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Showing content with the highest reputation on 04/26/2022 in all areas

  1. I've had four opportunities now to take the XP Deus 2 out for a spin. I'm really liking this machine for relic hunting. I still have a lot to learn about it. I like a detector that is simple to operate. The Deus 2 is not a simple machine... at least for me as I feel like a pilot going through their pre flight check list every time I fire it up. I'm sure it will become routine soon. A few finds from 2 different spots. Two hunts total. The first two pictures are from an old WW2 camp that I have been over with the Nox many times. The second spot is a new permission. You would think with all those buckles I would have found one coin..but no. The spur made my day..its in good shape. Happy hunting and get that deus 2 if you like hunting for relics. Just don't tell anyone about it πŸ™‚ strick
    25 points
  2. While not quite as exciting as Reg and James and their colours I did manage to pop a few up myself yesterday. JW and I went back to the same place I found my KFC nuggets the other day, I once again stayed right at the entrance due to my broken foot, I really can't walk very far before the pain is too much and I need to save some life in my foot for the days hunting, If I walked too far I'd have nothing left in me for swinging the detector. JW fortunately has healed up quickly from his leg muscle injury and was able to walk off into the distance, he ended up going a fair way away to an area I've not been to since I was using my GPX 4500. He did well too, ended up with 8 nuggets. Seeing I was going over ground we mostly went over the previous days I didn't have much hope for myself, but I wasn't going to let that get in my way. I was more determined than ever to at least find one nugget we missed. It's a very small area where I was hanging around, I first found gold in this exact spot with my GPX 4500 a few years ago, I found a 1.2 gram nugget down by the creek, and a couple of little ones near it, I then asked JW to go over it with his GPZ and stock coil and clean up anything my 4500 missed and I vaguely remember him finding another 6 or so tiny little nuggets I'd missed. It really is a small area, there is a dirt road and about 10 to 15 meters (30 to 50 feet) wide on one side of the road is where the gold has been found, it goes for a stretch of about 50 meters I would guess (165 feet) along the side of a bit of a drop off into a creek. It's on a downward slope and drops into a little gully and down the bottom of this is where I previously found the 1.2 gram nugget. This is the area I confined myself to that we both confined ourselves to a couple of days ago. Over the other side of the road is another area with quite long grass and deeper ground. I had an explore over there on the road side for a few hours and found nothing but junk. The other day I stayed up near the top of this area where I found 6 nuggets including my KFC pieces πŸ™‚ This time my focus was more down towards the bottom, JW had a bit of a shot down there the other day but I didn't make it down there as we keep our distance apart to stop the detectors messing with each other, both the GPZ 7000 and GPX 6000 JW is using work remarkably well next to each other though. He was going to use his GPZ this time as it's just better for in the long grass, the shaft on the 6000 twists, the coil ears don't appear strong enough for pushing the detector through long grass so he's a bit worried about breaking them doing what we do with the GPZ. We use our detectors as a way to push down and flatten the grass, and with the GPX this isn't really possible so you have to do it by foot stomping and then detect over it which takes more time. His little flap cover on the back of the detector is always hanging open too, that thing just never holds shut, might have to tape it down or something. The GPZ is much more robust and you just bulldoze the grass down. Anyway, he just ended up using the GPX again as it was ready when I arrived at his house, it was a bit of a last minute idea to go on our gold hunt yesterday. This is the long grass I'm talking about, the 8" is a breeze in this stuff, it just squishes it down and the nice tough GPZ shaft has no problems doing it, being dry the grass is quite firm too, not nice soft green grass. JW doesn't have this little 8" coil though so he'd be using a 15" Concentric coil which wouldn't be quite as good in the long grass although he'd still be able to bulldoze it over with the stronger shaft, I've used the 12" Concentric fine doing that, but still not as easy as the 8". The little dig hole to the bottom left was just a pellet in this photo. My first nugget of the day was right down the bottom where the road drops down into the gully, right near where I found the 1.2 gram piece a few years ago with the 4500 and where JW had checked with his GPZ and stock coil at the time cleaning up the bits I'd missed. Down by the water in the shade of the willows the grass stays green, unusual for in this area as its so arid and brown. Sorry about the spit on the scoop, I had to clean the gold to see it was even gold πŸ™‚ It was quite deep down, its hard to tell in the photos but you can sort of see the soil pile in this one above. The 8" is like a laser, you can dig pick width holes to get your target out as it's so small and accurate. And the nugget, I thought it was going to be heavier than it was, it was my biggest of the day. I was happy now, I thought at that point it was extremely unlikely I'd find another one, we'd just done this ground too much for there to be any more nuggets we'd missed. JW rang me from his location way out of my walking range to check up how I was doing, at this point he'd found 3 nuggets and I'd just found this one, I guess he was about a kilometer away along the dirt road at the time. A little further along down the bottom I had another target, weird, perhaps a pellet that was rejected or something so I dug it up. A little ball πŸ™‚ Although a lot smaller it weighs more than the bigger flat one. And it wasn't 10 minutes and I'd found a 3rd, all in a similar area down near the bottom of this little dip in the road. This one was probably hidden due to the long grass, because I was able to squish the grass down so easily I was able to get close to the ground. In fact it's probably similar for all of them, with the clumps of grass the GPZ just has more push strength to crush it down to get closer to the soil. A little KFC mini drumstick πŸ™‚ There isn't much meat on the KFC mini drum. I gave up in this area now, I've absolutely slammed it and so has JW, I was honestly surprised to get anything. I went over the other side of the road in the small area between the road and the fence, it was just full of trash, although I did find a silver ear ring, probably from a hiker. The really bad bit about detecting along this road was hikers, they kept walking past me, I felt like a monkey at a zoo with them all stopping to watch me and talking to me with the same standard lines, "have you found anything" or "are you looking for gold". This place is normally pretty empty, you're lucky to see one other person in a day, this day I am sure there was 20 or 30 hikers go past! so weird! JW encountered them way further along where he was too. He probably wasn't right at the road though so wouldn't have had it as bad as I did. The ear ring I found, I also found a wedding ring from a mouse. Poor little guy probably got a big lecture from Mrs Mouse for losing his wedding ring. and my junk, I zoomed in so you can get a real good look at it! I was rejecting surface pellets, if it moves on the first scrape or two it stays there, these are the ones I had to dig, using the same dig and recovery process of a nugget, very time consuming. I don't understand how the pellets get down deep into the ground, maybe they've been there a long time, some get down in cracks in the bedrock and everything and really get you excited. A majority of this junk came from the opposite side of the road to the gold along where the fence is. JW has found gold on that side in the past, I wasn't able to find any there this time. I had a fun day, even though I confined myself to such a small area I was happy to get some gold. I'll post a photo of JW's nuggets weight when he sends one though to me. And for those wondering, yes we got KFC on the way home πŸ™‚
    14 points
  3. I was invited to visit a friend out of town and detect on his permission a couple of days ago. This place was a 100 year old boys school which is now privately owned. Since I recently got the Deus II and have only had it out once, I thought this would be a great place to try to learn the language of this machine. Up until now I have only used American and Australian detectors, so this new French one was Greek to me. I loaded up the D2 and took the Equinox as a backup if things went south. The plan was to see how deep the D2 could get in the heavily iron mineralized soil of the sports field that we have pounded for two years. I figured we had cleaned out enough of the shallow coins and trash to possibly hit the silver layer if there is one. I started out in the P1-General program, but quickly swithed over to a modified Park program with 5 Tones and that's when the coins started popping out. I also used the XY screen which I really like as it helped to identify many of the trash targets. Where has this thing been all my detecting life? After a few hours, I was starting to recognize the sounds of quarters, dimes, copper pennies and zinc pennies, most of which were coming from 4-6 inches down and sounding really clear. A few that were in the 7-8 inch range still sounded good, but had more of and iron tone mixed in. I did hear some faint tones deeper down that had 00 TID, but none had any silver tone to them and I passed on those for the time being. The one banging silver tone I did get came from about 7 inches down and turned out to be a belt buckle. Another one I thought was a silver dime for sure at about 4 inches was a 1980 British New Penny. By the end of the day, I was also able to recognize many square tabs, most bottle caps, and many nails with some level of confidence. This is a very trashy field but I was able to skip much of it this time and felt like I wasn't missing something good. So I ended up with a bunch of clad coins (and a 1965 dime... so close!), 19 copper pennies, only one wheatie (1944-S), 17 zincolns, a couple of small buttons of some kind, and a Disney Frozen pendant. And while I didn't reach silver this time out, I feel much more comfortable with the Deus II and I'm starting to learn more of what it is telling me. Here is what I pulled, minus the surface trash.
    14 points
  4. Went out a few weeks ago to prospect in California at the same location I was at a few weeks back. Did pretty well with the GM 1000 - its a pretty trashy area and if you dont want to dig 200 pieces of rusty iron junk, you will be using some discrimination. I did try the SDC and the 7000 in a few areas, but eventually the trash got to me and I was back on the GM1000. I know that a lot of guy preach dig it all, but there are places which have gold but the amount of trash will make your head spin. What do you guys think? This is the gold I dug last time - 5 grams. I'll be returning soon because success breeds more success.
    13 points
  5. New Updates Coming! 1) Iron Bias 2)M3 new Multi Freq 3)Pitch Tone 4)Mineralization Meter 5)Mute Function 6)Audio Gain 7)Hearing the sound thru HPs and speaker at the same time 8)Selected setting to blink 9)Discrimination pattern to not revert back to C (custom) when changing modes 10)Notch Filter - Automatic sensitivity drop to make the adjustment easier 11)Factory Default function
    10 points
  6. First, I wanted to say "Thank's Delik!" for all the info! And have a Great Holiday Off!!πŸ‘Œ Secondly, for everyone; I don't own a Legend yet, or have any ties with NM, nor am I a dealer of any kind for any brand! Just an end-user! But have watched it closely, since it was announced! And have been very impressed with the customer communications! Even if everything hasn't been problem free! Nothing ever is with a new release! I think I'm pretty unbiased on any brands I have owned; they all have their niche to fill! And i appreciate great customer service, but especially a responsive manufacturer who understands customer needs, and can continually adapt with actual end-user input, on the fly! Even though I'm sure it can be very taxing, as there are some people that you can never please, and some things that are not yet technically possible! I think they are heading in the right direction, to help secure market share, and a healthy following! Keep up the good work, by setting the standard to follow!! Maybe other's will learn a thing or two, and try and improve their end-user communication and improvements, without us needing a bank loan to make a purchase!πŸ˜πŸ‘πŸ‘
    8 points
  7. This demonstrates the area I was hunting. You'll see just how small it is. The stars are the nuggets approximate locations. I also marked on the spot where I found the 1.2 gram nugget with the GPX 4500 a couple of years ago. I've blurred the photo to hide the secret spot πŸ˜› If there is one thing having a broken foot has taught me it's how to detect an area slowly and thoroughly, something JW has been unable to teach me no matter how hard he tried.
    7 points
  8. Hi guys, This is a 50 hour review of the Deus 2 which I posted over on the FMDF back in early March. I have at least 150 hours on it now, and my thoughts on the things mentioned below haven't changed much. Anyway, a friend asked me to post this over here as well, so I just copied and pasted it. Hope that's ok? Also, I'm not sure of the rules on posting YouTube videos or links here, so if I've posted something that I shouldn't have, moderators feel free to edit and remove it. My thoughts on the XP Deus 2 after 50 hours. Ok guys, time for another one of my long-winded reviews. If you've been here for a while, you've probably seen me post these before. The goal is just to share some unbiased thoughts on the new XP machine which will hopefully help anyone who may be on the fence about getting one. You'll get no BS fluff from me. I'll point out the good, the bad and the ugly. Now I can't speak on beach hunting, gold prospecting or long-term durability but I can offer my opinion on several other things including how it performs for the type of detecting I do, which is looking for coins and relics in the dirt. I'll break this down into specifics and give my thoughts on each. Ergonomics: Lets start with the remote. If you've used the original Deus or ORX, the first thing you'll notice is that the D2 remote looks and feels a lot beefier. It’s a little larger and seems more rugged. Gone are the days of poking the tip of your thumb into tiny round holes shaped like a set of bowling pins. The buttons on this unit are large and easy to use. Overall, the D2 remote is much improved compared to the original, but there are a couple of things that I'm not a fan of: 1) I don't like having to screw in a connector to charge it. I understand why they designed it this way (waterproofing), but it still takes extra time to get it connected and charging. Not a big deal, just a little annoying. Maybe someone will design a quick connector for us land hunters. 2) The way it attaches to the shaft is a bit cumbersome. You can't just quickly snap it on there. You have to really look at it and make sure everything is lining up. Again, just a minor gripe. The fact that we can even detach the control box in the first place is a damn cool feature not found on any other detector as far as I know. The shaft is much the same as the original with a couple of minor differences. They've shortened the levers which lock the shaft in place. They WILL pinch the meat of your hand if you're not paying attention. The handle is wrapped a little differently. It has a semi-rubber-like feel to it. Really comfortable in the hand. My two biggest complaints for this section are as follows: 1) For whatever reason, XP continues to put these tiny useless stands on their detectors. Every time I sit my detector down to dig, it just falls over. WTH? How much trouble would it be to make the damn stand an inch taller and an inch wider so that it actually makes contact with the ground and becomes functional? 2) The shaft is mounted at the rear of the coil which makes it difficult to do ground presses for leveling the coil. When detecting uneven ground, I think we all probably do ground presses several times per hunt. Just makes sense to make doing them easy! As a side benefit, moving the shaft to the center of the coil would help lift up the handle portion off the ground, which in turn would help make that ridiculous tiny stand more functional. After reading this, it may seem like I'm saying the ergonomics aren't good. That’s not the case at all. This is by far the most comfortable, lightweight, easy to swing detector that I've ever used. However, the idea is to point out the positives and negatives... and even though I love the way this detector handles, I see some room for improvement. Display: This is another area where I see room for improvement. The display is small and cramped. If you're like me, an old fart with failing vision, the smaller text on the display will be difficult to see. I'm no engineer but I wish they could've found a way to move the buttons further down and use up all the available space on the face of the remote to make the screen larger. As for what is shown on the display, it gives you a lot of info. Everything you need to know is right there. You'll just need to break out your glasses to see some of it. NOTE: XP released an update in v.6 on 3/11/22 that gives users the option to make the TID and Horseshoe larger so that it takes up the entire screen. It only switches to this view when a target is detected. This does make viewing those two elements easier, but here’s what I’d really like to see: Now that you can have it show the large numbers and Ferrous/ NonFerrous meter when a target is detected, why not remove the original ID and horseshoe when no target is being detected. That space could then be used to increase the size of everything else. Make the ground reading and other info larger and less cramped. No point in showing the smaller ID or horseshoe when nothing is being detected. Like the D1, the depth meter on the D2 is integrated on the horseshoe. A shallow or larger target fills in more of the shoe, a deeper or smaller target fills in less. I prefer a numeric depth readout, but you do get very good tonal depth info from the Deus with a proper Target Response setting, so together it works well enough. Battery: Like the original Deus and a lot of other newer detectors, the Deus 2 has a built in rechargeable battery. I think most manufacturers will continue with this trend due to weight savings and waterproofing. The non-user serviceable battery used to bother me but not anymore. They last a long time, the manufacturer can still replace them if needed, and we don't think twice about purchasing $1000+ cell phones with non-user serviceable batteries so why should a detector be any different? I can't say exactly how long a charge will last, but I can tell you that I've hunted several times now for 6 or 7 hours each day. The battery on both the coil and remote never dropped more than one bar. As long as I'm able to hunt all day without needing a re-charge, that’s all that really matters to me. I leave the backlight on low (3 I think?) all the time and it doesn't seem to effect battery life much. Menu: If you're coming from a Deus 1, learning the menu will be a piece of cake. Otherwise, it may take a bit of getting used to. To me, the layout was easy to understand and use, but I was already familiar with it after using a Deus 1 for several years. Some settings are in strange places IMHO. For example, to change the tones you need to access what they call the "expert" menu which is a group of sub settings below discrimination. Once you get used to how XP does things, its fairly straight forward. Target ID: This is one area where I saw a nice improvement over the original Deus. The Target ID on the Deus 2 is solid, even on deeper targets. On the Deus 1 the ID tended to get a little squirrely on anything past a few inches. The D1 also tended to up-average certain targets if they were deep. From what I've seen so far, this isn't the case with the D2. It's very stable. Of course, on a 100-point ID scale the numbers will vary slightly in highly mineralized ground or if you have some targets close together. In that case, just make sure you leave yourself a little wiggle room when setting your tone breaks. As it is right now, the ID flashes on the display and quickly disappears. I'd like to see an update that makes the Target ID numbers stay on the display for a little longer. {Edit} This was fixed in update version 0.7. Good job XP! Tones: The Deus is and always has been a tone machine. The Deus 2 is no exception. It offers the most descriptive audio of any machine I've used, and the sheer amount of tone options are one of its greatest features. You have the option to use two types of tones: PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) which sounds like the original Deus, or Square which sounds similar to the Equinox. I'm sure I'll catch some flak for saying this, but now that I think about it, with the Square tone option and the option to run SMF or Mono, the Deus 2 is almost like having 3 detectors in one. The original Deus, the Deus 2 and the Equinox. Once you select the type of tones you want, you then have the option to use several different tone settings: Tone Breaks (2 tones, 5 tones, etc.) - You can control the target ID ranges for each tone and customize the pitch for each tone bin. Pitch Tones, which is like VCO - The closer the target is to the coil, the higher the pitch. Full Tones - Gives you a higher pitch based on conductivity of the target. What I've found is that different tone settings work best for different hunting situations. For example, if I'm hunting in a city park with lots of modern trash, I like to run Square Tones set up with Tone Breaks (5 tones). Reason being that Square tends to smooth out the audio and using Tone Breaks lets you concentrate on a specific set of tones rather than having your eardrums bombarded with a huge array of tones. Square tones do give you less tonal nuances compared to PWM, but sometimes less is more. Pitch tones is great for picking out non-ferrous targets from iron. Maybe you're hunting a pounded relic site and you're trying to sniff out a few more nonferrous targets hidden among the iron. Pitch will make them jump out at you. Trying to use Pitch in modern trash would most likely be sensory overload, but it has its place. {edit} Since posting this, I’ve changed my mind about using pitch in modern trash. It can actually work really well for coin shooting! See this post for details. Full Tones offers the most tonal nuance IMHO. You can actually hear shapes if running Full Tones and PWM. What I mean by that, is that you can hear the soft edges of a round target (musket ball, etc.) vs a flat target. You can hear the difference between a coin and a misshapen piece of can slaw. These tonal nuances are what makes the Deus really stand out from the rest. You can still hear them to a degree in other modes, but I've found that PWM Full Tones gives you the most tonal info. The Deus 2 also has a very useful feature called Audio Response. This is another way of saying modulation. A lower Audio Response makes deeper targets or smaller targets sound faint, and shallow or large objects loud. Basically, a tonal depth meter. The Audio Response setting is directly tied with tonal nuance. Cranking it up high will decrease the amount of nuance you get from the target. Pinpointing: The Pinpoint mode on the Deus 2 works well enough. You have the option to automatically ratchet down the target signal, or to do it manually by holding the coil just off to the side of the target and press/release the pinpoint button again. I don't like the fact that you have to press another button to get out of pinpoint mode. It would've been better if it were set up so that just pressing the same button again took you back into detecting mode. With the 9" coil, I don't even use the pinpoint feature all that much. You can tell pretty easily where the target is. The wiggle back method works well too. Default Programs: The out of the box programs on the Deus 2 work great, and if I could only offer one piece of advice to a new Deus user, it would be to stick with those default programs until you get comfortable with the machine. I've owned two Deus 1's. Years ago, when I bought the first one, I made the mistake of trying to adjust settings before I even understood what they did. I ended up getting frustrated with the machine and selling it. A year later I bought another one and actually took the time to learn how to use it. Loved it. I think we have a natural tendency to want to max things out to get the fastest speed or the most depth right away. What I mean by that is creating custom programs and maxing out the sensitivity, cranking up the reactivity too high (depth killer), lowering the silencer before you get a feel for detecting in iron, etc. Again, sometimes less is more. The default programs will perform very well in most situations, so don't be in such a rush to create that "awesome custom program". Learn the machine first. Another good thing with the Deus, is that if you do make changes and goof up one of the default programs, simply powering off the detector and turning it back on again will reset everything back like it was. To keep the changes, you'd need to save your program into one of the custom slots. Note: After performing a firmware update on 3/11/22, I noticed that updating also deletes all of your custom programs. This needs to be addressed ASAP. With all of the adjustments available on the Deus, having to re-create all of your custom programs after every update is a real pain in the @ss. I'm sure XP can find a work around with some effort. Update version 0.7 released on 4/14/22. It still erases all of your custom programs. XP, this needs to be fixed! Update version 0.71 released on 4/28/22. This update includes several bug fixes. My custom programs were not erased this time. YAY! This detector does offer the ability to fine tune a lot of settings. Some people think it has a steep learning curve but consider this: You don't need to make all those adjustments to enjoy the detector. However, options are good and they're there if you need them. If you're coming from using the original Deus, learning the Deus 2 should be pretty straight forward. I felt comfortable with the menu and settings after only a few minutes. If you've never used an XP detector, just take your time, and stick with the default settings until you get the hang of it. I did notice a slight annoyance in the Park program. For some reason it likes to report tiny pieces of wire way up in the 90s. Not a huge deal as its usually easy to tell that it’s not a coin thanks to the tonal nuance. Again, this only seems to happen in Park mode. If I switch to another program, it reads much lower where it should. I'm guessing this has something to do with the frequency set being used in Park mode. Depth: You've seen the test videos. The depth capabilities of the Deus 2 are very good. In my test bed, I was able to hit the same deep targets with the smaller 9" coil that were right on the edge of detection for my Nox 800 with its 11" coil. No complaints in the depth department. Speed: Its a Deus. Its lightning fast. Nothing more needs to be said. Headphones: IMHO, the backphones suck. Some folks may like them but I'm just not a fan. I'll be ordering a pair of the aftermarket headphones which accept the WS6 puck. The WS6 module itself is pretty awesome. As you probably know, it can be used as a standalone unit (without the remote). If at some point in the future you get a different coil, I think you could probably just get an extra shaft off their website and create another Deus detector. One using the remote, and another using the WS6 module. When you consider that, the price tag of the Deus doesn't seem so bad. Build Quality: So far it seems very good. Much like the original Deus. When you pick it up for the first time, it just feels like a quality piece of gear. Like some others, I did have the issue of a few screws being semi loose from the factory. I tightened them up. No big deal. FMF: Unfortunately I sold my Equinox 800 before my Deus 2 arrived so I wasn't able to do any head to head comparisons. I have taken the D2 to some of the sites that we've hit hard with several other detectors, and I did find some more good targets including a Barber dime with a piece of iron wire next to it. However, that doesn't prove anything IMHO. The only way to definitively say one detector is better/faster/deeper than another is to test them both on the same target, on the same day with similar settings. I don't think the D2 will be replacing my CTX for selective digging or cherry-picking silver in modern trash. Even though you can definitely cherry pick with the D2, the 3030 just gives you so much accurate target info that I still think it’s going to reign supreme for that type of hunting. At least for me, and at least for now. 50 hours isn’t enough time to master this or any other detector IMHO, so it’s a little early to make that call. That’s the way I’m leaning though. Final Thoughts: Ok, I’ve been rambling long enough. That’s my thoughts on the XP Deus 2 after 50 hours of use. Overall, I think it’s a great machine and I'm happy with my purchase. It is everything that I expected it to be. I have no ties with XP and whether or not you buy this detector doesn't affect me what-so-ever. Everything mentioned above is just my opinion. YMMV. My Deus 2 YouTube Vids:
    6 points
  9. Hello Jeff. I am so sorry. Did not know....but I check all emails that come through and make sure they are responded to. Do you use messenger or whatsapp? Get in touch with me directly and we can set up a date and time to even video call you and walk through it and see the issue ourselves.
    6 points
  10. Let me start this off... Cliff if i miss speak please correct me. I have to say i was impressed with the Deus on wet sand. It got a bit more depth on some of the gold rings we tested. These werent methodical tests.... drop a ring in a 14" hole and see what happens. Cliff is also in the learning process..... but it helps hes a VERY good hunter and no matter the machine he knows a weak target others might miss. Build wise.... he bought the new upper shaft which is longer and stablized the lower from flexing in the water. So the shaft seems pretty good even for water hunting. He put the antenna cable inside the shaft..... nice. He was using Tony Eisenhower phones.... which he had to turn down the volume on. I did NOT swing the machine thou he offered. I was more interested in seeing how it did.... ill save using it for another day.... when hes got it really dialed in lol. Is still like to see those coil ears moved more toward the center of the coil to reduce coil flip, ear wear, balance, and breakage from leaning on it. The way the shaft is made it appears more contact can be made by the locks. Clearly the Deus will get equal to of a bit better depth on the wet sand than the MDT.... thats saying something since the Nox fell a little short. Thou again hes still in the learning phase and we were basicly air testing by dropping targets in a hole. Some machines dont do well using this method. The Deus CAN noise cancel out the MDT and didnt appear to create silent EMI like the Nox did reducing depth. So we really never had to move the machines very far away when checking targets. Right off the bat i hit a couple of targets he didnt find..... turned out to be deep can slaw. He adjusted his disc setting and that fixed that. We hit one target fairly deep with a mixed signal which we both thought maybe bottle cap.... turned out to be a silver toe ring with a large piece of iron under it. Targets were really just not there either. I intentionally brought 3 targets, small chain, tiny cross, and hollow gold earring. These were found with the Nox using the 40khz gold program in a volleyball course. As expected the Deus nor the MDT hit those setting on top of that wet sand. My impression is the Deus is a very capable machine and quieter than the Nox in the water. Build is a better than i expected thou time will tell. Based on some of the comments thou they still need to make some updates. With any multi use machine thou you really need to test a lot ..... water, wet ... then dry sand and make those tweaks. If you dont.... the the term "you dont know what you dont know" applies. You just wont know if you have it dialed in.... and right now everyone is in a learning curve or should be. A skilled hunter as we say can find gold with a stick..... so considering ive done my testing, have time on my machine, and have it dialed the way i like it. The Deus impressed.... and id say can do even better. AND no ive still not got one on order....lol. I like the MDTs simplicity. Make no mistake ..... buying a great machine doesnt make you great.... ya have to put in the time. As i say.... never sell a new machine until you have payed for it in finds... by then you have a pretty good idea if it suits you. the warranty duration is considerably longer than the MDT. However…. The way it’s written to me is some concern. as a water hunter. No good having if for some reason it floods and they opt not to replace it. Hopefully they will be as responsive as ML. Seems pretty water tight thou so hopefully it will never be an issue.
    5 points
  11. Just a howdy, I am new to the forum. I use to detect a lot (since the 70's) but back problems and age slowed me down. I think I will be able to get back into the game this Summer. We had a blizzard here in Sturgis South Dakota, but I had three days prior that I was able to do some detecting in the parks. I cannot stoop up and down as many times as I used to be able to do, so I don't dig iffy signals so much (where the good stuff is!). I will include photos of my finds so far this year from those three days. You can laugh, hey I am 73 and can no longer be offended!
    5 points
  12. I have a pretty sizable lawn to detect on, on slow days. It sits right on top of what was the Upper Fort during the revolutionary war. I’ve pretty much cherry picked all the high tones out of this lawn, so I’m now at mid tones. I got one today at a TID of 57, and singing. At 8” I found this little badge with my Simplex Im not entirely sure what it is, but this lawn is good for producing military relics, like a WW1 military dog tag, WW2 Airmen visor pin and numerous musket balls.
    5 points
  13. Here's a list of the name Tooley who served in the CW from New York, the first name is Ashael J. Tooley and very well could be the presenter shown on the shield, notice he also was in the 2nd Regiment of Mounted Rifles. There's no listing of a E. D. Tooley, maybe he was the brother of Ashael, I found another link that says that Ashael was wounded at some point and served approximately 6 months after enlisting and died of his wounds, maybe he made and sent/gave the shield to E. D. sometime during that 6 months or lost it before he could present it. "TOOLEY , ASHAEL J. β€” Age, 18 years. Enlisted, December 31, 1863, at Amherst; mustered in as private, Co. H , December 31, 1863, to serve three years; wounded, date not stated; died of such wounds, June 30,1864, at Washington, D. C,; veteran." Link of him being wounded. http://dmna.ny.gov/historic/reghist/civil/rosters/cavalry/2ndMtdRiflesCW_Roster.pdf The other 3 Tooleys listed as being in the 2nd Regiment of Mounted Rifles could most likely be related, IMHO https://iarchives.nysed.gov/xtf/view?docId=ead/names/13775indexT.xml;query=tooley;hit.rank=2
    5 points
  14. I finally made it to the park here in town where the last fighting was done before the Union headed on to the next town by night fall back in 1861. It’s given up a lot of relics over the years but finding one there now is a rarity. Today was a special day for me and although it’s not much the guys who still hunt it know what kind of day I had. I’m gonna say it again that ferro check is awesome!! Found the carbine bullet first then the Buffalo. Little farther along under a big rock out comes the round ball. Heading back towards the car and it was one of those only in one spot signals but the ferro check said non ferrous so I dug it and wow! A nice eagle button! I was stoked! Three civil war relics and a Buffalo. Happy day for me.😁
    4 points
  15. I too have found a drum stick nugget, though it looks like someone took a bite out of it before I could get to it.
    4 points
  16. Here’s a few more notable finds from the same lot.
    4 points
  17. Going out on a limb here, but similar to Deus, I believe it is the ability to select variable pitch (VCO-like) as a tone option in addition to the existing multi-tones (1, 2, 4, 6 or 60 tones) in ANY mode (not just Gold Field). An option I have requested for years to be implemented on the Nox. Not sure if this also means Gold Field can be switched into multi tone mode. The latter would be a nice option, but the former is definitely a highly desirable option when tone ID is not as desirable as audio sensitivity when attempting to cherry pick non-ferrous out of the muck. Combined with ferro check meter, this will be a very powerful tool if implemented well.
    3 points
  18. So, I went prospecting to mother Yuba (Sierra County), armed with the SDC. I went to a pretty trashy area that I had previously visited with the 6000. The problem with the 6000 in that area was that I had to stop literally every 20 sec to dig a target, mostly tiny pieces of trash. The enormous sensitivity of the 6000 is a god send, but it can come and bite you if you are in trashy areas. Even dialing back sensitivity all the way did not make any difference, as expected. I literally spent most of the time on my knees digging targets, almost thinking I should just remain on my knees and slowly crawl forward to scoop up all the tiny trash. Hence, this time I decided to use the SDC to have a PI detector with comparably lower sensitivity, just to make this a more productive day. Indeed, I was surprised (well not really..) how quiet the same area was with the SDC. Yes, here and there a few trash targets, but not nearly as bad as with the 6000. I could even walk for a few minutes without any target, something that would have been unthinkable with the 6000. I managed to pick up a couple of pickers, something I contribute to the fact that I was actually able to cover some ground, instead of having to stop constantly to dig small trash targets. So, bottom line, the 6000 remains my to go detector and it's performance is simply out of this world. However, there are instances where more sensitivity is not always a good thing. IMHO, this is another reminder of how different circumstances require different approaches and that there is not one single detector that fits all occasions. GC
    3 points
  19. I think this discussion shows that having and keeping more than one detector can contribute to a more well rounded metal detecting experience.
    3 points
  20. It definitely is harder to maneuver in tighter areas and takes away from the GPX 6000's excellent ergonomics some. For EMI mitigation however, it is the only alternative at the moment and does surprisingly well with that. Minelab or somebody....please at least make an 11" or smaller DD coil for the GPX6000.
    3 points
  21. Thanks Jeff. No I have not tried the 14DD in this area, certainly worth a try. But from my previous times I have used the 14DD I can say that it remains remarkably sensitive to small gold, much more so than I would have expected. GC
    3 points
  22. I think "some stuff" was just subtle clickbait. That's a nice haul. Congrats to you!
    3 points
  23. I don’t remember the date on the buff or if I could even discern it....it’s in rough shape as were most of the other stuff..There were some worthless wheat pennies as well. Everything that is toasted gets a bath in the tumbler overnight. And before any purists open their mouth I would never clean a valuable coin πŸ™‚ strick
    3 points
  24. Nice hunting ... Eventually French is easy to learn as you can see .. πŸ™‚ I would just suggest to try the SENSITIVE mode , it is better ( faster and more reactive ) than GENERAL or PARK in the irons ..
    3 points
  25. Hello, I have to say, I'm very disappointed with XP behavior and customer service. I bought Deus II and was just killing it. Then I made a big mistake, updated to v0.6 - the first one, without big TID. Since then, I've lost my depth, and had issue with not showing TID while having a good signal. Update v0.7 didn't fix depth issue. Pinpointing mode is now not working correctly - like, it's completely useless. All I want is ability to downgrade to v0.5! Why is it not possible? I don't care about YT videos, with comments turned off, telling me that it's ok on the test garden in US. It is NOT ok on my fields/forests. And I'm not the only one. Other users are eXPeriencing same issues. XP should behave like a serious company. They should openly discuss existing issues and communicate proposed solutions. E.g. like what did Dilek from Nokta today. Discuss what's in the pipeline and estimated timeline. Heck, Nokta is even implementing user-proposed features. I just want them to let me roll one version back!!! I know, that guys in XP have done a lot of work, they're exhausted etc. But we are their CUSTOMERS and they should communicate with us. If Legend was not so heavy, I would switch right now. Is someone here, who has same issues with Deus II? We should unite and push on XP...
    2 points
  26. I hope this makes its way to someone at XP. I detect mostly with the Deep HC program with Square Full Tones. I find myself straining to hear deep targets, while surface trash is incredibly loud. I understand this functions is a depth indicator, but I would love to have the option to reverse its direction, so that deep targets are loud, and shallow ones soft. I understand I can increase Audio Response to make the deeper targets louder, but that doesn't help with the shallow targets, and just makes everything sound the same. Thank you! Oliver
    2 points
  27. 530 pages of rock and mineral collection sites all over the United States.... Bob Beste's "Location Guide for Rockhounds in the United States, 3rd. ed. 2005": Part I--Alabama through Idaho (PDF, 155 p.) Part II--Illinois through North Dakota (PDF, 186 p.) Part III--Ohio through Wyoming (PDF, 193 p.)
    2 points
  28. Now this is a good update, not so much a bunch of fixes for bugs, this is the update type I like, new stuff! I'm still yet to get a Legend as I can't justify it so far as I'm not really seeing any benefits to it yet, but it's certainly starting to gain my attention the better it gets. Nokta now need to start their focus on coils, the focus so far has been on firmware fixes and updates which is great, but coils are needed now to really make it appealing for me and the bonus for Nokta for putting their efforts into coils is they make money selling them πŸ™‚ It's impossible not to be impressed with the way the Legend release has gone, sure there has been mistakes and its been far from a smooth release but their responsiveness to problems is what's most important and so far its been fantastic. Hopefully M3 frequency makes it a little more hot on small gold than the previous multi frequency modes.
    2 points
  29. I am new to the hobby with a Nox 800 as my first detector. There are a lot of exceptional ideas presented here by people who have been doing this long enough to be considered pros. I do not have enough experience to comment on the programming aspect. So far, I agree with all the hardware suggestions made. I sincerely hope Minelab puts serious consideration into the ideas put forth here. I am a 5' 2" woman and am convinced all these machines are designed for 7' tall men built like linebackers. The elbow cuff is way too wide; the accompanying strap is pointless as it doesn't fit the cuff. We had to add thick felt to the cuff in order to keep my arm from slopping around in it while swinging. The reach between the cuff on its closest hole to the grip is to long for me as well. We added two hole positions to solve this. I'm not sure that it being nose heavy is as noticeable with my shorter height but I definitely agree that a "S" shaft would be more comfortable. Summing up the adjustments I would like to see: * More positions for the arm cuff * Smaller cuff option or an adjustable cuff * More ergonomic shaft
    2 points
  30. In that case, maybe XP should give the Deus & ORX their own arm cuff with a proper stand. πŸ™‚ Agree 100%. Thank you sir. I tried to get used to the backphones but they just never felt comfortable to me for some reason. Maybe I have an odd shaped melon. I recently ordered a set of those Quest headphones that accept the WS6 puck. Looking forward to trying them out.
    2 points
  31. It's been a slow year, partly due to the weather, partly due to checking out detector+coil combos in trashy (multiply hunted) test sites, and partly due to lack of available promising old sites. So far in 2022 I've researched three possible new sites. From the first of these I've shown some results (silver Roosie dime, Buffalo nickel, Wartime nickel) but it's getting tougher there. That muni park site suffers from my most annoying nemesis -- reworking/backfilling 'improvements' which bury most of the goodies previous detectorists failed to get. I'm sure there are a few Wheaties and other coins from the first 65 years of the 20th Century (e.g. silver) but with good weather here I expect it to get a lot more visitors, particularly around the sports fields which are most of my remaining, promising ground. Last weekend I discovered what looked to be a very good and possibly unsearched homestead (now public property) for which early 20th Century USGS topos showed a couple buildings that disappeared in the 1950's. I headed out there Tuesday, grabbed my detecting gear, and on the (walking) way noticed a sign at the pedestrian entrance so checked it out. There in plain letters were the dreaded "no metal detectors." In their defense the site is exclusively wooded trails with one meadow so I understand they don't want digging to disturb the flora. I was close to another site I've hunted quite a bit (with only moderate results, mostly Wheaties and one silver Warnick) so off I go. In 3 hours of detecting, not surprisingly I found no old coins but instead about a dozen copper strips (sounding good in the quarter - half dollar VDI region) that had been used as flashing from a slate roof of a large residential building torn down in the mid-60's. A few modern coin crumbs but no oldies. Wednesday I had a two part plan -- go to my 2021 best site (what I called the "Wheatfield" due to the number of Wheat cents I've found there), figuring if the grass had been mown I could mop up on one rather lightly frequented (nowadays), quite shaded, sloped area that previous partial coverage had produced a couple Wheaties. If unmown I had another park (plan 2) not terribly far away I wanted to re-search with a small coil to get between the pulltabs around picnic tables. Interestingly the plan 1 section A was the only part of this plan 1 park which hadn't been mowed. Hmmm. I've seen this before -- areas that are lightly used are returned "to nature" never to be mowed again. I figured this might be my last chance so even with some scattered thick grass I went to work. Right off the bat the EMI was bad and after fiddling with different multifrequency modes and settings I settled into (ML Equinox 800 settings of) recovery speed = 4, 10 kHz in Park 2, which was the quietest I could find, allowing me to run gain in the 20-22 range. I had 3 hours to hunt and spent the first 1:45 here, with a couple small successes -- 1944 Wheat cent plus a thin brass trade token that had a large '1 centsign' in the middle and a merchant's name around the rim. (Below I post photos of these and other relevent finds.) The token hit in the aluminum screwcap zone (21-23 on the Equinox). Both of these finds were in the 5" depth range and less than 2 meters (6 1/2 feet) apart. I eventually moved on to section B which was an open, flatter area but also unmown. EMI was quiet now so back to my standard park 1, MultiFrequency, gain = 22-23, Iron Bias F2 = 0, keeping recovery speed at 4. In the first 10 minutes in the 4"-5" depth range I found two fired lead bullets, both white (oxidation with age?) and both measuring 0.30-0.31 inch diameter (caliber), only about a meter apart. My typical assumption when I find bullets and/or casings in parks is that these were dropped or fired by hunters prior to the land becoming a park. I think that is likely here - so first half of 20th Century or earlier. After 45 minutes I wasn't finding any more goodies so with 30 minutes remaining I headed towards section C which was on my way back to the vehicle. This section fortunately was mown but unfortunately it's close to a picnic shelter meaning I had to get ready for trash, especially pulltabs which can masquerade as USA 5 cent 'nickels'. I have developed a standard technique when hunting parks and schools in my area. If the Equinox's signal strength meter (misnamed 'depth meter') shows 4 or more bars (more bars is deeper) and the VDI is anywhere close to a nickel (12-13 being the sweetspot) then I'm digging it. If signal strength is less than 3 bars I have an investigation method using Field 2, recovery speed = 6 that identifies most beavertail only (ring missing) pulltabs. The modern racetrack tabs, when shallow, typically flash some 14 in Park 1. However, 4 bar or weaker signal strength nickels will flash some 11 and 14 in Park 1, and my investigation method using Field 2 fails with deeper targets. (BTW, if 3 bar signal strength I use my judgement on the dig/ no dig decision, deepending upon what's been showing up and/or how fatigued I am.) Approximately 15 minutes into my last 30 minutes I get a mostly 12-13 signal with some 11 and 14 thrown in, and it's varying between 3 and 4 bars. Diggable. At about 5 inches out comes a Jeffie (won't read the date until I get home), which is promising. Finally, with 5 minutes before I turn into a pumpkin I get what appears to be a deep Zincoln: 19, 20, 21 VDI but a 4 bar signal strength. Maybe it's a deep Zincoln -- those do occur especially if the ground has been reworked, but since these annoying junk coins have been around for 40 years now, if they haven't self-destructed from galvanic action they can be naturally deep. I figured about 80% I had a Zincoln and 2% an Indian Head (I had found one last year about 20 meters away) with the remaining 18% 'other' and likely trash. After digging a ~6" diameter plug I got a Garrett Carrot signal in the hole sidewall and at about 4-5 inch depth out came a plug of dirt with a silver ring apparent. Based on the VDI I hoped for a delicate sterling ring -- it was about the size of a woman's pinkie. When I tried to push the dirt out of the ring's center it didn't give but rather showed the reverse side pole of Mercury dime! WTF? (I guess this fits the 18% 'other'. ) The VDI should have read 26-27. Putting the handheld back in the hole, very close to where I had just pulled the dime I got another strong signal and recovered a very rustly 16d nail. I estimate the tip of the nail was 1 to 1.5 inches away from the dime when undisturbed. Apparently being that close pulled the dime's VDI down to the Zincoln range, and fortunately not lower or I wouldn't have dug it. OK, here's what you've been waiting for, the finds described above (copper items now with a coating of olive oil) along with the Merc's next door neighbor rusted nail. Merc is a 1941 plain; Wheatie is 1944 plain; nickel is 1954-D -- all three quite common date+mm. Although the edge of the token is partly missing I don't think that happened while in the ground since most of the remainder of the rim shows no sign of similar deterioration, but that's just my speculation. The nickel doesn't look like it's spent a lot of its lifetime in circulation but that doesn't necessarily tell when it was dropped since it could have just as easily sat in a drawer for 2 or 3 decades before being lost. Oh, Thursday was rainy so I did some more research and found an accessible (and not too distant) public site that dates back to 1915! That site is the search plan for early next week. 🀞
    2 points
  32. I replaced the metal locknut with a plastic one Eric made for me and added a 0 ring. I use both machines the same way. Either fully submerged or completely out of the water. I work with the tide.
    2 points
  33. That spur is bitchin!
    2 points
  34. The tone (having extension) meter (not too "wild)" and the Ferrachec are a good combination to keep you off the iron and caps. When you hear a broken tone and see big meter changes on the cross sweep--the Ferrachec confirms it. Maybe not definitive, but a good clue amongst the others. I think it's important to get a feel for how deep it goes though in that there's a point where using basic target testing skills become the go to. There's also the "too wide a sweep" margin for error. cjc
    2 points
  35. Now that's some nice relics along with the buffalo nickel. What year was the Buffalo in the first picture? Good luck on your next hunt.
    2 points
  36. Welcome to the forum and glad to see some of your finds. Beautiful part of the country there with a lot of history. Also a good place to find some gold in the old creek beds and some of the hills. Good luck and good hunting.
    2 points
  37. I forget where I read it, but you could try lifting the 6K coil a bit off the ground when swinging in trashy areas to attenuate it’s sensitivity to the small stuff.
    2 points
  38. Welcome to the forum! We look forward to your exploits. πŸ™‚ Great you posted finds already. I've done much worse than that. πŸ˜€ I see you have a Tesoro, there is a dedicated bunch that loves those. πŸ‘ You will fit in well!
    2 points
  39. I can confirm it's the two plastic prongs or I would call them "wipers" πŸ˜€ guess the set screw was V0.6 🀣
    2 points
  40. Welcome aboard. Anytime you can get out and hunt is a good thing. Nothing is better for the body and soul than detecting is.
    2 points
  41. Wouldn't you know... the wife had black and pink paint pens, I'm lazy and cheap so I have pink symbols.
    2 points
  42. This was a solid, repeatable 86 using a modification of the Diving program too.
    2 points
  43. Make you a stand like the one I made for my ORX and stop that falling over. It’s made out of hot water PVC and paint it black. Chuck
    2 points
  44. It does seem rare and fairly valuable. It’s occasional finds like this that make it all worth it. It’s odd to find so many military relics from so many different periods on the same lot, but this is the most exciting yet. The Simplex TID goes to 99. I’m not sure yet what the alloy is. The back is missing it’s pin, which sucks, but I marked the spot I pulled it from so I can go back over it. It would be nice to find that too.
    2 points
  45. Well done Reg. I've rubbed both of my boys noggins for you and James. I hope both of you drench your pant legs in the fields and share those pictures here. Mitchel
    2 points
  46. This picture shows what can be hidden under your knobs if careful cleaning does not take place. I thought I was doing a good job but evidently not. I would think the Off switch and delay switch would be different pots from the remaining five. I also had a threshold switch that was missing the sealing ring. Luckily it was caught before submersion.
    2 points
  47. Vishay is the only company that makes this style of pot. I had almost no experience with them before the AQ, now I know better.
    2 points
  48. I can at least answer the battery question... there is a boost converter that creates 15V no matter what the battery level is at, and this 15V powers the whole detector. So nothing should change as the battery drops. I don't know what could be causing the whacko mode, I've seen it a couple of time, usually indoors where there is a lot of EMI. The AQ is cranked up really high. Yes, in some situations (esp combo salt & black sand) you have to turn up the delay or increase the ATS to deal with falsing. Either will decrease depth a little so try to keep them minimized. When I wrote the draft for the manual I had a "troubleshooting" section that had all this in it, but it got cut out for some reason.
    2 points
  49. Sometimes you have to have the courage to do it. Outside the beach I saw a small heap of stones and sand, the result of cleaning the beach, it was already some time that I wanted to try what was there, today I did it, inside there was everything, pulltab, foil, caps and also other of course. When I saw the first targets come out I reduced the sensitivity to 16 (generally I use 22), raised the disc from -3 to +6 and took the pinpointer. Result .. in twenty minutes, twenty four coins, one telephone token and one lead. I thought about how many other detectorists have passed by there but didn't have the courage to put the coil on it, thanks Nox.
    2 points
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