks! I ordered the pendant before I left, but shipping was slow. They make them for many popular detectors. The button is probably 1800s, it's brass and very thin, probably the thinnest I've found here. Got over 100 of them in this one field, they range from mid 1600s to the early 20th century.

Peg, I grew up in Florida and moved to Arizona after High School Graduation. Fell in love with big open spaces and required daily views of Mountains. Ground will be great next month.

You did awesome “for the short dirt recon trip”, as per your usual lol 😄. I’ll be heading out there next month after I get back from Florida...can’t wait to get in the wide open spaces again!

I’d say a lot of the Bismarck coil gold found back in the day could have been found with the later SD2100 with a standard 18” mono coil on it, with today’s grunt in the GPZ the standard GPZ14 would have easily pulled those big slugs at depth. As electronics have improved there’s been a converse reduction in available BIG targets, these available targets have correspondingly decreased with each model release. The other thing of note is when a target gets to that 3 foot mark (which all the PI’s from start to current day and now ZVT are quite capable of achieving) an inch is a massive difference relative to the inverse square law, at 3 feet an inch is akin to 6 inches extra depth at a foot and so on. The other issue is the detector is reacting to those deep slugs but you the operator is either not reacting to them because they are so broad or writing them off as ground noise or after having dug at a few only to have them dissipate then not bothering to go through the painful process of scraping back and trying to get a signal to improve to an identifiable definite response, when a target is at three + feet it can take a lot of digging before the signal becomes the real deal!! I went to Georgetown Far North Queensland December of 2019 and was amazed by the local stories of all the big deep gold that was found with VLF detectors in pure granite country! All sluggy heavy gold, yet everyone up there these days is hitting the red oxidised diorite, weathered Gabbro and metabasalt contacts where it is more mineralised as the granite areas stopped producing long ago. I was amazed, I would not give that pale looking granite country a second look as I’ve spent the vast majority of my career chasing the high iron mineralised areas. Generally the more mineralised areas are also shallower so its a double whammy for modern detectors, the tech allows us to work the nasty ground and pull even tiny little bits of gold but due to the shallower nature of that type of ground large big slugs are less likely to be at depth, back in the day the VLF machines when venturing into those areas would have scored the bigger shallow signals. JP

During the tests I used discrimination set to 0 ... and audio 2 tone .. so it is good to see how the detector works ... in such a test ... This way it is good to see what quality of the unmasked signal can be provided by Equinox with different Iron Bias F2 / FE settings ... the test shows that setting F2 to 0 works best on unmasking, and setting F2 to 6 still provides acceptable separation ...., while setting FE to 6 already severely limits the quality of Equinox separation.

Thanks Gerry. Back home now. I ended up with a couple of ounces more than I left with, so covered costs at least: Largest piece was this stained 22 grammer in noisy tertiary ironstone conglomerate, a clear target signal: Find of the trip award goes to Reg Wilson for this 6 grammer, located at depth with a 4000 running "Normal" with "Bogene" settings: This 6 grammer from "Ravens Patch" Longbush near Moliagul was a personal favourite, especially as many consider the area well and truly "skun" Following the rains, mobilised soil salts rendered GPZ "Normal" timings all but unworkable, so my supply of sub grammers at depth dried up somewhat. At least digging deeper holes became a breeze, so not all bad :) Before that happened, I'm still blown away by actually hearing a half grammer at seven inches with a 22" coil, as well as a .1 grammer at 4"! Other people are now reporting similar extraordinary results using X CC's, with their favourite flogged patches also coming to life again: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3553656301344280

I've been experiencing lower yields due to sites being detected, by me for sure and there are also signs by others previously. SchoolofHardNox's success on a beach using the Minelab GPX 5000 reminded me to re-read Steve's treatise on using the (in his case original big box Pulsescan) TDI for coin detecting. I just a few days ago stumbled upon a promising site where extra depth could be key. It's a schoolyard going back at least to 1955. Unfortunately as is the case in many of my public sites, it has a history of backfilling. From aerial photos I see than in the 50's it was grass/sod covered but in the early 60's they put down gravel. The person who told me about the site (a person who walked up to talk when he saw me hunting a nearby park) said he was a student there 45-50 years ago and at that time it was (again) grass/sod. I did a one hour survey hunt with the Minelab Equinox (11" coil) and encountered a couple inch thick gravel layer about 5" down. I did find one Wheatie below the gravel, but 7" is getting deep for my detector + soil mineralization combination so if coins remain from the 50's (pre- gravel layering) then I expect I will do better with extra depth (and that may even be required). One thing I've found in my detecting of these older sites -- there are always nails present. So even if my TDI/SPP can deliver in the coin category it's going to be signalling on a lot of nails. One of the tricks Steve used was to set the conductivity switch to high conductors (low tones) but the TDI/SPP doesn't have that feature -- I will be hearing both high and low tones. This is a dual disadvantage -- extra tones to have to mentally tune out but also extra threshold noise since both parts of the signal spectrum will be contributing to that as compared to only half when the conductivity-low switch selection is made (on all TDI's except the SPP version). Here are some specific concerns: 1) Am I fooling myself thinking I can get extra depth with the TDI/SPP, particularly when it comes at the expense of a noisier threshold? 2) Which coil(s) should I be using (choices I'm considering are 6"x8" Nugget Finder Sadie mono, 7"x14" NF mono, and 12" round White's 'Aussie' mono)? 3) Should I flag the promising targets but double check with the Eqx 800 (and if so, should I use the 11" or 12"x15" coil on the 800)? (Note, even if I choose this route I will likely at first dig, regardless of what the 800 says, just to get an idea of what is giving the signal and how deep the targets are.) Any other advice (from anyone) is appreciated.

Ok, hope the 26" turns out to be a winner. Can you shed some light on why John retired from prospecting? Did he just grow tired of it? My old man used to be an abalone diver. He said it killed his love of diving that he had from an early age. I guess doing something day in - day out takes the joy out something after a while. For me prospecting is my life. The bush is my retreat from the pressures of business and all the other things in life. Couldn't give a hoot about the financial gain but find the challenge of finding something so elusive stimulating. The joy of seeing Kangaroos, echidnas, lizard, deer, NOT SNAKES makes me love being out in the bush. Its actually the only time my mind is peaceful and doesn't have a million thoughts going on at once.

So this is a follow up after "tweaking" my slidein battery pack for the 24K of which the battery contacts prongs weren't fully extending out thereby preventing the AA batteries from making good contact with each other, this slop design would shutdown my 24K, this was a brand new machine not even a few weeks old when it started exhibiting this problem. This was my first bum machine that i had bought from Jim Mculloch, through no fault of his own i must add, it was just a design flaw or product defect, Jim has always been very helpful in rectifying issues and calling Whites direct to assist if needed. But when Whites went dark, I had to fend for myself even though Centreville Electronics was there, I had to try and fix the basics on my end first before resorting to warranty repair. In addition I also removed the control box cover to "pull" the battery contact springs outward a bit more and I did this very carefully, this extra tweak also insured the battery pack making contact with the control box making for good contact to maintain power. Doing these 2 things, will definitely improve your shutdown issue, if it's not Circuit Board issue, which i highly doubt since White's made their electronics to last for a good long time. So after making the 20 minute tweaks, I'm happy to report that my 24K hasn't shut down at all, i took it on a hunt all day yesterday and it used it literally all day long and was ecstatic that it didn't shut down because it would shut down every 15-30 minutes or so or until the batteries lost contact with each other. These battery pack issues are very common, i had the same issue with my MX7 and has since been resolved by employing the same tweak. Hope this helps for you Fellow Whites Electronics enthusiasts and users!

It's a complicated mess, best explained by following this thread on the subject on another website. If I read correctly the Russians split into to camps, each supplying different areas? The old dealers were canceled? So I think this site is it now.... X Coil Website

Larger coils can be counter productive if you have upper layers of trash as you hear what is on top predominately. Higher trash areas the smaller or eliptical coils may help you sneak around the trash and pick out targets between better. When you swing over areas and hear nothing at all then maybe a pi or larger coil may sqweek out something that might be deeper. The area really depends on what kind of activity was there over time. As an example yesterday there was a small hill where I picked up a reale few years back and picked up an Indian Head but at the bottom of the hill is a trash line with cans going down to 12"+. Soil on the hill is sanded and natural with a thin top soil line and bottom is dark black dirt with lot of modern trash. Bottom of the hill was filled in and whole field was just fill to cover a swampy area for farming. Bottom of the hill was wetlands at one time so there is no old stuff reletively speaking unless your a Millenial 🙂

You are a lucky man, and smart; speaking of your wife so highly!😂 Sad state of affairs with her surgery's! My wife is a nurse, and has similar pains in all the same places! But is reluctant to get any surgeries; now I know why!! Been trying to get her to ditch the house for an RV, but the nesting instinct won't go away!! Probably has a lot to do with are lifetime resident son; for real!!👍👍

Thanks Cap'n. Since I have both stix and brix and a land yacht, it's a good thing I retired early so I can keep 'em up. 😀 I should be using a pressure regulator, and paid the price because outdoor faucets seem to be an Achilles' Heel!

Wow, that’s terrible re your friend! The key is to don’t go during mating season(pretty much from now through June or so), and avoid going near the baby ones that are often on the banks...momma will protect them! I’m around gators quite a bit in a wildlife preserve area where I walk almost daily, so I’ve learned to read their body language etc. But like with any wild animal, definitely need to give them their space and respect them!

Garrett still services the Infinium. Just had a total repair last January. A lot was replaced, and a first class job. Think they still have DD coils available ?

Good to have you back home safe, Bob. Now you gotta put that water/beach experience to work strategizing how to attack that boat landing now that the watervis going to start warming up.

If you only have a 2-3 bars on your ground phase then depth is probably similar to your nox. Why not snag a nice old fashioned analog machine for those sites? Tejon will give a flat tone and most often a little pop on aluminum so it makes going through moderate and low trash areas a breeze. I say that because the machine is just not chattery as my vid machines. I can crank the sensitivity to nearly max and have clean signals. In rare cases where there is high trash areas the modern machines can squeak out a signal with the faster recovery speeds. The Vista X is supposed to be close to the tejon with the benefit of iron audio. Sometimes its just nice to think less. As for headphones with an analog machine you really need good ones. Garrett MS-2's or Gray Ghosts etc. Earbuds you won't hear the nuances.

I was hoping to find some older stuff, at least I did find an old military button. Not only is the beach very clean, there are supposedly a lot of detectorists there. Saw a guy swinging an Equinox with the 15" coil on it, don't think he found much because I hit that spot earlier in the day. I watched him dig for a while, but he didn't pocket anything. Honestly I found most of my coins and rings not by hunting the water, but by estimating the tide level at peak beach time from the day before. I learned a lot, and it's a heckuva lot easier to dig the beach than the farm! Got the coil coin from Etsy, someone laser cuts them I think.

I agree you sure have the ability as Flakmagnet said " Nice work! If you're finding pieces like that, you won't miss the big one." Big ones are a different game and are missed because they gave a large JUNK signal or a mild GROUND NOISE by most beginners.

The metal box design is actually great from a practical perspective. Certainly easier to make. But they were also very well balanced, easy control access, and did not roll over when set down. New is not always better, and the risk with plastic is you end up with toys. But I am a forward thinking marketing type, and it is obvious to anyone that electronics get smaller and more powerful. Whites was trying to hold back a tide that is unstoppable. Yeah, that 20 something with the cell phone wants a detector that looks like a mailbox. Not. Apex is really sweet, just a tight little detector package. Garrett obviously has seen the light finally. Just like it is inevitable that someday a wireless coil will be made that works well with a cell phone interface. There are some things you just know are going to happen, and while first efforts are dull, if XP is not working towards that future, somebody else is. Faster Bluetooth and more silicone in the phone will be enough someday to get something decent. May not be cutting edge, but could eat up the kids and entry level markets easy enough.

First big price increase in some time. Shop your favorite dealer or Keene now to get what you can before websites catch up to the increase.

well done LL some fine nevada nuggets

Nice finds again! And family participating to boot. That curio cabinet is really sharp. The Bowie is almost a sword! Wow.