snakejim

2 minutes ago, Geotech said:

Probably 2010 is when they started creating digital versions. Until recently I had every W&ET ever published, including the original Western Treasures and the Silver&Gold issues. I had intended to get them all scanned to searchable PDFs but never got the time, and I had to get rid of the magazines. ☹️

Thanks Carl. That's probably what they did.

I did the same thing. I had all the issues up to a few months ago and had to get rid of them when I moved.

Best wishes! Jim

41 minutes ago, Mike_Hillis said:

Yep that was the issue.  I re-subscribed and the archives are available now.

Mike

My subscription is good until June 3, 2023. The archives only seem to go back to 2010? Any idea why?

Thanks! Jim

7 hours ago, Ridge Runner said:

History says that Mrs Johnson dedicated it on April 8 1968 as a National Sea Shore.

 I may not always be right but at the same time I don’t remember when I was wrong.hahaha  

 The Best Good People!

 Chuck 

Chuck, I resemble that also! Best wishes to all! snakejim

2 hours ago, Ridge Runner said:

snakejim 

  Before 69 a treasure company got ran off in 67 by the state of Texas and everything they had was taken from them. It’s three ships along that area . I believe it was 68 that area was made a National Sea Shore by Texas . It was first found out about the ships along the coast when they made the cut at Mansfield called Mansfield cut they dug through it cutting that channel to the Gulf side.

 I was there while all of this was going on. I was there from 66 to the end of 69 and by then it was all history. Maybe 🤔 

 The treasure ships are two miles above that cut I was talking about. 
 Some years ago I was detecting in another town and this guy came up to me and started talking about me hunting there. When I looked up the first thing I saw was this beautiful pillar dollar hanging around his neck. As soon as I said something about it he backed off that’s until I started talking about it that I knew where it came from and what I knew about the ships.He admitted where it came from and because of that I didn’t ask are want to know his name. I never seen that guy again but just guessing he had to live in that town and it too had a long history it’s self.

 I have maps showing where the treasure ships are located but a lot of good it will do you.

 I came across this old boy that had a bait stand on the island and he had a handful of quarter dollars. How he found them was walking behind the dunes. The wind would blow the sand out around them leaving them sitting on top like a little toad stool . Back in their day they cut a dollar coin to make change and then you had a quarter dollar if you cut it to make 4.

 Chuck 

Chuck,

   I guess I got the dates wrong. I remember the salvage people were "Platoro Ltd"., from the Great Lakes area.  I was in Corpus in 1965, and knew one the ship location because a friend of mine's Dad surf fished and found the silver Spanish coins on the beach and in the surf. Being a kid of 19, I couldn't get the gear to dive on them. I left Corpus in 1967.  It took years for the courts to decide who got what, and I think a lot was lost while under protection of The University of Texas.

Jim

Don't try to detect on the National Seashore area on Padre Island. Big No! No!

A treasure ship was recovered in 1969 just off the Gulf beach and the feds made the area off limits in 1972.

.63 grams?????????????????

The center is + positive. Don't know about a schematic.

8 minutes ago, Jim in Idaho said:

Ya know, Jim, maybe it's our environments. We each live in similar types of country. But another thing I've noticed...we both stay involved in life, and keep busy. Mental attitude is a big part of physical health.

Jim

You're right! Staying busy and enjoying what we do makes a lot of difference. It keeps us young.

Jim

1 hour ago, Jim in Idaho said:

Strick, you got a lot of years left! I'll be 74 next week, and can still climb a mountain with a pack, digging tool, and detector. And, I start climbing them at 5,000+ feet elevation!

Jim

Jim, I was 76 in May. I'm right there with you. My trommel is at 6,575 feet and I work up to about 7,500 feet detecting.

You young-uns got lots of time left! Best wishes! snakejim

5 hours ago, Melano87 said:

Hi,

I wanted to share a simple website from an enthusiast French guy.

Perhaps unknown across the Atlantic, listing many old brands of metal detectors, with photos etc.

For the nostalgic

https://detecteurmetaux2.blogspot.com/

Thanks for posting this link. Wow! He must of spent hours getting all this info. My first detector was a Heathkit GD-48 that I built from their kit in 1968. Best wishes! snakejim

In my experience over the years, VLF detectors lost depth in wet or damp ground that was highly mineralized. A partner and I had a nugget patch on a hill side that produced some really nice gold. One spring after a very dry winter we hit nuggets at depths we had never seen before. I know we had been over the same ground several times. The opposite was true with the pulse detectors.        snakejim

27 minutes ago, Kickindirt said:

Steve Herschbach you are a blessed 😇super highway of information. Always appreciate all the hard work you put into this site. Thanks for all you do. 

Well said!

17 minutes ago, Glithium said:

I posted it on Geotech just to see if anyone else has an idea.

I sent my modified TDI to Carl Moreland who is "Geotech", to dissect it and do a schematic. I guess you missed my post.

All, I got in touch with Carl and I am mailing it to him this afternoon.

Looking good!

snakejim

19 minutes ago, Jim in Idaho said:

Much better pics, Jim! Now if we can just get an engineer to look at that, and draw up a schematic for that board, we're gold! Many thanks!

Jim

I'm thinking of sending it to "Geotech" (Carl Moreland), and see if he can dissect it and draw up the schematic. He worked for or still works for Fisher and has a forum (Geotech). I'm trying to contact him.

Jim

Better photos of TDI mods.

10 hours ago, PI-Man said:

Glad to see everyone is keeping the TDI & SL mods alive.  Unfortunately pictures are a lil blurry to figure out what is there.   But they are greatly appreciated.  

I took those photos with an old out dated digital camera. I have better photos on my cell phone. I will see if I can load them onto my computer.

4 hours ago, Aureous said:

Jim, only 1 of the 5 pics is showing to me....rest are a fail 😞  Hope you get it sorted out.

I'm not very good with computers and my camera sucks. I hope this worked. It looks like Reg added a small board with a diode or 2 and a resistor. I'm not sure what else he did.

Best wishes! Jim

A Reg Modified TDI

On 11/7/2022 at 2:51 PM, Geotech said:

Without knowing for sure what the mods were, it's just a guessing game. Since the TDI PCB is mostly surface mount trying out those guesses is difficult and potentially damaging. You really need to find a modded TDI and look inside.

I have an original Pulse Scan TDI that Reg did mods on for me. I will take it apart and take photos of the boards asap. I 'll try to  post them soon. Jim

8 hours ago, Aureous said:

Historically, the 'game changers' have been with leaps in technology. Ground balance in VLF detectors, like the early-mid 1970's Whites, Gardiners, Garretts and Fishers detectors, thanks to George Payne's ground breaking work. Then, SAT type auto threshold circuits like the Goldmasters etc. DD coil tech which reduces sensed mineralization, higher frequency detectors for more sensitivity to small gold nuggets. Auto ground balancing (tracking) started with the Minelab GT16000. Once all variations of these different techs were exhausted, then Pulse Induction tech came along with Eric Foster's Goldscan range and then Minelabs SD2000. To my mind, the only 2 big leaps forward since then have been Minelab's 'ZVT' and 'Geosense' take on ground signal reduction in PI tech and simultaneous multi frequency 'SMF' tech in discriminating VLF detectors. Its starting to look as if all of the recent true innovations have all been created by Minelab and no-one else has even bothered.

To my mind, as far as a list goes, these detectors added the most to the world's end-user success and technological advancements:

1970's-1990's VLF/IB

Whites Coinmaster VLF range, Whites Goldmaster range, Garrett Groundhog and Deepseeker ranges, Fisher Gold Bug 1 and 2, Tesoro Diablo 1, 2 and Lobo, Minelab 15000, 16000. Whilst detectors like Garretts GTi range, Minelab Sovereign, Explorer & Etrac and Whites Eagles got a huge following later, they didn't really offer any ground breaking tech. Only the Equinox added truly new tech with SMF which everyone else has now 'copied' in essence at least.

PI detectors.

Apart from Eric Fosters Goldscan and C-Scope CS range which were only ever a small addition to the picture, Minelab created the first truly successful commercial PI detector in the SD2000 and the tech has been expanded upon ever since with various Minelab patents like MPS (dual channel PI), DVT (select voltage for each MPS channel), MPF (super fast sampling of the remnant signal) and now ZVT (instant voltage switching to allow superior ground signal elimination) and Geosense (rapid sampling and evaluation of the ground signal to alter the pulse train code on-the-fly). When these detectors were released using these patents: SD2000, GP Extreme, SDC2300, GPZ7000 and lastly GPX6000 they all added literally tens of thousands of ounces of gold to peoples pockets.

A great many brand names and models mentioned there and Ive owned many of them. 44 detectors in 41 years!

 

In 54 years of detecting, I tried to think of and list all the detectors I have used. Wow! What a change has happened in all those years. I have used nearly every one of these that you mention and then some. Thanks Aureous for bringing back those memories of days past! snakejim

7 hours ago, GotAU? said:

Wouldn’t a 2-box detector like the Fischer Gemini-3 be a viable option for this type of detecting?

 

There are 3 other 2 box style detectors around besides the Fisher: The White's TM808, the Discovery TF-900, and the Garrett GTI2500 with Depth Multiplier.

https://www.metaldetector.com/whites-tm-808-metal-detector

http://www.cnnn.com/discovery/tf900.html

Actually, any good detector with a large coil should work if it's not too deep and you run all metal mode.

Good luck! Jim

58 minutes ago, wagonwx said:

Anybody own an orx ?Can you please give it's attributes.

For me it is a no nonsense detector with excellent recovery speed and separation, a very clean and clear audio, selectable frequency and wireless everything.

I have one with the high frequency elliptical coil. I love the light weight and compact size. I hunt mostly small gold nuggets in really bad ground and use #2 Fine Gold mode. It works well for me! Jim

Here's Steve opinion from his guide on Gold detectors:

XP ORX ($599, 14, 28, 56, 80 kHz) - The XP ORX emphasizes gold prospecting and coin detecting in the promotional material. The XP ORX appears to be a version of the "Africa only" Depar DPR 600 made for sales in Europe, the U.S., and elsewhere. The ORX has been refined from that early effort by the addition of the ability to use the new X35 coils.

Steve's Opinion - The XP ORX went through some teething pains with coils before settling into its final role as XPs gold nugget detector. I think the ORX is a great little nugget hunter personally (I love the compact design), but it seems to be overlooked my most serious prospectors, and getting more attention as a low cost alternative to the XP Deus for coin and relic detecting. The new lower price makes the ORX a serious contender, a big step up in capability from the Fisher 19 kHz models above, and a little less money than the Garrett 24K below. Personally, this is the only detector that I personally would consider as an alternative to the 24K.

1 minute ago, DSMITH said:

thanks for the reply, I picked up a Bluetooth transmitter that has two different settings one is RX the other is TX which setting do I use the RX or TX

Use TX to transmit to the headphones. Rx is the receive mode.

5 hours ago, DSMITH said:

Can you plug in a Bluetooth transmitter into the Garret 24K to allow to use Bluetooth headphones instead of using the supplied corded headphones ???

Also in the volume setting there is a B1 and a B2 volume setting are those two settings used to boost weaker signals or is there another purpose of the B1 and B2 volume settings

just trying to learn the 24 K functions have watched Mr H videos on Garrett site but he never went into the B1 and B2 settings on the volume controls

thanks for any and all replies

Yes, you can use a Bluetooth Transmitter with Bluetooth Headphones.

B1 and B2 are boost modes for faint signals when hunting for the smallest bits of gold.