mn90403

I went back to the location of the 'deep nugget' on Saturday afternoon and I got a skunk this time. I did get a snake sighting and that was time for me to leave. Tomorrow I'll go find some meteorites at Franconia. It is a 300 mile trip of about 5 hours or so. I'll hang around for a night and try to find a nugget if it is not too hot. This is a 2-3 day cool spell so I have to fit it in quickly.

It took about 2 weeks for the coil to enter the country in New York and then it took about 4 days once through customs. It had a tracking number as good as any FedX number as I've ever had.

It seems that a big drone was used to collect some gold from Russia to China. Maybe a smaller drone would not have been detected. China busts gang that uses drone to smuggle gold-Xinhua (news.cn)

There are a couple of cool days to be had in Franconia. I'm going in a few hours. It is a 300 mile drive for me. Look for a white SUV. I'll stay overnight and probably look for gold on day 2. We'll see about a second night.

So Minelab thinks it can have a go without the distributor. They will have to have some other type of wherehousing of product to pull that off and develop dealer relationships which they are fraying in the United States.

I have a 3030 also but it has not been used in several months. What beaches do you go to?

Thank you Dave.

In my travels which I did a considerable amount of from 2011-18, I consider parts of Nevada the most remote overall. I've chased gold, meteorites and rocks with a moderate success at each once I got the hang of it. I couldn't get to the most remote places that you are looking at because I didn't do it full time. I also didn't have the real remote equipment like a quad or the new electric bikes. I'd get to a place after driving all night and do a lot of walking. That is what I enjoyed. As Rye Patch has played out over the years and most 'remote' locations have been visited I started researching Northeastern Nevada. I took one trip there and knew I was 'out of my league' because of its vastness. I'm going to give you the pointy finger there. Many of those areas have been claimed by the big mining companies after the trends. I heard about a guy who is able to detect on their lands that does quite well. He's been at it for years. I knew a geologist who sent me to some central Nevada mountains. It didn't work out for me but maybe for you. When you are in Arizona, I'd have a face to face with Clay. You can only do so much here on Steve's forum or the internet. Good luck. Mitchel

The Spiral will be good for certain brushy areas and maybe more so this summer after all the rain. I just think this will be a really good coil for Rye Patch.

Some time ago I had to make a decision about buying a new coil for my 7000, buying a 6000 or buying an Axiom. I decided to buy a 15" CC X-Coil and it arrived about a month ago. The family is off on a trip so yesterday was my first try with the new coil. The coil was sent by post with a tracking number all the way from Kazakhstan. Here is the coil as I unpackaged it. The coil I've had on for the last few years has been the 15x10 Spirial X-Coil so seemingly there is not that much difference but in actual use I think there is a great difference. I've found lots of nuggets with the Spiral, but I just had this feeling that it could be better based on what Simon has said. Simon was right. My testing ground is a place where I and many others have been for years. When we first started there we were able to find quite a bit of trash and WWII 50 cal and shells. Those are long gone and so are most of the little wires which gave us such good 'potential' among the nuggets and hot rocks. My testing method was to go out with the coil I had on first and then come back and put on the new 15" CC. I marked targets I found but did not dig them. I had three areas/targets marked by the time I made it back to the SUV. I switched the coils by unscrewing the adapter with the chip from the 7000 and screwing in the new coil and replacing that back on the 7000. I didn't change the settings and I tested the new 15" CC on my test gold chips laying on the ground. The sensitivity was at 12. Ground smoothing low, high yield, normal and I use the SP01. The first thing I noticed when going over the test chips was that you had to have the coil directly over the nugget or you couldn't hear it. And furthermore, as Simon had told me the receive coil is smaller than the outer coil so it acted as a smaller coil. I didn't mind because it is a light coil. It seems ligher than the Spiral but I'd have to check it. So off I went to find the 3 marked targets, but I had pretty much of a dead battery in my phone. I put the phone on a charger and took off in search of my 'marks!' Finding the marks proved to be a bit harder than I first imagined. All the pretty flowers and dried bushes looked the same. My first mark was about 15 minutes from the start. I spied it and before I could get there, I got a loud target. It was a little sharp and it could be bullet jackets or the wires. It wasn't very deep so it moved with the light scrapes, but I couldn't see it in the scoop. It got down to a little bit of black sand and then I saw it. A little, flakey nugget! This coil can hunt I said to myself. I had to go back and get my phone so I could take some pictures. I'll have to add I carried it around later and it didn't cause an EMI problem for the coil. When I came back these are the pictures I took. I was impressed by a coil that big finding a nugget that small. The 7000 allows you to mark 'find points' which I have always liked. It asks you the depth which I said was 2" and the weight which I said was .1g. I was on the board and no matter what happened the rest of the day I had a nugget. This was good for me because the last 3 trips I've made to this location I got skunked. I then went to the target I had marked about 10 feet and it was a piece of trash. I went on to check the other marks I had made and could see all of those targets except one. I had dug one target and left it in the hole with the Spiral. It was a wire and the 15"CC did not see it. Another thing the 15 did not see was the hot rocks. That was a good thing. I was learning how to use it as I got into a couple of hours. At first I was worried that I was going to miss things under the bushes because the outer coil would be 'dead' and I couldn't get the center of the coil under the bush. Larger bullet trash and a couple of cans showed me that I could hear targets before the coil got to it. I was digging under bushes. It was time to leave this spot and go to another pounded spot where I wanted to test the new coil for depth. I knew this was deeper and perhaps the main reason why I bought it for $1200. I covered a lot of areas with no joy but I was learning to use the coil. There was one area that held deeper nuggets and that is not something I am good at. I can hear shallow nuggets that scream but deep iffys get the best of me. With that in mind I was looking for a repeatable iffy at this location and I found one. I dug a couple of inches as the first nugget and it was still iffy. I dug more and it brightened a little but not enough to make me think it was a nugget. Now I'm down about 6-7" in some moist desert soil with a lot of iron hanging off the magnet on the pick. I run the coil over the dig out pile and it screams! It is right on top. I scooped it and said YES. I don't remember digging a deeper small nugget than this. The phone was a long way from me so I don't have a picture but once again, this coil can hunt. I'm ready for Rye Patch now. Franconia here I come. Watch out Quartzsite. Here are my results. Notice just to the right of the .06 nugget on the scale a little wire piece. The 15" found that also. The desert revived me and reinvigorated me. For the next few weeks I'll go as much as possible. This was my trash.

I enjoy night hunting on the beaches and the deserts for gold nuggets. I've headed out to watch the moon rise and I've also headed out in the middle of the night to see the meteor showers when there is no moon. It is easier to see with the full moon as you mention but I have not noticed any additional EMI on the place where I night hunt the most for gold. I was just out there a couple of nights ago but it was a time to sleep and wait for the morning to hunt nuggets. It is still pleasant during the day.

Yes, there have been updates to the story and I think we all know there will be more gold in the water but you have to be ready with the equipment. As you know you can't use a dredge in California because it causes damage. These storms caused a lot more than dredges but that can't be regulated like people.

NYT is quite a bother sometimes but there are some people that only believe it if it is in the Times. Thanks for finding the link at a different publication.

Here is a bit of an 'overview' on an area where AI may be put to good use sooner rather than later. Notice that the AI would be an aid and not a replacement for education. I found it interesting that the AI was said not to access the internet for material and that each essay written would be unique. If this is a feature of AI to be unique then how do you get consistency and in some cases which are not necessarily science, how do you get consensus? Are we going to be doomed to a one-off world where everyone has their own answer? Bill Gates Predicts AI Will Teach Reading And Writing Within 18 Months | The Daily Wire

It could be time to get in a wetsuit and go to the creeks. After California’s Heavy Rains, Gold Seekers Are Giddy - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

To me this is just another 'stage' of the self-driving cars. It takes a team to keep that dream alive even after the cars are on the road. Things are never 'complete' and driving conditions change by the second. We have a cart delivery service here called CoCo. It is not autonomous. It is a robot, but someone drives it just like the remotes used in other endeavors like combat. Lots of sensors and cameras but leave the driving to a human. Press — Coco Delivery AI will need an interpreter for a while on many, many tasks but it can already do a good resume. I want a good speech to text AI. It will make the spoken word searchable.

You don't have the scoop I have. I don't use it that often but it is a beast.

It took me a year after I bought my 5000 to find my first, flat little nugget at the Dale. It was a sub grammer in lots of dry wash piles found with the 17" Commander coil. I had been on numerous Arizona trips on my own and I think at that point I was actually avoiding people because I didn't think they would tell me where the gold was anyway. My find was on an outing with another group who were much more helpful. The buddy system does work but be careful if you get too good because some buddies will think you have taken advantage of them and then you've lost a friend which is more valuable than the few gold pieces you find.

Good eye candy. Nice result but I'm sure you would have liked more. And I was just going to have a bit of time to come over and see you ... Montana would be a bit too far ... haha

Erik had to wear something to scare the crocks away! The fish might have looked on him as bait.

Oh ... too much information!

I have always wondered if the Garrett pinpointers actually make Garrett the overall sales leader in metal detectors. I know they last a long time but I've had 3-4 of them over the years and now I have a knockoff but I don't use a pointer or carry one now.

It sure sounds like a good group going to be out there over the weekend. It would be nice to make it but that weather ...

How long before AI is on a chip? Can we have AI now on a detector connected to our phone or directly to the net? Where's that EMI? I really need it now. haha