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Col Douglas

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  1. Agree. An upgraded CTX with a serious gold capability. That is, a detector that can locate gold in areas of high trash. Not a competitor to the 7000, but to complement it. Just a guess.
  2. ...... and three or four user-defined Preset Settings for the Zed.
  3. Has anyone tried bone-conduction headphones, that are used by bike riders to listen to music etc., while still retaining audio awareness of their surroundings?
  4. How can Minelab claim that the PRO-FIND 15 makes the PRO-FIND 25 obsolete when the former has no vibrating function? Having poor high-frequency hearing, I rely on the vibrating function all the time.
  5. Plus a software upgrade (free or paid for) for the CTX, will ensure it stays as Minelab's premium coin machine. Col
  6. Quite apart from the fact that you don't have to dig it up , but just pick it up, there's something special about finding a "sun baker" gold nugget. This one weighed 3.8 grams, and was recently found in the Pilbara in northern Western Australia. Can you see it?
  7. Great result Bada Bing. Might be a good idea to go back to where you got it and start digging. The " floating gold" reminded me of what an old pro said to me once: " If you get floating flour gold in your pan, dig straight down, it could indicate a supergene" Further to this, here is an extract from one of the "Gold and Ghosts" series of books written by David De Havelland : Does anyone know more about this? Col
  8. Minelab Australia doesn't offer this discount to Australian ex-military members (when I last asked).
  9. I purchased my Zed in mid-2015, and since then I have complained about the display being difficult to see clearly. Then yesterday I realised that it is a "sunlight-readable" display, presumably similar to what is used on some of the later Garmin GPSs. That is, when the display is in full sunlight it can be seen very clearly. I'm assuming most people here probably already know this, but I've mentioned it in case there are one or two others out there who are as smart as I am and taken nearly two years to work it out. Col
  10. These ones were in a rest area in WA. I think they are only able to travel at night because of their size. I apologise for the average quality of some of the shots
  11. This is like yarns around the campfire. Great stuff. I have one: It was October 2008 and my wife and I had been scratching around looking for gold at Maryborough, which is a lovely little old gold mining town in Victoria, Australia. We were on a trip around the county (commonly called “doing a lap”).The day before we were due to leave, I was returning to the car near Blackman’s Lead late in the afternoon after about three hours swinging. It had been a hot session and I was worn-out from digging up countless pieces of junk and only a couple of very small bits of gold. However, as I swung the coil half-heartedly when nearing the car, the signal that stopped me was clear enough but not really welcome because I “knew” it was only more junk. But you can never be sure, so I wearily commenced digging. After I’d got down about 18 inches through the hard gravel and clay I’d reached the maximum depth that my small pick could achieve without widening the hole some more, so I decided that I would return next day to finish the job. So I re-filled the hole, but before I left I sneakily put a small piece of rusty tin on top of my dig to hopefully dissuade any other prospector who might happen to wander by. However by next morning we decided we’d had enough so we packed up and headed west, leaving the undug target behind. But of course a prospector (even an amateur one) can’t forget about something like that, and countless times over the following couple of years I thought about the unfinished business in Maryborough, and questioned my hasty decision to not go back and finish the job. You might have left a valuable nugget behind? Has someone else (not as lazy as you) already retrieved your nugget, and is now driving around in a new Landcruiser? You’re an idiot, what were you thinking? You could have been rich instead of wandering around with your bum out of your strides. Anyway in late 2010 we were once again at Maryborough and I was anxious to put this issue to rest. I was much better equipped now, with a bigger pick, a Garrett Pro-Pointer and a new crowbar that I’d just bought. Locating the spot was simple enough and incredibly the decoy piece of rusty tin was still sitting imperiously on top of the old dig; more importantly the signal was still there. So I started all over again, and after digging down about another 10 inches beyond my previous effort, the Pro-Pointer was telling me that that target was just below, and some careful scraping revealed the “nugget”: A very rusty tomahawk head that some early-day prospector had left behind. So it’s now 2017 and we are soon to head west again to resume our relentless search for the elusive metal. We are still not rich, my bum is still hanging out of my strides (figuratively speaking), but at least I don’t worry anymore about “the nugget I left behind”.
  12. Some time back when we had some smelting and melting to do we used the GPK Company in Arizona. We couldn't find anyone in Australia at the time.This is a two person company (Patrick Moulton and Caren Seabeneck). Patrick makes a range of propane kilns from the mini up to the KK12 (12 inch diameter). Also microwave kilns.We used the KK8. We were complete novices at the time and the pre-sale and after-sale support we received from GPK was outstanding. We have no connection with this company, just very happy customers; couldn't recommend them highly enough. If you are interested check them out here: http://www.gpkcompany.com/ Col
  13. I think the problem many of us older blokes have is that our hearing is just not good enough. I understand exactly what Goldhound and you, Steve, are saying, and as usual it makes a lot of sense. However if I run my 7000 too noisy the targets don't "jump out" at all but are mixed up in the noise and barely noticeable because the target frequencies involved are beyond my hearing range. Because of the poor response of my ears to the higher frequencies I have to rely on the target amplitude variations which is obviously less than ideal, but the reason why I keep going to High Audio Smoothing on the 7000, or winding back the Stabilizer on the 5000. What I would like is something like the BZ booster with a facility to crank up the higher frequency response in particular to compensate for this hearing loss. Some sort of mini synthesizer that could be adjusted to have a "reverse" response to that of one's hearing would be ideal, but even just a simple "treble" control would be probably help.
  14. Thanks Dave for putting up the link, and thanks Jase for a great video and for taking the time and effort to share your hard-won knowledge.
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