3 days at amherst.

[kirkn]

Hi, just came back from 3 days prospecting at Amherst and Talbot, its only the second time detecting but this time i have my own detector (gpx 4500). Had a great time and found alot of junk, also found a few interesting sites, i think its a puddler, not sure what the ridge was (photos attached)

Found nails and a few bullets, also a button and other bits. Im still trying to get used to the ground noise, i was told that u will get some noise but everytime the coil brushes up on something or i move it the wrong way it makes noise. What is the ratio of trips to gold for u guys? i did find a rock , looks like maybe iron stone with bits of quartz, gave a very faint signal.

 

[kirkn]

 

[loamer]

Kirkn - good photos and post.

yes - thats a puddler

the ridge is probably the end of an old dam if near the puddler or a water channel to guide the water to the puddler or the water run off. It is not a water race by the looks of things.

coil noises? did you check the lead connections are tight? also make sure the lead from the coil to the box is not loose and hitting against the shaft or you arm when detecting - recommended fix - velcrove the lead in place. could also be the coil is faulty. there was a similar post yesterday and making a noise all the time is certainly not right. do you have another coil to test against? the 4500 should be quiet 90% of the time while in good ground balance. it will discharge a static discharge every now and then and the occcassional coil strike noise but it should not happen all the time. yes, the coils are sensitive to hitting things but this sounds a bit more than usual. your ground balance OK? sorry to confuse but play with the manual tune and perhaps the gain/sensitivity to quieten it down - unless of course it is quiet until you bump something. (I had the same problem with an old 14" DD that did it once too often and now lives with god after meeting an ironbark trunk. broke the shaft as well but I felt a lot better)

the finds are good. the search to gold ratio will get better when you learn the sounds of ferrous vs non ferrous. I bet some of those were close to the surface and screamed in. may be worth setting iron reject off for a start (only works on the DD coil). If I can kick or scrape it aside - I move on. yes, I miss coins and buttons.

switch the coil types around - DD to mono etc. those finds do show me that you are hearing things Ok.
Now - these are generalisations and hold true for most times. gold usually has a sweet mellow sound and should be an even sound on the same from side to side on you swing. with the 4500 it should be high - low (unless you have inverted the setting) for smaller gold. do you have a test piece of lead? get some smallish sized sinkers and use to test the sound plus you should always tune in the threashold as well. lead sounds almost exactly the same- sweet and mellow. these test pieces are also good to give you an indication of depth you should be getting. dig them in to the soil types you are detecting.

detecting is like playing sport - preparation, warm up, game plan, strike, regroup, strike , win and then drink beer. the warm up bit is to tune your ears into the ground you are on. it will all become second nature eventually and yes, it is exciting to get to a spot and start detecting straight away but I repeat - tune the detector and your ears in first otherwise you will be digging ground noise about three feet from your start point. why three feet?its about as long as we normally walk before hitting bloody hot ground in Vic GF (as you are well aware)

 

[Jim.]

Hi all,

Nice finds Kirkn.

On the gold to trios ratio thing. It took me nearly two years to find my piece. I'ts about a 2 grammer that I've still got, I was so exited that I packed my gear up and bolted home

Long story short. These days I get gold every time I go out. Loamers right, you will get to know the sound of gold v junk..............you just need to get your first bit and you'll be away.

What type of coil are you using?

Jim & kerrie

 

[kirkn]

hi loamer, after your advice the other day i tapped the coil lead as it was loose and making some noise, its the standard mono coil you get with the 4500 ( i think), it did come with a DD coil, i will take your advice and practice with both to test them out, these are the settings i was using ( got them from detectormods website)

Motion: Slow (or use "Very Slow" if there is bad EMI)
RX Gain: 12 for the deep quiet ones, if EMI is nonexistent, try 13.
Audio: Normal
Audio Tone: 33
Stabilizer: 11
Signal Peak: 19
Target Volume: 10 for headphones
Response: Normal
Tracking: Slow
Iron Reject: Off

i put the threshold at just a hum. hopefully its not the coil but i did buy it second hand, ( got it check by minelab as authentic). any suggestions on a good coil.

Hi Jim, i cant wait to find a bit, i found it hard with so much coil noise, i have heard gold has a cookoo sound but there was alot of noise.

here are the coils.

 

[kirkn]

how can i tell what the coils are

 

[loamer]

The GP series is a DD unless you can see 'mono' on the label.

The other one looks like its wired as a DD. The Double D has two loops of wiring (like reversed Ds - hence DD) which overlap in the middle of the coil. One coil is used as a transmit and the other as the receive signal antenna, but the brand is ?

The best way to test an unknown coil with the PIs is to put iron reject ON and way a piece of ferrous metal at it. If it blanks out, its a DD, if it has a melt down and warbles and spits and farts - its a mono.

The settings look fine to me. The gain and stabilizer should, as you show, not usually be more than two numbers apart (generally).

Now, a good coil... this will start some arguments but with my 4500 I have:

11" minelab mono, 11" minelab DD, 14" minelab DD, 18" minelab DD, 8" coiltek mono and a 14 x 7 nugget finder (NF) mono. I love the NF for general stuff and it paid for itself within an hour of buying it! The 8" is for playing on mullock heaps with the grand kids and its bloody deadly on small stuff. I use an xterra 70 with 10" for quartz specis on dumps.

Good luck mate.

 

[kirkn]

thanks loamer, this forum has been a huge help and your advise has helped me heaps, so i think i have a dd coil and had it set on mono, could this cause excess noise,

i was looking at a nugget finder, havnt heard anything bad about them.

 

[loamer]

DD set on mono - I know a lot of folk, recommend this and then there are folk who don't. Same same as running the mono as a DD. Turns them into pseudo coils.
Me? I run the DD in DD. and mono in mono. The DD in DD will quiten things down as you are telling the 4500 to run a DD because the ground is noisy. The NF gives a sharper response in my opinion and is a great mono. The SETA programming is designed to do many things and make the monos run on noisy ground is one of them. Yes, they will wheeze and grunt a bit but if you ever ran a mono on an old PI series (2100 - 2200 etc) that was very noisy and DD was the standard. My opinion is based on advice from a long-term full time prospector who runs the DD in DD - mono in mono. He thinks the advantages are minimal but as always, it is advised to do some test pieces on the ground you are detecting in. For example, a series of different sizes of lead and perhaps aluminium and then play with your settings to guage depth, response, ground noise etc. I have a little test pit area set up and they take about 1/2 hour to do so. Drill sideways into a bank and place them in there and detect from above. It becomes an intuative thing for some people who do switch the Rx around ( for example to make the mono quiet on a noisy horrible bit of ground -swicth to DD. To make the DD quieter on a bad EMI day - swicth it to cancel BUT NEVER THE MONO!! - you will be lucky to find your pick!) There is a host of technical explanations, ie DD in mono turns it into a mono with one side of the coil responding blah blah blah blah blah. Another technical example I have heard of is that a mono in mono reduces ever so slightly the sensitivity. (Oh really? so does actually playing with the settings.)

As for settings, I think the key ones are the target volume, stabilizer and gain. I run in slow (unless noisy then very slow), audio in boost unless very noisy day. When I started out with the 4500, I started the 4500 really dumbed down and then did my tests from there and worked it up. (VLFs are opposite - run flat out then dumb down to shut them up)

In summary - there are 1,000s of opinions on the 4500/5000 settings and each has its merits. Same as the old fixed/tracking - iron reject on/off debates. I would simply start with the presets and work around those. remember, the ground can change quickly so that can account for noises. As I said, it becomes intuative eventually.

Talbot Amherst is noisy ground and deep in places down in the gullies - so watch out for that as well. For example - Kangaroo Gully. (stick to the sides around there)

(PS mate - opinions are like axxholes - everyone has got one especially when it comes to gold and detecting. )

 

[align600]

kirkn, was that puddler in a clearing on the left hand side? i swear it looks like the one next to where i camped the other weekend.

 

[froghoppers]

Hi Kirkn, we spent last w/end at Amherst with another couple & the guys got 3 bits of gold each over the 2 days as well as lots of lead shots & shot cases. Hubby also got & little bit panning a nearby creek as well. It's a beautiful spot & we'll definitely be back there. It's also close to quite a few areas where gold has been found recently.

 

[condor22]

I'm ne to this, but have a question, Loamer mentions that Talbot Amherst is deep ground and I've heard others mention shallow ground. So, what does this actually mean?

Also, is there anywhere that notes which areas are shallow or deep?