1515Art

That one should go to the top of the list!

worst products ever that's got to be quite a list, I wonder how many I've bought over the years hmmm, more importantly how many more to come? worst product ever might be a bit harsh it works if you need something to stick in a back pack and like anything else out there, gold pan, flow pan, pyramid pan or dish pan just another place to put dirt. ill have to look there must be a book or something about every gold pan variation ever made, but there's some odd ideas.

I bought one at a gold show couple years ago when they first came out and it was on a special discount, $20 or less don’t remember how much exactly. I’m always looking for smaller stuff to fit in the limited space in my Jeep and the shape is supposed to be better for dry panning, thought it might come in handy out in the desert. Fits nicely in the back pack with the Deus, pans ok although I actually much prefer using a conventional full size pan it’s easier for me. the gold claw works good while still being a bit smaller so again space for all my junk is key for me.

Chase, thanks. I’ve had my Deus awhile but am still a novice and was wondering how my old gear compared? Great report.

Opps, thought I did... thanks, more spam, lord knows don’t need no more spam, “ain’t nobody got time for that.”?

It’s been some time with no word from xp after the announcement of a deep seeking cache hunting coil, so I asked nicely what’s up and I’m pleasantly surprised they were kind enough to quickly reply. Apparently there is still hope that someday...

Detecting heavy metal.

The claim is for sale, only worked the one time...

Thanks Mitchel I’ll be looking at those links I believe it’s private property east of Montello near the state border, he said he has 75 acres and is planning on grading a little flat camping area with a fire ring of some sort. Sounding like I’m going to check the area out, be fun to spend a night out in some truly remote dark skies probably my first chance will be early next year, might be to cold then the weather will be the main factor on when I can go and look around a little. Seems like the heavy hit areas are north west of this spot I guess the deposits might not have been commercially viable, but something like this could produce a little overlooked placer deposit, or not, only one way to find out.

My friend mentioned a half dozen mines in the area and some surface disturbances that look like placer mining, but they are or must be older small workings that are not well reported because ? Land matters shows only the one claim adjacent to his property and I can clearly see what look like large red tailing piles and some surface disturbance he described so I’d assume that is what I see on google earth. I’m reasonably certain gold was found in the area and if there is running water the creek would be worth exploring with a pan and small sluice when I’ve some time to kill. He says the sky out there is one of the few truly dark sky areas left in the lower 48, be nice exploring the area just enjoying the seclusion if nothing else.

Yep, it’s a lllooonnnggg drive, I’m gonna do some reading before going and check some of them Aeromagnetics??? when I know what that is, sound like something good to know I’ll google this right away? there is a gold mine next/near and I guess some huge red tailings piles too on his land. He’s more the rancher type and not into mining so the gold info is limited. He also has some property up in Alaska he says although it’s a 27 mile plane ride to get into, on that spot there is a 300’ quartz vein that runs down a 1000’ cliff he seems to think has gold although access might be a challenge?????

I got permission to hunt some private property on the Nevada Utah border from a guy that owns 60 acres down in the bottom of a ravine, I think the area may also have flowing water. The area has gold mining history with a hard rock mine nearby although I know very little about the area except some deposits were discovered as late as the 1980’s and the gold reports I’ve found are very incomplete of numbers as the activity seems to have been limited. it’s a long drive, but I think I have 4x4 access into his property and may just have to drive up and put boots on the ground and look around. From google earth the area is very volcanic as is most of the desert and other minerals have been mined as well from what I’ve read, zink, copper, silver other than gold. I’ve been researching the diggins , land matters and my n Nevada mines guide, Anyone have a any idea about the detectable nature of gold from that part of N Nevada?

Nice indicator in the middle?.

I hunted all the amra claims a couple of years ago with my detector and had exactly the same results as you, I covered as much ground as possible trying to understand the terrain and the gold indicators. Same thing with the other two clubs I belong to and the areas I explored off on my own. 6 months into nugget hunting I managed to score my first nugget a one 1/2g rye patch beauty wandering with that same style. Luckily a friend gave me a little help confirming an area I’d previously been skunked on several times was an old hunted patch and my confidence in the area changed, as did my approach. I slowed down and stayed put and eventually found another little piece, then another. Wandering will hit the random nugget, but it’s tough because most of the easy spots have been hit so hard and so much depends on which foot to follow, the easy ones are gone. Trash is good if you can have confidence that detectable gold was found in the area you are hunting, If I went back out to any of the AMRA claims I’d grid a small spot clean it out and move over to the next grid until I started to skip targets then take a break until I could go back and dig all targets and think I’d have a higher chance of success really slowing down and finding confidence in one spot.

Rick, will do and thank you for offering I’d love to hook up for a little hunt next time out.

Rick, I was out at rye patch only on Friday and hunted the usual haunts, I didn’t want to accidentally get off into someone’s claim, so the pickings were slim. I was just going really slow and careful, been watching ol two toes grid on his desert spot watching his tube channel an tried as best to slow myself down and really search, trouble is I’ve the attention span of a chimp on a free roll at “toys-r-us,” no disrespect to chimpanzee intended. I did manage to find some really small old deep trash and I’m sure something I wanted was probably near...just should have followed the other foot I guess? My desert rock has now transformed into a Scholars Stone, all I need to do now is sell it to pay for my next trip out?

Believe me, I spent a great amount of my time thinking to myself “where would Rick go?” instead I went to everyplace Rick has been, lol. Sunday was real windy and the place I finally scored my little trophies had the hottest rocks in town, all black and sparkles inside to use the technical terms I think? Anyway it was tough and I’m sure a couple awaite if I can crack the code and hit on the right conditions and right settings. as far as the rock stuff and I’m very much the beginner, struggling to make any connection to the geology as it relates to my quest, cinnabar I think (complete idiots guess) based on the color and pictures although I didn’t find any free mercury my friend google says you do and you don’t, so I collect rocks to bring home cause if I was finding gold I’d have better things to do, don’t I wish (insert wishful smiley face here). Here’s two other small not gold (sad) rocks the shinny one actually looks more like a jasper?

...back in the early beepin days, sure wish I’d had the bug back then. Returned yesterday from wandering the sage and gravel of northern Nevada and happy to come home with wonderful memories and just a few hard fought little pieces of sunshine found the last two day of hunting. First 3 days hunted the usual spots with only tiny bits of rust and lead, some faint deep signals I thought sure were gold only to disappoint me. Finally near the end of the 4th day of hunting I drove off looking for some old small workings off the beaten path and after stopping to check and interesting spot was rewarded with a few small pieces for a total of a little over 2 grams. Also stumbled on some cinnabar float and some of it had tiny blood red clear crystals on the surface, eventually found what looks to be the outcrop it came from and dug around it a little just to see if any crystals might be obvious in the surrounding soil. Didn’t see any and not really sure what I’d be looking for or where crystals would tend to form within the structure? Found another interesting piece in a completely different location and kept it for yard art, according to everything I can find about cinnabar it should not be a toxic hazard as long as hands are washed before eating food if the material has been reciently handled?

Everything here is on topic, relevant and helpful, so not to worry I’m thankful for all comments as I am trying to figure things out myself and this post is question as much as comment and all are welcome.

This trip my settings were; sen - 6 to 8 vol 6 highyeild difficult audio smoothing off ground balance semi auto find patch threashold 26 anything seem off kilter? On the sP01 I was in stereo using my Bose ear buds, mostly filter (mode) 1 and filter 2 And i also tried filter 3 it felt a bit muffled in the sound quality for my hearing so I didn’t use it very much, could be I didn’t need that setting in the soil I was hunting. I started low on the sP01 volume but pushed it up around 3/4 volume and felt that was tolerable, by the end of the trip I dropped the volume down a little.

I don’t have any idea the magic, could have been any number of reasons this trip I didn’t dig any ghost signals every hole produced a target. One time I thought the signal was disappearing mineralization, but spotted a thin short strand of rusted wire adhering to the magnet on the end of my pick. I did wonder if I was missing anything but never hunted this time without the sP01 and can’t offer any comparison with/without however I was finding every bit I expected so I rationalized I should trust the equipment? The area I was hunting has been hit hard and I picked up small bits of old trash in spots where the junk is gone, hard to know much about what you don’t find? I did only use mine for 4 days and am not comparing the equipment to any other because I can’t, but so far I really liked using it with my GPZ and am looking forward to getting up into northern Nevada soon and try it out on the salty ground of the desert.

Yes I do, I’ve never used any type of booster before but a couple of things changed my mind. First was a post by Scott about buying his and that got me thinking and put the thing on my radar, second my youngest got me playing a little “Pubg” on Xbox an increadibly immersive battle royal not for the faint of heart and I upgraded my ear buds to a boosted audio enhanced gaming headset looking for some advantage against my opponent and the difference in the gameplay was profound over using the Bose earbuds, so I thought hmmm perhaps I should reconsider with the 7000. I was a preorder with the gpz and never swung the gpx and have become comfortable with the chatty zed, that and the fact I paid an ungodly sum for that piece of kit (lol yes, kit... I like my zed) and kind of felt it should have pretty darn good audio on its own, that and it has no trouble finding tiny tiny trash and gold so I’ve resisted. I am a convert and now realize my folly and regret not getting a signal booster years ago as it made a difference for me. Battery life was also good, I started day one with fully charged batteries in the 7000 and the sP01 and halfway into the second day my battery indicator on the gpz changed color with one bar so I quit for lunch. I put the batteries on chargers, the sP01 was full charge hooked to a small old iPhone usb charger in under 45 minutes, I’m guessing in the day and a half I used less than half the available battery life. Rained the day before my trip and conditions in the gold fields were less than ideal with the soil spotty damp going down a couple of inches and an abundance of hot rocks as well. I’d read the links you posted and kept my settings conservative on the advice of others, the tips were right on and my detector was as stable as it has ever run filtering the chatter and tightening targets so I spent less time going back and forth scraping the ground and kicking hot rocks. The end result it was nice to get a little bit of color, but really the big advantage for me was in the increased ground I covered and not being as fatigued mentally filtering by ear, physically was another story... a lot of those little rusted chunks I was hitting were fairly deep the cramps in my arms a painful reminder I’d befrinded my prospecting pick far too long. No, you’ve too much gold now, lol. Really, I doubt you’ll regret, I waited for a lot of reasons that turned out not to be issues.

I haven’t been able to get away and hunt very much this year due to various reasons and last week I finally found a little free time so I headed to the hills for a few days of hanging out with Zed. In anticipation of getting away for a hunt I called Rob and had him send me one of those new SteelPHASE enhancer/filter’s and wow fastest shipping I’ve ever experienced, Rob must have jumped on a plane and stuffed it in my mail box, or could have just been overnight shipping anyway it was really fast. Gold was very scarce nails, tiny bits of rust, tacks and bird shot were a plenty the tiny piece of gold weighing in at a whopping 1.95 grains I did find this trip gave a clear indication down under around 3” of forrest mulch and soil, this is the smallest bit of gold I’ve found with the 7000 to date. I’d attribute finding this piece to the sP01 it made the zed a little more stable and tightened up the target response it was easier to tell the difference between ground noise and targets and I was digging some deep small bits of rusty nail and other itsy bits of trash. The sP01 was comfortable to carry too, I was a little concerned about adding another gadget to the mix with more cables to get in the way and after getting my enhancer I was thinking the cable used for connecting to the wm12 might be a little long. Wrong, everything was perfect and if not for the fact my detector was running great I could forget anything was different in my setup. With the sP01 clipped to my zed harness on the head phone shoulder side and the wm12 on the other shoulder the cable ran perfectly over the wm12 shoulder around my back and under the arm on the sP01 side. Once plugged in the cable never hung up or got in my way was comfortable, really great product engineering. I also bought a SpotX satellite device, so many (most) of the remote areas we go into alone have no cell service and help is a long way off. In short it’s good, but not great an evolving technology. In a nutshell it works although on its own schedule at least with non-emergency texts, most of mine were sent, some did not and I think there are limitations on how soon one text can be sent after another I’m still figuring the little quirks out something with traffic limitations and the system needing to reset...but, don’t ask cause I don’t know. The service has nine different rates based on 3 different plans, a basic, advanced and an unlimited service ranging from around $14 a month to $40 a month for the unlimited flex plan. The basic plan monthly payments gets you 12 texts a month, the advanced plan get you 100 texts a month plus more frequent satalite access and unlimited is well... the three tiers are repeated except when you pay the year up front you get all your available text limit for the year and they all are good for the entire year plus it’s a couple bucks cheaper, the three levels are again repeated as flex, this has slightly higher rates and no one year commitment you can start/stop as it fits all the plans come with an $100 activation fee. I chose the advanced with 1200 texts for the year. I also added rescue insurance, roadside assistance and replacement insurance for an additional $85, the rescue insurance provides $100K/$50K per occurrence, roadside 50miles towing free, off road ok and winching service available at the push of a button that also sends the tow service your gps and a map with your location pinpointed, you can also send the gps data and map with a text. All in all The device, tax, fee and service for the year set me back roughly $750, cheap insurance I think. There are also other tracking and social networking features, it’s actually a great device and gave me some comfort knowing if I needed I could get help and also it was great being able to send my wife a note and let her know everything was good.

Ahhh, very good you have only been on break working on other things and life finds you well, been a definite void here as I don’t think I’ve found any gold since your last post. And I do enjoy reading your insightful commentary, welcome back.

I remember reading someplace while out of boredom following the worm hole of google that Worms, the first factor you note like soil with certain surrounding foliage and hate others, I think they noted oaks result in acidic soil and have less worm activity and therefore slower sink rates. Up in the poor soil of the high Sierra I don't dig many worms, same thing out in the desert and man made objects seem on average to stay shallow with the exception of man made activity burying them and the occasional localized geologic event.