GB_Amateur

I doubt that the results of these experiments had an effect on the outcome of a war. But if your point is that not everything the USA military does is based upon solid foundations: that holds.

Probably more than just you. I may be an example of both. I'm not out to pay for my equipment -- good thing since I've spent over $10k (maybe twice that but I don't want to know...) and found less than $1k -- more than half of that being a ring which will be returned to the person who lost it. On the flipside I like to talk about the value of finds (mostly others' since mine haven't carried much value). I want to find the valuable coins, simple as that, and I express my excitement when someone else does. But as long as I get at least a Wheat penny on a hunt I figure I'm ahead, and when I find less I still feel good for the chance to find something rare. It's more than a crap shoot, but detecting is a crap shoot, and the more you throw the dice the better chance you'll have to hit the jackpot. I'm just realistic to know that for me the jackpot of a rare coin may never come. Oh, and I also express excitement and gratitude for many posted finds which (as the saying goes) when combined with $4 would get you a coffee (at Starbucks). Retrospective, as you (and now I) have exercised is a good thing. I'll start showing more trash, too. That's one area where I can compete with the best of you!

15 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said: Might be the last (scientist) left though, and if so I’ll turn out the lights when I leave. Good news, Steve. You're wrong on that one although trying to prove it.... Well, I could kill you. Would that be convincing? 😁 So I go away from the forum for half a day and wake up to over 50 posts on a subject I like to talk about. (Well, maybe that doesn't narrow things down much.) I wanted to quote 10-15 posts but that would take an hour (I'm a slow quoter) so I'll just dispense with that and apologize for not giving credit on this thread to its proper poster. A lot has been covered, but there is one thing that needs to be cautioned -- authoritarianism. Don't fall into the trap that an authority said something so it must be true. That's also an easy way out. Dig down and understand why s/he took that view. With Wikipedia and Google we have at our fingertips something a lot of these famous people quoted and mentioned here (Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan, James Randi) would have paid a fortune to have available when they were young and at their peak. (All three stayed active in their specialties until death, though, so even Sagan who died in the late 90's was able to take advantage of it, but not to the extent we can today.) I'm reminded of probably my favorite pseudo-science story -- Uri Geller's spoon bending. He was making tons of money captivating audiences with what he claimed were psychic powers. To counter, some physicists were asked to observe and refute his claims. They observed but they couldn't come up with a scientific explanation. Many (all proponents and some opponents) took that as evidence that he really did have special powers. Johnny Carson invited him on The Tonight Show to demonstrate his prowess. Turns out Carson was a magician but Geller didn't know that when he agreed to come on the show, or maybe he did but figured he'd collect his stipend anyway and then pull some other 'tricks'. Just so happens he was having trouble that night on the show and wasn't able to show his skills.... So the old kids' cliche "it takes one to know one" was displayed to some success. Geller was a con-man. Dowsers and those who defend them aren't (well, maybe a few are). But they get fooled just like the physicists did. (BTW, I respect physics and physicists as much or more than any profession. But they don't know everything and the wise ones realize that.) We get taught a lot of subjects in school, and for the most part they are things worth learning. But there are things that aren't taught that are possibly more valuable than 80% of what is taught. Critical thinking is one that stands out. Even PhD scientists are never taught about the philosophy of science (which may not be philosophy in the true sense of the word) -- specifically how do you determine if something is true or not. Even using the word 'true' is bad form, IMO (and I just did it). What science is really about is collecting evidence and then applying it to determine the more likely idea between two competing ones. Isaac Newton revolutionized science and most of his works are still valid today, but further study has shown that as good as they are, they are actually approximations which don't always apply. Relativity and Quantum mechanics have shown that on certain (mostly non-everyday-life) scales Newton's work fails. And Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are themselves being revised constantly... with evidence.

So, kac, you're saying you're a contrarian?? Never would have guessed that. 'Cliques' and 'cliquish' are storng words, IMO. They may apply to some here but I think there may be other similar but less intentional things happening. For one, in general people want to belong. And at the same time people look for and subsequently look up to the 'icons'. If the icons are big on one brand (Minelab) and the majority also go in that direction, then to feel the part people tend towards that brand, both in their detector choices but also in their posts. To add to the weight of all this, Minelab does make great detectors and when compared head-to-head with other brands their top-of-the-line products fare extremely well. (Maybe even that is an understatement....) But the results, whether intended or not, do lead to the occurrences you mention. That's the part the proponents of the big brand names should be aware of and sensitive to. Fortunately some already are. 👍

From my vantage point and personal experiences, all of the above, and then some. When people talk about 100+ silver coins a year and others show hunts with multiple gold rings, it's a bit humbling to post a photo of one or two common date Wheat pennies. A couple things I like to keep in mind: 1) We don't all have access to the same sites/locations (although research -- the grunt work -- leads to some but not all of that difference). I see West coast USA detectorists with -S and -CC mint coins. Those aren't uniformly distributed. (Flipside is that they see East coast detectorists finding early coins like large cents, half cents, and even Colonial coins. Then again, I'll take any -CC over 99+% of large cents any day, although I haven't yet found either.) 2) The juiciest finds tend to be the tip of the iceberg. For example, how many Mercury dime finds does it take to get one of the keys (1916-D, 1921 plain, 1921-D, or the 1942/41 overdates)? On average, a lot!! I've found about 20 Mercs and none is even a semi-key. I need to keep plugging away. When one person posts a great find, there are 10's or maybe even 100's who have never made such a great find. But you don't notice them (especially if they remain silent, which as you note, many do). As far as revealing locations, I'm sensitive to that but there aren't many detectorists in my area, and likely I could count on one hand those who read this forum. Also, my public sites have been hunted in the past so if someone wants to come along and find a silver coin every 12 or so hours of detecting, have at it. Best coin sites in the USA (with a few rare exceptions) are private property ('permissions') now that metal detectors have been around for 50+ years. But I like your attitude. I haven't noticed that happening much, although it seems a small percentage end up answering a lot of the questions. And when I do notice it I think it's because no one knows the answer. For another thing, as far as finds goes this is really a gold nugget site from what I can tell. Coins, relics, jewelry and some other topics (geology, meteorites, gravity recovery,...) don't get as many readers or posters. And that's fine with me. People spend their time on things they are interested in. (I certainly do.) While we're on the subject of making newbies feel welcome, one of my pet peaves is too many initialisms and too many people who try to use the minimum number of keystrokes to indicate a detector. I remember when I first came back to detecting and joined here there were so many initialisms I didn't understand, or detector nicknames I had no idea of what they were or who made them. Remember when you were new to this hobby and how you felt? I bet you could if you stopped to think about it. (In the interests of full disclosure I know I'm guilty of using nicknames for finds, like 'beavertails'. Much better if I say "aluminum beavertail pulltab". There has been talk about a glossary but no one wants to pile more work on Steve. A cooperative one would be nice but I doubt that is easy to implement ==> even more work for Steve.)

Does the moon count? Antarctica? (See any commonality besides hard to access? How about desert?) Here are some things you likely should read: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-find-a-meteorite-in-5-steps/ http://www.spacerocks.org/meteorite-falls-map.html Sounds like fun, even if you don't find any.

Has that ever been done in a metal detector? I'm guessing not. Hopefully I could train my brain to hear that -- sounds interesting and useful. Weren't the USA nickels thrown in with higher conductive coins? Were the CZ's 5 tones or 4 tones? (I run my Fisher F75 in 4H tones -- max number, with the 'H' meaning the USA nickel zone gets the same tone as the high conductors.) My ML Eqx 800 is set up similar to yours for searching (but differently for interrogating). Five different tone zones with USA nickels getting their own frequency, tone of 24, compared to the high conductors (20 and above) with tone 25. I understand why some parts of the world might prefer 30 and above being its own tone but breaking 20 and above into two separate zones is a waste of a scarce tone in my "I want every coin except Zincolns" little corner of the world.

The Minelab X-Terra 18.75 kHz 5"x9" DD (stock in the gold prospecting 705 package) comes in at a lightweight 386 g (without cover). Unfortunately it isn't waterproof, only 'water resistant', so good for deserts but not for streams/creeks/rivers. P.S. actual (outer) dimensions of major axes of the housing are 5.5" x 9.5". So ML apparently felt comfortable rounding one up and the other down in their advertising. I wish everyone used the same conventions when reporting coil sizes, preferably reporting the winding dimensions (or better yet, report both)!

"That info" being Geof's mention of 2^6 = 64 times as much power to double the depth. On page 4 of the current thread -- right at the top, Steve provides a link to another forum thread where depth improvements, etc. were discussed. On page 2 of that thread there is a post by Rick Kempf where he quotes Dave Johnson and then links to an interview with Dave and John Gardiner from which Rick grabbed the quote. I repeat that link here: http://fisherlab.com/hobby/davejohnson/davejohnsonjohngardinerinterview.htm

Absolutely. It's a bit disappointing that the 3rd party aftermarket manufacturers, whose coils are generally well receieved for their performance, seldom provide closed coils. (Coiltek and Nugget Finder are exceptions, but they tend to make coils only for Minelab detectors. The Eastern European companies aren't so restrictive in terms of collaborations but they are the ones who primarily have their coils enclosed in open housings.) I just got a Mars Sniper 6"x10" for my Fisher F75 and had to make my own solid skid plate and then cover the top with duct tape -- the latter to prevent refuse from building up. Many OEM coils (First Texas, White's, Minelab) come in closed housings, particularly the 5-6" x 9-10" size. I'm hoping that is what we find in our February Christmas stockings next week....

So, in summary, all of it! You said that you have both an N/M Impact and a White's XL Pro. I don't know anything about the latter but if it's like the XLT (which I found on the database -- see next sentence) then presumably primarily a coin detector due to a single digit kHz frequency -- characteristic of those. Looking at Steve's extensive database of modern detectors I notice that the Impact is selectable frequency and that 20 kHz is one of those. I would think that would make it a decent gold nugget detector since several models by other manufacturers marketed for that purpose (e.g. [newer]Fisher Gold Bug, Garrett AT/Gold, and Minelab X-Terra 705) operate around there. What coil(s) do you have for your impact? Oh, and I just found Steve's detailed review of the Impact where he discusses its abilities for natural gold detecting, along with many other features and capabilities. Bottom line is that I think you are already well equipped (at least with the major purchases) to handle the detecting adventures you are planning. I wish you good fortune in those and hope you'll post photos of the finds those result in.

This is another key point in the investigation of this strange occurrence. On this forum alone there are millions of hours of detecting experience. (Not everyone has read this post, but still a lot of combined experience by its viewers.) Further, a story like this will propogate in the community -- at club meetings, in hardcopy magazines (when we used to have those 😁), on Facebook, on other internet pages and forums.... My participation in this hobby has been mostly confined to reading in the distant past and recently (last 5 years) on the internet, mostly here. Has anyone seen/read of a similar occurrence? (You did mention crabs.) You pointed out that the signals you received were in the pulltab range although you didn't say how tight they were. If 'sharp' (meaning in space -- not an extended target) and fairly consistent in TID, that would be further evidence of a uniform metal object such as possibly a passive integrated transponder (PIT) tag you hypothesized previously. (I don't know if those actually have enough conductor to set off a detector. Could a detector's signal set them off? Again, more info needed.) Large animals sometimes are tagged with larger but simpler things -- there was a thread here about bird wildlife tags a while back -- but I doubt those would be used on snakes. I understand your feelings about accidentally killing one. But on the plus side, if you decide to avoid this signal in the future at least you'll save yourself digging a lot of worthless pulltabs. 😏

The presence of a metallic element does not mean there will be a response to a metal detectors. Most minerals contain metallic atoms but most minerals don't set off a metal detector. Take halite for example. Halite's common name is rock salt -- a compound made up of a metal (sodium) and a non-metal (chlorine). Common table salt is a pure form whereas rock salt typically has contaminants mixed in. I just ran my Equinox over a chunk of halite maybe half the size of a golf ball. In order to run at high gain (24) I had to use single frequency since I'm at home with lots of EMI around, even in my back yard where I did the test. All channels notched in and 10 kHz, 15 kHz, 20 kHz, and 40 kHz (EMI quiet frequencies here) all gave no reaction with coil swing about 1 inch or less over the sample. Metal detectors respond to two things -- ferromagnetic materials and conductors. The mineral magnetite is an example of a ferromagnetic non-conductor and is well known to cause a signal in an IB/VLF detector. Metal detectors are sensitive to conductors because the transmitted changing magnetic field from the detector causes an eddy current of charges to flow in the conductor. In metals those charges are free electrons ('free' in the sense that they aren't bound to any atom). Ions in solution are also free to move -- that's part of the mechanism in a battery. Disolve halite in water the sodium and chlorine atoms (sodium carrying one less electron than when neutral and chlorine carrying one more -- thus meaning each one has a net charge) are available to move in solution. Thus wet salt (e.g. a wet saltwater beach) causes problems for an IB/VLF metal detector. That's also why some sensitive detectors sound off when you wave your hand closeby (mentioned by Jeff McC.) -- conductive ions from salts on your less than perfectly dry skin. Damp salty ground in deserts is another example of false signals that IB/VLF's can pick up. There is a practical limit for something that conducts to be sensitive to a detector, though. Lightning often strikes trees because they are the least resistive path to ground in a particular location, but I don't think trees set off a metal detector, at least in general. I swing over large roots and in my soil I don't get signals unless there are metals hiding in or under them (and that does happen occasionally 😁). Steve H. mentioned ground voids as setting off a detector because the ground balance was matched to solid ground of more/less uniform mineralization and a void is effetively an anomaly -- some of the ground being missing. I recall reading (can't remember exactly where) Charles Garrett mentioning this in one of his books -- that tree roots can lead to false signals since the root itself displaces ground. I think you need rather highly mineralized ground for this to show up, though. As I noted above, in my moderate (2-3 bars or mid-scale on the Fisher F75 and Fisher Gold Bug Pro) ground I don't get falsing going over roots. Ditto when swinging over mole trails.

Welcome, Tony! Always good to see new members, whether newbies or veterans such as you. What sub-fields of metal detecting are you active (and interested) in?

Interesting hypothesis. I did a bit of web searching and snakes are sometimes tagged with RFID chips. Here is a general overview of that technique (not limited to snakes).

Why is my credibility detector sounding off louder than my metal detector?

I don't know much about patents but it seems this is an extremely broad exclusivity right. Is it the 'modeling the ground' part that limits this to a tight swath of innovation phase space? Even that sounds broad but I'm hoping the full text of the patent would clarify.

Did you ever come up with a hypothesis on why those coins were cached there? Did the building predate the beach (I'm assuming public beach...) or was it some kind of concession stand or ?? In Charles Garrett's book on cache hunting he says that the best way to succeed is to find a potential site first through research, but that (of course) stumbling upon them does happen. Sounds like you did the latter, but that's nothing to feel bad about. 😉 Some of my best finds (singles, not caches) came about without me having a clue they might be there.

Is this true when operating in simultaneous multifrequency or just in single frequency (or selectable frequency)?

Would you give examples of these unwanted data?

So the ring was marked '925' but was actually copper? That's low. I gotta say it's both ugly and uncomfortable looking. Take that, counterfeiters! The tungsten ring appears to have a yellow color, but is that just due to reflection? No question that the 3rd ring is the prize. I like the design in the metal. Can you tell what the base material is that the red jewels are embedded in, and if it was intended to be that color? Excellent find, regardless.

If they don't then they've been hiding under a rock, or at least haven't been reading here much in the last 3 years. I hope it's a closed coil (as most of you are hoping, too) but even if it's the open Vanquish style that would be a decent addition (and would leave us something to gripe about, not that we won't find other ML targets for that 😁).

Could you tell us more about that here on the forum? I could go looking for that magazine but seems like a lot of work when the horse's mouth is right here in the flesh (well 'in the pen' anyway)!

Leela Zero is trained by a distributed effort, which is coordinated at the Leela Zero website. Members of the community provide computing resources by running the client, which generates self-play games and submits them to the server. The self-play games are used to train newer networks. Generally, over 500 clients have connected to the server to contribute resources.[7] The community has provided high quality code contributions as well.[7] The above quote is from Wikipedia and is actually referring to the Go (game) version, not the chess version. Apparently for this to work on a small platform the 'crowd learning' aspect would need to be carried over. So users would share the learning their individual detectors experience in some kind of uploadable & downloadable database. Interesting. I hope there are enough users to make that useful. Or in addition will the detector company have some kind of robot course where the software is trained and then incorporated?? When I was looking into artificial neural nets (ANN's) which I think is Alpha's artificial intelligence method, I was told it typically takes hundreds of thousands of datapoints to build a reasonable model. Maybe metal detecting can be done with considerably less -- I think that's going to be a requirement. But as you say, it will likely require "thinking outside the box" so conventional wisdom could put placed on its ear.

Could you elaborate on what those are? I tried Googling and Wikipeding but the little I found didn't quite mesh with 'Spanish Pistorines'. Regardless, I'd like to find one. 😁 The more you tell us about this site the more it makes my detecting mouth water.