Cal_Cobra

Mars did an all-in-one multi frequency coil for the X-Terra, is the X-Terra chipped?

I've always used that moniker, so it'll likely stay - lol

I've forced myself to hunt in 50 tone, and so far I've getting pretty used to it. In an uber trashy area it may not be the best option, but for relic hunting, it's been working out. I have noticed one oddity, large iron tools (axe heads, chisels, etc) at a site we were digging a few weekends ago were coming in around 14, that's not iron wrap around, so it struck me as a bit odd?

White's came through and said they'd ship me a replacement. Haven't received it yet, so hopefully it's not just lip service, but I've always heard that White's customer service was pretty good.

Did they say anything at Detectival or the big detector show in Holland? Surely their only announcement couldn't have been the 15" coil which they already announced last year??? ML may make decent products, but their marketing/execution sure is a cluster.

Nice, cannot go wrong with reales !!

17" x 11" wow! Great if you're a beach hunter or plowed field hunter I suppose, sucks for us relic hunters

Most of the oval 5x10" coils I've seen (Fisher, White's, Minelab, Nok/Mak) have been a closed design, and white color. These coils are great for both prospecting as well as relic hunting in overgrown areas where open coil designs are easily tangled in the brush. Even CoilTek made them for Minelab machines in the past if I'm not mistaken. So it's a common coil design for this size/form factor, should've be rocket science for Minelab to crank these out and I suspect they'd sell a ton more of them than their 15" or 6" coils.

Now that the 6" is readily available, and the 15" is trickling out, what, if anything, is next? It seems like Minelab is finally listening to their customers, will we see the coveted 5x10" closed DD for relic hunting and gold prospecting ? I don't really care if Minelab makes it or Mars, NEL, or anyone else for that matter as long as it works.

Thanks! I found three or four other axe heads, but much larger (and much heavier - lol), so they're still there. This one was small, so I put it in my finds pouch, but I think it was also the reason I lost the other half of my eagle buckle as it made my pouch tipsey and it likely fell out when I was down digging ? Hope to locate it next time we're able to visit this site.

Very nice recovery!! I had a similar experience, I dug a DEEEEP rectangular piece of metal at an early stage stop/trading post site. It was dirty and simply looked like a junk metal tag from something. Got it home, and on a whim I decided to clean it and low and behold it was a piece of engraved Indian trade silver. Turned out to be one of my best finds on the trip.

I got a new White's Ground Hawg Shovel in September, have used it on 3-4 hunts, and yesterday I was digging and it folded up like a cheap suit The metal tubing before the head, just bent over ? I wasn't in rocky soil, wasn't wailing on tree roots, it was normal California soil, no clay, no crazy bermuda grass roots, nothing crazy. Does anyone know if White's provides a warranty on this? I hate to loose $59 on a new "heavy duty" shovel ?

Tom and I were able to get out and check out a remote site that we researched in the spring. A site that predates the gold rush by at least 20 years, and had nothing to do with the Spanish, but apparently it was used for a while. There weren't a ton of targets there, but everything you dug was old, not a single pull-tab, no clad, interestingly no bullets or shell casings either nothing newer than the 1850's. The first bucket lister was a cast tongue and grove eagle buckle! I dug the male part, and five feet away I dug the female part. Somehow, I lost the female part ? The female buckle shown above it in the group shot is smaller, and was broken in two parts, and dug in two digs, but they fit together perfectly so they must go together. Also dug a broken tongue, so must be another eagle to match it out there, and below that is a thin female buckle part that's all mangled up. My second bucket lister was a decorative powder flask (one side only), also shown is a pewter spoon (pretty rare to find these in California): Is the piece next to it a sword or knife scabbard? Here's a close up of both sides next to a wheat penny: This early Eagle on an Anchor Navy button was all crudded up, but I could see a glint of gold gilt left, so I used lemon juice to clean it, and am very happy with the results! Is this a sword hilt? ? Cleaned up nicely with lemon juice (tu) Little sash buckle kind of decorative item: Found this token, it's a large size, thought it was a large cent when first dug, but it turns out to be considered the first token issued in California! http://tokencatalog.com/token_record_forms.php?action=DisplayTokenRecord&td_id=8515&inventory_id=8752&td_image_id=33494&attribution_id=8321&record_offset=2 Some misc finds. There were a ton of tools dug at this site, axe heads, chisels, and other misc tools. I dug a bunch of lead and other small scrap/junk conductors not shown. HH, Cal

Dew when you say the old program, you mean the 1.5 firmware? BTW is that ice in that gold ring the real McCoy or is it CZ?

I used to keep my dug U.S. nickles, dimes, quarters and one dollar coins in my car to give to the bridge toll trolls, all the cleaning they ever saw was a quick rinse off under a faucet - lol Most of the toll takers never complained, but a few off them did take a few seconds to realize that they were in fact U.S. coins - lol At $5 per bridge crossing, you can unload a lot of dug change ?

I try not to dig iron in the areas I hunt, but many times iron gets dug up due to iron wrap-around anyway, but never are they anything that interesting for me, mostly ox and horse shoes, wagon parts, an occasional miner pick, oh and the hoes - lol I've been forcing myself to hunt in 50 tone/multi, and am curious what settings you'd run for hunting in sea of nail sites? HH, Cal

Great finds, that kind of stuff just doesn't exist on the west coast. I've always found it fascinating that the west coast Indians never learned to make refined metals, nor advanced dwelling building, they essentially were stuck in the stone ages up until the last turn of the century when the Europeans poured into the west coast. Yet further south, pyramids that rival the great pyramids of Egypt were built, metal refined, and amazing artistic objects and advanced building techniques were utilized.

Announced it at Detectival. I'll likely be getting one of their new pinpointers too. I like the wireless aspect working w/the MMK, although I really wish one of these companies would get the wireless working like the Sunray inline probes, that would be awesome.

I finally received mine too thanks to a heads up of from a fellow forumite. Planning a little trip in a couple of weekends to try some tough but productive spots, cannot wait to see how the Equinox and my Multi Kruzer does at these sites

Nice going Andy!!

Hey Carl, Sorry about that, I was under the impression you were the lead designer? I take it your a hardware designer, not a programmer, is that correct? It would be great to see a modernized version of the V3i, but I suspect White's wont be doing that any time soon, then again one never knows.

There's one problem with this train of thought, the guy that designed the V3i no longer works there. The V3i code is complex and massive in size compared to all of their other detectors. IMO the big question is, do they currently have the engineering talent/resources to even do such a project? Steve will likely know, as I don't really find White's to be interesting enough to follow that deeply, but after their latest product refresh cycle, it looks like they've abandoned SMF machines in favor of the AT market. I understand your thinking about Nokta/Makro, and agree to an extent. I think now that their combined, we'll see this oddball trend where a new product would come out under the Nokta name, and then the following year an updated version would come out under the Makro name disappear. From purely an engineering perspective, it kind of made sense I suppose, but the Nokta machine were more akin to a 1.0 beta mule platform, with the Makro machines being the 2.0 refined, general deployment platform. Interesting times ahead, and IMO we already have some great machines to use now from a variety of vendors while we watch how things shake out in the detector world.

Beautiful selection of coils, I think MARS also announced they'll be making MMK coils as well. Doesn't get any better then that!

Awesome, NEL makes some great coils!! I have a few, love the NEL Snake coil on my Racer 2 better then the OOR coil, should be a great coil for the MMK.

They said their first SMF will be waterproof, as it'll use the same waterproof housing as their Simplex machine (beginner machine). I'm not sure what the logic is on using the same housing, could simply be a matter of economics. Their current waterproof detectors are good to 5M/15ft They also stated their working on PI detectors too. Aside from Minelab, I feel like out of the current manufacturers, if anyone can come up with something innovative and push the envelop, it will be Nokta/Makro.