rob baum

"Almost seems like you just haven't been able to get the coil over some gold? Can't find it if it's not there. Only thing I can add is do your noise cancel, ground balance, sens on 3-4 (if threshold remains stable), coil as close to soil as possible and nice slow even 3-4 second coil sweep from side to side, dig any/all change in threshold tone. Persistance, patience, tenacity and get that coil over some gold!!!!!.......(it'll happen)" oneguy, that's for sure i wont find it if its not there. since i haven't had a whole lot of luck i tend to wonder if it is there and i'm not yet skilled enough. I definitely have persistence and patience, sometimes i have to do a little dry washing or panning to see the yellow stuff to get me excited again.

" I can easily see from your post and only finding 2 nuggets in 4 years at a known gold producing site, you need some hands on Field Training from an Expert who knows the SDC-2300. Education and Quality Field Training is not cheap, but well worth it as you'll have it for the rest of your detecting career. Here is what most people do and a big mistake. They purchase a higher dollar detector thinking that is the solution to them being successful. No Sir, I don't feel so. Yes it will help, but 2 nuggets in 4 yrs with a top performing detector proves my point, you don't know what your doing with it." Gerry i agree. i could definitely use some professional training and i don't mind paying for it. i started with a xterra-705, i never really learned that machine when it came to gold because of where i was detecting in Ca most of the time it was so noisy due to the ground that it just wasn't fun. I bought the SDC a year later as an impulse buy at a gold show due to it handling the mineralized ground but i never had anyone except for videos on you-tube show me how to use it. theirs not to many prospectors around me that use metal detectors due to the gold being small, the one's that due mainly use the gold monster. if i can find some more time to spend in AZ other than a weekend every couple of months i will definitely call you to hire one of your field staff to train me.

"Bury test nuggets and test the settings out to see what works best at edge of detection as well as normal depths. Then see exactly how deep you can hit each size nugget and how the settings change the target response. Now you know on your own exactly what settings to run in the ground/area you specifically work and you also have a feel for how deep you are detecting rather than guessing." thanks Jasong, that's some good advice. i usually bring a test nugget and just throw it on top of the ground to listen to it. i think next time i will just bury it at different depths and spend my time learning the soil and trying different settings instead of doing the guessing game.

those are some beautiful pieces, it's still a dream for me to find some specimens like those. for now i just look at other peoples pics to keep me motivated until i find some.

I bought a house in meadview about 4 years ago. Every couple months when I go there I try to get over to gold basin to do some detecting or drywashing. It took me a couple years to find my first nugget out there and its been a couple of years since then and I havent found another. I swing an SDC and I've read people have done pretty good out there with that model. I find plenty of lead and boot tacks a inch or two down but not much deeper than that. What settings are people using out there? How deep down are people finding the gold? Would I be better off with a different model that can go deeper? I'm not very confident in my abilities since I learned this machine on my own and have only found 2 pieces in the 4 years and dozens of times I've used it. Any advice would be appreciated.

any updates on weather there still going to add the claims?

I was able to take this out a week ago and got a few hours in on it with my sdc2300. although I didn't find any gold it was really nice not getting tangled up on the bushes. as far as the volume goes it is plenty loud with the head phones but when I would unplug them to let my friend here the target, the speaker was way to low. I plugged in my amp and external speaker and it was much better. I couldn't notice any delay at all with the unit although I would get some kind of interference every once in a while as if the unit was loosing connection. I tried wiggling the wires and other things but could not figure out what was doing it. I plugged it in my friends x-terra 705 for a few minutes and didn't seem to have any interference. I hope to get out with it some more soon to see if it was the area I was in or its my detector not playing nice with it.

i hope to get out this weekend with it hooked to my sdc so well see how it does by itself and with the treasure screamer plugged in.

i was at the pleasonton gpaa gold show yesterday and got my hands on a pro-sonic. there price is $269 and they said they shipped them out to all the vendors on friday so everyone that wants one should be able to get one shortly.

I'm not sure, there different types of metal nuggets I found at a lake that is low right now and usually cant metal detect. I was hoping for a way to id them. I'll have to do some research for that area to see if there's any natural material around or if the metal is from someone's boat engine just blew up.

thanks for all the feedback. I figured it would be hard to identify since even just waiving the items around gave me different id's.

i've been looking all around for a target id chart for raw metals for my x-terra 705. all i've been able to find is ones listing coins and when i try to look up what material the coins are to cross reference them, they all seem to be made primarily of copper. if anyone have suggestions what these might be or another target id chart out there i would appreciate it.