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Steve Herschbach

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  1. First off, let me say welcome to the forum, and that I appreciate the effort you put into the video. So do not take the following personally because it is not aimed at you personally. It is just that perhaps with good intentions your video is doing something I see far too often. In my opinion air tests are completely worthless for evaluating in ground depth performance of metal detectors. In fact, in my opinion when used to draw conclusions between two detectors they can be extremely misleading and this video is a perfect example. Right in the beginning of the video the test is set up as seeing if for twice the money the X-Terra has any advantage over the Ace. Now, if you were just showing an air test of either machine separately all is well. It is the fact this is supposed to reveal how one compares to the other where it all falls apart. The rest of the video is simple misdirection. All the tests after that are air tests, ending with the conclusion that the Ace is just as good as the X-Terra that costs twice as much because it air tests as well. Now that is nonsense and you say as much when introducing your video in the post above. In your post you say "Now I am fully aware that metal detectors react differently when out in the field compared to in an air test environment and I also know that air test's aren't a true reflection of a detectors abilities". So why then make the video and in it not make those exact statements in it? Any person watching your video gets exactly the opposite impression. You imply heavily in the video itself that these air tests have meaning. Air tests only serve a few purposes in my opinion. They allow a person to learn basic things like what the target id numbers and sounds are for various items under perfect conditions, and they tell you what a detector will not do. If a detector cannot detect a small gold nugget in an air test, it is unlikely to do so in the ground. Air tests reveal maximum possible performance under ideal low to no mineral conditions. I do not expect detectors to do better in ground than in an air test. Air tests can reveal how well detectors deal with adjacent trash targets. Air tests can also reveal by comparing two of the exact same model of detector if one is possibly malfunctioning, but even then just because one air tests better than the other it may not mean what people think. It could be the one that air tests better is the one that is malfunctioning! Certain forums obsess over air tests. Yet I do in ground tests on a regular basis that completely reverse the air test results people are getting so excited over. A high frequency detector will often air test better than a low frequency or multifrequency detector, with opposite results in ground. A VLF can easily do better in air tests than a PI detector, with vastly opposite results in ground. The key to all detector performance is ground handling capability. Removing the ground from the equation removes the single most important thing people should care about, and that is evaluating the efficiency of the ground balancing method the detector employs. This ties into target id accuracy, which also can only be evaluated in ground. Target numbers that are nice and solid in air tests skew badly and jump all over the place in real ground conditions. In fact, I can easily misadjust a detectors ground balance to make it perform better in the air, while that very same adjustment will make it perform worse in the ground. I have seen people take detectors with factory preset ground balance settings, and attempt to get better performance by setting it themselves. They usually do so by using air tests to set the internal pot to get the best air test possible. They are then usually surprised to find out the in ground performance actually got worse. Well of course - you can only ground balance a detector over the ground! The ground balance setting that works best for mineralized ground will often hurt performance in an air test. That is why a Pulse Induction (PI) detector air tests so poorly compared to a VLF - a VLF has far less inherent ground handling capability than a PI and that ground handling capability is what a PI is all about. It does not make them air test well - BUT WHO METAL DETECTS IN THE AIR? Air test videos work best for people with low mineral ground, and so are halfway valid for turf hunters or white sand beach hunters. The guys back east love them. For nugget hunters or anyone hunting bad soil conditions, hopefully they know better. VLF detectors in my ground get about 50% of the depth or less than all these air tests that get published all over the place as meaning something. Machines that air test the best are often the absolute worst detectors to put in really bad ground conditions. Now to this video in particular. The Ace 250 is a factory preset ground balance detector. And in low mineral ground conditions your video is halfway valid. The Ace 250 in my opinion is one of the best bang for the buck detectors ever made, and a real credit to Garrett for having produced it. However, the simple lack of a ground balance control means that in bad ground it is seriously out of adjustment and there is nothing you can do about it. Depth of detection is severely impacted and target id accuracy is ruined. The X-Terra because it can be ground balanced easily outperforms the Ace in bad ground to a very large degree, the degree depending solely on the ground conditions. Further, the Ace lacks a true threshold based all metal mode, which mode on the X-Terra is one of the absolute best made. The X-Terra 705 Prospecting mode combined with its iron mask function truly puts the Ace to shame in the hands of a serious operator. Simply no comparison at all. Interestingly, in this video you have an optional 10" DD on the X-Terra vs the smaller concentric on the Ace. Another common error of course is comparing two detectors with vastly different coils. What is interesting in this case is that if compared with proper in ground tests you could show why that DD coil blows the Ace concentric coil away in any sort of bad ground. The concentric will overload more easily and misidentify non-ferrous items as ferrous more readily than the DD coil you have on the X-Terra. This DD advantage of course is completely lost in air tests and in fact concentric coils will usually outperform DD coils in air tests. The best videos are those that show a single detector and show a user how to get the best performance out of it. Nearly all the worst videos are those air testing two or more detectors seeking to determine which is best. Videos of that type must be done in the ground with a great deal of effort expended to explain the conditions and settings and also the inevitable caveats involved in the testing. The main caveats being actual ground conditions relative to where the actual end user is and what types of targets it is that they are seeking. I can show well why one detector perfect for Florida is a poor choice for Arizona, and also the exact opposite. It is all about the ground conditions where a person hunts and that changes from location to location. As far as I am concerned if people are interested in true detector comparisons the only ones that matter are in ground tests on found targets. That is how I test when I get serious about it. I use air tests and contrived buried item tests to reveal certain basic facts (can this detector detect a one grain nugget?) but for serious testing I have to haul two or more detectors into the field, go find targets, and compare the detectors on the found targets. Most top of the line detectors will find 90% plus of found targets just as well, so it takes a lot of time and effort to find the small percentage of targets that reveal true differences between the best detectors. And even then those results are only valid for me in my ground conditions and must be taken with a grain of salt.
  2. All I can say is - freaking awesome! Merry Christmas for sure.
  3. Just goes to show I have really wimped up since I left Alaska!!
  4. The power of Google. Helps that I researched it all long ago also so I know what to search for.
  5. Really great commentary root, thanks!! Arizona Lode Gold Mines and Gold Mining Geology of Lode Gold Districts in the Klamath Mountains, California and Oregon
  6. Mud Men: Pocket Miners of Southwest Oregon—Part I by Tom Bohmker (free) More ICMJ Articles by Tom Bohmker (subscription required) George Duffy Jr.—Pocket Miner Extraordinaire by Jim Straight (subscription required) And just found this, new in 2015, a bit on the heavy side but good tidbits and the price is right AN INTRODUCTION TO GEOLOGY AND HARD ROCK MINING 2015 By Dr. Willard Lacy
  7. Pretty dicey in Northern Nevada right now. Not saying it can't be done but brrrr! I am here and if I wanted to do it bad enough at the moment I would be heading over the hill to foothills in Northern California or better yet to Arizona or Southern California. Instead I am just working on website and cleaning house/selling stuff which requires me to stay put for awhile. The most I am doing right now is hitting a park or two if the weather warms up enough to suit me, which right now would be anything over 50. Right now Reno is running more in the 30s and 40s for highs.
  8. OK, another great spot to look for silver coins is of course older school grounds. Here are the construction dates for all schools in the Anchorage School District.
  9. The CTX does not use normal subtractive ground balancing methods but instead uses methodologies more akin to those employed in pulse induction machines. A frequency domain detector employing time domain methods if you will. I found its default operating modes with a little extra gain applied to be most effective for me. All I know is it and it's kin are some of the deadliest silver turf hunting machines ever designed as evidenced by the success of the BBS and FBS detectors worldwide, and no slouch on the beaches either. I do little turf hunting these days and at the moment had little use for my CTX, so since mine just ran out of warranty I figured I would sell it and hold out for the next version, whenever that may be. I would miss it if I were not so busy focusing on other detectors and detecting tasks at this time.
  10. The relic hunters are liking this machine as well as the nugget hunters http://www.dankowskidetectors.com/discussions/read.php?2,95323
  11. They would not want to do that. I guess it would be more accurate to say I would not be interested.Tom, resistivity is covered in the link I posted above and will post here again. Anything in this report I would consider legit. I would question anything that is not. Just my opinion. Self Potential Method HANDBOOK OF GEOPHYSICAL PROSPECTING METHODS FOR THE ALASKAN PROSPECTOR http://pubs.dggsalaskagov.us/webpubs/mirl/report_no/text/mirl_n19.pdf
  12. "11 grams of golden beauty. My biggest this year." Very nice and just in time with the year coming to an end. Though I guess it is prime time down your way - go find one even larger!
  13. They were available to me as a dealer back in the day but no, I never laid hands on one.
  14. Why thank you Rob. Merry Christmas to you and yours and all the fine people of this forum!
  15. Subject for another thread but yes, alloys will often be of lower conductivity than pure metals. Gold alloys are dramatically less conductive than pure gold for instance. And on detectors size is every bit as important as conductivity. VDI numbers really only have meaning for repeatable items, like a dime, and even then only under favorable conditions.
  16. I always advise hunting urban areas as much as possible when nobody is around. It pays to stay as invisible as possible and so I hunt at oddball times or in bad weather. Having gear that does not attract attention is a good idea also. For those that want to walk or ride a bicycle to nearby locations having a machine that easily folds and fits into a day pack is also very nice.
  17. If you are into technical stuff the best source of information is not this forum but Geotech. They have great tech articles plus a tech forum. Geotech Articles GeotechProjects - coils near bottom Geotech Forum Geotech Article On Coil Basics
  18. Another big factor is the weight. I have been frequenting a lot of UK forums lately. In the UK basically target id does not matter much. Valuable items can fall anywhere on the discrimination scale, often in the range U.S. hunters would call trash. All you need is the ability to hit non-ferrous items well, and the DEUS does that. The real kicker though is the weight. Post after post can be found by people who ditch heavier detectors for the DEUS because of the weight. A lot of detectorists are older and many not in the best shape. Weight really does matter, and at 2 lbs the DEUS is what a lot of these people need regardless of anything else.
  19. Not that I know of, and question is why would you? Gold is not as good a conductor as copper, it weighs more, and costs far more. So you would get a heavier coil that costs a fortune and does not work as well. People think gold is a great conductor because of its use in electronics, when in fact it is because gold does not tarnish or corrode while still being "good enough". Silver is a better option than copper in theory, but again the oxidation issue is a big factor. From https://www.bluesea.com/resources/108
  20. First there was the GPX, then came the GPZ, and ZVT. People focused on the "Z" In the U.S. When we see a Z we say "zee". In the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, when they see a Z they say "zed" Canada it can go either way. http://grammarist.com/usage/zee-zed/ http://mentalfloss.com/article/62639/why-it-zed-britain-and-zee-america I clearly remember when some Aussie first started referring to the GPZ as the Zed I just do not remember exactly who it was or when. Who deserves their moment of fame? Google experts, I send you forth on a mission to find the earliest reference of the GPZ as Zed!
  21. Self Potential Method HANDBOOK OF GEOPHYSICAL PROSPECTING METHODS FOR THE ALASKAN PROSPECTOR http://pubs.dggsalaskagov.us/webpubs/mirl/report_no/text/mirl_n19.pdf Page 22 Review of Compass Depth Doubler by Gordon Zahara http://compass-metal-detector-forum.548136.n2.nabble.com/Compass-Depth-Multiplier-Field-Test-td4407130.html
  22. Latest findings "no evidence of train". http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35104117 I love these kinds of treasure hunts. There is no actual evidence at all that the fabled trains ever existed in the first place. But like Bigfoot you can't prove they did not exist, creating a cottage industry for this little town in Poland. Money being made for sure, just not by finding treasure.
  23. From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_coin_(United_States)#Gold_dollar_coins_.281849.E2.80.931889.29 The gold dollar was produced from 1849 to 1889. 1849 to 1853 gold dollar coins were 13 mm across and are called Type I. Type II gold dollars were thinner but larger at 15 mm diameter and were produced from 1854 to 1855. The most common gold dollar are the Type III and started in 1856 until 1889. Composed of 90% pure gold, it was the smallest denomination of gold currency ever produced by the United States federal government. Because of the high value of gold, the gold dollar is the smallest coin in the history of US coinage.
  24. There is one very real aspect of running the latest and greatest as far as I am concerned. Real or not it gives me a feeling of confidence that all ground hunted before by myself or anyone else can now be treated as unhunted again. It is true that some places have been pounded to death, but just having that confidence and giving it another go often produces gold nuggets for me, not because the detector is really all that more powerful, but because I do manage to put my coil over something missed by dozens if not hundreds of other detectorists. Very often it really is that latest and greatest technology that makes the difference, no doubt about that. But anyone thinking all the easier shallow to find stuff out there is gone just is not getting out and about enough in locations off the beaten path. Most of my gold found in Nevada this summer was in or near known locations, but I just put in lots of hours hunting, especially the perimeter areas, finding missed isolated nuggets here and there. Most would have been found by any prior GPX or GP detector with the right coil and settings. Many a VLF or SDC would have found. And some for sure I think only a GPZ would have found. More than anything though it is just that faith that what I have beats anything else that came before that makes me willing to hunt ground hunted a hundred times before, and it does indeed almost always result in more gold found. That, and I do think I have gotten better with age!
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