Pyriteboy

1 hour ago, Bill (S. CA) said:

Thank you, Jerry.  I basically just ran SALT and Slow, tracking off, ground balancing randomly.  This is in the wet sand mind you.  On the dry I ran FINE.  I could run the sensitivity up to 6 in the wet before things got noisy.

Easiest PI I have ever used.  I am still curious after more hours on it if I can beat the multi's at the beach where they rule right now.  Outside of an old White's you never see PI's at the beach anymore.  

By the way, I highly recommend the DD coil.   Being a VLF guy by trade it really made locating targets easy for me.

Bill 

Thanks Bill.....the settings that worked for you are different from those that worked for me. I tested mine in highly mineralized ground after one of our storms. When the current rain lets up, I'll take the Axiom out for another test with sanded-in conditions to see if it can be run with higher gain. Glad you liked the detector and the DD coil.

-Jerry

Hi Bill, very nice write-up for sure. Interesting that you found SALT to work the best for you at the beach. Can you please tell me what other settings you used?

-Jerry

A 12" Ultimate Spiral DD or 11" open DD.....

On 1/17/2023 at 3:36 PM, Bill (S. CA) said:

  Running the detector silent allowed me to crank up the sensitivity beyond 4 to 6/7 most of the time and even 8.  Perhaps if I had a better PI ear I could have had an audible threshold but I tested several deep targets and they all rang out solid regardless of the threshold setting. 

Hi Bill, curious if you tested the same targets at sensitivity 4 and then at 7-8. If so, was the target response louder at the higher sensitivity?

On 1/17/2023 at 3:36 PM, Bill (S. CA) said:

I have yet to try the Axiom on the dry for microgold and will post those results after a few hunts.  I have high hope for it given it's terrific sensitivity to small gold.

I am guessing this detector will do well in that role....

-Jerry

1 hour ago, King-Of-Bling said:

Thanks. I also just heard some other great news !

Yes, great news all around. You were missed.......

 Outstanding results ......you worked long and hard for what you found.

-Jerry

9 hours ago, mn90403 said:

I know a beach that fits those conditions of planes and the worst black sand of any beach I've ever been on.  There are places on it where I can't detect with my 800/15.  It has defeated other detectors also.

Yes is has...I have seen people walk off the beach talking to themselves......

1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Interesting results, thanks. I have had to use Normal instead of Fine in heavy black sand, but have not had to deal with salt at the same time. Interesting that Salt is not working better for you than Normal under those conditions. Part of the issue here is the Garrett DD is hotter than a normal DD coil so does not give the results one might expect when comparing to other DD coils. I would actually like a standard DD coil for the machine for just that reason, but it also opens the possibility of the smaller mono possibly working better than you might expect. Or not, but worth a try. I love trying to figure out new detectors! Every data point helps, so thanks for sharing. 

Reminder to everyone that the default sensitivity setting of 4 would be the top end setting on many detectors, so settings of 2-3 on the Axiom are to be expected in tough situations, and are still quite powerful.

Yea Steve, I forget that the Garrett DD is more sensitive/hotter than the traditional DD's we see on the Minelab GP/GPX series detectors. Again, a 12 x 10, 11 x 11, or 8 x 12 DD would do the trick here where I am at. To be continued.....

8 hours ago, Valens Legacy said:

So what was in the hole?

 

Oh, just coinage VL....

Took the Axiom out for another quick spin before the rains this afternoon. I ran through all the combinations of speed and modes on sensitivity 2 to re-check my findings from the other day. The beach I went to is on the extreme end condition-wise; that is to say the sand is heavily mineralized and there is lots of airplane traffic. The first photo is near the bottom of the slope, and the second photo was taken mid- slope. Again, I ran the machine in a silent search-type mode to eliminate some of the ground noises. As before, Mode= NORMAL & Speed= Medium was slightly more workable than Mode= SALT & Speed= SLOW.

SENSITIVITY.................2

MODE............................Normal

SPEED...........................Medium

THRESHOLD................-8

The bottom of the slope was workable with the 13 x 11 DD but going up the more mineralized slope rendered the Axiom too unstable. Most beaches are not this mineralized, so this is the worst-case scenario. The Axiom, fitted with a smaller DD coil, would be able to handle this ground. I use an Eric Foster designed Goldquest Aquasearch v.2 and have to dumb the machine down at times here. Even then, the threshold is still a bit ratty and you have to work slow. To be fair to the Axiom, I will next go to a beach that is not so extremely mineralized and see how it performs. So far, I am not disappointed with how the Axiom has fared with the 13 x 11 DD coil.

-Jerry

On 1/7/2023 at 8:21 AM, Steve Herschbach said:

The higher the speed setting the noisier the Axiom is. EMI or no EMI, that's just the way the circuit works. Set slow and go low and slow, unless wanting to just cover ground fast - but at a cost.

Bingo, Steve, I am trying to dial in the beach settings for the Axiom for max speed; that is to say, the maximum speed I would want to swing the coil to cover ground and still hear a reasonable target. I call it breezing; suppose you could call it patch hunting speed. For sure this speed would be a little faster than when in the gold fields- but how much faster seems to be a black art.

-Jerry

5 hours ago, dig4gold said:

He was probably not in a drunk state 😂 when he found it but may have been after celebrating that awesome find.

  Well done. Sure got the monkey off your back with a vengeance. 

D4G

Found in California, where you have to stay in a drunk state to deal with the madness. The cool part- this was no gimme- it was actually some good, solid detecting to finally score. I did drink more than a little single malt that evening.

58 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Was this a fresh water beach? If not, then why are you not running salt mode? Looks like saltwater finds to me, and if you are using Normal - well, no, it's not going to run right.

Hi Steve, saltwater beach. I tried salt mode but was not successful in quieting the machine down. It is possible that I ran salt mode in sens 3 and not 2, so when I go back for another test run, I will have a cheat sheet with all the possible combinations of timings/settings with sensitivity level 2. The settings I listed did work fairly well but another test run will determine if there are any that are better.

1 hour ago, All_Metal_Mode said:

I am surprised to hear the DD still had issues with EMI in pinpoint….what were you experiencing, a warble or something?

With the bottom of the coil partially facing up at the sky when pinpointing, the EMI wobble sound was substantial, with the root cause being large holes needed to be dug for deep targets. Trying to force the large DD coil in the hole sideways to pinpoint is not the way I will be doing it going forward. It is a habit of mine from nugget hunting. This is in Hermosa Beach, tons of airplanes, cellphones, lifeguards chatting over their radios.

2 hours ago, All_Metal_Mode said:

hat would you say you are seeing as far as accuracy of where the detector is saying the target is located? Are you getting slower/faster recovery between targets from previous PI machines? If it’s screaming on a target at depth that’s both awesome and also a little disconcerting

Accuracy seemed fine, it was me who had to adjust to the DD's center + estimate depth and then figure where to put the scoop. The 13 x 11 DD is a little big to be ripping through a patch of targets, but with a smaller coil I believe the recovery would be faster. Screaming on a target at depth is plain awesome; I believe this detector is more than capable to hear the subtle response of low-conductor gold at depth.

That is a very sweet result for sure. Question: can you tell me what the difference is in the background audio between the 2300 and the Axiom on sensitivity 4?

-Jerry 

Great way to round out the year- a nice series of hunts for sure....

-Jerry

I may use different words than some of you, but the ideas are the same:

1.  Operator.................45%

2.  Location.................30%

3.  Detector.................15%

4.  Luck........................5%

5.  Valium.....................5%

-Jerry

TDI's now sell for around $1000.00. I know, 'cause I just sold mine and have tracked the sales for the last few months. Just bought an Axiom and took it out for its initial shake-down voyage to the California desert. I do not regret this purchase.

-Jerry

I also like the ring......the weight is nice; congrats on the gold score.......

-Jerry

Hope to see many of you there.....

-Jerry

Nice silver pull for the less-than-ideal conditions....you don't see those every day.

-Jerry

Nice surprise after the fact, George. Bummer older stuff was not showing, maybe they were just skimming the first 12"?

-Jerry

Thanks, Carolina, for posting this news, sad as it may be. I always remind myself how lucky I am to have found one of Eric's Aquasearch v.2 detectors. 

-Jerry

Josh Reinke all the way.......

-Jerry