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What does Geosense do? Surely it's not just a name for auto sensitivity and auto tracking of the ground and we don't even know if it does actually adjust the sensitivity at all. I've often wondered what it actually does and nobody seems to really know from what I've been able to see, maybe I've just missed an explanation from someone who knows. This is what Minelab's description of it is GeoSense-PI™ technology analyses and responds to ground signals with great clarity and precision, so you can detect in difficult environments once thought undetectable. It rapidly suppresses unwanted signals via three overlapping feedback systems for superfast detection of even the tiniest gold pieces. So it's a form of auto ground balance that sounds like it's in 3 different feedback systems, what are these so called feedback systems? could it be like on the older GPX where there was sensitive extra, fine gold, enhance and the 6000 runs in all three of these timings Minelab selected as optimal all at once for the ground conditions its in? So maybe according to ground conditions it selects the timings most suitable out of the range it has available for the ground automatically and keeps analysing the ground and if in a difficult situation it changes selected timings? I guess it's Minelab's secret sauce for the GPX 6000 and the engineers probably have a giggle at me when I say I'd like a way to disable it sometimes as then it wouldn't be a GPX 6000 at all 😉 It would be nice to know a little more about such a defining feature of the detector. It could explain why there is no fixed ground balance as using the three different timings at once it needs to constantly check in case ground conditions change enough that one of the timings is no longer suitable. It would also explain why Jason's pointed out if you hit enough bad stuff, like a few big steel bolts shallow or something the detector appears to lose sensitivity and take a while to get it back, as it's switched out to a more difficult timing that's not so sensitive. If it was just the big bolt throwing out ground balance the auto tracking by Minelabs own admission maybe too slow to update and a quick trak is recommended, see here from the manual. GPX 6000™ tracks automatically to changing ground conditions during normal use. It is effective for typical detecting in most grounds. There will be times when the automatic ground tracking will not be able to track fast enough, such as when moving to a different type of ground. In these situations, a Quick‑Trak Ground Balance will quickly recalibrate the detector to the new ground. And for those that say the GPX doesn't track out small gold like the Gold Monster does, again Minelab say it does and when recovering small targets its wise to use quick trak to prevent it happening. I'm sure many of us have experienced targets disappearing when trying to find them with the GPX, especially those of us that hunt small gold. Just like the fully automatic GM 1000 it tracks them out, again from the manual. Quick‑Trak ` Ideal for both new and experienced users. ` Tracks successfully to most ground conditions. ` Detector continuously tracks ground during detecting, but Quick‑Trak may still be used to rebalance to changing or variable ground conditions. ` Ground balances more slowly than Quick‑Trak. ` Quick‑Trak is a manually initiated Ground Balance process for faster ground balancing than Auto. ` Use to ground balance to a chosen area of ground, e.g. patches of extreme mineralisation, hot rocks etc. ` Use in between digging and checking for a target, so that the target is not ‘balanced out’ accidentally. All this Geosense stuff is just a wild theory of course but my understanding of what Geosense could possibly be. Models are usually successors of older models so features we saw on older models are often incorporated into new models like the GPX timings, perhaps in a modern world they were able to automate them and auto adjust which timings you're using while allowing multiple timings at once with the software doing the work to pick signals out of each timings results. We went from having 9 timings on the GPX 5000 to no longer having any on the GPX, although you could say that normal and difficult are its only timings. The conductive setting and the EMI setting on the DD coil don't appear to be associated with timings, more functions of the DD coil. It also detects both small and larger gold at once and handles various ground conditions at once eliminating the need for manually selecting timings like we do on the older models.

A Gpx 6000 user spent 3 days prospecting this cut on the Taft claim near Red Chiapas coming away with 16 nuggets. I came along after with my Garrett Axiom and found a nice nugget he missed!

The June Minelab Promo is here and yes Gerry’s Detectors has stock ready to ship. Here’s what we're offering for June. Purchase a GPZ-7000 and get a Gold Monster 1000 for free. If you already own a GM-1000, no worries, we'll talk and get you taken care of. Purchase a CTX-3030 and get a 6” coil for free. Purchase a Equinox 800 and get a 15” coil for free. Purchase a Gold Monster 1000 and get a Pro-Find 35 pointer for free. Of course and as a Veteran myself, I am privileged to offer those who serve/served in our US forces a 15% discount. Also, take advantage of the 3 Days Field Training courses we offer to my customers at a discount. 25 years of testing, using, selling Minelabs and still helping customers learn their detectors to find gold. If interested in trading your used detector towards these or any other I offer (I sell all major detector brands). Contact me & we'll discuss it. I've traded with many members here on DP & sold/trained even more. If our discussion and value of your used detector is not 100% happy for both you and I, no worries and we both go our own way. Happy Hunting. Gerry

Most roads in Goler Gulch are like this or worse, which makes dodging the gullies challenging.

Well the planets aligned and Chris at AZ Outback was able to supply one, finally the wait is over. Thanks for the input guys. Regards, Ceril

Rest in peace Jacob

Which is best? Heck man that's an open end question. Best at value? Best at Ergonomics? Best at Discrimination? Best at coil options? Best at durability and least amount of issues? Best at Relic Hunting? Best at small gold? Best at Big Gold? Best at User Friendly? I own both and have posted much gold found with both in times past. For a 50% more price increase of the GPX-6000 in the USA $6000 vs $4000 for the Axiom, what is best? I don't see the average person needing to spend the extra $2000 and in fact I would recommend that person get a good VLF to complement the PI. As I said, I own both and for now, plan on keeping both. But I use them as tools and can afford both. I'll be in the field soon and hopefully find some gold this year. So far my best piece is a small chunky specimen with the Equinox 900

Found this today. Top pocket find... I think it finds gold, just fine. 14.6 gr. 10k.

I didn't get a chance to post this earlier, but a few weeks ago I got to go back to the site of my first ghost town hunt. It's one of my detecting club's permissions that has been hunted for probably 30 years of the club's 50 year history. My first hunt there 2 years ago was a daunting experience to say the least. If you've never done relic hunting, specially on a site that once had almost 2000 people living and workng there, then you cannot even imagine what that's like. The tons of iron and coal throughout the area makes every detector go nuts and a few detectorists too. 😉 There are other inhabitants on this site as well. A couple of local boys wanted to crash the hunt, but they didn't have their club cards on them so they were politely asked to leave. 😏 I was very excited to get back to this site hoping for some really old coins and artifacts now that I have had a few years of training and felt I was ready for the big game. Well let me tell you, it only takes hunting a few hours of hunting with 30 pro detectorists to to put you in your place and one of the big lessons I learned was that detecting is 50% physical and 50% mental. I started the first day rushing around to get out the door on time for the long drive to get to the site on time and discovering a few block from my house that my rear tire was flat. That set the tone for the day. I got that fixed and flew like the wind and just barely made it to the meetup on time. When we get to the site, I rush around getting my wife's detector set up and ready to go, grab my detector and climb through the barbed wire fence and discover I forgot my shovel, so I climbed back through the barbed wire, grab my shovel and slither back through the fence only to find I forgot my gloves... Auuuughhh! I run the gauntlet again with gloves in hand and finally get ready to hunt and my remote control lock mount decides to break off. Fortunately I have a couple of backups in my pack.... but I forgot to pack my little screwdrivers.... just shoot me! I manage to flag down one of my detecting buddies and he graceously stops his hunt to rescue me. When he returned to hunting, he was promptly rewarded with a beautiful 1876 Seated Liberty Dime with CC mint mark! By the time I get out on the field my brain is fried and I spend the next several hours finding junk while everyone around me was finding ancient coins and wonderful artifacts. That's when I just took a time out to get my head together. After I settled down and ate a sandwich I went back to the field and my training kicked in. I discovered everything I was doing wrong and adjusted accordingly and then the finds started popping out of the iron. There were some amazing finds made over the 2 days at this site by some great detectorists, not by me of course, but I did find a few interesting things and learned an invaluable lesson. Keep a cool head, remember your training, and most of all respect the skills of your mentors! They all did well and deservedly so. I look forward to day that I reach that level of Zen. Well done my teachers! One of my cooler finds was this tiny heart pendant or rosery piece: Here's a dime for size comparison: Unkown disc, possibly a coin or token piece but no discernible markings. Oil lamp wick mount with 1872 & 1873 patent dates: Mostly iron and lead trash:

Well other day we did a double hunt. Got some junk jewelry/toys/coins at beach then stopped by local park and found 2 wheats 1944 & 1946. Funny I found both matching triangle shape earrings in the surf about 10 ft apart. Someone must have got tumbled around in waves. Usually only find single earrings. A day later wife and I went to another beach found rings (1 silver)/several pieces of silver jewelry and a lil silver n gold earring/toy cars/sun glasses/coins. Great day I was in a nice trough up to waist. The D2 using the DIVE program worked very well/stabile in trough and while having waves crash over the coil. Heck we even ran into Joe D on beach — he was testing out one of his setups. Good times for all. Now I am laid up again for a few weeks do to a surgery yesterday. So no detecting for a bit. But I will finally get a chance while I am laying around to look at everyone’s post n videos. Cheers and keep diggin!

1st silver of the year, and I have been detecting since the snow was on the ground, its marked 925 LATH , It has a bit of tarnish on it from being in the grass for a wile, its not plated, I was running the Gold -1 program on the ORX and i got a solid 83-82 VDI , well the drought is over , maybe some Gold will come along to . It says on the pendant the words, Faith, Hope ,& love, my setting in Gold 1 where 84 gain, 14 khz, 2,5 speed, 2 IAR,

Great analysis, Simon and I imagine you are correct or definitely directionally correct. The lack of timings from prior units to the 6k suggests current processors and coding have the ability to make some determination around the best timing for a given set of factors in the ground. We all have our real world preferences driven by experience, so the "best" here is likely a theoretical best. I like the change as timings always seemed archaic to me, but that's likely primarily because I don't live in gold country and could never get enough time on the machines to develop a proper feel and understanding of them. The most puzzling part, which you also point out, is the "difficult environments" phrase. The SDC can operate in what I would call difficult environments. So then the question is, how does Minelab define "environments" in this statement. Is it static mineralization, variable mineralization, gold size relative to mineralization, a weighting of those, etc. The analysis can get a bit lawyerly and, in the end, it may just be marketing. Even with all the undefined parameters and its share of growing pains, it has evolved into a good machine and I am happy to have it.

The transition from paper to plastic hulls for shotgun shells occurred in the early 1960’s. The 410 small bore shotgun and other weapons appeared around 1875 and gradually gained standardization and popularity for small game hunting thereafter. Remington made 410 ammunition as early as 1915 but didn’t label it “410” until some time after that as far as I can tell. Your cartridge is probably early to mid 20th century and is most likely bracketed by the dates of the coins you found.

At this point in my journal from 2002 & looking back at things I wrote I am sure the crew was sitting on top of the world. We must have all thought we had it all figured out and were on our way to glory like the old timers of 1936. And then there's reality. Tonight, as I put this stuff out for all to read, I am missing Jacob & thinking about all he taught us about life and hard work and of course, mining. Here's to you Jacob - may your cup always be full. Cheers.

Wow simon that's to serious for me .🙂 After lots of testing I only use the one button on the 6000 now , on and off . Great change from the 5000 . l know I'm still missing gold , but show me a detector that doesn't, stress free detecting 👍

June 14 2002 We continue to take turns on night watch but there has been no sign of any hooligans as Jacob would call them. There has been no let up in the heat and the forecast is for more of the same. We shoveled gravel in the morning like there was no tomorrow. We all have gold fever in spades. Even Jacob has it I think. The crew took a long break between 2:00 PM and 3:00 PM. We all had a beer and a little bit of food and Jacob brought over the gold weigh from yesterday’s 44 yards of washed gravel. He had a big smile on his face and we knew it was going to be a good one. I could hardly believe what he told us the weigh came to. There were 19.4 ounces in his jar. Jacob laughed and said that if we hadn’t been so almighty lazy and would have shoveled into the tom another half hour we could have hit 20 ounces. We all had a good laugh and cracked open another round of cold beers before returning to the dig site. By day’s end we had processed another 40 yards of pay gravel. TO BE CONTINUED ...................

A couple weeks ago I took the wife gold panning/sluicing. That stuff is hard on my knees so, I fired up the D2 and just went walking down a short washed out road along the creek. Well after a few bullet casings I got a 96 X2 and this is what I popped out. Dumb luck or just lucky I guess. California Mother Lode keeps giving.

June 15 2002 Part One Last night we got into a bit of a disagreement. It was Jim who had first watch and when he was getting ready to head up the mountain Jacob handed him a bottle of Bushmills. Jacob told him it would help keep him warm and be good company. I spoke up because the night guards were always armed and I didn’t think it was a good idea to mix guns with alcohol. We’d already had plenty of trouble out here. When I spoke up about it Jacob and Vern came to Jim’s defense. They said that even though it was hot during the day at night the temperature dropped into the 40’s and 50’s and a little whisky wouldn’t hurt any. I didn’t want to make a bigger deal out of it than it was but I stuck to my thoughts. Then Jacob spoke up saying I wasn’t the crew boss and shouldn’t say anything. He said that he was actually the boss and to let Jim be. I didn’t want an argument with my good friend Jacob so I just waved my hand to Jim and said to stay safe. And that was that and the drama was over. Jacob rolled a smoke and poured a cup of whisky for the three of us at camp. I think he knew he had offended me slightly but I was not angry in the least. I smiled and offered up a toast to the gold we would still be digging out of the ground and everything was normal again. And then we heard gunfire up on the mountain. I grabbed the walkie talkie and tried to raise Jim but there was no reply. TO BE CONTINUED .............

A pinpointer duct taped onto a stick could find that honker. 🤣

You can see for sure it had a wooden handle. Looking inside you can see the same type of a pin that you have in a shovel handle to keep it from pulling out . Being it’s hollow inside and not a solid point I don’t think it would take much of a beating . I guess that would depend on quality of the metal. Chuck

I assume you’re talking about the CT 10x5… I really like that coil. I got the 12x7 NF to try out against the 10x5, just waiting for the day to come when I can go use it!

Pikes Pokin Poles? That sounds perverse Popeye!

The Axiom is more sensitive than a GPX-4500, so you better contact your dealer and have him test it. I feel the Axiom is not working properly. You made a wise decision to upgrade and eventually you see the benefits of the Axiom.

Cool Doc ! Maybe Pikes was a brand name ? Pikes Pokin' Poles 😉 I still have a lot to learn about this old stuff and guess that's not necessarily referring to finds only........🙄

Today was the last day I could get out before a week long relic hunting and possibly water hunting trip. It's been raining since Saturday night on and off, windy and in the 60s so I didn't expect to find much at the beach I went to. I recently updated the D2 to V1.1, did some air tests to create a new beach program. Used Beach Sensitive, disc at 10, no notch, no Silencer, Bottle Caps ended up at 5. High Square Full Tones audio. Gotta say I really thought XP had got the iron falsing under control with my air tests, even aluminum makes a distinct "brassy" sound with this program. However, all that glitters is not gold. 🤣 This beach is rough, at one end there is a motel and the beach is almost all pebbles, you cannot go barefoot or wear sandals if you have old feet. 😀 In the middle it's a mix of sand and pebbles in bands, and the other end it's a mix of sand and red clay. Ground balance varies from 79 to 95 depending on where you are. Got here early hoping at least someone braved the weather and came to the beach, it looks like some did and I was the first to hit it. 3 other people showed up later and complained they weren't finding anything, I sort of had to bite my tongue. 😏 Iron did false until I changed bottle caps a bit, there is quite a bit of junk in the sand. Pushing disc to 10 helped a little, I'm glad they fixed the audio. With disc at 10 most iron will disappear. (Thanks Andy!) Most pull tabs have that brassy sound, I dug a few to prove it. I think one was in the 70s so I dug it anyway. That one fooled me. I was getting coins here and there, they jumped out sharply with very close IDs. Managed to get at least one of every US denomination, and a nice 1945 wheat. That was a great sign. On the pebble beach I got a 47 and found this tiny ring, I doubt it's anything good but it was a solid tone and ID. It was just in the surf, and pretty deep. Next one was this bling ring, a hard 85. Looks like it's been there a while. My best ring today was this tungsten carbide and malachite ring that my wife took immediately, it was a 54: About $15-$30 on Amazon. 3 Keys Jewelry. Here's the total take: And the trash: The doll swims if you tighten the innerspring by spinning the arms. 😀 Second small doll I've found there and second pair of tweezers. 😵 It was interesting to see the difference between air testing and real world, never done it before. Think I'll stick with real world.

Great Finds F350. Seems like I saw some of those picts before this post. 😆 Hopefully I will get to mess with D2 settings while I am healing. The stock Dive program just need to tweak a lil bit for the surf, but it worked great the other day just running stock. Hoping I can hit up a park in a week just to do a recon and play with settings. Probably won’t dig but maybe I can get wife to dig them for me. Guess I am basically down to using D2 and modified TDI SL’s. Did I mention how lightweight the D2 is 😂 the D2 gives my arm a break from the pulse machines. Next couple of days video marathon to see how the Tubers are adjusting to the V1.1 software. Cheers

Thanks, amigo! There was another visitor who refused to leave and had to be dispatched, a 5 foot rattler. I didn't see that one but one of my surface finds was a smaller rattler tailbuttons. Fortunately, the snake was not attached! 🙂 You're right, if I had gotten over a coin, I probably would have hit it even in a frazzled state of mind. Once I setteld down, everything was normal, so it was my own fault. Yep I used the D2 and it was just a week before the V1.0 update, which in retrospect may have been a good thing, but V0.71 did great once I got it dialed in, in fact many of the best finds that trip were made by other D2 users with V0.71. I sure would like to go back back with V1.1! Unfortunately the club only goes there every other year, but oh well, I'll be ready next time! 😉

Nice hunt Cap'n, thought at first you might be hunting grizzlies or something. 🤪 This hobby is exciting, you never know what you're going to find and often it is spectacular. That in mind it's no wonder you forget so much. Happens to me all the time, so prepare as much in advance as I can. Really awesome stuff. 👍 especially like the buttons and the little heart! The other guys may know where to look, silver jumps out at you. If you had your coil over any you would know it. 🙂 Never let that get you down. Pretty sure you were using the D2, what version was it?

How about this one? XP Aerial Antenna with 115cm Cable for Deus II Metal Detecto

Yeah, in wet alkali soils (common in the US) the 6000 does notably better than the GPZ. Part of that is the smaller coil though, but it still does better in wet alkalis than the GPZ running a 12" coil too. The fact that no one really knows what Geosense is kinda shows the point I was making about it being too opaque of a detector in the other thread, none of us know what's happening, why or when. For general use it's not a big deal I guess, as long as it's finding gold and fun is being had. But for those who need or want to know what they are missing, why, and when, it's not really a good thing.

Cool, thanks! Any idea of the approximate age?

Northeast I was looking for something else and ran across another I guess you could call a deep detector. If nothing else it’s something to look at and wonder.

Thank for commenting chuck.And yes as you stated it definitely had a wooden handle.The first two and a half inches with the pin are hollow but the remainng almost 4 inches is solid and quite heavy possibly filled with lead? One thing that i considered was that it was an end cap/stake for a flagpole but the hole is only I inch in diameter which is to small to support a large flag.I like to think that CPT_Ghostlight might be onto something with his Guidon stake opinion.I have been finding quite a lot of military relics and artifacts circa 1830's to mid 1860's in the area and all of the broken bottles, ceramics etc fit that time frame as well. Good to hear from you and I appreciate your wisdom.

Good point, this could indeed explain it. Would love to see that X-ray. GC

Yep I have the 12" x 7" exceed and 9" inch round goldhawk, nothing much has changed, round coil = more depth , elliptical = better sensitivity. No magic wand unfortunately.

You're correct Popeye poke pole is the correct nomenclature.

Nice looking area Reese !!!

Yesterday I found 15 cents in change, and today I found 3.50$+ in change, No rings this time , but found one good heavy piece of copper wire, happy with the finds.

Welcome aboard Jeff ! You're right that many places are off limits , but... If you ask at state parks , the ranger might just issue a permit. Town city parks aren't all on the no list either. Research helps you locate old long gone buildings and other areas of occupation long gone....talk to older residents to find hang out spots etc. Knock on doors , ask permission, the worst that can happen is they say no. Campgrounds and Fairgrounds are a good place to detect, again ask for permission. Most public beaches are allowed and like I said some of the state park beaches are open through the permits. This forum is loaded with experience , you chose wisely . The best of the best call it home. No question is stupid. Just ask. Steve's Guides is also a great place to learn more.... Happy hunting.

Thanks! 🙂 Iron detection is better for sure, the falsing can be mostly eliminated by turning on a target.

Welcome, Jeff, haven't turf hunted in Fl for about 4-5 years, but the few times I did I went to city parks and schools. Knew/know state parks are off limits, but city parks and schools were ok. I know people hunt inland, so not everywhere is off limits. Might check around and see where the closest metal detecting club is located and attend a meeting. You may not learn anyones secret (good) spot, but you will get a general idea where some hunt other then the beaches. Good luck, this is a great hobby. HH Jim Tn

Welcome to DP forum. This is a really good place to get ideas & learn. Private permissions maybe your best option for places to hunt. You probably know more people than you realize. Just start talking & asking. You will be surprised. There may also be a detecting club close enough to join. That would be the best resource.

I've been busy with some other detecting lately out in the deserts. I like those nuggets and meteorites. You can kind of target those and know what you'll get. When you go to the beach (just like a park) you can get coins, relics and jewelry. Today's best finds were a couple of rings. The first was a stainless steel ring found after a couple of hours of mostly nothing except those tent stakes. My beaches have been very stingy the last few weeks so I was glad to get it. I slowed down with the 11/800 and began to find 'patch' stuff. I like patches. I grid them and just enjoy having a few targets together rather than long walks always. My clues were that I was out on a pretty low tide and things were seemingly deep for the 11. I'm normally a 15 user but the 11 was on and I didn't expect much and was back to where I started when I got the stainless steel ring. It says 316L and weighs 6.7g. I continued on just above the black sand line and found other coins and stakes and then I heard a faint 'penny' or it could have been. I made it down a full scoop (6") and it was still in the bottom of the hole. A couple of more scoops, around 10" I got it out. It was a nice shine for the early morning. This is a 10K with lots of little diamonds. It weighs 7.8 grams. My first gold ring in quite a while and first one with the 11" in even longer. I'm ready to take the 3030 out this week with the 17" and see if I can renew a liking for it and look at some of my old find points.

It appears you are confusing terms. Here are the correct/accepted term meanings: Ground Tracking: detector adjusts on the fly to ground conditions while the coil is being swung. Other than setting the detector early on (e.g. at turn-on) in Ground Tracking, the detectorist does nothing. This is where it's sometimes possible that the circuitry silences a weak but desirable target. Auto Ground Balance (also called "Ground Grab" by First Texas): The detectorist pumps the coil up and down in a spot where there are no targets, only ground minerals, and the detector decides what channel to set the ground balance point. Manual Ground Balance: similar to Auto except now the detectorist listens to the detector's audio while pumping the coil up and down, and the detectorist adjusts the ground balance channel until a minimum of ground noise is heard.

I have resorted to using a $ 29 BT LL transmitter that plugs into the headphone jack. I glued Velcro strip on the cover for the manticore and the other Velcro on the back of the transmitter, it stays stuck right over the back of the housing while plugged into the headphone jack. I have several ear buds that work with it. Volume on the Manticore has been rather tricky, not sure if this is my hack transmitter or just how the manticore works.

In another thread, steveg suggested trying ATLC at sites that have a lot of iron to help cut down on falsing, so I tried it out last week, paired up with the Silver Shooter pattern and it worked great. Very quiet, stable and no falsing issues whatsoever. It also allows running a higher sensitivity. Definitely a big difference compared to ATHC, and seemed even quieter than ATG. If you’re having issues with falsing iron, this is worth trying. It will still tag high conductors very well, though not quite as deep as ATHC. Like I mentioned before, the ID may also be a little more jumpy, but still very usable. The more I use the Manticore, the more I like it. Scored two more silvers with it today. I haven’t been able to get out a lot lately due to all the rain but my Manticore silver count is up to 13 (15 FTY overall).

Checked the weather this morning and saw that I had a little over an hour before the rain moved in, so I headed back down to the old ball field for a quick hunt. Didn’t get anything spectacular, but I did score silver #13 FTY, a ‘51 rosie. Anyway, I noticed a couple of things today. Unlike my other detectors, the noise cancel on the Manticore seems to actually work. I started getting some bad EMI on the far end of the field, so I held down the noise cancel soft key until it settled on a number. Released the button and it was dead quiet. Nice. Hope it works that well at other locations. Also, on one of the deeper signals (penny at 9”), I lowered the sensitivity down one digit at a time to see how low I could go and still get a good dig-able signal. Started at 27 and took it all the way down to 19. Surprisingly, it still sounded pretty good even at lower levels. Below 19 it started to fade a bit. That was using the Depth theme, so even the deeper targets tend to sound off pretty well. I need to test it again using one of the more traditional audio themes with some modulation to see how that sounds at lower sensitivity levels.

About 20 years after my grandfather passed away years ago my father retired. I asked him if he would be interested in searching for the lost gold shipment. He said no, he wasn't interested. I asked him why. He told me that this was just an old yarn my grandfather had been telling certain people in the family for years. He said that as a young boy he had remembered a night when the family was together and my great grandfather was talking about the missing gold shipment. He said he couldn't remember much about the conversation but told me that he seemed to be serious. However, no one in the family believed it other than my grandfather. My father said that treasure hunting was a big waste of time that could be used for something more productive. He told me that every man is given a finite amount of time to live on this earth and that he should not waste it chasing rainbows. That was his opinion and I suppose he was entitled to it. My father passed away years ago and we never discussed the gold shipment again. Now I have a 3 year old grandson that I will eventually pass down this story to. That is, if I haven't found it by the time he is old enough to understand it. I am hopeful that someday the two of us could spend some time together searching for this treasure. That would actually be the real treasure.

GM- You can research through the US Copyright office old newspaper articles... I think this was the link I used: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/newspapers/ I was involved in a historical case from 1909 and had to prove the facts in existence from that time, which were slim. It would have been very easy had I been able to show the actual legals published in the local newspaper back then, which I easily found 3 years later in the local newspapers archived on that website. The pdf files are scanned, but searchable on OCR. Finicky, but with careful tailor of a specific word to search, you may find that it can be quite helpful... I was able to find all three published legals associated with my case, which I did get a positive outcome on, and then later was able to print off copies of the scanned old legals to put in the case file. So I also have several legends of Lost Gold in my local area. One is a tale told to me as a young lad by an old guy who used to work at the Forest Service who truly believed the legend, but had no way to get better info or verification. He told of a rich lode find in the 1890 era and only a hint of where in the mountains northeast of town, but nobody knew the location where as the prospector died when he came into town. Using the prospector's last name which was unusual and unique, I was able to find 3 short newspaper articles from November 1889 which told his tale of death by unintended cremation in a structure fire. I had searched local cemetery records decades previous to try and find his name with the thought of proving to myself and my dad that his legend might be real and possibly uncover a few clues to the question of where to search. What I did find in the newspapers was that he and his legend are real, he had a huge haul of rich ore on his mule when he came to town and the names of two local important people who grubstaked him - and I was later able to find their burials in the local cemetery records. Nothing of this fellow's story was in a local paper that I could find, so I searched further away and found two southern Idaho newspapers carried articles published 4 days after the fire and one newspaper in Washington 2 days after the fire- I guess the event may have been too close to home and not newsworthy as everybody in town here would have already known all about it. I did not come up with any better clues on the location to search, but the "legend" is no longer just a yarn. I've a good idea for search areas and have made 3 hikes in previous years and plan to make some longer forays with detector and sampling equipment this year. So be sure to search using single "unique" names to the story far and wide, both in the local area and further abroad and look at later time periods also - you may be able to uncover a mountain of details which were lost to time... reprints are possible too. Even search further away such as the Seattle and Spokane Washington newspapers... who knows, it may well validate the case and clues passed through to you and help your grandson take the search to success someday.