Condor

1 hour ago, beatup said:

Way to guys ,looks like Dennis  is primed and ready to go Steve ,have a great time down under and get some big ones.

These came from Eric's zone just past Sugarloaf.  We've still got 5 days to practice down here in sunny Yuma by the Sea.  Maybe 3 or 4 hrs detecting time in the mornings.  Yuma summer arrives early.

14 minutes ago, Norvic said:

I don`t know the go with lingos, I can understand Paul`s written word but be buggered if I can understand his spoken word, and it isn`t only about deafness.

Not to worry Condor, we`ll learn ya OZ.

I'll just nod my head and use the slack jawed vacant stare.  I find it discourages pointless conversations on such things as politics, religion and my (fill in brand) coil/detector is better than yours. 

Paul sez the grammar is no different that he larnt in Tennessee public school, they just have a funny way of sayin thangs. 

Contemplating such an adventure without local Aussie support would have been far too ambitious, even for me.  Paul's experiences having been helped along by Norvic, the GoldHounds and now Trent have given us a path and a certain confidence that if everything goes to "sheet", we have distant forum friends to turn for help and guidance.  Finding gold is really just the catalyst and an arbitrary goal to justify this pioneer spirit and lust for adventure.  My sincere thanks in advance to all our Aussie friends from this forum and especially to Trent for helping make this adventure of a lifetime possible.  Also an acknowledgement to our Moderator for making and keeping this forum a place of knowledge, friendship and civil discourse. 

OK, dry your eyes and harden up out there.  I got 19 days to kill before wheels up.  Paul leaves in less than a week but he got the sniffles and thinks he dying of pneumonia.  I think he allowed his blood alcohol level to drop too low and the germs found a foothold. 

5 hours ago, jasong said:

Same problem here. My 1st GPZ didn't seem as bad in 2015. I took my 2nd GPZ down this winter recently in the Mohave and it was almost impossible to get stable anywhere, especially in the newer green growth which is more or less impossible to detect in now unless I use general and difficult. But I'm having ongoing problems with this machine in general (which the repair center can't seem to replicate) too so maybe its something with the newer batch or are you on your first one still?

On my 1st GPZ, running in general instead of HY helped abate the vegetation falsing in wet places.

Hey Jasong, good to see you back with your observations as well.   

The reset helped some, but as the day wore on they continued to get worse.  The problem seemed to be a particular type of desert weed, not all of them.  I also used General and it was better, but I didn't find any gold.  The noise is a short sharp spike above the threshold.  They are not at all like a true good target tone, perhaps more like a surface piece of bird shot.  A few times I thought there might be a target tone in amongst a gaggle of those weeds so I pulled them all out and not a peep left in the ground.  I guess it's something to endure until they dry out and get blown away in the March winds.  The Nox 800 was able to run right through them with only an occasional bleep on the weeds.  

I just did the factory reset and on my way out to check to see if it helps.  Fingers crossed.

Here in the Desert Southwest the local plants respond more to rain than to growing seasons.  It's still winter and the last 2 late season rains have caused the Desert to really green up.  Areas that are normally barren have ft tall weeds sprouting up and it's giving my GPZ fits.  For some reason the GPZ is really sparky when swinging through the fresh green growth.  It's not just the first swing it's all swings until I scrape them down to the ground.  They're spiking the threshold loud enough that it's near impossible to distinguish a target whisper in there.  In the past the GPZ has given off something akin to a single static spark in fresh dead weeds on the first swing then dying off in further swings, but this is consistent, constant and downright annoying.  It's only in the weeds, on open ground it's fine.  No particular bump sensitivity, just those fresh green stalks. 

Is anybody else experiencing this, or is my machine acting up?  Solutions?  I sprayed some static guard on the coil cover, didn't help at all. 

In my past Adventures in Baja posts, I generally give a cautionary note about the uncertainty of Mexican rules, customs and laws.  I have been traveling in Mexico for most of my life.  I used to be proficient in the language now I can get through the basics with enough nouns and verbs to get by.  Algodones is a small Mexican town just 12 miles from Yuma.  The border crossing closes at midnight and opens again at 0600.  It has become the Dental Mecca for tens of thousands of Americans.  There are over 150 dentists practicing in Algodones.  There are companies that organize bus trips from San Diego and Palm Springs for dental services.  I have had 3 dental implants done down there and I couldn't be happier with the professionalism and price.  Many non-narcotic prescriptions can be filled for about one quarter of the price in the US and transported back to the states without a tax or duty.  Right now is Winter Visitor time in AZ, and about 3 thousand people a day cross the border for dental work and prescription drugs.  Mexico is not as lawless and corrupt as some people might think.  Nevertheless, there are those moments and for many people the risk is just not worth it. 

One of my high school teachers lives in San Quintin on the Pacific coast of Baja.  I spoke to him recently and he is working on finding us a placer gold guide down there.  Adventures continue.

30 minutes ago, vanursepaul said:

Good job with the time you had available----

Maybe next year------ MAYBE this year in a different locale...hmmmmmm.....

If I only had a good Tennessee guide all things are possible.

And sometimes it's just a seam of hotrock.  This started as the sweetest sounding target signal all day.  Faint rising tone, kept getting better and better the deeper I dug.  I turned down the sensitivity and kept digging expecting the signal to overload the tone any minute.  Then it stopped getting better and got weaker.  I scanned over the pile and got garbled tones all over the pile.  I walked back to my truck and got out the Nox 800 with 6" coil.  Back down the mountain and scanned the hole and piles.  Nothing but -9 tones everywhere.  Past performance is no guarantee of future performance. 

I know you guys want to keep your trade secrets, but can you shed a little light on the effects of your "filters".  I've read elsewhere that in retrospect your choice of the term filters was probably misplaced.  We'll stick to the same terms so as not to confuse people.

I've been running your enhancer for about 12 hrs total and have experimented with the settings some.  My particular choice in running the Z machine has always been with absolute minimum threshold and low smoothing with as much Sensitivity as I can get away with.  Rarely if ever do I use Difficult because it has proven time and again to miss small deep targets in the relatively mild ground of the Desert Southwest of Arizona.  

I started out with your enhancer on "filter" 2 which seemed to be a nice "bright" kind of tone, but the more I struggle with hot rocks and variable hot ground I've taken to "filter" 3.  Filter 3 as first seems to have an overall dulling effect to the entire sound spectrum, but I'm starting to think it rounds off the high tones enough to extend my detecting time from hearing/sensory overload.  Maybe I could have reached to same goal by playing with the Z tone control, I just haven't taken the time to experiment more.  As always, individual hearing is all subjective, and perhaps this is just an unintended affect on my hearing and is meaningless to other people. 

Can you share a little more of your theory of how these enhancers were intended to work, whether or not you achieved that goal. 

55 minutes ago, fredmason said:

Very patient testing, Steve...I can never seem to wait, so I just start digging...

Have you tried the Steelphase through/with the wireless module? I would not give up being wireless for hardly anything...

nice little nuggie

fred

Well Fred, you could still be wireless, just an added cable from the WM to the box then your choice of listening equipment plugged into the box.  A bit of redundancy if you wanted to just rely on the simplicity of the WM.   I don't think you can amplify the WM without wiring the box in between so now you're back to the old days of a cable between you and the detector.    The unit comes with about 3ft of heavy duty audio cable, with double ended male, mono headphone connectors.  I'm using a curly corded one that I had from past inventions.  You couldn't do my set-up with the supplied cable unless you disconnect to lay the detector down and dig.  The only reason I did it this way was to keep the fewest number of "connections" between me and the original detector signal.  I will ultimately go with the wireless connection when I decide to do some serious detecting. 

JW and Simon,

JP said something about the 7000 volume a long while back and its stuck in my head.  He said something about increasing the volume had the effect of increasing the Sens. I can't remember of the whole context of that observation or its relevance today however;  it occurs to me that in your quiet ground perhaps you could max out the 7000 volume then bring it under control with the volume level on the SP01.  Perhaps you thereby maximize Steve's already Insanely Hot settings.  Mental gymnastics I'm sure, but something to ponder. Wouldn't work here.    

1 hour ago, beatup said:

Good information Steve keep em coming.I need all the helpfull info i can gather before i head down your way.

Yeah, I'll keep at it Brett.

Probably won't be any nuggets left by the time you get here.  I'm going to attend Bill Southern's deal out at LSD this weekend.  Maybe find some new prospecting ground out there.  If Eric gets lonely down here, have him give me a call.

Bear in mind that hearing is highly subjective.  My experiences will in no way be the same as anyone else's and I'm forced to use imprecise terms to describe my efforts.  At 64 yrs old my hearing is relatively good and high frequency noise bothers me more than most.  We all know that the Z7000 is a noisy machine but with time and experience our hearing adapts and we become more proficient with it's tendencies.   So, after 3 or 4 months away from the machine it's like starting all over and wondering, wow this detector is really noisy.   That's how it has been for me over the last couple days out here in Sunny Yuma.  Add in some decent rain last month and certain rock types hold some moisture and became a major hot rock nuisance. 

I hit a deep gully yesterday that had a lot of decomposing course grained granite.  The granite is ordinarily pretty mild, but the left over moisture was making fist sized chunks into high spiking hot rocks.  They're really not the kind of hot rocks that sound like nuggets, the tone is a short high pitch that falls off very quickly.  Going to the Difficult setting really calms them down, but then you're missing small faint nuggets.  Raising the coil and going painfully slow is one solution, as well as keeping detecting sessions short. 

I decided to see if there was some kind of intermediate step with the SteelPHASE system of filters.  After some trail and error I settled on Z7000 settings of High Yield, Normal, Sens 12, Low Smoothing, with just enough threshold to level off the spiking signals.  Then I played with the SteelPHASE.  I used the recommended Mode 1, then went through the various filter settings.  Filter 1 and 2 give me a high "tinny" kind of tone over the hot rocks, not helpful.  Filter 3 as best I can describe dulls all the tones, but was the best choice in this circumstance to dull the high tones of hot rocks.  After a half hr I was cruising along pretty good partly because my hearing was adapting and the SteelPHASE was keeping the annoying hotrocks at a manageable level, or so I think. 

I finally got over a very faint signal well into the side bank of the gully.  I went through everything I could think of to test the equipment.  First I left everything in place and switched to Difficult.  Not a peep.  Then with everything in place I raised and lowered the sensitivity.  Sens below 9, the tone was barely audible and mainly because I knew it was already there.  I doubt it would have stopped me otherwise given all the noise in hotrock heaven.  Raised Sens really made it stand out, but the noise would have been unmanageable for normal prospecting.  Then I unplugged from the SteelPHASE and plugged my earbuds directly into the Z.  The tone was audible over the target and probably enough to stop me in normal prospecting mode.  Back into the SteelPHASE for a comparison.  As best I can tell the SteelPHASE gave me some "separation" from background noise and a bit of "distinction" or "amplification" of the actual target.  By that time I had pulled all the surface hot rocks away, so I was no longer bombarded with that kind of noise.  I switched back and forth a few times and found the SteelPHASE gave me a more noticeable tone, (I think).  

I dug this tiny nugget out and was again amazed at what the Z7000 can do on small gold.  This nugget was back into the side bank and down at least 6 inches.  I think its round ball shape gives it a better density that favors detection at this depth. 

So, with a 6 hrs use on the SteelPHASE in some very limited circumstances, I would say that it is helpful but not a game changer.  Anything that boosts my confidence and keeps me in the field a bit longer will no doubt increase my odds.  Perhaps for the guys who use external speakers and need an amplifier anyway, this is a good investment.  I just don't use speakers so we'll have to wait for one of them to chime in.   Given its $200.00 pricetag, I give it a neutral thumbs up/down for now.  I'll keep at it, it's early yet and will report more as it happens. 

Based on my recent experience with micro placer gold, I have a question about Ground Balance.  I know Steve has at various times, in previous posts, talked about ground balancing on Multi-Frequency machines, especially as it pertains to beach hunting.  I did not realize until today that Park 2 is a fixed ground balance.  I did not Ground Balance the machine at all in Park 2, but had used the manual ground balance in Gold 2 to start out, then expected the Tracking Ground Balance to take over.  I presume the Manual Ground Balance I did in Gold 2 carried over to Park 2 because it certainly handled some fairly hot ground with no problem.  However, I chased a few very faint targets and it seemed like the NOX was tracking them out.  I dug out the areas where I first heard the faint targets that NOX subsequently tracked out, and most of them turned out to be pockets of hot grey clay.  NOX was clearly doing its job and trying to ignore changing hot ground, but with a Fixed Ground Balance, it shouldn't have been able to do that. 

Perhaps it can be attributed to the PFM(pure f-ing magic) of Minelab's Multi filters, but if it's more easily explained inquiring minds would like to know.

19 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Thanks for the follow up report Steve. I saw enough this year to change my "in use machine" list on my profile to just GPZ 7000 and Equinox. Between those two detectors I can do 98% of what I want to do with a detector.

I am holding on the my White's V3i to run my Bigfoot coil, but the fact is I have not fired it up once this year. It's strictly a large field jewelry sweeping device for me, nothing more, and I have not done any of that this year. So far. I have a Gold Monster, Gold Racer, Gold Kruzer, and Goldmaster 24K also, but all of them essentially tiny gold machines. And for that right now I am going to grab the Equinox with 6" coil first, just because of the tricks like you are playing now. I absolutely know what the other machines will/can do, but Equinox and Multi-IQ simply has surprises, good ones, and that's fun for me at least. It's fun figuring something out that is genuinely new.

Seem to me you were not thrilled by the Deus Gold Field mode either, preferring to use a modified disc mode instead. All metal can get oppressive in really noisy locations.

The bottom limit for "tiny" on the Equinox must be darn near microscopic.

I'm still baffled on how this Park 2 filters the hot rocks and hot ground so much better than Gold 2.   I believe this machine could be set up for a rank amateur, wife, girlfriend, kid who want to try detector prospecting but will burn out quick if they spend too much time chasing hot rocks and hot ground.  Set this thing in Park 2, Sens 20 and dig anything that gives a high tone and a VID under +12.   All my bigger test nuggets come in at +8 to +10.

13 minutes ago, phrunt said:

Thanks, now I want to take my 6" out for a spin and try out your tactics, I've probably passed up on a fair bit of small gold..

You will not be disappointed with this tactic if you have small surface gold.  The machine runs dead quiet till you get over a target.  The deepest target I dug was the biggest of these tiny nuggets, down maybe 2 inches.  The key is a high tone chirp.   I will try and get the Z 7000 over a decent undug target and check it with the NOX.  

I got back out for a couple hrs this morning and verified my NOX 800 settings.  I was definitely running with no discrimination in Park 2, with Sens at 23, running in the 5 tone mode.  I toggled back and forth on a couple targets with the Gold 2 setting.  Park 2 was way better at, for lack of a better term, separation.  The Gold 2 audio was really overloaded with the background of "hot rocks/ground noise".  The VID in Gold 2 stayed at -8, -9, clear hot rock reading and the target response was very broad.  I tried to add some discrimination in Gold 2 to see if I could tame it down.  No go.  Whereas the Park 2 gave a crisp zip type signal over the target.  The VID on undug targets in Park 2 varied from 0 to -5.  Once the targets were in the scoop they ranged from 0 to +2.  Park 2 eliminated well over 90% of the "hot rock" tones that were killing me in Gold 2.

Again, the key was the positive high tone even if it was combined with the low tone growl.  Many of these undug targets only gave a high tone in one direction.  Once they were uncovered they were generally positive high tone in all directions.  Forget about the VID for these tiny pieces of gold. 

I doubt many prospectors expect to pursue a steady diet of these tiny mico gold nuggets, but it's good to know the NOX can certainly do it.  I figure the larger gold with take care of itself, I just need to get the coil over some.  We've absolutely hammered this little spot with the Z7000, so most of the bigger gold is already in the poke somewhere.

The NOX 6" coil absolutely rocks on tiny gold!

Now I have to go back out tomorrow and re-check my settings.  I'll take along the rake and pull down some of the piles for good measure.