Steve Herschbach

Duh, you are right, I am wrong! I am so in the habit of running the Z-Lynk at full volume I thought that was all there was. Thanks for the correction!

JP, looks like he is using headphones plugged into booster plugged into WM12. A couple previous related threads: http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/2803-the-zed-jps-bz-booster-a-deadly-combination/ http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/2834-b-and-z-booster-troubleshooting/ The B&Z booster is an audio signal booster that can be used with nearly any metal detectors. The amplifier produces a a clean signal response regardless of target size, without producing extra noise. It comes with its own battery but has the option to switch to bypass mode. It is a very popular booster to use with the Minelab SD, GP, GPX or GPZ series as well as the SDC 2300. As noted however it simply boosts the audio signal and so can be used with any detector that needs some sort of audio boost - especially useful for added external speaker setups. They are listed on JP's website at http://aurumaustralis.com/b-z-booster/ and stocked by many U.S. dealers.

Mine just showed up from the eBay site and I am happy to report they look just like the ones I bought new from Amazon a few years ago. You never know with eBay! I am glad I got these as I had a scare and thought I lost my other ones recently. These will go in the emergency backup kit. Oh, and by the way, the Garrett Z-Lynk has no does have a volume control.

I have always found the birds eye view to be very helpful. Anything seen from above can be a clue - a run of small pits, vegetation pattern, etc. There are so many things we can't see from ground level or even Google Earth still.

Geez, I love flying in helicopters! I was a surveyor for awhile in Alaska and got to spend lots of hours flying lots of places in choppers. Nothing beats that taking off straight up from a dead stop feel and landing anywhere you have enough rotor clearance. We had an ex-Vietnam pilot who loved flying low up the river (said it reminded him of flying up the Mekong) - great fun. Thanks for sharing and stirring up some good memories!

Hi Mike, The good news is it's not just you. I have been on a particularly long dry spell myself the last few months. Lots of hours jewelry detecting in what I thought were prime locations and only one decent gold ring to show for it. Not complaining mind you but it has been unusual. I have been chalking it up to exceptional bad luck. I usually do well, sometimes exceptionally well, so I figure now and then there has to be an off streak of sorts. However, there may be more to it than that. Let's face it, the U.S. not long ago went through the worse financial crisis of our generation. Lots of gold went to those "we buy gold" places. People stopped buying expensive baubles, and started taking better care with the ones they own. It did have an impact, and we may be seeing it now. More important is the long term trend, which has not been good. The chart from this article shows the effect of the recession. Sales bounced back after the recession but the long term trend since 1998 has been downward. Not only that, what jewelry people buy has been of lower quality. The chart only shows through 2014 and trends may have reversed since then, but I would not bet on it. This article argues otherwise. My little brother just got married, and while his new wife got a nice ring, what was he sporting but one of those hated (by me) tungsten rings! The problem there is most of my finds are men's rings, and tungsten has had an impact. My gut feeling is the younger generation would rather buy the latest new cell phone or other gadget and pass on the jewelry. The iPhone has probably robbed a lot of jewelry sales. Or maybe I am just having bad luck! My answer when the chips are down prospecting is to just work harder at it. New locations, more hours. How about this Mike, let's touch bases again later this summer and see if anything changed. Good luck!!

Great finds! Actually lower gain settings will generally result in less erratic target id numbers. Which model Tesoro did you end up with? Popping shallow targets is very enjoyable for me. By taking all the work out of it trash is not annoying at all - for me at least. And amazing the amount of good stuff found shallow, even coins.

"(Reuters) - An 1804 U.S. silver dollar sold for $3.3 million in one of a series of auctions that brought in a record total of more than $100 million for a renowned private coin collection, organizers said on Saturday. The silver dollar, one of only eight of its kind, was snapped up at auction on Friday in Baltimore. It was one of more than 200 coins sold at the event." Full Story Here

The off topic stuff just got moved to Sadly, the Koala Soundman Sun Hat appears to have been discontinued. It was made by Koala Windsocks but I can't find it for sale anywhere. They were originally made for movie soundmen, not for metal detecting, so perhaps alternatives exist.

"A rare diamond known as the Pink Star has been sold in Hong Kong for more than $71m (£57m), setting a new world record for any gemstone at auction. The oval-shaped 59.6 carat stone was bought after just five minutes' bidding at Sotheby's, reports said. It is the largest polished diamond in its class to go under the hammer. It sold for $83m in Geneva in 2013 but the buyer later defaulted. The record until now was held by the Oppenheimer Blue, which sold for $50m last May." Details and photos here.

Fun idea. Sadly, all the bunnies in Nevada are gone. And my wife won't let me near the California bunnies! ?

No, the Pedro Dredge is now in Chicken. There are a number of bucket line dredges around Fairbanks. I assume the dredge in the video is dredge No. 8. The video mentions Ester however so it could be No. 10 also. The Fairbanks Exploration Co.’s Gold Dredge No. 8 at Fox is perhaps the most visible and well-known dredge in the Fairbanks area, but the FE Co. actually operated eight of these giants near town. No. 3 which was at Chatanika, was reported burned in 2013. Yet these pictures Show it in 2016? Several others exist/existed. No. 2 on Fairbanks Creek, No. 5 at Dome Creek, No. 6 on Sheep Creek and No. 10 at Cripple Creek. Dredge No. 4 (operated on Pedro Creek) was dismantled in 1959 and moved to Chicken, and No. 7 at Fish Creek was demolished when Fort Knox gold mine was developed. Alaska Gold Dredging a history by Clark C. Spence Gold Dredge Number 8 National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark Alaska Digital Archive Historic photos of gold dredges They now run tours on Gold Dredge No. 8 http://golddredge8.com/ 2013 video....

What the %&#@%! is the problem with manufacturers thinking skid plates are an afterthought? Like we do not want to protect our expensive investment? It is not just Minelab - the new Garrett ATX coils have no skid plates yet and in fact it took Garrett YEARS to produce a cover for the 8" mono. It takes these guys forever to develop the new coils - why are the new scuff covers not developed and produced at the same time and available the day the coils are ready to purchase? Minelab at least ships new coils with covers, but then you can't get replacements for quite some time. They figure maybe we just won't use the stuff they sell so it won't wear out? Or is it they are afraid the coils will not sell well so nobody will want covers, and they do not want to sink the money into that until later? Whatever. Little stuff like this is really starting to irritate me. Time for a new thread on that however.

I hear you Mike and we are on the same page. Frankly, I tell myself I should just stop buying any more detectors unless they really are packing a new patent number. I am frustrated that when I get a new detector at the end of the day it may be different but it's all the same. PI has been on a roll and delivering true measurable improvements to prospectors. But the coin and relic machines really are in a rut. The DEUS made waves being light in weight and with fast recovery in dense ferrous, but I never personally saw it as doing anything some good old Tesoro units could not do with the right coils. Machines like the V3i really mix it up and spit it out in different ways, but that ability to hit a dime at X inches hit a wall a long time ago. I really want to get my hands on something that without a doubt no questions asked is a real improvement in discrimination at depth. When a new VLF detector comes out I may as well just have one canned report "great new detector with unique mix of features that finds a coin at depth just as well as machines we have had for years".

There are various booster amps and external speaker options available, made most popular with Minelab PI detectors. The SD, GP, and GPX series do not have their own speaker built in. The B&Z Booster is very popular. The Minelab GPZ comes with a wireless remote speaker, which is what I normally use. At this point you should be following the thread at http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/3401-headphones-versus-external-speakers/

Sounds like your best bet. You can learn more about how to identify meteorites and get yours identified at the same time. Less than three weeks away.

Yes, you will normally need to use a 1/8" to 1/4" jack adapter. Earbuds like I have which have no volume control of their own only work with detectors that have a volume control. If your detector does not have a volume control, get earbuds that do.

Originally a silent film by the U.S. Smelting and Mining Co. from 1949, station KUAC of Fairbanks, Alaska added a sound track and narration to explain the process and history of mining gold in Alaska's rugged conditions.

Ah AuWanderer, you are singing my song! Trust me, it is not from lack of motivation or trying. It is simply a hard nut to crack. It is important people like us keep making it clear we want it and are willing to pay to get it. Otherwise people should not complain when the same old same old just gets repackaged endlessly.

I like the V3i enough I have owned at least three so far, and have no doubt I will end up with another one someday. Fascinating machine!

Well, since this thread petered out I will answer my own question directly. If the AKA Intronik STF really can detect and accurately identify a U.S. dime or nickel at depths that clearly exceed that of anything else it would definitely be worth some bucks to me. The key of course is the depth improvement would have to be indisputable by anyone that tried the machine against the competition. No hair splitting but a solid 10% plus improvement over the absolute best currently obtainable. The TID would not have to be 100% accurate but it would have to be on par with the competition. To put it simply, I would want to bury a dime deeper than, for instance, a Fisher F75 could detect at all no matter the combination of settings. Then I would want to see the AKA Intronik STF clearly and easily detect and identify that dime with a clear, loud signal. The depth gain would have to hold under a large variety of ground conditions. Now, to my mind $12,000 would be more than I would spend to get that capability for the simple reason that I can still find good targets with the machines I already have at the locations I hunt. If I am already getting everything possible down to 10", exactly how many more good targets and I going to see getting to 11"? Very hard to say of course. In the prospecting world that extra inch can pay off in ounces of gold rather quickly and so $12,000 is something a person might consider. Coin and relic detecting however are unlike nugget detecting in that it does not hold true in many locations that more targets exist at depth. That is even true of prospecting detectors in many locations, and the coins and relics are of less average value than gold nuggets. There are constraints on how deep one can dig as a practical matter in many parks and yards also. I guess it just comes down to what your "thing" is. My thing is gold prospecting first, and so the vast bulk of my detecting time goes to doing that, and that is where I am more inclined to invest my detecting dollars. Coin and relic detecting is a distant second place activity for me, in fact really third place as I do more jewelry detecting than coin and relic detecting. So $12,000 would be out of the question for me personally for more depth on a dime. I do like my toys however, and the $3000 - $3500 range as last mentioned by Ringmoney does not seem automatically out of the realm of possibility at least as far as I am concerned. The catch really is somebody else will have to be the guinea pig on that one. I am just not willing to make that big a gamble on a company I am not familiar with. It is one thing to drop $800 into some oddball brand with no U.S. dealers and quite another to spend thousands. There is also the gut feeling I have that Fisher or White's or Minelab etc. are sooner or later going to produce that next big thing and I am far more willing to not only trust what they might produce, but willing to wait some time yet to see what it might be. But that's just me folks. You all have to make your own calls in that regard. Anyway, best of luck to AKA and I do hope they can deliver the goods. I will certainly be watching them to see what develops.

Days like that are what it's all about. Nice chunky gold - congratulations!

Wow, awesome pile of gold. Thanks for sharing! I once had an opportunity to detect in an active mining cut at a commercial mine. I did not get to keep any of the gold but had a blast digging big nuggets up left and right. It's fabulous when you know every beep is going to be gold!

I used to do very well on beaches but have been on a dry spell myself in that regard. Lots of hours being put in but the gold rings have been few and far between this last year. Like with every other type of detecting competition has gotten intense and hunting grounds are depleting. There are always new drops to be found but the rich accumulations of old targets once recovered can't be replaced. Anyway, I hope my luck turns soon... and yours also!

Hello lufti, It is nice to pick up tips on the Internet to try with detectors, but personally I always develop my own settings. I do that through experimentation over time. At first a person can use test targets if they wish. I usually just use the recommended default settings at first and go detecting. When I find things, I take the time before digging them up to experiment with different settings, trying to find ones that keep the ground as quiet as possible while making the target as loud as possible. My settings tend to be conservative while I learn the detector but get more aggressive as I learn the machine and get my ear tuned to the sounds it makes. Detectors generally are not that complicated, yet most people seem to spend little time trying to learn them. I spend countless hours simply testing my machines, with the only goal being to learn more about them. My advice to anyone is to do the same.