zortan

Hello all, A number of years ago I was one of the the first people to come upon a motorcycle accident in which 3 people lost their lives. During the passing of one of the women she took her wedding ring off at some point which was found about a week later by someone who had come to see the wreck site. I thought it was strange that I didn’t see it since I was by her side at the time of passing but it was good that the ring was returned to her family. I also remembered seeing somewhere that apparently when someone passes quickly they will sometimes take off clothes and restrictive items. I then remembered that in the mountains where I live a mother and daughter got lost, their bodies were found 2 years later. Animals had strewn their bodies about. I’ve considered for the last 2 years or so to go up there with my metal detector to see if I couldn’t find any sentimental jewelry to return to the Father/husband, I would give it to the sheriff to return to the family if I found anything. My dilemma is this. By all accounts this could be considered a gravesite and should not be disturbed at all. Another part of me, the father/husband part of me, would relish to have any piece of my loved ones returned and if I knew I could get them nothing would stop me from having them back. since I’ve not been able to decide if this is right or wrong I haven’t even visited the site. I’d like to hear your thoughts if this is ethical and right to consider doing this. If it would affect your decision, there is a possibility that I would find small skeletal remains as well that were missed by the search and rescue crews.

Ahh yes, La Niña is tearing up Montana right now. I’d recommend Arizona with a quickness. Did you see the news from Texas? It’s looking pretty bad there. That warm pacific air is protecting most of the western states but a big storm is coming in from Cali.

Long term weather pattern predictions are never wrong. I suggest getting that 6000 for any state other than Arizona. Anyone in Arizona needs to plan on sheltering in place this spring/summer.

Sure thing. The numbers are the Snow water equivalent as a percentage of normal. So right now it looks like the rye patch area has only gotten 79% of its normal snow/precipitation. The dots are the various snotel sites where they take the measurements. Do keep in mind though that one or two good storms could change these numbers drastically but if the pattern holds many places are going to end up only around 60% percent of normal.

Well damn it looks like the starlink isn’t quite where we need it yet. There are cells that the satellites schedule service to as they pass over dictated by geometry. I was able to find this though so it looks like it’s coming. ”According to the Starlink team, the ability to move your system to a new location is coming eventually, though as you might’ve guessed it’ll depend in part on having more satellites in the sky. There’s no word on just how many satellites that actually means, nor what sort of timeline might be involved to get there, and there’ll apparently be new hardware and software required too. It’s not entirely clear at this stage whether you’ll be able to simply roam around, digital nomad style, and have the dish keep you connected regardless, or if this is more about registering new fixed addresses whenever you move house, but it still seems like good news for the longer-term prospects of Starlink.” If your curious I was also able to find a cell map which shows the coverage for the individual cells. So you would have service in whatever your home cell is but currently not out of it. The cells are quite large but not quite where I need them to be. https://sebsebmc.github.io/starlink-coverage/index.html

I think that was because during the beta the constellation wasn’t/probably still isn’t set up completely yet. When they launch though for reals it should have pretty much full coverage. Keep in mind these satellites are much lower than say dish networks so you could pretty easily leave the coverage area. Thinking harder about it though it would be conceivable the ground stations could be attached to a particular latitude or longitude which and string x of the constellation may not communicate with string y. I’ll have to look more into it.

On my way out I pick up a large pizza, this handle lunch and dinner for the first day/night. I then carry lunchables for lunch each day in the cooler. 2 each day is sufficient and inexpensive from Costco. For dinner it is almost always the freeze dried packs of food and a pack of crackers. I could last for awhile on this diet but 4 days and I start to want a restaurant.

Nah man I just thought someone else may have the same problem I do with connectivity when I’m off on claims. I hate having to drive 20 miles to just call the wife. I’m super stoked about it.

EDIT: This post contains mistaken information. Please accept my apology. At this time it is not possible to travel greater than 300 miles with a starlink antenna. Please read entire thread on page 2 for clarification. My bad fellas. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that starlink is finally accepting pre-orders. For those who don't know this is Elon Musk's satellite internet which is super fast and has no data caps. The service is 100 bucks a month and 500 to buy the equipment. To enter the pre-order is only 100 refundable deposit. I've done alot of research on this and it looks like the antenna is small enough that I could easily carry it in my camper and set it up wherever I am. The power usage is only 300 watts w/ dish motors running and 150 without. SO this could easily run with a battery and inverter for a number of hours, no 24 hour a day generator. I'm super excited to have an option for when I am far away from civilization. Go to starlink.com and get signed up if you wanna!

I thought I would give everyone a quick update on how the weather may play into your detecting plans this spring and summer. For a little background we are in a La Nina weather pattern right now. This is expected to hold with a fair bit of certainty well into March. In La Nina years the weather patterns change from normal and we see the Northern US get cold and wet while the Southern US gets warm and dry. This is on a large scale so there may still be some local storms which are quite powerful but we are playing with averages here. I've attached NOAA reports which are great little graphics that show the status of the snow pack as a percent of normal. This is important to us as detectorist since the sooner everything dries up the easier it is on us. Also for prospectors since it will give you a good indication of when high water will happen and when the rivers will be perfect for sluicing. As you can see from the graphics, the northern US is getting its fair share of snow where the jet stream comes across with all that Aleutian moisture. Normally in a La Nina year we would see more moisture coming into northern Cali, Nevada, and Utah but this year California has packed some crazy high pressure ridges protecting (or cursing depending on your outlook) the entire region from the agony of the jet stream moisture. This is good news for detectorist since the snow pack will melt much earlier than normal and the soil will dry much quicker. Places like the Rye patch which are difficult until late June or so will be much easier...probably by the end of May this year. This could all change though with just one or two good snowstorms so cross your fingers. It will be interesting to see what happens in the spring though as La Nina loosens its grips. Thats a report for the future though. My predictions are as follows......take them for what they are worth. California- by the end of the winter I think you will see a more normal snowpack, I'd expect 75% or so of normal. With the jet stream sliding so far to the east its gonna drag in some of that moist pacific air and deliver some snow and moisture to the mountains. Cougars and bears will be very active and attracted to your detectors. Be careful. Nevada- I predict most of the moisture from California is going to drop over the sierras and the snow will stay in low amounts. If you prospect here make plans to get out 2 weeks to a month earlier than usual. It's going to be the best year ever for Nevada. I would expect to see many multi-pound nuggets coming from the state this year due to the heavenly weather. Arizona- It will be brutally hot and dry by April. You will not be able to prospect at all since the heat will encourage snakes to come out and bite you. Men were not meant to live in this environment much less prospect. Those brave enough to get out early in the mornings and late in the evenings will be greeted by very aggressive burros. Cactus will have a bumper crop this year and you'll get many needles in the bottoms of your shoes. Let it be man, let it be. Oregon- While not quite as good as Nevada it will still be decent. Still lots of gold here and the weather, while not great will still allow many prospectors to hone their craft. I would expect cold in windy starting in March and not warming up until July. Any other place- Ehh sorry (including Australia) west_swepctnormal_update.pdf

Ok so this may or may not be a problem for your claim. Many claims patented or not will have a road running through them and people and other property owners may have been using that road for a very long time. This creates a prescriptive easement meaning that people have the right of passage through the land. Fencing it is usually not a problem but locking that fence would be. For the most part a fence and a small sign asking people to close the fence behind them would be enough to discourage 95% of people from passing through BUT restricting passage would be asking for a lawsuit. This is a complex issue that you should speak with a lawyer about. If there is an easement through the property this does not give people the right to trespass off the easement but trying to shut down the right of way isn’t cool either. Using good judgment here and signs reminding people they are entering private property will not only protect yourself from arguments but also discourage most people from entering in the first place. For buildings and such the process is exactly like any other piece of property.

I think the settings I was using were pretty standard. High Yield, Normal Ground, Sensitivity 10, Volume 8, Smoothing off, Threshold 27 I would just dig any target that gave a single rather than a double response. I used to get disappointed when I would find shoe tacks but this trip was a little different. I decided that if I was finding a shoe tack it probably would not come off from just walking and that whoever it was probably was working. I began to ask myself what was this person doing here to make his shoes fall apart. Why was he attracted to the area? I knew I was onto something when I began to find the odd furniture nail (Held drywashers together back in the day). When I began to think of everything as a clue the gold followed shortly thereafter. These old drywasher piles from 100+ years ago are almost impossible to find. I only recognized my first one when I stopped to dig a target and noticed the subtle raise of the desert floor and a rather natural looking bit of larger rocks a little farther away (not natural mind you). There would be no way to notice this from a car, you would have to be walking and observing. For me it also helped to chastise myself as I was detecting along. I began to think of my detector as nothing but a very expensive dousing rod set. Everyone knows that dousing rods only work if you believe hard enough. When I would feel a bad attitude coming I would talk aloud to myself telling myself that I'm not believing hard enough. I know it sounds crazy but I would always slow back down and watch my coil control a little better. I pounded the area to death and on the third day another detectorist wandered into my area. He asked if I had any luck and I gave the standard response everyone gets...."nothing but bullets and a bad attitude", all the while smiling. I guess he was having some problems finding an area and launched into a rant about how the area was hit too hard and that it was only good for drywashing anymore............he was standing 10 feet from where I found a 2 gram nugget. I'm no Gerry or Lunk, I can still count on one hand how many multi-gram nuggets I've found, so please take what I say with a grain of salt, but, even with the GPZ 7000 you have to believe or it doesn't work.

Thank you to all for your very understandable and descriptive posts. Being able to differentiate the various signals has led to immediate success, I was spending to much time on bothersome trash signals, some signals are still iffy to me and I dig anyways but I’m getting much better at calling a target before digging. These are my finds since I posted earlier in the week.

It’s not always so obvious.... the really old ones look almost just like the desert floor.... here is one where I found a one gram nugget right next to. Can you spot the small bit that is raised up?

Thank you so much for the answers. I got a flat tire today on the way out to the goldfield so my day got burned fixing that fiasco but I can’t wait to try the tips you guys gave me tomorrow! It’s been a huge help and makes perfect sense.