runningnorth

Dew, Yes - it sure is fascinating to hunt these old sites - the stuff you sometimes find is truly stupefying. The modern detectors do make it a little easier...back in the '70s I would have to dig up everything. These days I can be more selective and cover far more ground...

JCR, Yes. Me too. Dimitar is a very gifted engineer - the MDT 8000 is a gem and a keeper. If he introduces a second generation I will definitely buy one.

@JCR Yes - I've been experimenting with the Black Sand and Salt - this machine has some unique talents...so far very impressive in difficult ground. More I use this machine the better I like it - there's a learning curve, but a fascinating one...

@Shelton Your welcome!

How about a dedicated gold prospecting mode? Along with appropriate sized coils for nugget shooting. The current model has exceptional ability to penetrate bad ground, so maybe Dimitar can find a way to include a gold program on the next detector. Perhaps have 40khz, 80khz, and even 300khz(like Falcon MD20, for sampling purposes). I would gladly pay $3k for such a detector. Also, some larger coils for relic/cache hunting - 18" + 30". I would gladly pay $2k for a mega 30" coil made of lightweight carbon fiber(that is, if Dimitar could get the detector to be reasonably stable with such a large coil). The MDT 8000 has amazing depth - perhaps this could be enhanced further with a larger coil on the next generation model.

This one is for the cache and relic hunters.... There is an old camping spot I know of that makes an ideal testing ground for detectors. It's ultra trashy, being a popular recreation and hunting area for many, many centuries. People's of all ages have left behind every imaginable item - arrowheads, ancient stone tools, old wagon parts, stoves, bottles, engine parts - a cornucopia of items lost or abandoned. Last summer I finally got around to testing the Tarsacci in this challenging area. It's an alluvial fan where two creeks join, only about three acres in size. Every spring the snow above the canyon melts, which brings down a new layer of silt and gravel, covering up the items left behind from the previous year. The metal trash layer is about 4 feet thick, dating from about 1870 to the present day. There is a paved road that goes right alongside of it, and many detectorists have had a try on it over the last half century or so. They usually give up on it on account of the bewildering amount of worthless items detected on every swing. In the photo are just the bullet casings from a 10 ft. sq. area. It's so bad all you can do is laugh about it. This place has been shot to hell from every angle...I only had time to spend a few hours here on this visit, so I decided just to lift the coil(11"x9") and see if I could find some larger items underneath the surface trash. To clear the bullet casings I had to lift the coil about 15", which eliminated most of the small objects. This way only the large items would be detected, and there were lots of those. First up was a solid signal with a TID of 16, ground was 685, 6.4khz. I lifted the coil up to 24" before the signal faded. Definitely a large item. It was a tin sign, about 6" x 10", laying flat, 10" down. So that's about 34" with an 11" coil. So depth was about 3X coil size. Not bad! Next up was another strong signal. TID of 18, ground 700, 6.4khz. Again, I lifted the coil further up about 18", until the signal was gone. Found a crushed aluminum food container 18" down. So that's 36". It was approx. 4" x 6" in size. Irregular shape too. It disintegrated while trying to pull it out. In the pic you can see it at the bottom edge of the hole. What was strange is it didn't pinpoint dead center. It took me over an hour to enlarge the hole wide enough to locate the target. But you know, that's really good depth. Like, GPX kind of good! In all, I located about a dozen aluminum cans, some wire, and a couple of larger iron items I couldn't identify. It was a lot of work, but worth it because I had no idea an IB type of detector could do this with a standard sized coil. Much kudos to Dimitar - his detector definitely has an edge when it comes to larger items buried at depth. My next project will be to bury a 10 oz. silver bar and see how the MDT 8000 compares to the GPX 5000, in really hot ground. I know just the place. Should be interesting....

Hi all, Just thought I'd show these informal air tests I did a few months ago. First photo is a steel pole @ 5.5ft. Second photo is a steel plate in a ravine approx. 5-6ft away. Third photo: a pile of junk(things I dug/found at my favorite secret site.). Detector has strong response @ 4 feet. Fourth photo: my lovely 2020 Mazda Miata @ 7ft. Fifth photo is a 150,000 gallon diesel storage tank @ approx. 12ft. away. The wall has rebar in it and is 8ft. from the coil. These all were done with the Beast coil at max sensitivity. These results are simply outstanding - the best results I've seen from an IB detector with a mid-sized coil on large ferrous objects. Tarsacci seems to be maxxed out @ 8 ft. (in the air), no matter the size of the object. I have some even more interesting in-the-ground results - I'll share these in a subsequent post....