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Hey wassup guys!😃 Hope y'all doing great!👍😄 Still buzzing from Saturday!!! 3 gold coins!!!🤣🤣🤣 Never thought that i would experience something like this!😳 Can't wait to go back, because i didn't get to stay there for too long (had the wife waiting for me). Good luck out there!🍀 Best regards 🍻

I'd say the same thing, but let me tell You what changed drastically my goldhunting life 8 years ago... I started in 2005 Just reading some informations. My first toy was an ace 250 and for almost three years I cleaned any kind of trash among dry sand being far from water due to the poor wet attitude of it. I was on the beach with the only intention to go out alone in peace after I lost my father.Headphones noise was a therapeutic process to keep my mind elsewhere. One day I decided to improve the instrument and I bought a CZ21 able not only to hunt the sand but the water too. I just improved one third of the needs to be successful. After two days, my first gold ring appeared among the sand of a little remaining cut near low tide line. A 9 grams wedding band. I dug hundreds of holes in those days, moved only by the mind challenge for a new instrument and the will to find finally a ring as a life or death goal. The fever caught me. After this moment I was only repeating a useless cycle of unproductive behaviours, traveling for unknown places, at the wrong time, during storms finding waste of money on the road. Environmental rules were my weakness and my lack of knowledge too. So the first find was only for luck. So I bought books, I tried to apply knowledge to my area with slightly better results. The other missing part is that every single place has its own history, influence and human's behaviours. As long as You research all of these things before to explore, for sure You'll see a dramatic difference in Your finds. The beach by the way can be a rare nightmare for everyone attempting to start the hunt for gold. If You hunt inland, You can have way more time to hit an area, instead to follow dozens of factors involved by the sea's conduct. So today I can frankly say, no matter what You use, if You want to find gold, follow the steps as a mission. Of course the time of this process is the major investment but the glory has its price and sooner or later You'll smile on it. All the best.

Here is Montes Nail Board Test I did with the 11" coils. It's indoors probably not the best of EMI conditions. But it's the best I could do for now.

About as fair as one can get for a recently buried US dime test in mineralized dirt. On established, undisturbed US coin targets in dirt like this using an optimally setup Equinox, more depth is very possible even down to 10" on a US dime, copper penny or larger US coin, IF EMI and soil moisture conditions are favorable. Too much EMI, too dry or too wet and all bets are off. Deus 2 on the 6" dime approached from Andy's swing direction had very good numerical target ID and tone recognition. So did the Equinox. Deus 2 on the 7" dime had intermittent correct target IDs and tones along with lots of 00s. Similar effect on the Equinox swinging over the 7" dime with intermittent correct target IDs and tones along with iron range numbers and tones. For someone with lots of US coin experience with the Equinox in high iron mineralization, the 7" dime target responses would have been an absolutely must dig especially if the target was investigated more and the high numbers were consistently in the high 20s to mid 30s. If the high numbers had been 39/40 only coupled with iron responses, I might have passed up that target as deep iron. So, virtually identical results that were about what I expected from the testing that has been done by others in milder dirt. XP's FMF technology has definitely improved the depth and target ID accuracy of Deus 2 over Deus 1. However, unless one is a saltwater beach hunter or diver, or really is enamored with the Deus platform from long experience or for its great ergonomics, I have not seen any other reason to ditch the Equinox, trash the soon to be released Legend or declare one over the others as the greatest detector in the world. thanks Andrew!!!!!

It was cold, but all the snow is finally gone so I went to an old ballpark. This ballfield dates back to the mid 40s so I knew there had to be silver there. I had been there last summer but it was so hot I guess I couldn’t concentrate well enough on the signals because all I got was clad. Today I hit the same area and got three mercs. A 1940, 1942, and 1945. I also got a very worn, no date slq. I also got $7.96 in clad which included a 1971 half. Halves are hard to come by for me so that was a nice surprise. This was on Saturday. This puts me at five silvers for the year. I checked last year’s log and I had 7 by this time. I’m going back tomorrow so maybe I’ll get a couple more. So I went back Sunday and hit a hillside near the stands. Not 20 minutes in and I hit a well worn merc. Upon closer inspection it’s a 1916! My first 1916. The backside was caked in a thin layer of mud and not having any water I just put it in my pocket and figured I’d wash it at home and hope for a D mintmark. Before ending the day I got a ‘46 rosie and a ‘43 merc along with $5 something in clad. This 7 silver weekend puts me at 8 for the year. Oh yeah, almost forgot. When I got back home I washed off the backside of that 1916 merc. Low and behold I see remnants of a mint mark! I run to get my lighted 16x magnifier and as hard as I tried I couldn’t make it into a D….it was an S. Bummer!

When I lived in Melbourne as a whippersnapper we went to Sovereign Hill, a tourist attraction in Ballarat, it's an old gold mining town beautifully restored and it felt like you were actually there, if I recall correctly we had our photo taken where they had us dress up in all these old timer clothes and the photo looked like we were in the early 1800's, my parents will still have it somewhere I'd guess. They do all the touristy things you'd expect in an old gold mining town like gold panning. Their marketing on the website is pretty funny, they show what I can only assume are Asian tourists finding a giant nugget in their pan 🙂 https://www.visitballarat.com.au/explore/sovereign-hill/ It's probably the best thing I can recall to do in Ballarat although I haven't been there in years now.

Here is a video testing the XP Deus 2 on various size gold nuggets. Keep in mind this is an 11" coil so it could do better with the 9" but I don't have one yet, I used the Gold field program and sensitive for those that wanted to see it. I'll post another video on the comparisons forum with the Deus 2 up against the Deus 1 and Equinox 800 when I get it finished up.

I was dredging years ago in a river in the motherlode. There was a lot of slate on the bottom. At one point my partner and I chunked out about three feet of slate in broken sheets. At the bottom of that was a 4 dwt nugget. Go figure. It was not the only time, but it was the deepest. Is there clay between the sheets? That is a good indicator that gold can make its way down between the sheets. Good luck

Gender:Male Author Posted January 4 MAY 20 1936 This morning Jacob and I went up and started digging the trench in a descending angle towards my first hole. I had got a good drop going at the start of the trench which was about 10 feet deep. At the angle I plan to use I could get down to 30 feet before I hit the first hole. We'll use the timbre to set verticle and cross supports from here. That should keep the trench from collapsing in. Some of the areas are good hard gravels and won't need dupport but anything that looks loose or soft will get timbered. I think we can walk the buckets out for awhile but at some point we might need to rope them out with a hand winch. The first thing we did in the morning was get 20 buckets down to John to get the tom back in action. He was grateful for that. I think the gold might be weak but we will see what the weigh gives us. Jacob is a hell of a hand and loves to work the pick. I'll tell you that's fine by me and my back. He's a young buck still and has seen just a little color in the pan here and now has the fever already. It is mighty nice having my brother here beside me up in these lonely mountains. The sound of the pick and the shovel working the gravels rang through the mountain today. Jacob and myself hauled out a total of 75 buckets which wasn't a bad day considering the dense gravel and rock we had to work. We all three of us finished the wash and did a weigh under a lantern light. It held some promise. We made 2 ounces and I thought Jacob would dance himself straight into the creek he was so happy. I think the weigh shows the best gold is going to be deeper but I have no idea where the country rock will lie. That fault is like a treasure hunt. It was darn good to see some gold once again. We fixed a good supper of canned beef and beens and hot water corn bread and I broke out a bottle of Irish. TO BE CONTINUED .........................

Here's a video of the Deus 2 and Equinox on the buried dimes at 6 & 7 inches. There are a number of things I forgot to do in these videos that I just didn't think about at the time. So they are just an idea of how the detectors perform. I'll have more videos coming with gold nuggets being ran over with various machines and the actual use of the Deus 2 and Equinox in the field nugget hunting. With work and trying to sort out video footage from 3 different sources it may take a few days. I'm open to any comments about what I did wrong or should have done differently. As well as being open to any of you that currently own the Deus 2 and how to set it up in different ways.

so i started metal detecting back in 2020 summer with nokta pulsedive back than i didnt know anything about that machine anyway i started metal detecting wawing the machine left and right for almost 1 month i did not find any gold or valuable than dang one signal came through and i found this beauty i was having a hearth attack nearly drowned underwater while looking at it.. it's a 14K custom made wedding band which says the both bride and groom's name side by side weighted 13.94 Grams after that i found many gold but not like this not yet anyway 🙂

I've been managing software engineers for a couple of decades. First thing any dev wants to do with any legacy codebase is re-write it. Often, with good reason. It sounds like the technical debt of the V3 code is just too much to overcome without a complete re-write. Which, usually doesn't make financial sense just on the code side. Toss in the hardware obsolescence, and yeah, I can't see any business saying "oh heck yeah, let's take that old stuff and re-do it all". Just not how tech works. - Dave

So basically, all thing being equal! We still seem to be, as before, at a VLF's limit in mineralized soil! Not surprising i suppose! So comes down to price and feature set of the newest VLF's! And of course, brand preferences! Since both Equinox and Deus have a following of core users, I'd expect price won't be as much of an issue for Deus 1 users!! Same will probably be said when a new Equinox comes to market!!👍👍

It's always a challenge to take over someone else's code. And the V3 code is probably one of the largest and most complex detector programs ever written. To make things worse, the processor is obsolete so, at a minimum, it needs to be ported to a new processor. To make things downright miserable, the V3 had some particular problems that would need fixing, some in software but also in the circuit design. The people who designed the circuitry and wrote the code know where the rocks are. Garrett will have to figure it out, could take a while. Probably faster to start with the Ace Apex.

hi to all my name is turhan and i'm from turkey im 27 years old and metal detecting since 2 years now it's my daily and only job it's great to have a forum like this

Second shipment is shipping now Today Feb 8th.

i usually metal detect all the day till sun dawn i work heavily in summer and im usually idle in the winter becouse i dont have a car to travel arround im using a minelab equinox 600 my goal is keep this job till i can't 🙂 becouse of the economical status of my country one of the best job is metal detect in here on your own

hello mate in here it's forbidden to metal detect on any land soil but its completely free to metal detect underwater or near the beach unless its a archelogical site i usually detect for lost gold rings jewellerry stuff etc i found lots of gold rings and silvers

There is no right for the States to determine the mineral title on public mineral lands. You won't find such a law. States can not close valid claims nor can they determine whether the mineral claim is supported by an actual discovery. Those are exclusively federal functions. On the other hand the first court of record where your claim is situated is the only entity that can determine which locator has the better right to possession of the minerals when they are in dispute among them. That "first court of record" is usually the county superior court but the court name varies from state to state. You can find that provision in the very first federal mining law in 1865. Adverse claimants can not bring suit in federal courts to determine the better right to the minerals. 1865 Act: That no possessory action between individuals in any of the courts of the United States for the recovery of any mining title, or for damages to any such title, shall be affected by the fact that the paramount title to the land on which such mines are, is in the United States, but each case shall be adjudged by the law of possession. So for the locators defense against adverse claimants the State, County or Mining District court is the final arbiter if the adverse claimants can not come to a settlement. There is no federal remedy available. Should the United States choose to challenge a claimants rights to the minerals there is a long detailed process that involves notice and opportunity in the administrative tribunals with the right to appeal the administrative decision in the federal courts should the claimant feel the administrative decision be wrong. There is federal law governing the basic requirements to establish a mineral claim. Among those requirements are the necessity to clearly mark the boundaries on the ground, describe the claim's legal land description by prescribed methods (metes and bounds or public land survey depending on the claim type), limitations on the size and shape of the claim, and the requirement to make a public record of your location within 90 days. How that public record is made and maintained is up to the States, Counties and Mining Districts. Failure to maintain your public record can lead to a State, County or Mining District court to declare your claim to be abandoned Prima Facie. Prima Facie means "sufficient to establish a fact or raise a presumption unless disproved or rebutted". Essentially unless you prove otherwise other locators have a legal right to assume you have abandoned your claim if you not have maintained possession by keeping your State required record up to date. It's pretty easy to clear up that cloud on your mineral title by making a public record of your intent to maintain the claim. Notice that part of the 1865 law I underlined? The part about the Law of Possession. That's probably the most misunderstood aspect of mining claims today. The locator of a mineral deposit has the exclusive right to his discovered minerals against subsequent locators as long as he maintains possession. Possession is maintained by properly locating, keeping a public record, occupying and since 1980 making an annual informational filing with the BLM. Some States have additional requirements like maintaining monuments or paying taxes. Follow all those laws and you can maintain possession against adverse locators. To maintain possession from the federal point of view you need to meet the federal location and annual notice requirements as well as perfecting your discovery. Until you have perfected your discovery you have no legal right to the minerals adverse to federal action. In other words if you don't have proof of a valuable mineral deposit the feds can withdraw the minerals and close your claim without compensation. If you have perfected your claim the feds can still close the claim but they will have to pay you for the value of the minerals minus costs. Mining claims are the last claim of right to United States property that can be initiated and maintained by a citizen. There is no federal or state agency that can help you with location, maintenance, possession, recording or perfecting your mineral claim. The whole shebang depends entirely on the acts of the claimant. Miners aren't surveyors or lawyers so the courts and the laws are very lenient when it comes to the claim locating and recording process. Challenging another man's mineral claim on the basis of their paperwork is the act of Claim Jumping. Courts have no patience with claim jumpers so trying to rely on another claimant's technical errors to challenge their claim can go very badly for those foolish enough to try this end run around another's mineral rights. It is often suggested that should a claimant not provide signage or physical notice of their mining claim then the minerals are fair game. There is no basis in any law for this theory. The public record, available in each county, is legal notice to all prospectors of the locators rights to the mineral claim. A few States have a once a year requirement to maintain claim monuments. No State requires that claims be signed or monumented at any time following the original required monument date. It is always and everywhere the legal duty of prospectors to determine land and mineral ownership before putting boots on the ground. If you ignore that requirement you will have no defense against charges of mineral trespass or mineral theft.

MAY 21 1936 Last night I got woke up by the midnight screachers as I call them. Most likely bobcat that come down the creek at night. Jacob and I went up and dug out 20 buckets and got them down to John. Then we went on top the ground at the dig and started removing some top gravels between the trench and my first hole. I am panning some of this as it's removed and there are traces of color even at the higher areas so we are taking that down to John. It might not be much but there is some gold there. The digging is a lot easier up higher anf Jacob and I made good work of it removing 190 buckets in total. My hope was the volume of gravels would make up for what we lacked in quality pay. John couldn't keep up so we will know sometime tomorrow if we got a days pay out of it. We have a good hole started and will keep going down to about ten ft before we start working the trench towards it. My plan is to work away at the bottom when the trench gets there to meet up and let the gravels slowly collapse into the trench and either walk the buckets out using the ramp or rope them out. We are all three of us curious as to what this new dig will bring us. My best guess is there are rich gravels lower than the kettle in hole one. It will take quite awhile to get all this dug out and I am gambling all our efforts on a good pay off at the end.

I do have a gpx 4500. I am going to bring better chisels and try it again. Thanks

it really depends on your conditions and what you are looking for. If you're after small gold then having the threshold at it's most stable point is more important than getting depth. If you're looking for bigger targets like rings or relics then you can stand to have some threshold noise as most bigger targets will still be heard. I've run my stabilizer as low as 2 before to get it perfectly quiet. Yea I'm probably still missing the small stuff. But it's better than trying to sort out small targets from the threshold noise IMO. I'm going to add something. When I get to a new site I'll usually select the timing I want to use. ground balance, turn the RX gain up until the threshold starts to break and then use the stabilizer to smooth out the threshold. I'll usually ground balance again just to make sure.

Hugh (Chase Goldman) will hopefully be able to at least tell us about how it performs in Culpeper soon. I do know that Matt Howell (Gone Diggin) just got one and he's in VA. He'll most likely be the first one to post a video about the Deus 2 in Culpeper. I've hunted it quite a bit in the past with both the Deus and Equinox. Most everything starts sounding like iron on a VLF at about 6" there. I'd expect the Deus 2 to have similar performance as the Equinox.

Thanks Geezer.. I also have loud constant 'ringing' in both ears (tinnitus).. I have difficulty hearing over the top of this ringing, especially in the mid to high tones.. I wear hearing aids and lipread to get by, as it's pretty hopeless without them.. My hearing loss is hereditary, my great-granddad, granddad, mum, me and my twin brother and now my son as well.. My hearing started to go in my early teens and is steadily getting worse.. my mum is nearly deaf and uses very sophisticated hearing devices to hear the phone etc., and that'll be me a few years down the track.. Because the hearing loss is so gradual, I've never really noticed it.. I've learned to live with it.. same applies underwater, I time it with breathing out so I can hear the detector over the bubbles.. and my eyes are constantly glued to the target ID whenever the detector makes a likely squeak.. on the beach I use the speakers instead of headphones, I wear a hearing aid on the side of my swinging arm (right).. I don't wear one on the left so there's very little sound coming in from that side.. I'm in a little sound bubble with me and the speaker that way.. Even with a noisy background (waves and wind) I find this works well for me.. 😁

Thank for your gold nugget testing video. The Gold Field testing was basically what I expected. For any Deus 2 discrimination mode whether an FMF or Deus 2 Mono, you may need to either turn iron audio volume up a lot and/or lower the discrimination setting to 0 or below to hit the smaller gold targets in that kind of mineralization with a clear tone even if it is an iron tone.

Thanks for the clarification, for me the benefits of using a VLF are getting the tiniest bits, if I want to ignore the tiniest bits and target the bigger deeper stuff that's where the GPX 5000 would come into the game. Your videos are the most helpful so far in my decision to get a Deus 2, so thanks again for doing them.

My point is that I think there are many claims out there that probably aren't valid for many reasons. For example, here is text out of the Title 30, sec 23 Length of claims on veins or lodes "...but no location of a mining claim shall be made until the discovery of the vein or lode within the limits of the claim located." So, my question is how valid is a lode claim that has sat there for 10 years with no work to show a valuable mineral discovery and with no surface indication of a valuable mineral. There has been no diligent effort to discover a valuable mineral. Even if a pit was dug but no valuable mineral was found that would just show no valuable mineral and hence no valid claim. Here are some quotes from Adams vs Benedict in New Mexico that went to this subject regarding drilling 2000' holes to discover the uranium and locate the claims. Adams was working diligently to do such and took more than the 90 days and the court sided for them. The interesting case notes are as follows: "It is our opinion that the rule which has been applied with regard to the placer claims, where the prospectors were hunting for oil, presents a situation very similar to this case, even though it is a lode claim. Whether or not a discovery could be made before the hole was drilled, there is no question that the exposing of mineral in place would require the drilling of the holes as was done by the appellants and appellees. Since the appellants had taken peaceful possession of the premises and since they were actively and diligently working on the claim with bona fide intent to make a location, their right to possession of the claim described in the notice of location and as partly marked on the ground, should be protected. This court is not taking the position that such acts constitute a valid location without a discovery. We merely state that when a person is prospecting for uranium ore which lies at a great depth below the surface of the earth and where he has peacefully taken possession of the premises and is in actual possession, diligently and persistently drilling a hole in an attempt to disclose uranium in place, he should be protected in his possession to the full extent of his proposed claim as against someone with no better right. It is to be understood that the court does not countenance a prospector taking possession of land in a case such as this without a discovery and holding it indefinitely without going forward with his work. He may hold it only for such time as he is diligently and persistently conducting his operations in good faith with the intent to make a discovery of mineral. An illustration of the operation of this rule is given in Whiting v. Straup, 17 Wyo. 1, 95 P. 849, 855, as follows:" So again, how many lode claims out there meet this criteria? And probably placer but those are easier to say you made a discovery but possibly not if the "prudent person"/"marketability" test was to be asserted and how deep the pockets of the claimant are. There has been much case law based on a lot money being at stake. A good lawyer and some money I think would bust a reasonable number of mining claims by individuals for a host a reasons. It just that most claims don't have anything valuable associated with them so why spend the money fighting some claim that is 10 years old riddled with issues from the start along with ongoing issues. But, the fact that there are no challenges doesn't mean they would stand up to a challenge. One way I look at it is the difference between mining companies claims vs individuals. It's night and day for a lot of them. The mining company is out there working to get a discovery of a valuable mineral: drilling, geophysics, etc. The lay person a lot (not all and maybe not most but there is some fraction to who this applies to) of time seems to stake the corners file the paperwork with BLM and county recorder and calls it a day. It's hard to believe both are equally valid under the law. And the only way to know is to press the issue and go to court.

I hope they get the killers soon, if they don't could be big trouble for the claim!!

My comments as a Deus and Equinox and pulse induction detector user who also uses handheld pinpointers..........do an automatic noise cancel, automatic frequency shift or manual frequency shift if you are hunting with others and with handheld pinpointers BEFORE you start detecting and do another one if problems arise during a hunt. That is what these features are there for. Some seeded hunt organizers tell their hunters to turn down their sensitivity before hunting and to do noise cancel/frequency shifts and to stay well away from each other if possible. Using an Equinox and a Deus, I simply can't hunt around some other detectors either without doing the necessary steps. Blaming it all on the Equinox is not accurate. I can hear some FTP and Whites VLF detectors approaching from 20 yards away using either an Equinox or a Deus....... Conversely, I can be using an Equinox or Deus right next to another Equinox or Deus IF we have prepped our detectors and pinpointers to minimize crosstalk feedback before hunting. So, Calabash and his hunting partner along with Steve (Gigmaster) and his hunting partner should have taken care of that before starting out instead of blaming it all on the Equinox.....or Deus ll depending on which video your are watching.

There is no doubt that Turkey, just like the rest of the world is experiencing supply chain issues and inflation issues. As far as the Turkish government shutdowns, I have yet to hear anything about that. What I am hearing and reading are natural gas shortages due to problems with pipeline malfunctions and the resulting electricity issues which are not helping the Turkish monetary situation and which are impacting big multi-national companies. Whether Turkish companies are being heavily impacted by these shortages......I don't know. I have read that the amount of natural gas and electricity availability being cut by 40% then 20% was targeted at Turkey's multi national industrial zones.....so their would not be a loss of power or heat for hospitals, schools, private citizens/residential areas. As of this morning, 2/8/22, full flow of natural gas has been restored and repairs to the Iranian natural gas lines into Turkey have been completed. Whether any of this is impacting the release of the Nokta Makro Legend......it is still February and Dilek said she hoped some time in February that the improvements to the Legend would be complete. Shipping them is another story. Like many that use this forum currently, the ground is basically frozen and covered with snow where I am, and aside from some fast moving streams, all of the lakes are very frozen. I really don't have anywhere to use the Legend if I had one.

Hmmm, a strong, localized signal, embedded in (vertically oriented?) shale, in an auriferous creek where you "have done well" on gold in the past. Gosh, personally, i'd say that it would be a good idea to JUST DIG IT! HH Jim

Yes I had them all set up f2 0 recovery 4. The number of tones varied in the programs though some were 5 tones some were 50 tones. I did mess around with some of the settings on the Deus 2 after I filmed the video and I will say XP did a pretty good job on the stock programs. I do think some things can be changed to get more out of it but it's going to take some thought and experimenting due to the different KHz weighted ratios on each of those programs.

It must exist somewhere, I'm curious where exactly the federal government has granted states the right to manage federal minerals within their borders? Is this in FLPMA somewhere? For instance, where Arizona determines if rights of location do or don't exist on federal minerals and lands. Where do states have the authority or jurisdiction to make that decision? Article 4 of the US Constitution gives Congress sole authority over federal lands, Supreme Court has determined this power is "without limitation". Federal law can override state law if conflicts exist. Congress has given BLM (among other agencies) rights to manage federal minerals, lands, and other resources. These agencies I guess technically could delegate some of this management to states too. Something like this must have happened and is codified by either Congress or a federal agency somewhere otherwise how do the states have the right to grant or determine legitimacy of rights on federal lands and minerals where federal law has been complied with? Where is this written? I honestly don't know and it's not a loaded question, I'm just actually curious, haven't thought about it until now. Sec 3 of 1872 says you must comply with "State...regulations not in confict with said laws of US governing their possessory title". However, it doesn't grant the states the right to issue or deny federal title to federal minerals, since it's not state property. Actually, a state determining rights of location even if you've complied with Federal laws could in a way be read as to being in conflict with said laws of US governing possessory title. To be clear: I know the state can require you do this or that with a mining claim like require certain posts, or other specific requirements. What I'm wondering about is their authority to delegate wether rights over the federal minerals have or have not been acquired if these state requirements haven't been complied with.

Trying with Equinox ... to detect in targets in black ceramics or on coke ... on Programs Type2 / Park2, Pole2, Gold 1, Gold2 / is a basic mistake .... these programs are not designed for that ... Equinox programs that work well with the elimination of Coke and black ceramics /conductive terain/are Type 1 programs / Park1, Field1, and Beach1 and programs Beach 2 .... / but Beach2 is the weakest program in terms of ... the differences between the Equinox Type 1 and Type 2 programs are significant......, more than a normal detector operator can think ...

Ar Tibooburra far western New South Wales in Oz, partner was detecting on a slate/shale bedded hill with a vertical orientation. I could not handle it. You dig up a signal, most likely very small gold and the slate would break up and the gold would find another nitch of vertical slate/shale to fall into.... remove the surface shale and start again....me not again. But, SWMBO was using a small paint brush to coax the small gold out of the cracks... and I left her to it.

There is a large section of Sovereign Hill that is the Chinese area. Just as in the United States the Chinese miners were 2nd class where they were allowed to live (down stream) but they took advantage of it by being diligent and efficient. I spent a considerable amount of time when I was there speaking with the guides in the Chinese section. It is pretty well documented they lifestyle and treatment they received which was different than other parts of the camp. The very high fees all miners had to pay in Australia created a bit of resentment that I bet still runs through the country today. The fee collectors certainly didn't enforce it equally and caused much strife in the gold towns. The gold towns of the US were mostly lawless in the early stages with many records of Chinese miners being thrown off their claims or worse. I'm more sensitive to these issues now because my wife is Chinese as you know. While I was there I did see the kids dressed up as Simon said. They were being led through the streets to play as if they were in the 1800s. It is well researched and a living history lesson. I take it to be an example of one of many gold towns that dotted the landscape.

Take a magnet down, you'll quickly see if the beach has black sand, if it's anything like our black sand beaches you won't have a magnet anymore you'll have a big blob of black sand in your hand where the magnet used to be.

From the businesses return the tax can be reduced by costs (materials, wages, consultant fees, research etc ) Then to reduce it further companies use the rest to expand company thereby no profit to pay tax on.

There was or is a section were visitors can try panning Carol had a crowd of Asian watching how fast and the gold that she got. This was in the early 1980s. What I liked was nuggets that an old timer had on display for the public that he had found with a pick and shovel. Well worth the time to visit, when we went with the Kids the entre fee was reasonable too.

Thanks Andy. The only thing I do differently than you is put both detectors in 2 tones…ferrous/non-ferrous. I get similar results using Equinox, Deus 1 and ORX. Coin in position 2 swing direction 4 defeats all three detectors regularly. Otherwise all three do very well as did Deus 2.

I hope Erik has faulty bone phones as I think they're an awesome idea but I guess it's going to be difficult to know without trying another set, a tough situation to deal with for warranty as a retailers not going to want to swap them over easily without being able to verify the fault and it's a hard fault to verify without Erik using another set and when he ordered by post, difficult. It might just be they're not not suitable for his hearing loss type but we'll find out soon enough as a bunch of other people start using them, the way I see it is a manufacturer is unlikely to ever release a product that doesn't work properly. I think the quality of the bone headphones although they may not look tough must be, even as an accessory they also include the 5 year warranty, that's a killer warranty for headphones like that designed for underwater use in salt. The price is also quite respectable too I think.

So I have no experience on the Deus but had seen an original Deus in action on some relic hunts. It was an interesting machine but lacked the depth needed in that particular area. But it intrigues me as it offers a lot of control (like my GPX 5000 does) and like my 6000 DOES NOT. So, I'd like to hear more about the Deus II and wondered if anyone has really looked at these particular controls. I looked over the Deus posts, but can't find the post I was looking for, so excuse my ignorance if I'm not saying this correctly. I remember someone talking about being able to adjust the salt setting (sensitivity?) as well as a general sensitivity setting. Was there also a iron sensitivity of some sorts too? I feel the salt control along with any other iron and general sensitivity setting is what I'm very interested in. Those seem to me as the most important settings on that machine. Has anyone played around with matching them for maximum depth yet. I know a lot of the first impressions are screen related and ease of use related, but I'm thinking the matching of those settings is what is going to set the Deus II apart from other MF/VLF machines. Thoughts?

It looked like 3 to 5 from what I could see which is about right for the gold prospecting areas I have hunted in central AZ. Most ground balance between 1 and 13

I don't think your cursed, I've never found a gold anything on land. When I switched from land to water I put myself in a more likely place and all changed.

I'm surprised on both detectors how a single inch can change the results so much in that soil, pretty crazy. I'm certainly not used to dealing with soil like that 🙂

MAY 19 1936 Today I went into town and met up with my brother Jacob and took him out to the claims. When I arrived I saw John talking to the law. Jacob and me walked over to see what was what. John said we better hear this. The deputy said they had a report of a prospector getting killed up on the mountain the other day. They had found him shot in his camp. His partner had escaped and reported the incident. There were four men and he gave a description. We told the deputy what we had heard and about what time of night and about the four men who had hiked down the mountain and our encounter with them. The deputy said that fit the description and time of the murder. The prospectors camp was robbed along with the gold they had. He took our names and thanked us for the information. Then he looked at us and said to be careful out here, it wasn't safe. And if we had any problems let him know. We said we would but John and me had already decided to handle things ourselves. Jacob looked at me with wide eyes as if thinking what he got himself into out here. I had told him about our problems with the hooligans but this was another step up in danger. I told him that if he wanted to go home he could but he declined and said he would stick with us. I was glad for that for sure as we needed him. I introduced him to John and we sat in camp for an hour and ate some bacon and beans and helped Jacob set up his tent and went to work. By now it was mid afternoon so John watched camp while Jacob and myself went up to dig. I explained what was what and we set about dropping and bucking trees with the crosscut saw for support timbers in the trench. We took a good amount of timber over to the diggings before dusk and called it a day. The three of us sat around camp after supper and drank some good whiskey Jacob had brought. We decided to take shifts on watch at camp from now on. Any unwelcome trsspasser would be dealt with in a hard manner. TO BE CONTINUED ................

It seems we are on the same ship😅😅😅😅

Now we come to the reason why I have told this story. Good news. Really big rainfall has come with the La'Ninya Pacific effect that has dumped massive rainfall on parts of Australia. My good mate Bill has recently contacted me with the latest news. "Mate, the settling dams are full and the retaining wall is directing water down into the valley." "In short, we have all the water we need to start treating the wash that is already stockpiled, and enough to treat material yet to be extracted". "I have moved the loader and excavator up to the lead, the treatment plant is now located and levelled and engine and pump moved up and connected". "After all these years we are ready to go". "I say we because it was we, you and me that discovered this abandoned project and I hope that we can work it together". "I am camped on site and have a big caravan with all comforts". Wow! That's what good mates are all about. Bill has put in an enormous amount of work in putting this into place after so many years of perseverance and persistence. Bill has offered the land owner a percentage of the gold recovered which has been accepted by Lefty's son who has stated that he trusts the agreement and requires no further compensation provided that the land is rehabilitated at the conclusion of the operation. A quite large bond has been posted to ensure that this occurs. The agreement that Bill has negotiated is as follows: the split will see the recovered gold divided as such; the land owner will get to 'cherry pick' his percentage, and the balance will be divided three ways. A share for Bill, a share for me and the third share for the machinery. Bill and I will split the fuel and basic running costs. A fair split to my way of thinking. After negotiations the land owner will settle for ten percent. All that is left is for me to pay outstanding bills and expenses here and convince my partner that she will be able to get on without me here for a few months. (or more) To be continued.

No more keys????

Congratulations on the great finds over the weekend and especially that 1916 Merc! I'm thinking that you have some close to virgin ground there. I would start gridding the area off and detect it from two directions and concentrate on those deep silver tones! NCtoad are you using the Equinox? Good luck when you get back in there.