GotAU?

I ran large gauge wires directly from my battery (put a 10amp circuit breaker on the battery for it first) to a separate marine grade female cigarette lighter plug with a cap into my truck cab to cleanly power and charge my higher amp accessories like my portable fridge, HAM and CB radios, and my detector, drone and camera battery chargers. The system works really well and there’s no issues with it shutting off with the ignition.

I pulled out pounds of modern nails from trees around a lake in the Olympics when I was a backcountry ranger there. While bucking some logs, we also found old square nails imbedded deep when the tree grew around them. That lake was a favorite campsite for many generations. Good idea using a detector for them, it wouldn’t be good breaking a bandsaw blade on your mill! Klunker is right, the nails will be only head high unless the tree was fallen already.

1 foot is really deep for a metal target being in a log. Is he worried about the logs being spiked by vandals, or is he looking for old bullets or square nails imbedded in them over time? How big are the targets?

I don’t know why, but I had a mental image of Golem saying “my precious” while reading your reply, Steve. 😉 But one look at Gerry’s shiny little hoard there and “why” becomes perfectly clear! I’d feel the same way digging up one of those! 😄

Hey Tom, I should’ve known better, and my wife is an archaeologist! Don’t tell her what I said!😉 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=anchor+stones+california&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3DAdvGNHeXMeMJ

Saw this photo of a miner in Australia using pans to drywash, but is he trying to winnow for the gold? Is this a real technique with pans? I know some ancient miners used to do it with blankets, but this looks really messy and a good way to lose a lot of gold . If it was a technique they used, I’d love to detect or sample that dirt pile underneath his pan.

Great story, it’s interesting whenever something ancient like that coin shows up in a much different part of the world than where it came. Out here on the western coastline of the US, archaeologists have found rocks near the coast that appeared to be anchor stones, possibly from Asia. And then there are artifacts from Vikings found in Newfoundland predating the arrival of Christopher Columbus in North America. I also have one question about that photo of the guy using gold pans in the article- but perhaps I’ll add it to the prospecting thread instead to not go off topic here…. Thanks for sharing the interesting article!

No Wedgies either, I hope! It certainly looks like you’re in the right type of habitat for them. You’re getting a lot of use out of your drone for reconnaissance, very nicely done!

I really like mine, a Mavic 2 pro, it was pricer than the Air as I wanted to get into commercial work with it, but I could have done just as well with a less expensive Mavic Air. That model really does well and I would recommend that one for starters too.

That’s a great map, should be helpful for you. I assume those vertical dark lines are named stope mines following dikes? And as for a potential way to get better resolution imagery of that area, have you seen this? https://www.land.vic.gov.au/maps-and-spatial/spatial-data/how-to-access-spatial-data

What fun, and a pretty place too! Looks like there could be some places one should test or detect there, and that name- “Nuggetty Hill”. What is the prospecting history there? As for a drone being helpful for prospecting, I agree. Used mine before to see if there was any exposed float on a hillside above me, it worked well. And you could attach one of those high tech $5K super long distance gold spears to your drone too, who knows what it may point to flying over Nuggetty Hill again! 😉

Glad to see your efforts showing what can be done with the types of detectors most of us can afford, well done! You’re giving a good “get up and go use what you’ve got” message for sure! Only one critique though, which of the “Sierra’s” was that at? I’ve only been to one. (Sorry, the geographer in me couldn’t ignore that!😉). Keep up the good work!

😉Just sayin, it would've been wrong to read about someone being suggested to go somewhere with them not knowing they could get a ticket and lose their prospecting equipment for it. It's his choice and at least he's free to make a knowledgeable one about it now. You are right too, the hobo miners there don't care and don't have much to give up for it. And yup, the Dale is a good area. it's where I detected my first pickers. - that's one of my favorite places to go also. Lots of drywashing there and if you look at it on Google Earth, it's amazing how much organized testing has been done across the hillsides - you can see grids across some of them. Lots of claims there too, so one has to check the maps.

A lot of gold has been recovered from the East Fork of the San Gabriel, but unfortunately, much of it has been removed from mineral recovery and it’s now closed to Prospecting- if going there, along with Lytle Creek and other formerly open gold prospecting areas on the Angeles National Forest, one should check the forest website for information.

Check this out too: https://www.mindat.org/locentry-694426.html

Hey Bill, do you guys belong to any clubs with claims? Try those first, but the most local mining districts to Los Angeles include Randsburg, El Paso's, Coolgardie (Barstow), Big Bear & Holcomb Valley, Dale (29 Palms) and further out include Cargo Muchacho and Potholes towards Yuma.

Some interesting stories here. One of note; a policeman received a 16-month sentence for trying to sell 10 coins from the area where the horde was recovered: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-59151380

Jim, I very much agree with you! Good thing is at least some of the cars, particularly Toyotas and maybe others, have a built in door key and there’s an inductive pad behind the start button so if you hold your fob up against it, it will get enough power to activate, even if the fob battery is dead. Now if you accidentally smacked the fob with a rock or something, you're out of luck. Guess you’d have to hope that you brought enough water to wait for help or at least for a safe walk back! 😉

Sometimes leaving keys behind is a good idea. My wife’s crew left their lunchboxes under the truck for the cool shade, and I suggested that she leave the keys in one of them or put a flagging note on the steering wheel to remind her about the boxes before driving off. Well, they were all lined up neatly under the truck and she proceeded to run all of them over. She forgot my advice and I never said “I told you so”.

I used to glue a spare key into the wheelwell with black silicone before the dang blasted key fobs were invented, now what do I do? 🤔

"All of the gold discovered thus far would fit in a cube that is 28 meters wide on every side." -USGS https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-much-gold-has-been-found-world?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products

Thanks for posting that Gerry, I had no idea NC had a significant amount of gold deposits, here is an interesting historic reference about it - there still might be some really big lunkers just waiting to be found out there!😉 “The first documented discovery of gold in the United States was in 1799 at John Reed's farm in Cabarrus County, NC. John Reed’s son, Conrad, found a 17-pound gold nugget while fishing in Little Meadow Creek. This discovery started the first gold rush in the nation's history.” https://gastonlibrary.libguides.com/gold

Be careful with inexpensive inverters, the cheap ones try to simulate an AC current by using a square wave and they have been known to blow out sensitive electronics and charging units. They should only be used to power AC motors. A pure sine wave inverter has more of a true AC current. That’s why you see “filtered AC” power outlets on boats and other commercial vehicles for powering computers and other electronics. Pure sine wave AC inverters are more expensive than simple unfiltered square wave inverters. It would be much better and safer to use the 12V charger instead of the 110 charger with an inverter, as mentioned previously, there is less waste of electricity because you are not converting 12V DC to 110 AC then back to 7.5V DC in the charger.

I made this 12v 35Ah (420Wh) portable power battery with left over parts, but you can do it for $100 to $250, depending on options you want, such as solar charging, vehicle charging vs. 120v charging, adding a 120v power inverter, etc. When fully charged, it runs our refrigerator for a day and could provide about 6-8 charges for GPX-6000 batteries without drawing it down too low. The battery is based on a low cost 12v 35Ah deep cycle gel cell made for mobility scooters and trolling motors like this: ML35-12 - 12 Volt 35 AH SLA Battery- Mighty Max Battery Brand Product https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K8V2VD0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_5R2WR55KHZYEF1202G21 The Renogy 20amp DC-DC battery charger lets us charge it from solar panels and from our truck batteries- it will automatically charge when the truck is running too: Renogy 20A DC to DC On-Board Battery Charger Flooded, Gel, AGM, and Lithium Batteries Using Multi-stage Charging https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q5VYPCF/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_YD8N92AHJP683K2SA7HH?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 The case is a $9 HF plastic ammo box with a built-in handy cover storage area for cables, connectors, etc. I cut about 1/3 off the side of the tray and used it to mount the switch panel and 12v and USB charging plugs to: https://www.harborfreight.com/tactical-ammoutility-box-64113.html And I added a switch, voltage meter, USB power plugs and a cigarette lighter plug port like this to it: Linkstyle 4 in 1 Charger Socket... Linkstyle 4 in 1 Charger Socket Panel, 12V 4.2A Dual USB Charger Socket Power Outlet & LED Voltmeter & Cigarette Lighter Socket & LED Lighted ON Off Rocker Toggle Switch for Car Marine Boat RV Truck https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JHH5YP4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_H1ADSMJJS3CJ91M7JEBS Also adding a 13.8v step up transformer to run my refrigerator and drone charger as they are designed for slightly higher voltage than the 12v a automotive battery provides after the engine turns off: DC-DC Boost Module 9-12v to 13.8V... DC-DC Boost Module 9-14V to 13.8V 10A 138Wmax Power Supply Converter https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AW1JKO8?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share This project is in progress still (adding fuses and additional plugs) so I can send more info to the build, including how to make just the basic version with the parts listed above and just a few more. Just PM me if interested. -Anthony

Off-roading and EV’s means a lot of waiting around in the daylight doing a lot of nothing (prospecting?) while the sun does its stuff!