Northeast

Sourdough - I've been out this morning and learnt a few things which may help.  (The helpful bits about the Z are at the bottom.  The rest is only helpful if you have a wife )

I hit this spot nice and early before it got too hot.  Detected from about 0530-1000 hrs. 

GPZ was running great and only about 40 metres from the EPT lines - high yield, normal, sens 2. Anything higher on the sens and it started to waver a fair bit.  Kept switching between normal and difficult as there were a fair few hot rocks and a bit of red clay - but mostly normal. 

Dug quite a bit of crap early.  

Dug one very deep hole, right next to a tree, just next to the line of a long cut out section the old timers had dug and got down to some very hard sandstone, clay, rocky mixture.  Very confident at this point I was onto something decent. Approx 2 feet deep and onto bedrock - nice!!   Couldn't dig any more at this point with my little pick and was positive I have cleaned the hole out best as I could.  

So I called the wife  .  It was 0700 hrs. I woke her up. Please bring crow bar, axe (tree root in the way) and the SDC to try and pinpoint a bit.  Last time I did this it did not end well - a big steel bolt at about 1.2 metres!!  

Wife and 2 of the kids arrive.  Eldest son gets rid of the root. Turn on SDC. Target in hole.  Getting rid of the root put some dirt back in the hole. Scrape, scrape with the little pick. SDC in - target now out .  Wife sits on chair (who brings a chair??)  

A lovely piece of flat steel about the size of a matchbox and maybe 4mm thick.  Must have been stuck near the end of the root and that's why I couldn't pinpoint it better. Son must have dislodged it.  

Unrepeatable words from wife...  

Moral of the story - take all gear that may possibly be required and let sleeping dogs lie. 

BUT, the thing I learnt about the Z.  Before I really dug much out of the big hole I switched from normal to difficult to see if maybe it was just ground noise or a root - the signal was only weak at the start. Still made noise in difficult so was confident of a target. Then tried to go to general and extra deep ground modes with the thinking that if extra deep could still hear it then it would definitely be a target and it was also going to require a fair hole.  But they simply would not work!  HY/normal, HY/difficult worked a dream - any combination that included general or extra deep ground modes went crazy with EMI even with sens of 1. Why this is I have no idea but to be honest I minimal understanding of how detectors even work so I'll leave that for others to surmise.  

Sourdough, not sure what modes you hunt in but maybe when you've tried near the power lines you may have been in general or e/deep?  

Also, I think my theory is right about that spot not having been detected before considering the huge amount of small steel, lead shot, wire, nails and tin that I found in about 4 hrs all within a 10 X 15 metre area.  I'm assuming due to the power lines being there.  But no yellow...yet.  

Nice Randy.  A new 'best present' leader I would think.  Best wishes to the family

Thanks for the replies.  Think I will hit this a few times and see if I can come up with some yellow. First signs are that I've some trash to dig up as well but them's the breaks. 

Won't be camping there though - don't need to be closer to those transmission lines longer than I have to be.  With the buzzing sound they make you can almost feel the brain cells mutating 

Evening,

I hope this makes sense.   I have a GPZ and an SDC and they seem to work pretty good near power lines. Plenty of auto channels to try and find a quiet one. 

As these are the only detectors I have ever owned I am wondering if other detectors - older minelab and other brands - are as quiet around power lines?  Especially the really big trans-country lines.

The reason I ask is that I found a nice looking area today that has been worked 'in the olden days' and in the short time available (20 minutes) this evening I found quite a few shallow rust nuggets, small/nice sounding bits of lead and absolutely no tell tale signs of old detecting holes.  All targets were so shallow that a Kmart brand detector could have found them. This is all within about 60 metres of some bloody big power lines.  

Would I be right in guessing older technology might not have been able to handle the EMI so this could be some new ground?  Apart from the flogging it got 100 years ago  

Thanks, Northeast

I agree johnedoe - the price is out of line. 

Maybe ok if it was adaptable across machines, the pro sonic and the wm12 were compatable with the ZED, compatable with whatever the 3030 uses, if the SDC adaptor had a normal audio plug instead of a USB. 

I am not a technical whiz but considering the utterly amazing technical things that can be done in this world I am utterly amazed that it can't be used as a second speaker for the Z or 3030. 

It almost seems like Minelab have gone out of their way to make things incompatible and therefore make the consumer buy more and more. 

I understand they are a business and they are out there to make money but a happy customer base is what brings repeat business.  

I have 2 minelab detectors and they are fantastic - for the price they should be!!  On this occasion though, I think I can make a bastardized wireless version for the SDC for about half the price ?

Rant over.  Thanks for listening. I feel better now ??

Looks like Rivers Rat is winning so far.  2 detectors and 5 coils is a nice haul!!  

Will keep you busy for a while ??????

I know the sun is probably just coming up in the States, but it's nearly set in most of Oz. 

What prospecting gear did you receive this year?  Anything else that was interesting?  Was it what you wanted?  

Me?  Got a few small items but none of it for detecting.  Best thing was a torch holder that locks onto the bottom of a barrel via a magnet.  Top little addition to the fox hunting arsenal.  May have purchased it myself and popped it under the tree   

Interested to see what others got. 

Merry Christmas. 

Northeast. 

Woody, 

You may have already tried this but...

I was having a fair bit of trouble viewing the screen - had to move my head around to get different angles to help the glare, etc. 

Then decided to put a new clear plastic screen cover on it - same as what goes on an iPhone but cut to size. 

Removed the old screen protector and realized that this had been the problem the whole time - it was crap. 

New screen protector = no more issues 

Oh,  .  

No, not publicity stunt with a real nugget - that's crazy talk 

I mean that they may have found a nice shaped rock, painted it gold, put it on display and then whoops, we lost it in a very fast moving river where it will never be found and no one can ever verify our claims.  That sort of publicity 

Publicity stunt, surely?????

All across the world they suddenly have publicity - and leading into their summer busy season.  Even dumb publicity is good publicity, right?   

Don't let the heat beat you Squizz. Just starting to warm up here in Vic.  Although first day of cod season today so early morning starts will now be a struggle between grabbing a rod and some lures or grabbing a detector  

Squizz, that's sensational!!  Well done