rumblefish

There are some C cells that are shorter in length than the regular ones - I forget what they are called. Make sure you get the right ones for the charger/machine you are using.

Many thanks to everyone for their hints and tips!

Wasn't there an offer recently selling both of these detectors together? Have your cake AND eat it I say!

BUMP! Since I live near the shore here in Spain and I have this shiny, new amphibious SDC 2300, I was thinking maybe to start detecting on the beach - assuming it's allowed. Those of you who beach detect, what scoops do you use? I was looking at one from the Ukraine called the Stavrscoop which seems to get quite good feedback. Anyone tried one? Thanks!

In general, the higher the amount of charge stored in the battery (mAh), the longer the battery should last when supplying the same current. But it's not quite so linear and the temperature, condition or type of battery and the drain on them can affect performance. Higher charge batteries will probably take longer to recharge also, so it's kind of swings and roundabouts. I have 5000mAh Tenergy C cells in my SDC2300 and they seem pretty good. Some rechargeable batteries retain the charge longer when not in use, so are a better bet, but they cost more.

That's a really nice story. Makes you wonder about the person who panned all that gold originally, why they decided to hide their gold in that little bottle beside an old oak tree, and of course, why they never made it back to reclaim it. Fascinating.

If you want, I'll fire off a mail to Jason now and ask him to send me something to prove it's PI... It's in their own interests anyway. It is waterproof in the sense that it won't die if it gets wet (rain) but it's not submersible (except the solid shaft of the probe). It's similar to the Garrett. The new dive version is designed to be watertight. It is encased in an acrylic/plastic jacket. It's on their website.

My internet is crawling today. I think it's because it's 6 January and here in Spain all the kids open their presents (like Christmas Day). I imagine the whole internet of Spain is being overloaded by people skyping, messaging, flying drones and playing minecraft in multiplayer mode.

That's probably a good idea Steve. But as he did say the regular Xpointer was a PI detector and not a VLF one, which they will produce as an option for the dive model, I assume he knows the difference. It's a Chinese company. Not sure how old. I saw a while back on their site that they are also starting to make metal detectors. I have seen a couple of reviews of the regular Xpointer by people on Youtube and it appears to be slightly more sensitive than the Garrett, if not quite as well made. But then it is also a fair bit cheaper, comes with a lanyard etc etc. In the end I wasn't 100% certain which kind it was either. And since they weren't available in Spain anyway, I just bought the Garrett.

I was talking to a rep from Deteknix called Jason a few months ago because I was interested in their new underwater pinpointer (before the new Garret version was made known). I asked him if it was a PI detector and this is what he said: "The Xpointer dive version is still under testing. We will have two versions a PI type like Xpointer and a VLF+BF version with 2X performance than recent Xpointer." So according to Jason, both the dive and standard Xpointer are PI detectors.

Don't underestimate the technology or creative ability of cultures thousands of years before our own (the Chinese had paper and the Egyptians wrote on papyrus thousands of years before we had books). If you've ever seen any of the gold artifacts from ancient Colombia or even Egypt, the crafstmanship is staggering. As for how they found it, probably like the earliest prospectors in America or anywhere else. You see something gold sparkling in a river, you search the river and begin to find more and larger pieces. Persistence (or more likely hunger) eventually leads you to the source which is probably somewhere up in a mountain. From then on you have to dig. If you were a Roman emperor you'd have just thrown several thousand slaves at it and sat back waiting for all that gold to come rolling in. Lead may have been a by product of gold mining since it is one of the few metals heavier than gold and is sometimes found together with it. Same goes for the other heavier metals like copper, silver and to some extent iron. But iron, as Chris said, is much more abundant. In fact for every 100,000,000 atoms of iron in the Earth, there is just 1 of gold. That's what were up against! People are like magpies, we always have been and always will be. We are attracted to shiny things, and when that shiny thing looks like the sun then it takes on a very special importance. At least it would have done in ancient times. As for where to find it now, the advice from Chris and Steve and probably many of the others on here will be very useful. A bit of homework will save you a lot of time and digging in vain. Study geological maps of the area, see how old the rocks are, look at the features, are there mountains, faultlines, ancent riverbeds etc. Talk to people and find out if anyone has found gold in the area before, or look in the library. Even online. If there is a river in the area find out where the source is. If it's high up in a mountain chances are it has carried gold downstream, or may still be carrying it. Look at the rocks around you. If they are igneous rocks like granite then there was once an intrusion (or extrusion) of molten lava in the area. That could be a source of gold. All of these are just nudges, you have to follow your nose a lot of the time, but the surest way to find gold is to look where people are already finding it. You'd be surprised how much gold gets missed. Oops, that was a bit longer than I intended!

Yes, I wondered if it was somethig like that, but the wire seemed to go up into the headphones.

No. I'm on the other side of the Atlantic (or Pacific depending on which way you go around), in Spain. There don't seem to be many prospectors here so I'm kind of having to make it up as I go along with help from people I meet along the way. Historically there was a lot of gold here. It was the first place that the Romans mined seriously for gold. I'm working on the principle that it's always coming out from the mountains and they didn't manage to get everything! They didn't have an SDC 2300 for starters! This is the most famous site, but I think it's a heritage site now and I don't think you can detect there. It's an amazing place. Those rocks stick up like giant golden teeth out of the ground.

What's going on with his headphone connector? He seems to have it plugged in halfway down the extension rods of the detector...

Haha! No, it means "I want one!" But like vanursepaul I just purchased the terrain version a couple of weeks ago - bad timing! I want to start river sniping this year, so this looks like a handy piece of kit. Be interesting if someone could do a side by side comparison using the two propointers and see if there is much of a difference in sensitivity.

WOOF!

Thank you! I can see now that the gold I'm finding in the river is quite small and flat in comparison to what you guys are digging up. The largest piece I found in Scotland is probably like the smaller pieces (middle bottom) of Chris' photo, but the flake is flatter so probably doesn't register. I'm going to have to search further up the river towards the source in the mountains I think, and further out into the old river courses/flood plains.

The place I've been river prospecting recently is only showing me very small flakes of gold (so far). They are so small in fact that even the SDC can't pick them up. Yesterday my Garret Pro Pointer arrived and that also sees nothing when I pass it across the vials. Even some of the quite big flakes that I found a while ago in Scotland. So I got to wondering, what is the minimum flake/nugget size that can be detected? Could anyone with an SDC (or even a Pro Pointer) post and tell me their results? Thank you!

Why didn't you take a photo of the area, Steve? Also, if you take a photo with a smartphone, it geotags the location into the image data anyway whether you realise it or not (assuming there's a signal of course).

Ha! This is so cool. Pimping the ATX! There is a guy on one of the bike forums that I go to now and again who does amazing things with carbonfibre. He can make anything. I'm sure if you wanted a custom box or body built he could help you out. I'll try and find some links. Not sure if you can access the pages but have a look at this. The guy ebrabaek (I think he's from Colorado) basically creates/recreates stuff for his BMW out of carbonfibre.

This was the main reason I bought the SDC 2300, plus the fact that it is very portable. I do all my prospecting around rivers, but because the search area is so great, I thought a detector would help speed things up. The problem I have found so far, is that the gold I am finding close to the water is very small and not even the SDC will pick it up. But I have to take it to some other areas where the river would have flooded out in the past and see if I can find any larger pieces. If I do find anything, I will let you know how it performs.

Hi JP, Yes that happened to me. I was running the coil over the dry flood plain of a river and suddenly it blew my ears off. Under the rocks was a huge metal spike. I have no idea what it was from or how it got there, but the detector was picking it up from quite far away. Didn't have any luck finding any gold though, but I was only really testing out the detector and didn't give it a proper go. I also suspect that the gold in that area is not so big. Most of what I am getting in the sluice box is very small. But you never know. There is a huge area to search yet, and that river has a strong flow. There could be some gold quite a distance from where the water is now.

Wow JP, are you sure that's a metal detector and not a vacuum cleaner? That red dirt on the gold looks like the soil here in Spain. I guess it must have a lot of iron in it. You certainly put the detector through it's paces, but then I assume it's your living so it's paying it's way. I'm still a relative newbie when it comes to detectors, but I'm learning a lot from reading everyone's posts. It's fascinating. One thing I haven't quite figured out, maybe you can help me, and sorry if this is a dumb question... when the coil sounds off above a target (I have an SDC 2300 with an 8" monoloop coil I believe), how do I pinpoint it's position? When it makes the loudest noise does that mean the target is under the middle of the coil, or that it is under a part of the rim of the coil? I should be getting a pinpointer soon to help me figure this out anyway, but the last time I was out I wasn't sure exactly where the detector was centering on the target. Thanks!

I'm currently trying to find something like that black ATX bag for my SDC 2300. Really a bit miffed that having paid so much for it, it doesn't even come with a bag to protect it. Don't need a hard case (Pelican make some very good ones if anyone is interested), just a durable bag to stop it getting scratched while I'm carrying it in the back pack. Think I may have found one designed for a Midi controller that would do the job. Just have to double check the sizes.

Now I understand! Actually detecting at night is an interesting idea. Not being able to see so well should make you concentrate better on the audio, which would help you better distinguish the signals. As long as you don't fall down any mine shafts obviously! Going to use my SDC 2300 on gold for the first time this weekend here in Spain. There is a river I have been working wih a sluice box for a while which has shown me some very small flakes of gold. I'm going to to see if the SDC can detect any bigger pieces lying around on the flood plains. Can't wait to get out there!