Request Input - Makro Racer 2, XP Deus And Whites MX Sport

[Roughwater]

11 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Let me ask a question back Terry. Have you ever done much metal detecting? Or is this something you are just getting into?

Steve,

You may regret having asked me that question as here it the answer:

I guess you could say Metal detecting is something I'm getting back into.  I used a Whites Eagle back in the 80's in Ohio and when they came out with a new chip I bought the chip making it effectively an Eagle II if I recall correctly.  But back then I didn't have any detector buddies just the one detector, one coil and I was good with it. I hunted off and on usually just a couple hours at a time. I found some nice silver coins with it and a gold ring at a gravel pit where some used to swim as well as a lot of junk too. Found a friend of a friends wedding ring.  

After moving to NC in 95 it didn't see much use.  Then I retired the first time in 2005 from Federal service. Decided to go huntin for gold! Joined the GPAA, bought a GP 3500 from Gerry in Idaho and went to his 3 day class at Rye patch on the way to my road trip to Alaska. Found a little nugget the last day of Gerry's 3 day class.  He left, and I stayed a couple more days at Rye Patch.  The day after he left I decided to walk over a hundred or 2 yard from the area we were all hitting so hard the last 3 days.  Gerry gave me good settings training and I used a 8" mono coil and started finding nuggets so I mentally tried to cover every inch of the area I was working and ended up finding 6 nuggets that day, the largest being a one ouncer.   Next day I searched hard again but only found one more nugget so headed on up to Alaska.  

Did some detecting there but only a couple nuggets that year up there but was mostly hi-banking and running a small underwater dredge at Mills Creek which at one time was a GPAA claim.  Did the same thing again next year (06) minus Rye patch except we went to Petersville Rec area and dredged with a slightly bigger dredge.  I think I only got the detector out once while there but no luck.  

Long story short I ended up going back to NC, buying a new home, got married and sold all my detectors to put down money on the house.   I bought a used whites TDI a couple years later off a guy that seemed pretty electronics savvy, I believe it was one of the 1st 200 off the line.  I think his online handle was Reg or something like that.  I build a few coils for it including a one meter coil which was crazy powerful.  I had this really large metal Nut I found and it could detect it at over 5ft.  But I sold that detector a couple years later and all the coils went with it to a guy heading to South America somewhere. 

  I have been working steady but am about to retire again hopefully permanetely so have bought another detector from Gerry (the GPX 5000), and going to take his training again but in Oregon this time.  Originally planned go to AK again and may but was thinking that's a heak of a lot of driving there and back and instead of those couple weeks driving I could spend that time with my coil on the ground so we'll see on that part of the plan.  

Being finally retired I hope to have a lot of time to get out and use the detectors in the gold fields and closer to home.  Oh and this last pic is of Mt McKinley from our camp at Petersvile Rec area.  We could only see McKinley on rare occasions from the camp and I had to hike part way up a mountain to get this pic of it as we could only see the very peak from our camp.   

[Steve Herschbach]

Wow, great story Terry, thanks! I mainly just wanted to make sure you were into detecting before you go whole hog on detectors. Too many people get into this incredibly glamorous sport for all the chicks and treasure we find. Reality is a bunch of old guys digging pennies and nails, and most women run from anyone with a metal detector. (My apologies to any ladies present!)

Sounds like you have paid your dues and then some, so no worries!

[Roughwater]

Thanks Steve,

That means a lot coming from you!  

[Roughwater]

9 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Too many people get into this incredibly glamorous sport for all the chicks and treasure we find. Reality is a bunch of old guys digging pennies and nails, and most women run from anyone with a metal detector. (My apologies to any ladies present!)

Yea Steve, the ladies are just one of the hazards of the sport!

I don''t know for sure what I like best about it.  I know when I dug up that one ounce nugget it felt like I had just won a million dollars.  Some folks there volunteered to take it and clean it for me.  But I politely declined.  Inside I saying "Are you Crazy?".

There's a lot I like about it.  Like Forest Gump said:  It's like a box of Chocolates, you never know what your going to get.    

[argyle]

Would like to see more pics of your trips away Terry ...great scenery.

Personally I'd jump on the second hand Quattro for your beach work without a second thought.

I always liked the Quattro, and now the still in production Safari. Most of us ended up just running them wide open without any fuss.

At that cheap price it leaves you only your choice for a discriminating prospecting VLF new.

[argyle]

One other thing on concentric coils. They are much better made now and handle ground better than earlier types. And they come in all shapes and sizes, large elliptical and so on.

The inner receive ring is sometimes the trick on hot ground. The smaller inner ring the better they handle hotter ground.

They beat the pants off a DD for separation, isolation and depth. And I use some brands on some pretty wicked dirt.

[Steve Herschbach]

I always like to point out that the Gold Bug 2 only uses concentric coils. I have heard of prototype DD coils for it but none were ever made for retail.

[argyle]

1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

I always like to point out that the Gold Bug 2 only uses concentric coils. I have heard of prototype DD coils for it but none were ever made for retail.

Funny thing is, you know the whole time I used the Bug 2's, not once did I realise they were concentric coils. 

I knew they felt different in a slight way sig response wise, but I guess the elliptical shape simply made me put it down to the elongated blade of a DD.