IronDigger

Jason and Phurnt, Thank you both for responding to my question and helping me troubleshoot my issue with the headphones. I have 3 batteries that I tried the old curly power cord on and all behaved the same way, low threshold and volume in both sides of headphone speakers. Lucky I have a spare power cord which I will try this morning to see if it works. I didn't know audio wire ran in the curly cord, thought it was just power supply cord that ran the amp. I am hoping that is it as I would hate to realize my amps in all 3 batteries are all shot, one I just purchased in August from a forum member 🙂 that I haven't used until yesterday. They all seem to charge to max and green light, yellow, orange lights work fine. Phrunt, My headphone 1/4 jack looks like the one in the diagram so they must be stereo, they do work fine on my Whites MXT. But from my research I now realize some headphones are finicky and may require trying out different brands.

After 5 months of technical issues with my headphones, batteries going bad and the such I borrowed a pair of headphones from a friend and made sure they worked on my MXT. Plugged her in and both sides of the headphones work great, headphones are old Jimmy Sierra blue in color, volume controls on both side. Acquired a barely used Minelab lithium battery form a forum member. So went off to my usual site to give it a go with my new Evolution coil. I am excited as I haven't been out for 4 or so months , I am like okay maybe a Christmas nugget today 😁 !! Battery charged full at 8 and off I go, I turn on the 4500 and the first thing I notice is my headphone volume is barely audible 😡 . Volume controls up all the way annothingng barely can hear a target. Not worth continuing I had an old battery and charged it and plugged in headphones , same thing !!! So what could be the problem? The headphones check out on the Whites MXT, but on Minelab I can barely hear it..appreciate the help or direction.

Those are sweet finds congrats on your new site, always nice to have permission to hunt at. It would be fun to hunt back east considering the history, thanks for sharing.

I agree with you deathray that moist soil helps for some reason, another thing I noticed is the earlier I hunt in the morning when it's real cold I get more targets. I am talking about ground I hit 50 times , hit the ground early before noon. Less EMI, threshold runs very smooth. Saying that you will also get more false targets , those wet clay mineralized spots that sound off more often.

Bring it down to Mariposa the following year, we have a nice Mining and History Museum and the California State Mineral Museum is located at the fairgrounds. The fairgrounds also provides RV space for those wishing to spend a night. Yosemite is just a nice short drive up the Merced river canyon, plenty to do! The fairground has plenty of buildings and hosts mineral shows each year, so space is available, I think it's the perfect spot for prospectors and those like minded. If anyone associated with the the ICMJ needs info or contact information regarding making this happen contact the Mariposa Fairgrounds. Nothing wrong with events like this , it's a nice venue for both dealers and seasoned and those beginning their journey into prospecting. Not only that it helps out the small local communities and small businesses in the area. We would love to have you come to the Mother of all counties Mariposa one year. Just leave your detectors at home...😄 no gold here. https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=588

The old diggins at Columbia State Park are still visible, if you drive around the Columbia community college you can see the old diggings. Wonder how much gold the construction and road crews found while building the college and roads near it. If your in and around the area its worth a drive to Murphys and visit the Ironstone winery, the famous " Christmas Pocket" gold specimen is there along with other gold specimens on display. Thanks for the book reference , interesting indeed.

Great advice Steve, for me personally I enjoy the safety net of being able to see our regular members posts. We in some way get to know who is who and can judge the credibility level of said members based on previous exchanges in classifieds. I can be wrong but it seems most of our members are old school one handshake and you know you have their word and guarantee if there's an issue it will be taken care of.

I enjoyed the story and theory of the coins found, pretty cool them being pirate loot.

Those are nice nuggets congrats, persistence pays off.

"They" say a lot of nonsense....

I think we could move mountains with all the brains on this forum, actually I bet with all the digging we all have done maybe we have!! 😄

Great little treasure finds and most definitely some kids little stash they buried. Beats taking it home and getting caught by the parents and receiving a whipping for theft. I buried a few back in the 70s in my my hometown of Cicero, Illinois. Our thing was stealing the tire stem valve chrome caps and center chrome wreaths on the hood. We buried most of it and most of it is still there in the ground. Thanks for bringing that childhood memory back and sharing your cool finds.

Those look pretty good to me, nice to see someone posting gold finds. Thanks for sharing your success with the vlf.

I agree with Jason as I former member of PLP (public lands for the people) back in the early 90's I too observed division within the ranks. Jerry Hobbs and Pat Keene truly had a desire to organize us all and make some changes. Ultimately the division, lack of focus and lack of resources to fund our small lobby group in Sac to make some changes derailed to make any real change. Government and huge mining interests have the power and access to politicians. After moving from southern California to the Sierras closer to the big gold 🤫 our small community of prospectors here in the southern Sierras formed another club and ultimately it fell apart after 5 years do to a few club members doing the bulk of the work, and board member bickering about mining laws and approach to reach out to other clubs to organized some unified approach to fight for our right to mine. We are just to small, underfunded and disorganized to form a large enough coalition with good leadership, perhaps things will change one day but for now I am solo with my Minelab. Truth is, money talks and its still a pay to play government.

Think I am safe, I have two accounts do to I am hatched form a Dino egg 🤔, not computer literate. If there is anyway to combine Hot Sauce and Irondigger together would be great. I post on both, accessible on cell phone on one account and laptop on another account, with computer going down and losing passwords over the years I have two accounts.

Now see no harm no foul, and we all learned something.

Great picture, something about that color!! Here are a few of my bigger pieces I could to this day after many many years tell you the exact spot I found them, but I won't 🙂 the big ones are out there..don't let anyone tell you there not.

I to see all the variable conditions I would face, as in most detecting having both P.I. and a good vlf is a good idea all depends on the conditions. On my first trip I am going to just take a vlf and get a general understanding what conditions we will be hunting. I can always leave it there and bring a p.i. next time I go which would be the following year. Thanks for all the comments..

Thank you all for the great advice, VLF it is then on searching for coins in Europe. It makes sense to have that ability to use disc and truthfully I do use it on my MXT when I take a break from nugget hunting I mean who the heck wants to dig all that trash. A nice size coin at 10-12 inches is pretty good.

Maybe a stupid question but I do need an answer as I have been mostly nugget hunting and been away form coin hunting for many years. I may have an opportunity to hunt a part of Europe with great potential of finding some nice roman coins. If one was going to hunt coins, and jewelry would you bring a vlf detector or a pulse induction like lets say a sdc 2300 for more depth. I know all about vlf disc and benefits of p.i. in mineralized soils and all the stuff. What I an interested in is depth and not so much avoiding iron junk, I was thinking sdc because its compact and water proof. Does the sdc 2300 go deeper then lets say a Minelab 800 on a small coin ?

Broke my GPX handle 2 times finally solved it and thankful to a friend on the forum who sent me a carbon fiber handle, never had one issue with the handle again.

My best find was when a friend demanded I finish digging a target I had thought was an iron target, I was a foot down and started to backfill the hole. He said just dig the damned thing before someone else does. So I dug down and found my best find since I began nuggethunting. You just never know when it will come your way, always a surprise and when you least expect it.

I had a pair of SunRay Pros but didn't know they come in red and yellow volume colored knobs. I traded for a pair and they had the red knobs..IMHO way to many positions and I never got used to them. Stay away from the red knobbed volume controlled ones. Everytime you go out to use them you will end up futzing with the knobs to get both sides of the earphones to work. My last pair had the yellow knobs and never had issues with those. Just a heads up.

We should not equate the entire production of a country based on high or low quality but to the quality of the customers requests for that item. Same with China, if the customer wants a cheap product that is more affordable then what Minlabe provides they will make it. I would assume most of these detectors are sold in Africa, South and Central Asia, and Latin Americas. I would imagine most 90% of the stuff we buy here is made in China, otherwise if they were built in the U.S. or in the E.U. we wouldn't be able to afford. Next time your in Europe, take a look at the price of good quality clothes or appliances, you will have sticker shock. I am thankful for cheap affordable Chinese tools like the Champion generator I purchased. Cost me 1400 bucks works great just keep it maintained and it will last a long time. A Honda 10K generator would have cost 6,000, majority of people can afford 1400, not 6,000. China supplies the world with cheap affordable goods for the common man/woman. Thank you China.

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