Eklawok

I haven't went as far as to remove any of the riffles. But what I have been doing is running the dump end of the sluice pictured above into my other sluice with miners moss added to the mix as suggested above. Usually I don't classify as I like to spend time digging as opposed to classifying materials. And I try to run water fast enough through them that I have considered getting a set of dredge riffles for one of them. When I have done clean outs, maybe twice a day max, I have never found anything on the lower of the two boxes. But it doesn't hurt to have them second one going inline just incase. Especially when I am doing a controlled dump of 10 gallons of material at a time (2 -5 gallon buckets). But I hope to hit a few new areas this summer. And if the water in those areas is running slower, classification will probably be nessesary. I figured that this contraption might help speed things up in those areas. I'm kinda of an impatient guy when if comes to that

Yeah, I probably am going to put the angled fittings on it so I can have the legs splayed out. Also going to get some allthread to use for holding the barrel in place instead of the metal pipe strap that they have in the parts list. I have seen a video of a guy who has added a spray bar to his, but I'll hold off on that for now. All the places I go I end up having to pack all my stuff in, so less is more for me. When I get it to a point where I can do a dry run on it, I have a friend of mine who has a load of fill that they bought from a guy that wasn't classified in the way that they were told it would be. It was a discussion about that pile that spurred on this little project. It is only about a pickup truck bed size load, so it should be a good trial run.

A bit away from the metal detecting, so I hope nobody minds if I post this. I have been working on a "mikes hand trommel" that i came across a few years ago while surfing youtube. Seems like it will be pretty nifty little unit and it is easy to build. And cheap too boot. Still need to add a hopper and figure out what I am going to do for a feed chute off of the bottom to dump into my sluice. Just felt the need to show off a bit. Here is the link to the direction to build one. http://mlaine.net/Trom/

When i was a kid, i used to race radio controlled cars. If someone else was running even close to your frequency, it could cause problems from bleedover. Depending on the equipment used. I don't know if that translates to metal detectors, but that would be my guess. Bu5 why when your pinpointer is off? That is what confuses me.

I get somenwith my mxt a/p from my garrett pinpointer, but not much. And only when i have it on. As long as the coil on my mxt is pointed away, no problem. How could it get interference from your pinpointer if it was turned off? Is there sometging that I am missing?

Nice :)

I thought that as i typed it last night. He was far from a gambler. But it did spark a lot of conversation between him and I. Maybe that was the point

A guy I used to work with used to bring these treasure and gold magazines to work and forget them in my office. I had always been curious about mining/prospecting for gold, but steered away from it. At least till I started to read his magazines. Before I knew it I had picks, shovels, sluice boxes, and gold pans. But I also wanted a metal detector for going out nugget shooting. I did some reading on them and decided to get an Ace 250. I knew that it wouldn't be a great machine for hunting gold in my area, but it would be a good machine to learn on and see if I liked them. Well, needless to say, I never really warmed up to it. I used the heck out of my sluice boxes, pans, buckets and shovels. But that little Ace and I never seemed to have much of a lasting relationship. It always felt toy like to me. And I had gotten tha hankering for a one of Whites machines. But I knew if I was to get one that I would never hear the end of it from my wife as she would roll her eyes about it every time she seen it. Fast forward a few years I started to realize that I hadn't really gone out and done anything that pertained to my interest. New job, a divorce shortly after, and learning how to be a single father had all taken their toll on getting out and doing anything. But the gold bug bit me again. That one and the dirtbike bug, but that's another story. So, I went out here a few weeks back and bought my MXT A/P , and couldn't be happier with it. I have been out using it in the parks around where I live while the kid is in school and found it to be really relaxing. Still haven't been out nugget hunting yet. I am going to get the smaller coil and try that out this summer. And get some water running through the sluice boxes again too :)

I'll have to check that when I get home. Sounds like simular symptoms, but I got a sneaking suspicion that it is something else. Still worth the check though. What you described is what was happening with mine. Looked and sounded all good, but wouldn't pick up my shovel or the playground equipment until i shut it down and restarted it.

Well, most likely an email to whites is in order. And when I get back home from work I'll see if i can't get it to do it again. I'll also see about aquiring another coil since i am wanting to get the 4x6 coil anyways. My local shop has one hanging on the wall. -Tom

Yeah, I don't seem to have that problem. In fact quite to the contrary. If mine says its foil, its foil. If it says thats its iron, its iron. Kinda taking a bit to get used to. My last detector wasn't quite so accurate on the id end of things. But take that with a grain of salt too. It picked up a vial of gold that i have as zinc and as nickle. It got better at calling it a nickle when I fished out the one larger nugget that i have. But this is more on the lines that it won't pick up anything until I restart the machine. And it give little to no warning that it isn't picking anything up. I am hoping for a simple solution to this intermittent problem, and hoping that it is user error. In any case, I head back to the north slope for work tomorrow and will have two weeks to figure out what to do. Wish I could take it with me to work, but not much searching to be done there.

Yeah when it gets close to something large it will overload then go back to normal. But when it was doing whatever it was doing, nothing. Just a calm, smooth threshold with nothing but vdi on the screen. Shut it down, fire it back up, and off and running as normal. What ever it is, it's intermittent. Thats why i first thought of dying batteries or a loose connection from the coil.

No, not as of yet.

Ok guys, I would like to pick your brains on this. I just got back from running my mxt all pro out in a few parks. While I was digging a target, I ran my coil over it and it seemed to have disappeared. But my garrett pinpointer said it was still there. I thought this was odd so I ran the coil over my shovel and got nothing. I sat there a moment and decided to shut it down and restart it, and I was back in business. A few minutes later the threshold got really quiet, and it did the same thing when passed my shovel over it again. So, again I shut it down, restarted it, and it seemed to work fine. This happened a few times. So, after this happened for a bit, I started to think that that batteries might be going south since they were the ones that came with it, and I had been running it a lot since I got it just over a week ago. I jumped in the truck and ran up to the store and got some fresh batteries and something to eat and headed to another park. After a bit it happened again. I noticed that when I got around some playground equipment it wasn't sounding off with the normal interference that I usually get from it. So,I put the coil right on a part of the playground equipment and nothing. So I restared it again and got the response from the machine that I would expect. I replaced the batteries, checked the coil connection to the box, and had been running with the ground switch in the lock position. If it helps I had the gain set around 4 to 5, the discrimination set at about 3, and had be bouncing between the different modes (c&j, relic, and prospecting). I figured I would get some opinions before I contacted Whites to rule out any user error on my part.

Thanks John, I'll try those settings the next time i am out. Hopefully the weather clears up here. Rain at 36°F can get chilly.

Just watch your video.....again. And it definitely contradicts the factory test video. Even to my novice abilities i can hear the target separation. Annnnnnnnnnnd you were swinging in both directions......annnnnnnnnnnd you added more targets. I just got back in from being out playing with mine at a local park and thought of your video when i was getting simular hits. Don't know what they were, the ground is still a bit frozen here to dig them all. Kinda restricted to surface targets and one in the sand and gravel in the kiddie play areas. But i may just set up my own test and run over it with the mtx and the ace 250.....just for comparison.... like what you have done. If, for no other reason, to learn about the machine more.

The other day i pulled the trigger and bought myself a MXT All pro, and i love the damn thing. It is the first Whites detector that i have ever used, and only the second detector that i have ever owned. I based my decision for this one mostly based on the track record of this model. It has an impeccable record and reputaion. I assume the video you speak of is the comparison test between the mxt, the mx5, and the mx sport. When i watched it myself, i was still in debate on what to buy, and it was before this debate had started. And even to my extremely novice knowledge of metal detectors something seemed funny about it. I'll have to see if i can find the one you did in response. It would be interesting to see since i am learning a new machine that is vastly different from the first one that i got and still have (an ace 250). Keep on saying what needs to be said. In the meantime I am going to be out learning the new/old/proven reliable machine.

Thanks for your input Steve. That was kinda what my gut was telling me. But I would rather ask than assume with all the choices out there. I know with electronics sometimes 1 or 2 mhz can make no difference, while other times it can make a huge one. And this is an area where I was a bit uncertain in. And this does answer that question. Well, it is a nice afternoon here. Gonna pry the iPad out of the kid's hands and run up to her school and see what her classmates have lost in the gravel with the 250.

Yeah, I went down to my local shop and the sales guy directed me to here. The staff at AMDS have always been helpful in the regard that if they couldn't answer a question, they know where to find the answers. I do like the "feel" of the GMT with the knobs and such. Tuning with them gives a guy a sense of actually dialing in something in...lol. And I figure that an MXT will feel about the same. And science has yet to discover a bond that holds tighter than the one my daughter has on her iPad

I am getting back into prospecting/metal detecting for the first time in about 6 years. I would like to pick up a new metal detector that I can prospect with and take out to the parks in the Anchorage area. I am leaning towards a Whites MXT due to it's track record, and I know that I can't go wrong with that choice. But, I know that there are other options out the (e.g. Gold Bug Pro). Some are in the 14 kHz range, and some run upwards of 20 kHz. Is there much of a difference in that 6 kHz range? What are other people's experience with detectors in this area? Am I even asking the right questions? I just don't want to go plop $800 on a new machine to find out that there had been a better choice out there in the same price range. In the past I have been using a Garrett Ace 250, so this will be a step up for me, and probably a whole new learning curve. But I figure that I will pass the 250 down to my daughter and try to get her away from her iPad :p . I have been reading through Steve's reviews as well, and it sounds like there are a lot of good choices out there. This is why I ask, because there are so many good choices.