Arky

Great post Lunk. Fun to see the power of the machine many of us are waiting for!

Nice bit of the yellow stuff! Looking forward to our place in the 6000 que.

Have one on order. Waiting like the rest.

Thanks Gerry. It was a fun event and really generous of you.

Here's the scoop. Scuff cover done. We're done. As always, great to be out!

And here are is our big find for the weekend! Not skunked, but close!

So Gerry, great idea for Memorial Day. We are at Rye Patch thinking about my Dad who left us on June 3, 2020 at 93. He was a tail gunner on B-17 in WWII and a POW in Germany. He is signing the bombay door of Sentimental Journey, a flying B17 based at the Commemorative Air Force in Mesa. Heartfelt thanks to all who serve. Mike and Sally

Sympathies Condor. We held on through the cold and wet and have been out in Rye Patch a couple half days hitting patches where we have had luck in the past. Still wet and noisy on the Zed but tiny trash and lead showing up fairly shallow. It is drying pretty well. Would have left, but being 850 mi from home says stick it out bit longer. Been trolling for new ground too. Mike

Gold is gold to me. I'm more about the finding than anything else. If you fish with kids you may know that digging worms is almost as fun as catching the fish. Guess I'm a kid at heart.

Dry and breezy at the patch today. Did not detect, but roads are passable. Ground is wet at about 2 inches. Will be in area for a week or so. Some in Rye Patch and some just exploring for new areas.

Good advice Steve. Spent my career doing fieldwork in the west and what you say is true.

Love meeting folks with gold fever. We are in a silver jeep with black cargo pod. Say hi if you see us.

Yikes! We are on the way. Hitting the ground Monday (maybe from what you say). Long drive and we are past the point of no return. Maybe a day or so of scouting coming up.

Continue to be impressed with people's success with the nox. Nice find!

No issues with weight. Lug 50 lb feed sacks, etc but I don't have a need to lift a whole lot more. Have carried a 45 lb pack into the backcountry without issue. I do pretty much everything I did before, maybe a bit more carefully. And I don't run. Also have a artificial knee. Its no issue either although I occasionally hear it with standard coil on the Zed. Would probably not be able to use a 19 in.

I had a hip done about 4 years ago. No real impact on my detecting beyond a couple months post-surgery. It is not as invasive a surgery as it used to be.

Great work. Makes our final Yuma haul look a bit slim. But we had a great finish too.

Thanks for sharing Lunk. We hitting the ground for day 3 at Quartzsite and only have one dink to show so far. Nice to know persistence might pay off!

I had a similar problem with my first Zed. It would occasionally run quiet, but usually was noisy no matter what settings we tried. Gerry, Lunk, and Mark all tried to smooth out the machine for me. End of story was a return to factory and a replacement machine. Mike

This observation is probably not practical for most, but I used the Zed as a clean-up tool at an archeological project at a battlefield site. First step was systematic gridding with VLF machines which identified a lot of targets, both modern and from the 1860s. I then ran the Zed over one of the same grids. It was just an experiment, but resulted in a dozen or so new targets. A couple were shallow "misses" but several were round or maxi-balls from deeper. Nothing real deep, but strong signals.

Sally and I use the 7000 and 2300 in the same area, and work nearby one another. We flag targets if we have any questions about them and use whichever machine is best suited to the signal after we have several targets to work. And have the old 705 handy for backup or to decieve ourselves with target ID in trashy areas. The 7000 is the workhorse, but the 2300 has it's share of finds and often saves digging time. Working alone, it would depend on area for which PI to use, but 705 is light, and easy to keep handy. It is aways in the cargo pod. We are still nearly novices at gold detecting, but for ambiguous signals, this approach dual machine approach has found some gold and saved quite a bit of time.

Still working on the patience part! Nice post.

Give Keen a try. Work great for me.

Your review had me at "plethora". Sounds like a must read.

Zoey after a day of guarding us from jackrabbit at Rye Patch.