CPT_GhostLight

Thanks for the info, Zincoln. I have been wondering if the Hotel was owned by the Railroad, specially because the AT&SF tracks were laid in 1858 and the SF Hotel was likely built soon after, so it would have been standing during the building of the AT&SF Depot across the street.

That's some multitasking right there! 😆 It should work fine. Both audio sources would merge into the aftermarket headphones and you could control the audio levels from each device.

Great review Lodge Scent! I haven't used Sensitive Full Tones and need to give that a try. I too use PWM Full tones with Fast and Deep HC and also have a Fast program with Pitch in PWM to check signals and for cherry picking. I've been tuning my ear using Full Tones and PWM audio lately because I feel I can hear more target information than with Square audio. I love the sound of Square, but I feel it rounds off the edges, so to speak, and makes many bad targets sound good. PWM audio, or as a friend calls it "that dying duck sqawk" 🤣 , makes it easier for me to hear subtle differences in target types. I have been keeping information on finds lately tying to catagorize differences in good targets and bad targets with similar VDIs to verify if I am really hearing differences well enough. Here is an example showing the VDI of two rings I recently found and the similar sized trash targets in the vicinity of the rings. In both of these hunts I was able to hear the differences in the good vs bad targets with PWM Full Tones and to some extent also in PWM Pitch Tones.

If they haven't detected before, you might want to consider something less complicated to start with or they may just get frustrated and stop detecting. The Vanquish 540 is an excellent starter machine and can hold it's own with more complicated and expensive machines. When I got back into detecting, I started with the Equinox 800 and it was perfect for me. Simple to start out without the overly complicated menus and constant software fixes, but with the advanced capabilities they want when they get more advanced. It excels in all hunting scenarios and great on beaches, ghost towns, and goldfields. And it now comes with 6" coil for nugget shooting and relic hunting, as well as the 11" coil, wireless headphones and the wireless module that allows any wired headphones to be used wirelessly. And you can pair many Low Latency Bluetooth headphones and earbuds to it. It's the industry gold standard multi-use machine and forced the whole Simultaneous Multi-Frequency craze. It was one of the best buys I ever made. JMHO

Congrats on the Rosie and silver jewelry! I think the 1 & 2 pennies are Canadian. It looks like you got an older button too and that compact is very cool! Well done!

I have also heard about restriction on metal detecting in the Bahamas. I'm sure one of our beach hunters will chime in about that. I'm a big fan of Florida beaches. My wife prefers calmer waters and white sands of the gulf cost, like Destin, Siesta Key, Sanibel Island. I, myself, prefer the Treasure Coast for some reason. 😉

That's what I learned the hard way. 😏 But Steve H's article opened my eyes and it's really making a difference for me. For anyone that has not read this, I think it should be included in all detector manuals.

Yes, GB, jewelers generally set real gem stones in an open back setting to allow light to pass through the stone. This allows more natural refraction and make the stone appear more brilliant, specially clear faceted stones like diamond, rubies, emeralds, etc, but also, to a lesser extent, less opaque stones. Artificial stones, specially faceted stones, do not refract light as well as natural stones so a reflective backing is required to simulate the sparkle of real stones.

I'd say great hunt, Zincoln, well done and congrats!

Yes the stone is open backed. I'm going to clean the ring up a bit more and get the dirt out of the back so I can test the stone.

Thanks, GB, yes I also confirmed that the address of that block remained the same over time so that is the likely location where the hotel stood. I have a friend in my detecting club who has a vintage bookstore and he has old business registries going back to the early days of the town and he's going to try to find more details on the Santa Fe Hotel for me. It's funny that you asked about the VDI because I've been recording those recently to compare with trash targets and am getting some interesting results. Here are the Deus 2 VDIs I got on the ring and similar trash targets on that day: I don't know if the ding on the back affected the VDI or not. The ring is not separated, but it is light, 1.47 grams.

Thanks F350 and VL, I've been trying to figure out the stone. It's kind of a bluish-grey stone and reacts to strong light like a star sapphire or tiger eye. I'll have to wait until we get a sunny day to find out for sure. Natural star sapphires only make the star in natural sunlight.

XP did just release a new shorter antenna wire in black so I think they got the message. 😉

A few days ago I went to a park in a different part of town to test the ground since parks closer to home are still pretty frozen. It was a really nice day, sunny and almost warm, and I had high hopes since this park has huge sports flields and playgrounds. The fields were still largely frozen but I could see there were small holes everywhere from the parks department aerators. I figured that could be a good sign and maybe that would make the ground thaw quicker. I had been there but about an hour when the park started filling up with people, a lot of people. I wasn't finding much anyway and really just wanted to see how the ground was, so I started working my way back to the car when a got a signal that had a typical ring pull number but it sounded just a little too good so decided to check it out. When I peeled open the small hole I made I saw a greyish curved edge and thought, "Yep, it's a ring pull", but I was wrong. I could see a weird looking part where the tab would be and it had a stone on it. "Holy cow, it's a ring!"' I thought, "but is it real?" Turns out it was .925 silver with a stone of some kind. It looks like the aerator tagged it on the back part, but it's still intact and still silver. Well I figured that made my day and it was time to beat a hasty retreat while more people were piling in. As I worked my way out of the field, I moved into a scrub area near a dirt trail leading off to a creek from the parking lot. I poked around the scrub a little while finding some nails and bits of iron when I hit what I thought was a dime signal. I dug down about 4-5 inches and found a square hunk of metal covered in dirt and mud laying on a rock layer. Well it wasn't a dime so I through it in the junk pouch and called it a day. When I got home and verified the ring was silver, I started going through the trash and got to the square thing. It had some weight to it and as I started to brush it off, an oblong hole appeared. I could start to make out some lettering and figured it is probably a dog license since there was a dog park not too far from where I was hunting. When I finally got it cleaned off I could see it had Santa Fe Hotel , the number 11, and 529 E.PP on it. It was a hotel key fob, and it looked older too. There hasn't been a Santa Fe Hotel in town for as far back as I can remember. I started doing some research and located the probable location of the hotel which has a bank building on the site now, but on 1800s maps of the city it was a large lot with a large building on it on the eastern edge of town and was directly across from the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad depot. That building is gone in maps of the early 1900s and with the help of some of my detecting club members, we have narrowed the date of the key fob down to 1880-1890s. So there you have it. You just never know what you will find in the most unlikely places. And always check your trash, it could be something good, and strangely enough this has happened to me a few times lately.

That's truly a thing of beauty!

Very cool find! Rolex watches are very heavy so the main part is probably way deeper. Well done!

Wow, that cleaned up beautifully! Congrats on the silver, well done!

I know, I get it. I look forward to what's coming up too. Maybe it would be cool to just throw the updates out there to everyone like another company does and let us all beta-test it. It would probably greatly accelerate the bug reports and fixes and as long as we could roll back to the last good working version, I'd be fine with that. Just a thought. 😏

Thanks Doc, but in essence I am pretty much a beginner again. When I first tried detecting, I didn't take the time to learn the machine or the craft and pretty much gave it up while raising the kids and pusuing other interests. Flash forward to my semi-retirement a couple of years ago and I decided to get back into detecting for real this time, so yes, I'm really just still learning and need all the advice I can get. 😏

Wow, sohN, you and that GPX = Beast Mode evey time! You are a digging machine! Congrats on the silver and amethyst, now go put some IcyHot on that back and get ready to do it again. My back hurts just thinking about digging all those holes! 🤣

I've said it before, the update will come when it's ready. Until then I'm enjoying the hell out of my D2, quirks and all. Even when the update comes out there will still be quirks. All detectors have quirks. Even if there was a perfect detector, it wouldn't be perfect for all detectorists in all places. That's just the nature of the machines and the hobby. Meanwhile, if ya'll will excuse me, I'm going to go out and find stuff with my D2. 😎

Congrats on the gold and silver, great job!

Thank Doc! I will dig that big iron! One of my first detecting finds when I tried detecting 40 years ago happened when we were out gold panning and I decided to try out my brand new Fisher Gold Bug while poking around in a dilapidated old cabin frame near the creek. I got a huge hit in the corner of the timbers and just new I hit a chest full of gold nuggets. It turned out to be the door to an old iron potbelly stove, but as I pulled up the door, underneath was an intact small Kuhn's Remedy Co. bottle (circa 1880s) with the cork stopper still in it. It's sits on my desk as a reminder to check always everything! 😉

Here's a good thread showing a couple of different mods for the simplex carbon lower shaft. Personally, I just removed the rubber stopper in the top of the shaft and sanded the sides of the part that fits into the coil. I also put a thin round plastic shim (with a hole drilled in it) on one side of the shaft hole and the stock simplex rubber washer on the other side. That's it and it works great.

Thanks, F350! I was wondering what that hub looking thing was. It was in the vacinity of the license plate. German Neusilber was common and cheaper back in the day. My grandpa used to call it "Near Sliver". 😆 Yeah that Face Cream lid made me do a double take too! 🤣