Mike Hillis

I found this nice little gold ring in a turf location Wednesday morning with my little buddy, a Bounty Hunter Tracker IV. It was about 1-1/2" down in the grass roots. I had the Tracker IV in Tone mode with the tone break point set on a zinc penny. It hit with a nice solid low tone. What is great about this ring is that I found it where I expected to find it. A great way to end the year. Oh yeah....eyeballed this pocket knife........ HH Mike

That is way cool, Steve. I want to try.......note the little arial view link in the bottom left of the map. Click that and you get the arial view. Beautiful. Here is the little town of Cerrillos, NM. The Casa Grande Trading Post is worth a drive to visit. It also has some good hand drawn maps,although they are a bit pricey.

I don't like to buy from non-stocking dealers. If they can't afford to carry the inventory they can't afford my business. Stocking dealers are nice to do business with. They always have some gems hidden in their warehouse or stock room. All you have to do is get them talking and bam, they remember something and next thing you know you are doing a buy and try at a terrific price. That's why I liked Mr. Bill Crabtree so much. He had stuff and could make deals. I'd call him just to see if he had anything new or old in the warehouse that would entice me to drop some cash. HH Mike

Steve, I'm in. I was looking at Weebly to create my own online books for hunting jewelry, and some detector related stuff. I could just as well put that stuff on your site. Might still move it all to a blog type site later in a more organized fashion but it would go well on a jewelry hunting site, inland jewelry hunting for me, anyway as I have no beach to speak of. HH MIke

Forgive me for being dense....but what is a QED? I followed the link and saw the picture and read some posts but I still don't know what a QED is. HH Mike

The Lobo ST still hunts fine with lower sensitivity settings. Don't hunt the chain, hunt the clasps and the little loops the clasps connect to. Tiny, solid signals. Chains in turf are not 'easy' for any machine. But with that little coil, you could probably find some in the right location if you turn you Lobo St's sensitivity down close to minimum and focus on the tiny solid signals. The Lobo ST doesn't lose its "hots" with lower sensitivity settings. That makes it a better chain hunter in turf locations than the Xterra. The Xterra's iron mask feature isn't that helpful in turf. HH Mike

Whats a good cap to put on it so that its not sticking to stuff until you want it to? HH Mike

I wonder if this also corrects the dim LED light that is mostly useful for checking to see if it's on? HH Mike

Whites TRX. HH Mike

I've been using a Kellyco Sidekick pouch I got with my first metal detector back in Jan 2004. Its just one big pocket with a mesh bottom. I put all my trash, all my finds and all my tools in there. I removed the leg straps and just wear it belted and swinging loose on my hip. Its pretty worn out now, missing a grommet and ripped down the back and sown back together with in-the-field technology but it still works. Kellyco sent me a new one several years back just because I posted that I like and use it. Haven't used the new one as of yet as I still got this one patched and working. I'm so used to having everything (screwdriver, treasure wise digger, magnet, and electronic pinpointer all in pocket that I find it difficult to use some of the other ones I have that don't allow me to put everything in it. HH Mike

Great story! A man needs a good survival story where he rescues himself. HH Mike

So if 'tiny' gold is the game, why use the Gold Racer instead of the Gold Bug II? HH Mike

The TRX is my favorite hand held pin pointer. I run it at 3 sensitivity, vibrate mode. It took a little bit to learn the light touch the switch likes but once I got that down it was good to go. It has the sensitivity to tiny that I wanted, EMI free (unlike my PI probes that are often times un-usable in my sites), the depth I require and I like the quick ground balance and detune features. Just turn it on, touch the ground, give a light touch to the switch to ground balance and pinpoint, give another light touch to the switch to detune it, press and hold a second to turn it off and I'm done. The LED is a bit dim but I only use it to tell me when its on or off. It does interfere with certain detectors but since I don't walk around with it turned on I only hear it when using it. Give it a bit of time and it will grow on you. HH Mike

I like my V3. I can see results in 3 frequencies. But I can only discriminate on the dominate frequency. I can't say something like...in 22.5 kHz I want to disc VDI's of 44, 47, and 52. For 7.5 kHz I want to discriminate 43, 67, and 68. For 2.5 kHz disc out 43, 45, 51. Nor can I disc out spectragraph or signagraph patterns. In 7.5 kHz pull tabs typically have a binomial pattern to the signagraph. (two holes=two peaks with a valley between them) There is no ability to disc out a signagraph pattern. I'd like to have pattern discrimination. HH Mike

I found the 19 kHz frequency coupled with the compressed non-ferrous VDI range of the gold bugs to hot for hunting for gold in aluminum trash. Its basically a dig it all machine when hunting for jewelry hiding in aluminum trash. My only advice for gold bug users is to hunt the hot spots and dig it all. Good luck, Mike

Got a 1939 nickel in my pocket right now. HH Mike

I've been looking for it since Christmas of 2013. Haven't found it yet. The thing is there are a bunch of good sounding solves to the puzzle that haven't yielded any treasure. One guy dead in New Mexico over it so far. Even if I ever do happen to be the one that finds it, I'll forever be still 'looking' for it :) Give it a go. Real treasure hunts are a lot of fun. HH Mike

That is looking good! You have got to be close. Time it keep it close. HH Mike

Rick, It sounds like you guys had a fun trip. HH Mike

I thought I'd see more wire in the prospecting pile. What a load of bobbie pins came up off the beach! HH Mike

We always get a couple of human cases every year here in New Mexico. HH Mike

well, they haven't totally given up on the design yet it seems. At least they got an award by people who don't use them.

A sunray inline probe on anything would might fit the bill. ACE250 control head or a F11 control head. HH Mike

I also think there are some innovations you are not recognizing. Take the select-able filtering on the F75. Look at the multiple phase reporting on the Omega 8500. Those are innovations that many may not recognize as such because they have been implemented on existing platforms. Then there are innovations that flopped due to packaging...like the GoldStrike. HH Mike

Well, when you really look at it, Minelab appears to be the current innovator tech wise. XP is just packaging. HH Mike