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Roughwater

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  1. I was running the Stablizer very low most of the time. Often at 1 or a high of 5. For whatever reason, to my ear, the EMI seemed to lesson with turning the stabilizer lower. It also got lower with turning other things down but unfortunately I think the signal level also got lower. I probably should have tested my DD coils in cancel when the EMI went higher but I didn't think to at the time. I was doing a little search on coils and came across this post which seemed like good general info from folks testing coils down under. Terry
  2. Thanks Fred, I'll keep that in mind, if I can. Not a good day for playing with my 5000. I think it was a combination of the very mineralized ground I have, the heat and the EMI . I wonder if there is a such thing as the EMI getting worse in the evening? Seemed like that happen to me anyway. Plus I was trying to test larger and larger Mono coils which probably increased the EMI as well. The other problem with the larger coils is that I started to discover more junk that I had failed to dig up near my test holes with the bigger coils so my test garden is still a work in progress. Of course my unfamiliarity with the 5000 didn't help either. To combat the EMI I tried turning some things down. Using the Deep switch really increased the EMI so I could not use that mode at all. However through it all was able to compare the 14X9 Nuggetfinder Evo coil to the 8" round mono Minelab coil. I used a 1 gram nugget at 5" and another 1 grammer at 7". Two, (.2) gram nuggets, 1 at 5" and 1 at 4". and also a .1 gram nugget at 3.5". Probably not much of a test in mild ground but in this ground none of the coils were hitting the targets really strong. But the 14X9 had the edge on all the nuggets except the .1 gram nugget and the 8" coil was a little louder on that one. That's all I'm likely to do with my test garden with the 5000 till I get back from my trip. But if I get my wife's Honey do list completed soon I may take the Eureka gold out and try it out on the targets in place as there are no major EMI issues with it and it's much simpler to operate. I do want to if nothing else, compare the Coiltek 6" coil for the Eureka to the stock elliptical coil. I'm wondering which is the most sensitive etc. and by how much. Terry
  3. Thanks Fred. I totally agree with both statements. Fortunately I don't live in the city but I did learn that the worst place it do a test with with a Minelab PI in the country other than in the house is on your deck or porch where I had previously tried to air test a mine. Still too much EMI and Minelab PI's don't air test well anyway. As for my test garden, I put it as far from the house as I could (40 yards) which made a world of difference with reducing the EMI. As to checking the ground for objects, I was hoping that wouldn't take me too long but I spent most of the entire day digging up a myriad of objects from the ground, unfortunately none of which had any value. My goal was to just dig up objects within a couple of feet of each of the holes I dug for the targets. I started out using the 3030 to dig the junk then switched to the Eureka gold as I had a little coil on it and figured it would pin point easier and it did. After digging lots of targets and thinking I was near done I pulled out the 5000 and found another bunch of junk targets. If Minelab could only make a little nugget sound as loud as those little pieces of rusty iron it would be really hard to miss a finding a nugget. Fortunately I'm near done with clearing away junk. I managed to bury most of my targets today so by tomorrow evening I should have a report back to you all. Digging the junk was a chore for sure but a good experience as I have very little time on the 5000 or the Eureka. But I will get some good training from Gerry in July in Oregon. Terry
  4. I spent a couple hours or more today trying to air test my Eureka and 5000 on the back deck. The Eureka testing didn't go too bad but just to much EMI that close to my home to determine anything accurately with the 5000. I did find out that my 5000 with one of the little hot rocks that stuck to my pick magnet a few days ago from my yard would set off the 5000 using the 14X9 Nuggetfinder Evo coil. Not good news at my yard must have thousands of the same. I'll try to get further away from my home tomorrow and try my coils out in the dirt if at all possible. I have half a dozen small nuggets and other things I can bury at various depth to test.
  5. Sounds nice Johnny. If the wife's happy, everybody's happy.
  6. That's a great first run! I hope I do half that good when I finally get out to the field in a few weeks.
  7. This is just an extension of my last post but wouldn't it have been great if say the Racer was programmed with a user removeable chip like the Eagle. Then when the Racer II came out all you had to do was buy the new Chip for X amount of dollars or maybe had the option for less money to upgraded it via the internet? Would you have bought the upgrade? That may not be the best example as there may have been other improvements made to the Racer other than programming but you get the drift. I know most of us would pay to get what appears to be a better machine though it really only amounts to the machine being reprogrammed.
  8. Correct me if I'm wrong but some some companies in the past have found ways to make money on a firmware update. One example I'm thinking of is White's Eagle II. I had bought a Whites Eagle many years ago and a year or so later Whites came out with the Eagle 2. Whites Eagle, I believe was a step up in the evolution of detectors. It used a removeable microprocessor chip. If you owned the Eagle when the Eagle II came out, Whites offered the customer the new upgrade via a replacement Chip for a specified amount of money which I'm thinking may have been a 100 dollars. I bought the chip of course and installed it myself and had no issues. The point being today that would be considered a firmware upgrade but Whites made money on it and no one complained.
  9. A gram a may not sound like much but for Ohio that's really good! Sorry to hear about your back. I wasn't aware of the shell issue. My back isn't what it used to be either but hearing about what you go through to get gold makes me feel lucky. I'm not likely to be looking for Gold in Ohio myself but I think when I get back here to NC from my upcoming western nuggetshooting road trip I'll do some local prospecting. Terry
  10. Hey Dean, Where about in Ohio do you live? I am originally from Ohio, from the Newark, Granville, Heath area. I never tried dredging in Ohio but I have heard there there are some places along the Kokosing River and around Bellville area. There's some pretty good small mouth bass fishing in the Kokosing as well. Get you some soft crawls and you'll have a lot of fun there between fishing and dredging. The GPAA has some claims over that way also. I have done a little dredging in AK but it would be best to get you a suitable compressor for sure. Terry
  11. Thanks Tvanwho. I'll try to make a mental note of that while nuggets shooting.
  12. Looks like I will need a bigger backpack if I go collecting Jade around Happy camp! A bigger vehicle too!
  13. Hi Mitchel, I'm new to the 3030 so I don't understand what "sizing" does? Prior to the 3030 I have never used any other minelab mutifrequency detector so using one is all new to me. Thanks Terry
  14. Thanks. Actually I had viewed your test already as it was one of the posts on the Thread that Steve recommended I view. Now I am wondering how the 6" smart coil compares to the Joey? If I were to buy a small coil for my 3030 I would probably only purchase one or the other. I think Steve may do a test in time between the 2 coils which I'm interested to see when he does.
  15. Glad you cleaned up all that junk so I could find me some more pull tabs. Seriously though, that's some great detecting.
  16. Des, Since I have a 3030 already and I love it's ability to reject iron I thought maybe I could make use of it in iron infested areas. I do realize that with the stock coil it's not a preferred nugget shooting detector but I thought maybe a little coil might improve it's sensitivity. I didn't know if the little coils would make much difference with the 3030, thus this post. I do have another VLF detector for that purpose but haven't tested it yet for it's discrimination ability. I need to get to it though as my planned nugget shooting trip is less than 2 weeks away.
  17. Paul's probably right. My time up there was limited, even so I stopped by their myself during an event they had going on. They had a local celebrity giving a talk about metal detecting the day I was there, I don't recall who but it may have even been Steve? It's just that as a destination for prospecting I felt like it had to be pretty worked out. When I was there I think in 05 we had to pay to get in and they greatly limited the area we could prospect. So there was a bunch of people all trying to prospect in a small limited area that looked to be pretty well prospected out. That was my experience with the place so I wasn't that impressed with it as possible serious prospecting destination. For you Robert, with living near there and not being so limited time-wise, it could be a good educational prospecting experience.
  18. Crow creek does get a lot of tourist attraction and has for many years so for that reason I would personally avoid it and go to some of the less traveled places in AK like the Petersville rec area or even Chicken. Fortunately for you, (assuming you live there), you can quickly become the expert as to where to best prospect in AK by trying out different places. We in the lower 48 don't have that luxury. Also, read up on where to best find gold in a creek as it's not evenly distributed. Use your pan and test several places along the creek before deciding on one spot. Look for the flood gold which will often be in a false bedrock layer that may not go down very deep. My best advice is to read Chris Ralph's book "Fists Full of Gold". The combination of you getting out there and also taking the short cut of learning from other's will help you get on and stay on the gold. I'm sure Steve could help point you in the right direction as he lived up there for a long time.
  19. Has anyone tested the sensitivity of the CTX 3030 6" round coil and or small elliptical coil on gold nuggets and if so how did that turn out? Thanks, Terry
  20. That is some very visually appealing material. I would think it could be made to be fairly valuable by someone with lapidary skills.
  21. Thanks for the suggestion Steve and Chris. What I think I'll do is do per your advice is both methods. I"ll put some targets in my normal (really mineralized ground) and also set up some targets in some "mild", store bought ground. I don't think I'll have to worry about putting all those ironized pebbles back in the hole though as there are many, many more I didn't bother to remove. I suspected the ground was mineralized but till I dug into it with that Apex pick with the magnets I didn't realize how bad it really was. Terry
  22. I really wanted to Make a detector test Garden in my yard. My first goal was to remove anything that would make a detector beep in a small area of my yard. I had just bought a Apex pick with the 3 magnets so I though that would be perfect for clearing the yard. However I dug only 2 shallow holes and found my yard is full of small iron rocks/pebbles as I pulled half a pocket full of pebbles from those 2 shallow holes. So thinking now I will have to do something different. Maybe buy some bags of dirt at the local Walmart Apex pick iron 2.html
  23. Well said Steve. As a all around detector it's hard to beat on several levels. I am just starting to get used to mine but very quickly have learned how well it sorts out iron at the beach. I still dig some pull tabs and bottle caps but just having the iron nearly eliminated is huge. Another plus for the 3030 is the fact that it's multifrequency so generally detects deeper especially in the salt and no worries about detecting in the rain or on the beach with it being waterproof.
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