GB_Amateur

Clean snow is, anyway. I can imagine that snow that fell near a coal fired power plant (without scrubbers) might be a different story....

Still ~$84 worth of gold content at today's spot price. Blot that tear! Wow, you know your beach trash! I assume WWII? I don't think anyone's been shooting more than words at England since then....

Winter doesn't stop some people, and they're rewarded! It looks like there's a message inside that one ring for the lucky finder. "Last great act of defiance...." 😄 What is the 'U' token? Your silver coin finds sure have taken a beating. Is that just from the rocks in the surf working over decades?

Yes, 2.0. I try and get my detector upgraded about two weeks after it is released. That way others can be the guinea pigs, but I still get the advantages pretty quickly. Interesting that you've seen a similar improvement post-upgrade. Time will tell if the upgrade is the fix. Summer (air conditioning season) is the heaviest power usage in the US, I think.

I see you are 10 miles from the New Mexico border. Check out this map of BLM land in New Mexico, within driving distance of Plains, TX.

These people advertise in ICMJ. I sent in some chips to them for $25 X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) analysis. The (in)consistency between sample readouts seemed extreme to me, although maybe that is typical.

Quite the haul for a chilly 3 hour February hunt in Pennsylvania! I assme no mintmark on the Seated Quarter since you didn't mention it, but still a nice find, and probably dropped during the CW? Glad to hear the ORX is holding its own. I realize your Confederate I-button is the key find of the hunt. All I know about CW relics is that Confederate items tend to be much rarer than their Union counterparts.

I've used this for preventing tools from rusting. I assume the product you're talking about is similar. If that's the case I would skip the WD40 step altogether.

Yes, it looks like you just repeated the scan without changing detectors! What are the values of the four FFT (purple) peaks?

Thanks for the video -- quite informative. What was the position of the conductivity switch? The pulse delay? The gain?

Great post, Hugh! I will point out that the above can be true in other places than Culpeper, VA. I've seen similar firsthand in my neighborhood. The deeper/smaller non-ferrous targets can get ragged. As is almost always the case (metal detecting or otherwise), rules-of-thumb will get you 80-90% of the truth/reality, but not 100%. Of course you know that, but I thought it was worth emphasizing. The better you know your detector the better you will be at trusting your ear to find that last 10-20%.

By 'stock rechargeable battery pack' are you referring to the orange labelled (and sealed) NiMH pack supplied by White's? Here I'm referring to what is supplied with the TDI/SL (and works for other White's detectors such as the MXT). I don't know if they changed the pack footprint for the TDIBH. So a 50% increase in battery life. How does that translate into operating hours?

I've been reading Kagin's Private Gold Coins and Patterns of the United States off and on since the originating post of this thread. I think the following (from Appendix 4 on p 242) is important to detectorists, and those in Northern California in particular: Why are (California private gold coins) so rare? Many of the private coins issued between 1849 and 1853 eventually were turned into the State and U.S. Assay Offices by their holders who feared great losses due to their overvalued status. The pieces were usually melted and recoined... A number of private issues also were shipped by express companies to the Philadelphia Mint, where they also were melted and recoined. Of those issued later, from 1853 to 1855, the vast majority were shipped to China or to the Eastern United States and melted, as they generally were worth more being resold to an official mint, since most of this period's issues intrinsically were worth more than their face value. Many, not exported, were turned into the branch mint in San Francisco. Not until the turn of the century did private gold begin to attract interest as a historical and collector's series. One way these coins avoided melting or export is to have been lost before that could happen....

I've found the winter / New Year period a good time to reflect on the past and hope for the future, and that applies to my detecting as well. Since I keep a log of finds (coins and jewelry) by year I can compare that part of detecting with the recent (starting in 2017) past. Unlike previously, 2019 came up short in every meaningful quantified category: total collectible coins, total Wheat pennies, total $-value of common coins, total days hunted, total hours hunted, average hours/hunt. The causes are many: fewer permissions, fewer previously hunted parks & schools, very dry late summer / early autumn, less stamina with age(?). Ironically all that on top of the fact that I had more free time since my work load was reduced more than half. All of this needs to be addressed for 2020. In terms of gold hunting, as chronicled here I quadrupled (2 to 8 😁) my lifetime native gold finds with about the same number of hours/trips West, but that is almost completely due to the benevolence of a friend who took me to one of his gold producing sites and added some instruction along the way. I'll be on my own in 2020 which means "research, research, research!" There are other valuable takeaways besides simply counting finds, though. Knowledge is a big one, and required by me. So what did I learn last year? The biggest increase in knowledge was finally learning to listen to the quality of tones from the Minelab Equinox 800. Along the way I went from a love/hate (exaggerated description of course) relationship to one of trust. But that really didn't happen until the very end of the year. You may recall I wrote a long, sad(?) post in August about a frustrating hunt of an 1850's homestead when I was driven bonkers by EMI. That was in the heart of the dry season when not only do we lose depth due to the dry soil, but also (in good conscience) have to give up digging in public sites because of the inability of the grass/sod to heal itself. I was at an all time low. I can thank many of you for helping me make an attitude adjustment. One of the problems I had previously with trying to listen and learn sound/tone quality was that I just couldn't force myself to listen to '50 tones'. What I realized is that you can get a big boost from listening to the quality of tones in 5 tone mode. Another surprising occurrence which I can't explain is that EMI became much less of a problem. I used to run gain of 20 max due to EMI, dropping to gain of 15 in some cases, and even being more/less forced to switch to single frequency mode (and never 5 kHz where the EMI was worst) if I was still getting bad EMI at gain of 15. The last several hunts I was able to run quietly at gain of 22 consistently, including in a local park where I typically had to switch to single freq. Yes, it could be temporal/seasonal variations in EMI but I don't think so. I've hunted that particular park year round, morning through afternoon, weekdays and weekends. Maybe the source of EMI was removed, but that doesn't explain my experiences at other locations which also gave EMI problems in the past, but not now. I don't think it's the recovery speed (I've been running exclusively at 5), or mode (consistently Park 1). However, I do wonder about the 2.0 software upgrade. My loss of EMI problems has occurred since then although I don't recall it being like a switch being thrown. I've been hunting Iron Bias F2=5 most of the time since I loaded that upgrade in software. Is it possible ML made other changes which lessened EMI? And, again, it may not have anything to do with the detector. Unfortunately I haven't gotten a chance to return to that 1850's homestead give that really bad EMI a test. I haven't posted a finds photo lately. Shown above are the highlights of my last 4 hunts of 2019 (all after Christmas) and first 3 of 2020. I found a silver coin in 6 of those 7 hunts. The dolphin ring is sterling and note it isn't a closed ring (dolphins not touching) but still came up with a TID just above Zincoln (i.e. it was about 22 on the Eqx). The bronze token is from a local (Southern Indiana) intercity bus lines which was in business from the 1920's through mid-60's. The two items on the left are shown to emphasize the unmasking ability of the Eqx. That large iron loop (have no idea what it is) was about 4 inches laterally and a couple inches deeper than one of the Mercs, which itself was 6 inches deep. In another case, the wing nut (non-ferrous TID, but I don't know it's composition) was close to the surface. I think it ID'ed in the pulltab zone and I dug it specifically to see if it was masking anything. Six inches laterally and 8 inches deep was another Merc. I don't know if the Eqx probably would have unmasked that (my guess is 'no') but it does show that removing undesirable targets will pay dividends. That Merc and one of the others are the deepest dimes I've ever recovered. None of the coins (including the Wheaties) are valuable date+MM. A few final points -- Steve H's online interview by Dick Stout prompted me to reread Coinhunting... In Depth. A couple things jumped out from that book. (I'm paraphrasing / reworking but I give him credit for these concepts, at least): 1) Why are you wasting your time returning to the same places you've hunted to death? 2) When you go out detecting, spend some time beforehand considering your goals; then keep them in mind during the hunt. Thanks, Dick! Those plus a few other things yet TBD are going to make 2020 my best year ever.

Yes, I was balancing the shaft in a horizontal position. Per your suggestion I put the detector at the correct angle for detecting. It took right at 1 lb or ~450 g. mounted on the end of the 44.5 cm (17.5 in) extension. FWIW, the difference is much more related to the fulcrum point than the shaft angle. Previously I was balancing on the back side of the shaft at the lower intersection point of the handle and shaft. This time I actually put my hand on the handle (normal detecting position) and balanced between the two middle fingers of my hand. So I reduced the counterweight from 1.4 lb to 1.0 lb and the total weight from 4.6 lb to 4.2 lb. (Coincidentally isn't this close to the weight of some of the popular White's VLF/IB detectors?) However, to use this perfect balance with 1.0 lb counterweight, I still need that awkward very long shaft extension.... Better said in one of my favorite movies!

I tried out my new configuration yesterday for a 3 hour hunt in a local park. My first impression is that I haven't improved the situation (wrist stress & pain). I subseqently tried to balance the torque around the grip (the 'fulcrum' as steveg notes) and that is way easier said in theory than done in practice. Here is an experiment I did (using the S-shaft configuration) which shows how bad the problem is:: I added the (straight) middle section of the Equinox back into the system, but now inserted into the butt end of the detector shaft. That adds 17.5 inches (44.5 cm) to the length of the shaft! I then added weight at the tip (far) end, centered over the tightening nut, to see what it would take to balance the detector at the front edge of the control module mount (grip handle / fulcrum). Result: 22 1/2 oz (640 g or 1.4 lb). Total detector weight = 4.6 lb (2.1 kg). I conclude that trying to get the weight (actually torque) balance to occur at the grip/handle is too ambitious of a goal for the Equinox. One thing I made worse by swapping out the lowest section of the stock Eqx shaft is that, being made of carbon fiber and thus lighter, I added front-end torque when I replaced it with the heavier X-Terra 705 front shaft. (Weight difference of 0.14 oz = 4.0 g.) Further, I think the X-terra's lowest shaft extension weight isn't uniformly distrubuted since for it the plastic coil-mounting stem is more substantial than the one on the Eqx lowest shaft section. However, we're talking ounces or grams (in-oz or cm-g of torque), so without doing a similar balancing act with the Eqx stock configuration I think it's safe to conclude balancing it about the handle mount point is equivalently impractical. Having said all that, does adding weight to the butt end of the shaft lessen the torque on the human wrist? Yes.

I wish the (more expensive...) Equinox were so easily transformable.

That is in line with my experience, except change '200' to '500'. I'm not kidding, and I'm far from finished learning. It does "work" out-of-the-box but you can't take full advantage of it without many, many hours. At least that is what I've found so far -- and still in the learning phase. To compare this to college curriculum, the manual is the first semester freshman year class and the books written (Sabisch and Clynick) are the texts for second semester. To graduate you need a lot more than that, with laboratory courses a major part of the requirment.

Not unlike with other endeavors, individual detectorists have many preferences, and ordering those in importance, etc. is an individual choice. Weight, balance, quality of sound, detail of Target IDentification (TID), ease of adjustment, choice of coils, type of battery, country of origin,.... The list is much longer. You seem to have found a couple detectors (Orx & Deus) that best check the boxes for you. The fact that the Simplex doesn't shouldn't be a detriment to the choices of others.

The Knights Templar don't have a patent on that cross, although that isn't to say the maker&owner weren't using it for that reason.

The simple answer is that they aren't selective. However, given that meteorites tend to orbit in the plane of the solar system (plenty of exceptions) and the earth's equator is 'close' to coplanar with that (here I'm calling 23.5 degrees "close"), I suspect there is a higher probability for a low latitude strike. The problem is that meteorites are rare, even though meteors (impinging meteoroids) are common. A vast majority of the latter burn up in the atmosphere. As such the best places to find meteorites are in places that are *known* to have meteoroids that already survived (past tense) to reach the ground. AFAIK Atlanta isn't one of those. As an (related) aside, my parents used to own land which was above an ancient astrobleme (surviving crater). Some university geologists came by to study that. In his spare time, one of the scientists would search through farm rock piles -- i.e. large rocks that had been moved to the edge of a field so as not to damage the farming equipment -- hoping to find a meteorite. (To be clear, he wasn't looking for remnants of the meteoroid that caused the astrobleme. That one struck between 100 million and 300 million years ago, and any remaining pieces wouldn't be on the surface right above it.) That tells you that anywhere is a possible location, but of course it's a needle-in-a-haystack proposition. Then again, we detectorists are accustomed to that occurrence!

Here is the (US) Federal Aviation Administration flyer. My interpretation is that for domestic US flight you may either carry on or check-in (for cargo hold) your Minelab Equinox since the Lithium battery is installed in the device. If you're going to check-in your detector, I would remove the control head and carry it on anyway, to prevent damage by gorilla baggage handlers. A hard shell case is an option for check-in of the entire (mostly disassembled) detector. Note that the lowest shaft section is the most difficult to fit into a hardshell case (i.e. requires an extra large case) but, again, you don't need to pack it in the hardshell case, even if the rest of your equipment is in the case. Here's an example of a hardshell case which will hold your Eqx 800 (and more), except not the lowest shaft section. (Not sure about the 12 in. x15 in. optional coil, either.) Larger cases are available -- for a higher price, of course.

I can hear my wife now if she sees me wandering through the house carrying the toilet tank lid....

Interesting. Do you have to occasionally step out and back into pinpoint mode to counteract drift?

'Heavy' is of course a relative term. 1.42 kg (3.13 lb) is not heavy even in 2020. Yes, there are lighter detectors. I think the XP Deus still holds the record, but as has been discussed here many times, balance is more important than weight and the ergonomic gold standard Fisher F75 is ~3.5 lb (1.6 kg). If you meant 'toe heavy', then yes. But the Simplex would still share that feature with most detectors under 3.5 lb, assuming attached to a moderate sized coil.