geof_junk

Tuna the old discarded Murrin Murrin air strip was tried by many but too much junk but some nice big slugs were found. Two much junk for me.

Cascade Steve as bushwalking on and off track I have had a bit of experience finding my way around. A couple of times I though I must of made a mistake. The first was when I parked the 4WD about 200 yards south of two very visible vehicles. When I got back I saw the other vehicles and looked for my 4WD and could not find it. I went back to the other 4WD and ask them if the saw mine. It turn out that the had moved their 4WDs about 200 yd south of mine and were no longer north of me. The other time I was looking for a mine with the GPS and followed a river for a while then used the GPS to look for an historical mine. On the way back on a straight line to car I hit the river. The trouble was the river was following in the wrong the direction. I checked the GPS and I was still on line to the car. I had to cross over the same river twice before I got back to car. When I looked at the map in the car I found that I had came down inside a large loop in the river just after I left it on the way up. The leason learnt was don't pick moving land mark and look at the features on the map first.

Us Aussies would say only in America 🤣 Talking about road nuggets the funnies incident I have witness was the wife. The roads/tracks were her forte. Nickname some times was one in the road. Anyway the one I'm writing about was a track going through the middle of a remote patch that we were working for weeks with no traffic the whole time. As our access was off road she had got a dozen or so nuggets when we heard a vehicle trying to get somewhere off road and heading towards us. Carol got a branch from a bit of scrub and frantically sweeping the the track to hide the colour difference of the filled holes. It worked when the got near us 45 minutes later we helped them to get out to the main road and did not notice the holes. I said to her I will get her a broom next time 🤣

Not and answer but I got a pendent made for the wife. It was one she found. The trouble was it 3/4 of an ounce and keep hit her breast bone and hurt when she moved as the nugget would bounce on and off her.

If all things fail you may have to walk out. Navigation is important so look at a map and find a HANDRAIL (road, river, fence or visible land feature) where you are going. Note the direction (compass/sun) and head in that direction till you hit the "handrail" when you do follow it either way till you get any land mark you can recognize. Now at least you know where you are. A mate of mine got turned around once because he left his GPS where he just found a nugget. He had a Walkie Talkie and said he was lost and there was no land marks in site. Knowing that he had not crossed any roads I was able to tell him to put the sun behind him and to walk about 30° to his left till he hit the road and go to the left and give us call on radio and we will pick him up. A lot of people get turn around. Another mate saw us walking towards him. When we met he said he heading back to the 4WDs as it is too hot. It was funny because we were going back for the same reason. I told him to turn around and follow us. When we got back he told his wife with the reddest face.

The advice Chase Goldman has given above covers most of your post. I would add that most of mine and friends finds are easy targets for standard coils, the uses of large coils is for getting the rare ones (nuggets, jewellery and coins) that are missed and in deeper ground and require a lot experience under your belt first. When you get the experience it will be worth up grading the detector. Lets hope Midas smiles on you.

Minelab know the love affair of the GPX6000 by it Customers is their top wish list. I know it will be released on the 14 of Feb "Valentine Day" 😍 Sorry Steve you are 5 days to early.😁

The price increase can be due to the dollar rate comparison. Since Cov-19 the AUD against the US has had a range of less than 60 cents to over 77 cents. That means a $100 Aust made coil would of been $60 US is now $77 US which is well over 25% increase in the last 12 months. You all are lucky the MineLab GPX6000 and others are no longer made in Australia unlike NuggetFinders and Coiltex are made in Aus. So I think there will be some price changes or reduced margin for the manufactures. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

You could use them around the campfire after a hard day's work but you will have to take your thongs of first to keep the seats clean. 😁

A big plastic bottle, just kidding but have a visible container that can be found easy if you drop it. White is not the best in quartz areas. Use one like this one with a different cap.

I think the big thing to watch out for is the belief that you need it now or someone else will get the nuggets that the other detectors missed. The good spots would of been tested by the tester anyway. The only thing that you might get is small, like the 400 odd nuggets in the photo below that I got on a trip a few years ago.

Ditto

Expand Quote.... and just zoom out on the photo till you get the coin to the correct size on your screen and you will see the true size of the nuggets/specks. You may need your glasses.😁

Do you think the use of sticks/rods in your hands to find hidden/unseen gold in the ground, helped in the idea of developing the metal detector and the uptake of using them.

I found a 51/2 oz nugget with my eyes once and I am sure if I was dowsing at the time the wires would of been spinning like helicopter blades.

Sometimes while swinging my Minelab divining rod it amazes me how it suddenly turns me off at 90° and find a nugget up to 100 meters away😉. But have had no success with the bought or homemade ones.😭 It was a great article Eric.

It will not be long before you can not even walk into a National Park to see the trees and that will include Greenies too etc. Some have history. My Great Aunty back in the 1901 onwards use to collect the mail for the family group at Sheffield Tas for the village in the sticks.

The old rule you need 64 times the power to double the depth so a little power reductions will not reduce the depth much at all, but will get rid of the noise.

Jason I found on the initial EMI tune I make sure all electronic devices a switch on. That includes GPS, Radios, CB and most all my companion Metal Detector. This procedure has solved a lot of interference from other devices for both my self and others.

Some like poaching eggs but don't fry your egg mate.😁

That saddle reminds me of a reef in Vic. that crossed a saddle like that. My mate found a number of bits of gold heading down the slope. While he was working down hill I went up hill to have a look of the area for more reefs running parallel to it. I only walked a few feet and hit a multi gram bit. We found out that the incline of the reef was against the slope and found a few more bits on each side of the visible reef quartz up hill of it where it was eroded away. So if you are looking for reefs it pays to see the direction and incline of it on the map first.

I can see that in US$ due to the AUD$ rise against it, but that should drop the price in AUD$ due to it's value gain. But I guess profit is the only name in the game for investors.😭

As JR said. Here is a link to plug. ....LINK....

I would set up a solar system to the Car/4WD battery and use the cigarette plug to charge you detector battery with the regulated ML charger. This will not work if you are going on foot for a few days, a second battery or two is require and if a light weight ones are used they can be used for half day trips.

Kevin found that 1980. The million dollar nugget. I think most prospector dream of. I was sitting around the camp fire with a few full timer in Leonora 25 years later. Kevin turn-up and joined us. He got his $1,000,000 house on millionaire hill in Perth but here he was roughing it out in the desert with his wife just to go detecting for enjoyment. At this stage he was using a ML detector.