mn90403

I think 'official' is the key word here. Where would it be applied? I've mostly assumed that all of the meteorites listed on the MetBull are just one of many possible. If you look at that map and you go to a fall then that is a good place to find more. There could be a strewn field and many more meteorites were found but not reported. Take Jungo Dry Lake or many of the other dry lakes. They have named meteorites found on them. Then other people come along and find more, and some are slightly different names because the composition of their meteorite is different than the first named fall and so on. I was with Twink one hunt in Franconia, and she found a chondrite and thought it was different. She submitted it and it was not the same as the other irons and chondrites in the Franconia Strewn Field. Her meteorite has a different name, and she is listed as the discoverer. In order to get her chondrite listed she had to have to exact GPS location. The official name is based upon that location, but she is the discoverer. You could suggest a name based upon map names already in existence but it's not like naming a new organism or star! haha

Did you look at the map to see if meteorites have been found and named from the area?

Steve, That is as good as it gets. I'm not a 6000 owner or want-a-be but I feel your pain. It certainly shouldn't be on you for it or any other detector you review and help the developers recommend. You simply want them to be the best they can be at whatever they do. Mitchel

I made a display of finds of the month. These were all found with the Equinox 800/15 inch coil. I wonder what I'll find with an Axiom? The rings and finds are placed on sandstones with fossils in them.

Hellscript Have you found gold on this beach with other detectors? If you have, I'm certain if you use the settings you stated you will find gold with the Equinox. I noticed from your picture that you only worked 'the bottom' of 'the hill.' When I zigzag a beach, I go most often up and down until I find a line and then I slow down and connect the dig holes or circle a find to see how far up and down my little patch will go. As was suggested, the beach orientation is important based upon the most recent waves and tides. I don't go back to some beaches if they don't produce and will go to a better beach if I have the time.

Let me answer that for him. Everything from Santa Monica/Malibu to Santa Barbara! hahaha

That is a great story. Many of our 'finds' have stories waiting to be told but we don't get the details. I once found an MIT ring and tracked down the owner. It had a long story with it too but in the end, I returned it to a guy who didn't even say thank you. Yours is a much better ending. Job well done.

I very, very rarely use the shoe. I want to hear everything as clearly as possible. I do see other people on their videos on the beach and they never hunt with the shoe off. I always wonder what they miss, and I'd like to go back behind them and see.

I went back the next night and broke my gold drought with a .6g stud less earring.

I use nearly the identical settings and also with the 15" coil. For years I went without using any F or F2 but I've seen my beaches get a little bit ratty with black sand lately and I'll adjust it to as much as 6 on the F2. In previous years and hunts I recognized the near 0 and below readings would sometimes be a good target including gold. Simon and I have mentioned it in threads before. I normally take the iron volume from 5 (default) up to 10 or maybe 12 so that I don't miss that type of iffy. Somewhere on depth and metal type there is a possibility I could miss something like you found. As far as size goes, I went out the second night where I had found my 5 rings and there was almost nothing, but I did get a 'little' 9 which always makes us stop and interrogate the source. I couldn't get it in the scoop, so I had to spread it out on the sand, and I finally found this little stud missing earring. By its weight I could tell it was gold.

These photos are some I've never seen. Enjoy and tell us of your Alaska experiences. Photos show the race for Alaska's gold over 120 years ago (msn.com)

There are different types of energy. Wind, waves and tide affect my beaches. If you add in directions, then you can end up with vortexes that cause patches. You just have to find them. This year has seemingly been more of a challenge because the sand movement is out of whack. I think the good stuff has remained farther out in the surf and it is deeper because there have been fewer event enhancements to the wave/shore lines.

People will pay for results. Detectors keep evolving. If you can find 'virgin' or less detected ground, you don't need the latest and greatest. If you are going back over ground that has been detected several times (let's say by a Gold Bug Pro), then you are going to need something that goes deeper than that detector or something that finds smaller gold. You can also consider the use of a multi-frequency which would be an enhancement over the older technology. With computers on chips the amount of computing horsepower is great. Signal processing and enhancement improve just as space telescopes have improved. After the pandemic the problem may not be the programs but obtaining the hardware to make these intelligent ideas happen.

My style of hunting is always enhanced when wave energy is right. Last night there was a reasonable amount of energy that washed coins ($6) and rings (5) up and also washed some of the sand from the blanket line down. This is what happens when you get a 'cut' on the beach. I've had much better hunts and I'm still on a gold drought, but the chain and silver ring are pretty nice. There is an unusual black ring with gold lettering that I can't recognize. Does anyone have any ideas?

I'll certainly will want to see more beach videos than this one.

I've read this thread with interest and wonder about warranty. How many of us have had warranty returns to Minelab at MINELAB expense over a range of their detectors. There are broken parts on the Equinox. EMI issues with the 6000. Broken coil ears, etc, etc. I wonder how much of a drain on profits it is for the warranty servicing? Could Garrett be building into the price some returns and repairs? Some place there has to be a budget for this. When shipping was 'cheap' just a few short months ago or at most a year then you could operate with just-in-time warranty repair and get parts from Garland, Texas for instance and get the detector back to the owner in a relatively short time. Hopefully Garrett would not have the 'go backs to the shop' problems but maybe some of the additional cost for Australia would be funding the warranty repair facility as insurance. I know it should be built into the basic price but things are different for Garrett trying to open up the Australian market more. Where is the repair facility in Australia?

Based upon what you showed in the video I would think you could balance out the ground and still hear meteorites in a place like Gold Basin. Do you think you would be able to balance out the ground, then balance out the hot rocks at Franconia and still find meteorites?

That looks like an early version of Lunk!

Ok, I've got enough time to respond and give my thoughts on 'Gerry's Answer' to my question. His very basic answer is this: I'll say this. The Axiom can find a variety of gold nuggets the $3400 SDC-2300 can not. It can do things performance wise and ergonomically that a $4000 GPX-5000 can not. It can find gold and ignore rocks/minerals a $6000 GPX-6000 can not. It can even do some things and find gold in situations a $8500 GPZ-7000 can not. Now to be fair (life is not fair), those machines can do things the Axiom can not. Heck, the new improved 24K can find gold none of the above mention can find. That's a fact. When you take Gerry's training everyone gets a chance to test his observations above with their own detector. Air testing targets on these different detectors proved to me that gold is missed no matter how many times you go over it or at what speed. I have to assume from those observations that the same thing would happen if the gold were in the ground. This is an objective test demonstrating a detector's strengths and weaknesses. When Gerry says the Axiom will find gold the others will not find then I know what he means. Gerry has shown us all of the additional gold that a 6000 has found in the Rye Patch area. Last year when it came out many of his students went to a patch around the Burn Barrel that was first discovered by Sonny Baird probably in the late 70s. Everyone has hit that area including me and found gold. It was a fact that it was very, very hard to find gold there in the last few years. Gerry and his students lit that place up again with the 6000. I consider that to be objective. Will it happen with the Axiom? Someone will tell us I hope. Much of the trash is gone and some of the clues but I'm sure it will be one of the places to first try the Axiom. There is another way of being objective in using a detector and that is with a test garden. If I want to know or a dealer wants to know how a detector performs then test it on standard buried objects. It allows someone to test their detector and coil against a standard. You either hear the target or not hear the target. That would include hearing iffy signals. My experience with test gardens is rather limited but useful. I know of a garden in Gold Basin made by Dick Ward. I went to one in Australia put in place by Coiltek in Maryborough (they test their coils on it) and I made one to test my AQ that was on the beach. Each of these gardens let me hear a signal (or not) based on size, depth and a bit of quality. Results are obvious to the user but it places objective limits on our detector's ability. You can always bury something out of range of most detectors. My AQ garden on the beach proved to me that the detector was defective, and I returned it never to use again. I was not able to hear all of the targets in Gold Basin with my 5000 because they were buried too deep in some cases and my settings were wrong in other cases. My 7000 handles it pretty good. We all have seen the VLF tests on gardens between the 800 and ... So, after all of this thought about the new detector and it coming from different engineers and testers, I believe it will have a place in my toolbox. I still just need to find time and the places to use it. There seems to be less of both.

I had to leave and go play a game of billiards. I'll put something together and tell you how his explanation that I linked answers my question. Now it is off to dragon boat races and maybe a meteor shower tonight.

If you haven't taken Gerry's training, then you don't know how well his answer fits my question.

I have. I'm glad I did.

I found an answer to my question(s):

Gerry, I think this is a complete answer and you could just drop this link into an answer to my question. You could use it often for other's questions too. Thanks for using the options and giving your thoughts. Mitchel

I wasn't trying to be challenging but trying to get an idea of the best strength of the detector. You obviously have found some very good nuggets with it. I would say that it may 'excel' at that type of gold. Obviously, it has been stated that ground and hot rocks are reduced in significance. That is probably enough for any detector release, but I was also interested in its 'gold type' strengths. It helps determine where it can be used. The nuggets that Steve found could be a challenge to some detectors also. They were not invisible to the Axiom. When Chris puts up his videos and shows his nuggets, I imagine it will show nuggets missed by other detectors also. You trained me on the reality that PIs will miss certain types of nuggets. That was the purpose of my question. Even though it handles the beaches well, I don't think you are going to be using it at the resorts much where you dive. That is ok because no detector can do everything.