Ismael Jones Personal SD2000

[Sgtfda]

20 years ago I bought a SD2000 control box from Ismael Jones. He had a 6 channel mod on it and later added his VCO mod. He was using the unit on a drag sled to pick up deep gold deposits. It was designed by him for deep gold. At the time I needed it to search for lost Civil War gold bars in the Pennsylvania mountains. I bought a 25" nuggetfinder coil for it. Heavy unit but goes DEEP. The 2000 puts out a huge signal that will pick up big deep stuff. 12 volt battery with the adjustable voltage mod. I usually use it at about 7.4 vols an a low frequency with the big coil. Flash forward to yesterday. A friend had a lead on a area with 6 possible treasure locations so he thought. Something at those locations. He could get me within about 3 foot of the spots. Parking not far off 20 to 100 yards away. At 76 I don't feel like hauling that heavy detector long distances. The spots were in the foothills of the Superstition Mountains well away from domestic locations. Upon arrival I set up the 2000 with a perfect threshold. Very little junk in the area. Very quiet ground. First spot no targets then bang a huge 3ft very strong signal. I handed my friend a shovel. Start digging. At 3 feet I could see this spot was not dug before. Hard going. This spot had a lot of gold claims in the past. 100 years ago. Not much activity since. I looked at him and said looks like a gold or silver deposit deep. Your going to need  a backhoe or core sample. I also had a Troy Shadow x5 detector that goes about 3 feet on a big target. I ran it over the spot. Nothing. The target was deeper than the Troy could handle. Out of the 6 spots we tested 2 others. Exactly the same response. By then we were worn out and decided to hit the other three spot another day. We did walk to a fourth spot without the equipment. On the way I spotted a 10 foot outcropping of decomposing granite. Fractured rock sticking out of the ground. The prospector in me said bingo! I did pick up a sample. It was full of gold specks. A minelab pinpointer had a nice hit on a small quartz crystal vein going through it. I'll crush that piece in my crusher and pan it later.  All in all a great day with perfect desert weather. If you have a spot that you suspect deep big gold hit it with a Sd2000. It will pick up stuff the new units won't. Trust me on that.

[Aureous]

I owned 2 of Ismaels Modded SD's, incl a 2000. Found my 2 biggest multi ounce nuggets with them. He built a few 'one-of' detectors that had some secret sauce frequencies and altered timings that gave some serious depth on large targets. Now I know where one of them went...

[Gerry in Idaho]

Those early green box PI's were Tops when it came to depth on large solid targets.  I never did get to swing a modded one, but I can only imagine.

As for the Minelab pinpointer picking up on a small quartz crystal vein, is your pinpointer modded?  My Minelab pointer is worthless on much of that kind of gold, even when touching it.  But my VLF gold detector screams on the same piece.

[Sgtfda]

I bought for my wife. Right out of the box. No mod.

[TheDeepseeker]

 

I agree Gerry. I took my Minelab pinpointer out with me last week and soon remembered why I stopped using it. You can frig about in the dirt for way too long adjusting sensitivity between ignoring a target or beeping no matter where you place it. Given the chance again I'd spring for the Carrot.

[Mike C...]

On 4/29/2025 at 4:54 PM, Sgtfda said:

I bought for my wife. Right out of the box. No mod.

Hi Frank glad to see your still around heck the last time I seen you was when we beeped at BB on one of my patches 😎 Years ago I had a 2000 that I sent to Finders in AU to have a couple of modds done man when I got it back after a month or so later it was well worth the wait it was like day and night I would say I found more deep targets with it than any other beeper I ever used and it handled the ground really good wish I still had it.

[Sgtfda]

Hi Mike. You still going at it?

[Mike C...]

1 hour ago, Sgtfda said:

Nope havent been out in over 5 years now my health took a dump but I hope that one of these days I can get out again before I meet my maker.Im going nuts.Take care Frank