klunker

Did you notice the quote "It's a very tough time and nothing will be spared except, perhaps, gold" The plot thickens. No bets one way or t'other.

A M; When my Jeep gets bogged it doesn't get broken. When I spill my beer, I can open another- it didn't cost $10,000. When I trip over my dog his housing doesn't break and his screen doesn't go blank. When I break or forget my pick-I have a spare because they are cheap enough to have a spare. And I found a brand of headphones that will out last my head. You Have a two bob watch!!? I broke the bob off of mine. Would you be willing to part with the extra bob?

Ausi M. Telling me "don't drop your $10,000.00 detector" is like telling me "don't spill your beer, don't get your Jeep stuck, don't trip over your dog, don't knock off your head phones, don't forget your pick. With me, these things are nearly a daily occurrence. Sometime in the life of any well used detector its gunna get dropped. And Minelab knows it. So I was just wondering. If you buy a Z and I destroy mine could I borrow yours?

I stopped dreaming about going detecting in Australia as it appears Gld Hnd has it pretty well cleaned out. But I'm still interested in the replies to Scott's querry. Except the toilet part.

1515art; Of the 5 GPZs here locally 2 have had screen failures. I heard that Minelab has a new version out with all of these problems corrected- but it costs up to %40 more. Just a rumor. Minelab did replace these detectors-and not repair them and in fairly short time.

You should expect a stern warning and perhaps some disciplinary action from he owner/ moderator of this forum. These actions may be avoided if you promise to return your TDI to the settings used by the "experts" and tamper proof the controls with super glue. EE GADS! If the danged thing works by holding the coil in your hand and dragging the control box on the ground THAN DO IT! Experimenting with a detector and sharing your discoveries and opinions seems to always be welcomed and appreciated here. What type of operation occurred where you are detecting?

Your right on that one Paul. As a child I've eaten several.

Great work! Keep us posted. Did the plastic break on the fine toothed comb?

HEY MINELAB!!! Call the Husqvarna chain saw folks to learn how to make good plastic. Their saws must be as light or lighter and as tough or tougher than than their competitors to remain in business.There for, they use a lot of plastic parts such as rear hand grip, throttle trigger, fuel tank, air cleaner cover, starter assembly AND THESE THINGS GET THE HELL BEAT OUT OF THEM, BY PROFESSIONALS, IN THE BEST OF CIRCUMSTANCES AND RARELY BREAK ANY PLASTIC! OOPS. I forgot. You don't have any competitors. Sorry.

A 3X5 card I understand (3 words less than 5 letters each). Screenshot? Smart phone? Maybe you could program my coffee maker! Didn't get out at all this weekend to experiment with depth vs. quiet operation. I hate it when I'm being responsible.

A couple of weeks ago I got a rare day off on a Monday. I was determined to go detecting but there were severe thunder storms all around the area. Due to my sinful nature, I normally don't tempt lightning but my foolish nature is slightly more dominant- so I went. The place I decided to go was a knob with old channel gravel on it and surrounded by lightning scared timber (my idiot nature is the strongest of all). There was so much energy and lightning noise in the atmosphere that I simply couldn't get the Z to calm down enough to be usable. I tuned and re-tuned then manually tuned and that helped some. I then tried every ground balance ritual prescribed by the gurus and that helped a little. I then tried "high audio smoothing" and "difficult ground type" and "general. It worked! Not only did it work but it worked well. I kept turning up the sensitivity until it got noisy again and was able to run it between 15 and 19. I started finding small nuggets one after another,12+ total. I started digging the trash out of my way and the first piece of trash was a 2 dwt nugget (1.85 after cleaning). It was deep enough to demonstrate I hadn't tuned out all of the depth capabilities of the Z. The storm was getting VERY close so I repented my sins, hiked back to the Jeep and left. PART 2 I returned the next chance I got and did some experimenting. I set the Z up as I normally would and had to turn the sensitivity down below 10 to get a tolerably smooth operation and covered a small area. I had one faint target. I then tried my "lightning settings" over the same area. THE FAINT TARGET WAS NOW A GOOD SIGNAL and there was another target that was missed all together. Both were small nuggets. I repeated this experiment both ways, several times, lightning settings first then normal settings first. I left the detector in the lightning settings for the rest of the day and totaled 15 very small nuggets- about 2.5 dwt total. Until I find a deep nugget in place I can't make a good judgment on loss of depth- If any. Where I was working is close to town and has been thoroughly beat with about every detector invented. Try it and see if it works for you.

I just don't know what to think about trying to "discriminate" with a detector not designed to do so. Even the best VLF with the best operators are wrong a lot of the time (Steve H. excepted). What I do know is I have dug a lot of holes, thinking as I dug "tonight I'll be able to afford my beer in a bottle instead of a can" and then be sorely disappointed with another piece of iron. I have also dug obvious iron trash targets that are now in someones nugget collection. Every time I think I'm clever I only out smart myself. The nugget responses on the Z are all over the place and are not to be trusted. You get warbley signals, double beeps, tiny nuggets making a LOUD signal. and faint whispers from something that you think should have screamed. However if anyone has some discrimination tricks to try with the Z I would certainly try them.

Talk to Van Jr. He does a bit of gold trading.

Tort. I'll give it a try before I screw something up - as I am prone to do. El D. I have a simple solution for the 7000 not being ADA compliant. I'll find the target with the Z and you dig it out. You would feel really good about yourself and I could cover a lot more ground. a definite win/ win situation! Anything new at I.H.?

How 'bout a quick squirt of black paint?

I'll add the chinsy plastic to my ever growing list of disappointing design flaws in the 7000. My coil is now starting to flop around. I guess I'll have to barrow some plastic washers from VA Paul and hope I don't break something trying to re engineer the coil mounting.

Paul: Make sure that your washers are plastic (abs or pvc) and not nylon. Epoxy will only stick to nylon long enough to fool ya. I have some good reading material that will teach you the whys and wherefors of drift mining that you are welcome to borrow but you have to leave your left foot for a return deposit. If you get some time come on over and I'll give you a history tour. You'll be astounded at how this old planet has obliterated some major drift mining operations where 50+ men and there families lived and worked for many years.

Paul; It is imperative that you follow Argyles instructions, spend several days practicing and learn how to get the most out of the 705. Then come and teach me what you've learned.

Paul don't get discouraged. The 705 is way more capable than what I first thought but it is convoluted in it's operation and I despise icon type menus. Also I forget how to deal with all it's quirks when I don't use it for a month. There is some really useful information in Steve's archives. NORVIC!!!!!! A squawking detector IS my music!

"You've given your heart for a dog to tear" Rudyard Kipling

I haven't had a pinpointing problem with the 705 but I rarely detect in polite society where i can't dig with impatients and reckless abandon. But I have found the 705 to be quite honest. If it says something is there I'll start digging. I'm assuming the 700 would be the same.

In normal "free" markets you would be correct but but China and Russia want the prices low while they build inventory, ECB wants the prices low to keep people using the Euro, the U.S. must have the price low to keep from diverting dollars from the the phoney stock market and the same with Japan. So until somebody steps out of line or something very ugly happens I don't expect to see much change in the price, keeping in mind that price and value can be two separate things. A default by Greece could be a trigger but I'll bet the ECB would write off the losses rather than have a country leave the EEU. What about Austrailia?

Thanks Chris for taking the time to do an excellent write up. That would have taken me all a day to write and I would have a blister on my finger.

Best of luck to you and yours.

Yup. Went out close to home late yesterday, worked some tailings from an old shallow placer shaft, found some tiny nuggets so I started digging out the trash. The first obvious big square nail I dug weighed 2dwt and was made of gold. I was wishing 1515art was there.