Doc

2 hours ago, fredmason said:

another great design, Doc...unfortunately, I have yet to wear-out the ones I bought years ago. I would not be without your bungee and Chris' Hipstik on my GPZ...

thanks for being an inventor.

fred

Thank you Fred.

Doc

Dear Phrunt,

I am 69, I have had rotator cuff surgery, I had the head of my radial bone in my arm cut off because I crushed it, and I have had my hand operated on three times.  So you might say, necessity is the mother of invention.

But I agree with you.  A bungee makes all the difference in the world.

I have been using the proto-type of this bungee and I can swing my GPZed 8 hours with no strain at all.

Thank you for checking in,

Doc

o I finally have some production models of the New dual adjustment bungee I designed.  I think I am going to call this one the QWEEGLE.  Sort of a combination of Quick Bungee and Double for Double adjustment.

I know a lot of you use your own harness, which in a lot of instances is a modified Camel Back.  Camel Backs are great because they provide hydration and give you a great place to hook a bungee cord up to.

Well I have thought long and hard about now to improve the QWEEGEE bungee which allowed you to adjust the length of the bungee where it attached to the rod.  The BOOMERANG bungee which I also invented allowed you to adjust the length of the bungee at the "D" ring.

The big issue with the QWEEGEE, was that you could only detach the bungee at the "D" ring, so when you laid your detector down the bungee was lying in the dirt.  There was no way to detach the bungee from the shaft of the detector.  Also where the bungee snapped onto the "D" ring it was pretty clumsy to get it on and off.  I wear gloves, and when you wear gloves, small pieces of plastic are hard to deal with.

So here was my challenge.

1.  Design a bungee that could be adjusted with at the "D" ring or where the bungee attached to the rod.

2.  Design a bungee that could easily be detached from the detector. or the "D" ring.

3.  Make the process of detaching the bungee really easy and effortless.

4.  Provide an optional attachment ring that would be similar to a "D" ring but be more durable, easier to attach to, allow the user to stitch it onto their own harness, and not turn around in the webbing you use to attach it.  Standard "D" rings, always manage to wiggle around in the webbing and end up looking just like this "D" running vertical instead of like a U where the curved part of the "D" stays at the bottom.

First part:  Easy on and off attachment snap that attaches to "D" ring.  Nice and hefty and durable.  A thumb tab, to allow you to remove the bungee from the adjustment groove using one hand.  Second Picture:  Adjustment groove in snap.  Lift or lower your detector while the bungee is out of the adjustment groove to find the right length, give a slight tug down to seat the bungee in the groove and lock the bungee to a perfect length for detecting comfort.

SHAFT ATTACHMENT ADJUSTMENT Point.

Long non-slip strap that will accommodate all known detector shafts, even the Garret ATX Deep Seeker that has a rod the size of a baseball bat. 

• Easily attach or detach bungee by pulling the bungee in or out of the SLIDE SLOT.  Picture 3
• Easily adjust the length of the bungee by lifting your detector up or down, and then tugging the bungee up into the adjustment groove when you find the proper length. Picture 4
•  Use the shaft attachment point only as an attachment point, and don't use the adjustment feature.  Simply put the loop at the end on the bungee onto the shaft attachment point.  Then you can use the snap at the "D" ring to make adjustments   Picture 5

PICTURE 3

PICTURE 4

PICTURE 5

Then we have the optional non-slip "O" ring that I designed .  Supplied with a piece of webbing for you to attach to your favorite harness system.    I designed all of these pieces.  I had to have injection molds made (not cheap) and had the parts molded out of Nyglass, which is a darn near bulletproof material. That "O" ring is 2 1/4 inside diameter. A blind drunk monkey could attach the snap to this "O" ring without ever worrying about having to see it.

So I would love to hear your input.  I have just 10 from the first production run.  The rest will be sent by boat.  Only the plastic parts and the strap are being shipped, we assemble the parts with the bungee here in Henderson.  Some things are OK to have made in China, but bungee cord is not one of them.  We use a very expensive high quality marine grade bungee.

Doc

Just call 1-800-477-3211.  No extension.  Leave a message and I will call you back.  There is no outgoing message, I have everything call forwarded into Skype so I can retrieve my messages anywhere and for some reason SKYPE quit letting you record an outgoing message so it is just a generic, "The Party you are trying to reach is falling down drunk and can't come to the phone"... or something like that LOL.

These are in production now, I am having 600 made, which will probably not be enough.  They are going to send me the first 10 out of production around August 4.  The balance will not be here probably until the end of August.

I am having these Equinox covers and Gold Monster Covers made.  The picture of the Gold Monster Cover below, is a prototype, I didn't like the way the cover was fitting in the back it was not cut exactly right and it was making the speaker mesh bunch up.  That has been corrected.  That cover was a nightmare to get right because of the weird shape of the Gold Monster.

With the Gold Monster I also designed a Velcro® type wrap around for the coil cable so you do not have to force the cable into that plastic clip on the back of the GM.  That clip is too tight and I am sure it is going to cause shorting problems in the cord in the long run.  So the wrap around lets you hold the coil cable in place gently, instead of pinching it into that plastic clip.

Either cover is $44.95 with free shipping.  They are made with a heavy duty canvas material lined with a thin layer of neoprene to provide cushion.  These are really well made covers.  Best material and the workmanship is out of this world.  I have been using the same company for over 20 years.

I wasn't really ready to let the world know about these yet, but I guess the word is out.

Thanks Guys!

Doc

Last Thursday February 8, 2018 got into the field.

I'm calling the first one a "nerdle" because when I detected it I really did not know what I had until I got it home and cleaned it up.  It set off the Zed, but I had a hard time seeing any gold.  The only thing I knew when I left the field for the day was that it was something natural as opposed to man-made, and it was not ferrous.  After getting it home and putting it in an acid bath, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the ZED was much smarter than I, and unbelievably sensitive.

About an hour later and a whole lot of walking I came upon this little tributary running off of a ridge, the dirt was very red, lots of decomposed quartz and granite, and I snagged this little piece.  Any detector should have been able to find this one.  It was only about 4 inches down, right in the middle of the gully on the downhill side of a bush.
 

Doc,
Doc's Detecting Supply
Authorized Minelab Dealer
Minelab Certified Gold Machine Trainer

22 minutes ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

Fantastic addition story Doc.

Two sons who are both dentists?  Now I know why you have such perfect teeth and all the fillings are solid gold.

Hey, don't think for a minute that I don't take advantage of that perk.  I don't have gold fillings, but they did get rid of all of my mercury amalgam fillings and replace them with composite.  The composite is matched to your teeth color, so it doesn't even look like you have fillings.

However, my boys have told me that they have ran into people with gold fillings.  Some of this dental work done over 40 years ago.  They tell me that gold is without a doubt the most reliable and durable material for working with teeth.  They tell me that because gold is malleable,  as a person chews that gold used in the filling works it's way down into even the smallest nook and cranny under the filling and seals it up.  They have told me they have never seen a gold filling that has decay underneath because it "seats" so well that there is simply no way for bacteria to get under the filling.  So even though gold fillings are more expensive, they literally can last a lifetime.

Doc

Great story.  Goes to show you, blood is thicker than gold.

Took a customer out once for training.  He purchased a SDC2300.  So I am driving down and old wash and I see this small gully winding it's way down out of the hills that really was calling to me.  I said let's pull over here and start your training.  OK, so the basic machine adjustment speech is given.  Really not very involved with the SDC2300, it's a pretty simple machine.

We start up the gully, I am coaching him on his swing, telling him to make sure he rolls rocks, check under bushes, kick off a couple inches of dirt.  Good student, he is picking it up pretty quick.  Doing all the right things, making all the right moves.  So I go ahead and turn on my GPZ7000 and work off to the side of him.  Far enough away so I am not interfering with his detector, but close enough so he can yell at me if he has a question.  Not a speck of trash in this area..

Unexpectedly, I get a really nice target.  So I call him over and tell him to swing his coil right next to the bush.  "Can you hear it?"  He can, so I tell him to go ahead and dig it, if it's gold it's his.  So I teach him how to get it in the scoop, split it, check the scoop and check your hand, etc. etc.  WHAM,  a nice nugget over a gram.   Winner winner chicken dinner.  OK so we go back to detecting.  I hit another target.  I call him over.  Ask him if he can hear it, he says he can.  I tell him OK you got the first one, this one is mine, and we will just keep trading off sharing the finds.  Anything you find on your own, you can keep but I told him I would share my targets with him.  So I dig a sub gram piece.

I'm starting to think we may be on to something here.  Oh, btw, both of those pieces and the other pieces we found that day were nice little specimens.  So I get another target, right in a small little tributary behind a bush.  I call him over.  Can you hear it?  This one he could not hear.  So I told him, well it's there so just keep digging and checking the hole until you can hear it.  So he does.  It's down about 14 inches a really nice 1.5 dwt specimen.  I told him to put it in his pocket.  Next one I find is a gram plus.  I told him, this is great, we are on a little virgin patch so we want to make sure we really cover this area thoroughly and go slow.  So we keep detecting and I get another target and I call for him and he's no where to be found.  Last I saw him he was headed up and over the hill out of the gully.  I thought maybe he had to attend to the call of nature.  I mean who walks away from a virgin patch?  I called for him and no answer.

So this happens for the next four targets which are all nuggets.  I'm digging gold, and he is off wandering around.  So the training day is drawing to a close and I go looking for him and he is two ridges over happily swinging his detector, apparently for exercise, because he hadn't found anything.  I asked him why he left the area.  He said he wanted to see if he could find something on his own.  I told him well there is a rule in gold prospecting.  Never go looking for gold, when you are finding gold.  "Your best chance of finding gold would have been to stay in the area we were in and do what I had suggested, be thorough and go slow."

Well here is a gentleman that had two nice nuggets in his pocket, and I was trying my hardest to make sure he had a successful day of training, and for some reason, he thought he was ready to venture out on his own.

I see this happen sometimes.  When I just happen to get lucky and actually get someone on the gold, they automatically assume it must be easy to find gold.  They don't understand that it's an anomaly and it rarely happens that I take someone into the field and just happen upon a virgin patch.

So I think my customer had sort of mixed emotions.  He was happy he had some gold to show for the excursion, but ticked off that he didn't stick around in the area to snag a couple more nuggets.

Gerry you know how it is, sometimes you just can't win, no matter what you do.  Thank you for the great story about your brother.  I never had a brother, and I really wish that I did.  I have two sons, and I see the great relationship they have.  They ride ATV's together, dirt bikes, go shooting together.  They are both dentists so they have a lot in common.

Happy New Year my friend!  Happy New Year to all my friends here on the forum,

Doc

2 hours ago, Lanny said:

Lots of nuggets in your post Doc, and lots of years of hard-won understanding to boot.

Thanks for taking the time to post what has been sifted, sorted, and garnered from being in the field and being successful.

I too have heard from many people that they can't find a nugget, and I think you've provided the best answer I've heard yet to explain that failure. Sometimes, it just needs to be put into words . . .

I'll add one thing that I get tired of all kinds of nugget hunters saying: "The Old Timers/the Chinese got it all." Such a misleading stereotype. I have found so many great nuggets in areas where the Old Timers and the Chinese worked the place to death that I spend a lot of time looking carefully exactly where they worked! Those old boys knew how to find gold, and they didn't come close to getting it all. Add to that the fact they had no electronic technology to see into concreted material, to see deep into bedrock cracks, etc. and looking exactly where those argonauts of old found the gold is the perfect place to look especially for beginners, and I'll add something Ray says, "Check the margins of any area they worked" as that has led me to a lot of nuggets as well.

All the best,

Lanny

Great advice Lanny.  Sometimes the margins may be dead, but what they really are is a break.  There is gold in one area, then a margin of nothing, and then you stumble into a fresh patch.  I guess that marginal area could have been cause by a ground fault or a shift that broke up one area into two distinct areas.

Doc

4 hours ago, goldseeker4000 said:

well put Doc. I just read this thread after I started a thread on gold, geology and sharing knowledge. Knowlege is the key to finding the gold we seek. If one doesn't stop and ponder how or why the nugget they just found got there, they are missing out on learning the clues that will put them onto that nuggets friends hiding close by or that nuggets other relatives hiding further up the hill 500 yards away. This is a game of clues. Learn everything you can find on an area geologically speaking including success of others if it is shared or slips from their mouth. This is how a friend of mine, Rick Radke who is now gone from this life, was so successful. He was very good at unraveling the clues.

I think you have hit the nail on the head.  Maybe that is why I love detecting so much.  I don't think many people know that I was a police officer and a police detective.  And for the last 40 years I have been a Licensed Private Investigator.  I love a mystery.  I love looking for the clues that lead me to a successful conclusion.  And you are so right, that is exactly what we do when we find that first nugget.  I often have referred to that first nugget in a new area as your "CLUE NUGGET"

Thank you for the comment.

Doc

8 hours ago, Reg Wilson said:

This is some of the best advise I have read anywhere, on any forum. Tips from a man who obviously knows how to prospect, and not just fossick. Well done.

Thank you Reg, really a nice compliment from someone I admire.

Doc

I am always dismayed when I read of fellow detectorists who say that they have yet to find a piece of gold after one year, two years, etc.

I am to the point now where I find gold almost every time I go detecting.  I may get skunked 1 out of 20 times.  That 1 time is usually when I am prospecting totally new ground, and just have not hit a new area yet.

We all know the saying, "Gold is where you find it."  I think that statement is wrong and very misleading and harmful.

In fact I think it may give newbies the wrong impression about prospecting for gold.  It implies that gold is randomly dispersed, and if you do happen to find it, it is only by some coincidence or luck.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Finding gold is a science and an art executed by people with the skill and experience that know what they are doing.

All we are doing with a metal detector is processing dirt.  Now the more dirt we process the better chance we have of finding gold.  But think of what a small amount of dirt we are processing.  A column of dirt under the coil to an indeterminate depth and we sweep that coil back and forth.  We do that for 6 to 8 hours a day?  

Now compare that to the tons and tons of dirt you see the boys on Gold Rush process.  Yards and yards and tons and tons of dirt processed to collect their gold.  It's amazing that we find anything when you compare the small amount of dirt we "process" with a metal detector.

So, think about what a bizarre feat it is for a person with a metal detector to process such a small amount of dirt, and yet be able to find gold.  It is the old adage "needle in a haystack" so to speak. 

Yet, experienced prospectors, like Steve and a host of others on this forum who are always posting pictures of their gold finds ...., us guys that have been around a while, how come we are more successful at finding gold than other people?  Do we process more dirt?  NOPE!  Our secret is we spend our time processing dirt that is more likely to have gold, than other dirt.

We have all heard go low and go slow.  Well, I agree with that "go low" admonishment.  You need to keep that coil on the ground.  But SLOW?  If you watch experienced detectorists, you will see that they vary their speed when they are "looking for gold."  They speed up in areas that their knowledge and experience tell them they are less likely to find gold.  They slow down in areas where that experience tells them there may be a greater chance for there to be gold.  So they spend their time more productively by processing only dirt that has a higher probability of having gold.  Now when they find a nugget, they may turn around and go back over the area they went through quickly.  This time they will go more slowly.  They do this because they now know this area may be more likely to have gold too.  So they invest their time wisely.

As an outlandish example.  You are standing in a paved parking lot of a Walmart.  Next to the Walmart are acres and acres of quartz strewn red dirt with all kinds of gullies where water has ran during the wet season.  Where are you most likely to find gold?  Are you going to spend your day in the Walmart parking lot swinging over asphalt?  Well experienced detectorists are constantly looking at their surroundings.  They look at where they are going and where they have been.  They are calculating the odds.  Is this a Walmart parking lot, or a gold vault?

"Gold is NOT where you find it." 

"Gold is found in places it is most likely to be." 

Seasoned prospectors have spent their careers learning what those places look like.  Now are we ever surprised to find a nugget in a place where we would never intentionally look.  Certainly, but those are few and far between.

Most times when we find a nugget we have a pretty good idea of why it is where it is.  Deteriorated quartz is everywhere, we detect on a bench, in a tailings pile, in the bend of a gully, under a waterfall of boulders, behind a bush lining a gully, near an old mine or there are indications the old timers were there.  I once was way off the beaten path on my ATV.  I found a canteen that said BEAR BRAND, Patent 1918.  Lid still on it, canvas completely gone.  I stopped right there and detected the gully I found it in.  I pulled out three nuggets. 

Let's say after a year you finally find your first nugget, under a boulder up on the side of a gully.  From that day forward, you will check every boulder on the side of gullies.  Why?  Because you learned where to look.  It's no coincidence that after taking so long to find their first nugget, newbies generally find their second nugget soon there after.  WHY?  Knowledge.  I have often said, if you don't take at least 20 minutes with every nugget you find, letting it tell you it's story, you are missing a valuable education.  "How did you get here little buddy?  Why did you stop here?  Where did you come from?  What's different about this gully than other gullies I have checked?  Is there a concentration of deteriorated quartz around here?  A contact zone?  You're sort of rough, you didn't travel far did you?"

I can almost bet that any experienced prospector will tell you that they can be riding on their ATV and all of a sudden they come upon ground and their heart starts beating a little harder.  They may even say to themselves out loud, "Oh man this area looks good."  After years and years of experience, we sometimes just "get a feeling."  It's not voodoo, it's just our subconscious telling us that at sometime in our past, we came across a place that exhibited similar conditions, and we found gold there.  We may not even remember the specific area in our distant past on a conscious level, but our sub-conscious knows.

So what is the moral of this story?  Buying a detector and expecting to learn how to become a successful prospector without training is like buying a 747 and trying to get it airborne when you have had no training.

I hear it time and time again.  I've been detecting 2 years and never found a piece of gold.  Who trained you?  TRAINED ME? "Well I've done a lot of research and I have read a lot on detecting and prospecting and I belong to the GPAA ...." 

That's akin to someone saying, "I have had the worst luck with airplanes.  I have owned five different planes and can't get the damn things in the air; I have crashed every one of them."  Where did you get your flight lessons?  "ME? LESSONS?  YOU MEAN FLYING LESSONS?"

So boys and girls, my lesson for today is:

"Gold is NOT where you find it."

"Gold is found in places it is most likely to be."    So  hire someone to teach you WHERE to look!

There are great dealers who frequent this forum who offer training... it is invaluable. 

A company who only sells you a detector, is doing just that.  They are selling you a detector.  There is nothing wrong with that if you are a seasoned veteran who does not need training.  Or if you have someone who is willing to take you under their wing and teach you this wonderful past-time.

However, if you are new, or not successful at finding gold, look for dealers who sell detectors and offer training.  Because then you are not just buying a detector.  You are investing in a relationship with someone who wants to make sure you are successful at learning how to prospect and find gold. 

Doc
© 2017 G.M. "Doc" Lousignont, Ph.D.

1 hour ago, Reno Chris said:

Plus I got tired of being repeatedly carjacked.

Dear Chris,

I get that a lot!

I had this one customer that walked to my office from the strip.  I told him that was a bad idea as it was a bad neighborhood.  We said he was a coach at a high school and taught the wrestling team as he used to be a college wrestler.   We concluded our business.  I insisted that he allow me to give him a ride back to his hotel.  He vehemently refused.  

He takes off walking and about 10 minutes later is back at my office with a bloody elbow.  He said some jerk tried to rob him and he took him to the ground and broke the guy's arm.  This happened like two blocks from my office.  He said he knew he broke the robbers arm because he heard it and felt it snap.  The bad guy went running off down an alley screaming in pain.

The bad guy didn't get anything and my customer said he didn't want to file a police report.  I got out the first aid kit and bandaged him up.  This time he very graciously accepted my offer of a ride back to his hotel.

Doc

Dear Rob,

Sorry I didn't mean to brag.  But you know this industry / hobby, word travels fast and we live and die by what people think of us.  To have a rumor floating around that I went out of business and had financial problems is like industry homicide.  Someone kills you and your business with rumors that are 1000% fictitious.

I think the way this rumor got started was that I went out of business was that in the interim of remodeling and selling my building and looking for a a nice warehouse to rent, I rented some warehouse space from someone in the fabricating and distribution industry.  I had no financial ties with this company, other than they were kind enough to rent me some space temporarily, so I could move out of my building to do the remodel while I looked for a new permanent location to rent.

Nice warehouse space in the Las Vegas area is at a premium.  You have to jump on it within the first hour it is listed and get out there to see it, and put a deposit down if you want it.  Nice space gets snapped up literally within hours of listing it.

I went to view one warehouse and there were three other interested parties there and they were already in a bidding war.  So I just left.  I just got really lucky on the location I have now.  It is really nice and an exceptional location.  Right off I-215 at Gibson road.  Easy off and easy on the 215 to get to the warehouse.

Well the party that I was temporarily renting some warehouse space from had to make some modifications to their corporate structure.  This included downsizing their Las Vegas location and moving some of their manufacturing to a different location out of state.   As I said I was not involved in any of that, I was just a renter.  However, when customers came to see me at this temporary location and my landlord had moved, and I had already moved to my new warehouse, they jumped to the conclusion that maybe I went out of business.

Nothing could have been further from the truth, it was just a transitional period between selling my office building and finding a new bigger, better location for Doc's Detecting Supply.

Doc

4 hours ago, Rob Allison said:

Hey Doc,

   I wish you would stop bragging all the time!  Haha .... I'm proud to be one of your close friends.  You have always treated me like a damn Son when it comes to being a dealer.  You're the best US Distributor anyone could ask for.  

Your Honestly, Integrity, Trust and Work ethics have placed you on top of the Metal Detecting Industry!

Your bud,

Rob Allison 

Wow Rob, thank you.  Do you want me to send the check to the same address I always use?  

Thanks for helping me on this Steve.

I had read all of the tips, but I did not realize I had not posted enough times to allow me access to the Classifieds.

My fault.  I have been very busy over the last 2 years, remodeling my office, selling it, and moving to a new location.

But it's all good now!

Thank you for being a friend and always being one of the guiding lights in this industry.

Doc

Well after 31 years I put my office building up for sale.  We remodeled and put it on the market.  For those of you who have visited my business you know what a great location it was, close to the Las Vegas strip, airport and convention center.  However, it was a really high crime neighborhood.  To be honest I had real reservations about whether I would get a buyer.  But God always provides.  So who do you think bought my office building?  The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.  My office building will be the new home of the Neighborhood Criminal Justice Center.   So you know what that means?  In two years, after they clean that neighborhood up, all the property values will go up.  That's OK.  I am glad to have left something for that neighborhood that will be positive.  There are a lot of nice people that live in that area.

Fact is, that a professional office building is not really the proper kind of structure to run a Metal Detecting Prospecting Supplies and Accessories business out of.

I am always amused by how information sometimes get twisted in this industry.  I have heard every rumor imaginable.  Some people heard I had sold my office building, so somehow that translated into "Doc died."  "Doc went out of business."  "Doc isn't a Minelab dealer anymore."  "Doc got into financial troubles."

Rumor 1.  Not dead.  Rumor 2.  Not going out of business I expanded business.  Rumor 3. I am one of a select few Minelab dealers that is a "Managed Dealer."  That means I deal direct with Minelab, not some go between distributor.  I am also one of  a handful of dealers that is a Certified Minelab Gold Machine trainer.  Bottom line I am a Minelab dealer, I have been for 25 years.  Rumor 4.  I have been very fortunate in life financially.  I sell metal detectors as a hobby business.  I am 68 years old and I could have retired 25 years ago.  I am a psychologist and years ago I developed some written psychological tests, back in 1977.  Those tests are still used by over 850 companies around the world to screen employees.  So I have always had a steady income stream from my testing business.   I have invested my money very wisely in safe investments over the years. I own my 8 year old home, free and clear.  I owe no one anything.  I have no debt.  I started selling metal detectors because I loved the hobby and my wife would not allow me to stay home and retire.  (I mean who in the hell retires when they are 43 years old?)

You have helped Doc's Detecting become one of the largest suppliers of Metal Detectors and accessories in the Southwest and we needed to expand.

To that end, March of 2017 we moved to a new location.  We have rented a 4500 sq foot Office warehouse in Henderson Nevada.  Unlike the old location, this is a beautiful location.  1180 Wigwam Parkway, Suite 110, Henderson Nevada.

This is the largest warehouse West of the Mississippi dedicated solely to Treasure Hunting and Gold Prospecting Equipment.  From Metal Detectors to Sluices, to Gold Pans and classifiers to Picks and digging tools.  

We primarily do mail order, but if you would like to drop by for a cup of coffee, please call for an appointment.

Thank you for your support over the years, it is you that have made Doc's Detecting Supply grow into the company it is today.

By the way if you would like my free 51 page color catalog, PM me with your mailing address.  U.S. residents only please.

Doc
Doc's Detecting Supply
1-800-477-3211

Visit my YouTube channel
DocsDetectingSupply

Remember this machine is doing a lot.  It is auto-ground balancing, ground averaging, and if you have it in AUTO-sensitivity 1, or 2 it is doing the auto sensitivity adjustments too.

So give it some time when doing the initial ground balance.  Pump the coil up and down, only 6 inches off of the deck, then finish the procedure by doing about three figure 8's on the ground so it can actually get some information fed into the ground averaging function before you start to swing.

I think the other thing a lot of us are struggling with is that most of us who have used Minelab's pulse induction machines over the years have ran our ground balance in FIXED, and then checked the balance every now and again by raising the coil off of the ground.  If it was out of balance, we would push the button and re-balance the coil.  This is particularly true here in the United States where the ground is not wildly variable.  For those of us who have ran in Auto-Ground balance we are use to a little more "talk" from the Minelab detectors, as they keep adjusting to the changing mineralization in the ground.

With the Gold Monster it is only AUTO GROUND BALANCE, so you have to remember it is very sensitive to you raising your coil up over a bush, or anything that would causes the machine to re-balance to new circumstances.  Try to keep the coil on the ground.  If you do anything weird, take a swing at a passing vulture, use your machine like a golf club to chip a rock onto the 11th green, remember to re-balance.  Especially important if you hit this big booming trash target.  Re-balance.

Take about 15 seconds to balance the coil.  Pump up and down, close to the deck, no more than 6 inches, and do a figure 8 three times.

Doc
Minelab® Certified Gold Machine Detector Trainer

I am trying to post in classifieds but when I go to create, topic, Classifieds is grayed out.  It has to be something simple that I am missing.  Any help is appreciated.

Doc

1 hour ago, kiwijw said:

Sounds like a fun time had by all. Thanks for the report & photos. Nice find on the 3.3 gram slug. Made the walk well worth it. Congrats. I notice that it wasn't with the Gold Monster 

Good luck out there

JW 

Gold Monster is a great really easy to operate machine.  However, I had bigger deeper targets in mind.  Last time I was in that gully I pulled a 3.6 gram nugget, it was positioned exactly the same as this nugget, sitting just up on the side.  However it was about a 1/2 mile away from this nugget.  The area is really a good looking area with lots of tributaries feeding into the main wash.  Probably take 5 years to work the area properly.

It's also on a a AMRA claim, of which I am a lifetime member.

Cool area.  Takes an hour just to get to it by ATV.

Doc

Fair to say a good time was had by all at Bill Southern's fall outing.  Plenty of food.  It was delicious.  Bill smoked 2 briskets, I smoked 1, Kevin Hoagland smoked a pork roast, and someone smoked a turkey.  There were a ton of people.  Debbie Smikoski, the Minelab representative, came with two suitcases full of Minelab goodies for the drawing, which was free.  Everyone walked away with some kind of Minelab goody, whether it be a hat, t-shirt, gloves, etc.

Bill donated a Go-Find 40 for the drawing and I donated a pick, there were other donations made as well.

Bill, Kevin, Mike Furness, Debbie, and I hosted two training sessions on the Gold Monster 1000.  We trained over 50 people on this amazing little gold getter.

I went back to a ravine where I had my last successful find and spent one hour walking just to get far enough and exhausted enough that I figured most detectorists would probably be tired of digging trash.  That is where I started looking.  There was no shortage of trash.  Got a nice target that sounded pretty loud, could have been mistaken for trash but I liked where it was positioned, right on the side of the gully before it would drop into the wash.  Turned out to be a nice 3.3 gram nugget, perfect pendant nugget.

If you have never attended one of these spring and fall outings I encourage you to do so.  Lot of fun, lot of good information shared, great food and people.  The next one coming in the Spring is going to be at Quartzsite.

Here's some pictures.    By the way we have moved to a 4500 sq foot warehouse in Henderson.  1180 Wigwam Parkway, Suite 110, Henderson, NV 89074.  I sold my office building to the Las Vegas Metro Police Department.  I think given the neighborhood, the police would be the only ones safe in that building.  I built my building in 1986, so it served me well for 31 years, it was time to cash out.  The Metro Police are going to turn my office into a Neighborhood Criminal Justice Center.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Doc from Doc's Detecting

For the GP I would choose the Gold Screamer Gold Amplifier.  I like this amp because it runs off of your GP Minelab lead acid battery, so no extra batteries to carry around.

Doc

Congratulations.  Stories like this restores my faith in humanity.

Doc

On one of my first trips with the Zed I went out to the desert and got signals in dry ground over cactus roots.  I was tempted to take the first one down but then it happened again and again.

 

I left the cactus.

 

Mitchel

You will get hot hits at the base of Barrell Cactus and also the roots of Joshua Trees.  These plants take up the mineral rich water that exists in the soil and concentrates it in the roots.  Sure always sounds like a good target until you realize the entire base of the plant sounds the same.  

I would advise against ever digging up any cactus, as many desert plants are protected.  A good rule of thumb is every 30 minutes turn around and look at where you have been.  If it's hard to tell, then you are doing a good job of respecting the environment,

I don't mean to sound preachy because I know most of the ol' timers are careful in their detecting and prospecting,

Doc

If Minelab was smart they would make the loop on the non attaching end very small.  I took a little colored electrical tape so I immediately know which end I am looking at.

Doc