CPT_GhostLight

I have that lock doodad too but still have the tether on as well... I know trust issues... 😆 I did an Amazon search for short quick release tether and came up with some usable alternatives. I'm looking at this one as a heavier duty tether. Supposedly rated to 44 lbs so I think it might be a little stronger. Amazon Quick Release Tether

Great finds Erik! I agree with Kodiak, that's a crimped blank training round, probably .50 caliber. I've never seen a crimped blank cartridge that large before, cool find!

Dang, KOB, that's a drop the mic kind of day, congrats!

Well done again, Compass, congrats on the gold and silver!

There are a few beaches that use dredges to suck in ocean sand. Those could definitely be good places to detect. But unfortunately, they truck in most of the sand which is light and fluffy stuff with nothing in it. It's also not good for the sea turtles who lay their eggs in the fluff thinking is a safe place. I've seen photos after a few storms on "renourished" beaches that was littered with thousands of eggs all over the place from hundreds of destroyed nests. I've also heard from local beach fishermen who said all the extra sand was killing the reefs off shore where the bait fish live and fishing was getting worse because of it. I think the only folks who actually like the renourishment projects (besides the contractors who do it) are the beach resorts and B&B owners who want to attract the summer tourists (which is understandable), and probably the beach home owners who want to keep their houses from sliding into the ocean, but how well does that well does that actually work? 🙄

Just FYI, after doing a little research, I believe the XP stock antenna wire is RG179. The only practical differences between RG179 and RG174 are the following: RG174 typically has 50 Ohm resistance with copper clad steel conductor and copper braid shield, RG179 typically has 75 Ohm resistance with a silver coated copper clad steel conductor and silver coated copper braid shield. RF performance is practically identical, specially in the XP application, however there may be an EMI shielding advantage to RG179, but underwater that is negated. As a side note, the brownish black discoloration of the antenna wire reported by some beach hunters may be tarnishing of the silver coated shield wire caused by seepage of salt water, which over time would probably lead to corrosion and breakage.

Yep, the center wire is the RF conductor. The outer wire sheilds against EMI interference. I hope you don't mind that I post this here, Greg, but there's some useful info in this video showing Gigmaster doing his version of transmitter wire replacements that may help others interested in doing these kind of mods.

Congrats on the gold, mn90403! It looks like both beaches were producing, and congrats on the Imperial Starcruiser too!

That looks like a good time to me, well done and congrats on the silver ring! I love the Melborne area, but the last time we were there the "renourishment" sand was so deep that we sank up to our knees and targets were scarcer than hen's teeth. 😎

Very cool finds again, F350, well done! The bottles are cool too! I'm with GaryC on hitting the dump site. Some amazing things can be hidden there. It looks like your custom program is working very well.

That is absolutely brilliant! The antenna wire does just need to be above the waterline to work. It only has to touch the remote for diving. Well done, parkgt!

My D2 is running just fine. I have notice the clock issue from time to time, but I just check it with my phone's clock before I start detecting and if it's off I just do a quick clock adjust on the D2 and off I go. I really don't care about the clock when I'm out detecting. I don't care about the Go Terrain app, specially if it's a subscription service. How many people actually used the CTX-3030 version of that? There are better, cheaper phone apps out there. My ground balance seems to be working fine as well. I too do have to pump it a little more, but whatever, that doesn't bother me. So far, my D2 is performing well and I have way less EMI issues than with my Nox. So XP, by all means, take your time and get the update right. I'd much rather have a fully tested and working update that doesn't undo the progress made so far, than to have to be a beta tester for new updates every other month. Meanwhile, I don't mind working around the kinks. There are no perfect products, everything has kinks. It's my job as a consumer to adapt and overcome. 😉

What a great story and congrats on recovering a family heirloom, well done!

Thanks, deathray, you be careful too. I'm just glad they let us go. At a different time that could have had a very different outcome and nobody would have ever found us.

Sweet mother of gold, that's a great haul, congrats and well done!

Okay, now that I've set the bar and expectations low enough, here's the tales from one of my latest relic hunts. Our journey begins on a rare warm-up day between the on and off snow storms that is this years Colorado Winter. I get a call from one of my hunting partners who says we should go out before the next snow. Well I'm absolutely on board for that and ask where we're going. He says it's a surprize but bring a shotgun. WTF???!!! Then he says he was just kidding, sort of. ????!! 😵 So I pick him up the next morning and we head South. Well this is good because the further South, the less frozen the ground. I then get told that we're going exploring and there were a few places he had always wanted to check out that may have some hidden history. Well that sounded all good so down the road we went. The first stop was literally in the middle of nowhere with nothing but and old Mongomery Wards mailbox barely hanging on a wooden post and near two trees. I asked if he had some historical context about this location and my partner said, "No, I just noticed these trees just look out of place." Nkay, so we gear up and start poking around in the waist high weeds and cactus for an hour or so. It was hard to get in anywhere to swing the coil and at one point I just cranked up the sensitivity to 99 and just swung over the tops of the weeds. We managed find only a few old can pieces but nothing else. So on to the next location. The second location looked more promising. It had a stone chimney and a few standing buildings. I call them buildings, but I'm pretty sure they were livestock stables at one time. There weren't any no tresspassing signs and the fence along the road was long downed so we geared up again and hit the field. We weren't finding much new or old just some iron trash, so I moseyed on over to check out the "buildings". As I got closer, I actually hit two modern zinc pennies about six feet apart. What??? Those things follow me everywhere! 😐 I was just getting nails, wire, and similar iron junk and decided to check inside the shacks. This is when things took a turn to the darkside and I was wishing I had brought a shotgun with me! The insides of the shacks were strewn with empty plastic water bottles, modern food cans, dirty sleeping bags and matresses, articles of modern men's, women's, and children's clothing, toys, empty travel bags, and a bunch of used syringes everywhere. There were also a half a dozen recently fired .45 caliber pistol cartridges on the ground in one of the shacks. As I went out to find my partner to tell him what I found, I noticed two large black SUVs parked about a quarter mile away on each end of the dirt road that led into the area. "Oh SH**!", I thought. We were obviously being watched. I found my partner and told him what I found and pointed out the SUVs. I said,"what do you want to do?" He said, "Let's get the F*** out of here!" So we nonchalantly packed up the gear and calmly rolled on down the road past one of the SUVs. As we made it to the exit road there was a parked black car with two guys sitting in it. As we turned to drive off, the driver in the black car flashed us the peace sign and my partner flashed it back which I assumed meant we could go. We cruised on down the road and nobody followed us, but I'm pretty sure we had stumbled upon a stop on the Coyote Super Highway! 😱 After a little while, my partner said he had one more place nearby if I wanted to check it out. I thought about it a while and decided it couldn't be any worse than where we just were... or could it? The next place, thankfully, was a place that many people he knew had hunted before and often, so I figured it might be a little safer even if it was pretty much picked over. This was an old train depot that had operated from the end of the 1800s to about 1955 and then was levelled in the 1960s. With a sigh of relief, we geared up once more went detecting, although I looked up every now and then to see if there were any SUVs around. Well the place was very picked over but there were still some interesting finds. The only coin I found was a 1960 copper Memorial penny, but I did find some older buttons, some railroad spikes (I love those for some reason), a couple of old electical wire insulators, and a Rockford A1 silver plated spoon (circa 1882-1925). I also found something that has me completely confounded. It's the "greyhound" shaped object. It is non-magnetic metal and rang up 69-72 on the D2. It looks like and is heavy like lead. It is old and cracked and on the broken end it's black and crytaline looking inside. I was wondering if it was a tree root that somehow got covered with molten lead or something. I can't figure this one out. Well long story short, be careful out there when exploring off the beaten path. You never know what or who you will run into. Thanks for taking the time to read all this. 😎

Copy that, Chase, thanks! I'm actually gelling well with PWM audio. The reason I said force myself to learn PWM is because coming from the Nox, Square audio was my comfort zone, but I do feel like I'm getting more info from the PWM squeaks and squawks the more I use it, and I want to learn everything I can about the D2 platform inside and out. 🙂

Thanks for the heads-up, I appreciate that! I'll dial that in from the test garden before I take it out in the wild. 😉

I for one would very much like to see that!

I can relate. I switched to PWM audio in Pitch Tones for the my modified Silver Slayer and Deep HC programs to force myself to learn the nuances and differences from Square audio, and I have to say I like it. I also have a modified Fast program in Full Tones with PWM audio and I like that too. I was at an extremely trashy relic site the other day and was using SS Modded program with Pitch tones and Square audio but after a few hours it was beating my ears up, so I switched to my Fast Full Tones with PWM audio and it was much easier to listen to the constant barage of multiple non-ferrous targets tones under the coil. Lordy, where is that D2 10x5" coil when you need it? 😏 I will have to give Square Full Tones another go to see if I can jive with it. Maybe I can test Full Tones Square vs PWM audio the next trip back to Hell's Half Acre, where iron mixed with aluminum and lead is the soil. 😱

Nice haul, strick, congrats and well done! Man those are some torn up beaches, that's wild!

Well congrats, again, F350! Cool relics and coppers and silver to boot! Another great run. 😎 I ran the SS at a relic site a couple of days ago and ended up switching to Full Tones. More on that later.

You're correct. He does mention that he's using Sensitive FT but with modified tweaks and that he may post the settings latter after he gets them "sorted out". This may indeed be the update being tested. I've been running Pitch and Full Tones in PWM audio lately and I'm really liking it.

Great ring find, mn90403, well done! Gold with diamonds is a great day!

Gary showing a real hunt Sensitive Full Tones, but with PWM audio. Enjoy!