just purchased a metal detector from a place called miners den here in adelaide, don't know much about detecting, looking to do it mostly on the beaches just for a bit of fun and to see what i can find, now that summer is on it's way,,does anyone do any detecting while on their travels, had any good finds and have you found any good locations to go detecting,, they say it can be very rewardiing at times
__________________
SOMETIMES YA JUST GOTTA TAKE YOUR COLTHES OFF AND ROLL IN THE MUD
Im looking forward to following this post as I am saving for one of these. Only just starting to surf the net for research. Have fun and please keep us posted.
Back in the early 90's I picked up one of these ex USMC mine detectors for about $50.
It was only partially working at the time, but because it had the manuals with it, I was able to repair it and tune it up so that it worked like a charm. My son and I used to take it to the old gold mining areas north of Melbourne and to local beaches etc to play with it. We found heaps of old beer bottle tops and rusty nails (the square type) and even a solid slug from a shotgun shell buried about 10" into a creek bank. We never found any gold nuggets unfortunately, but we found quite a bit of cash at the beaches. Usually the best places were high up where you would normally put your towel, and right down on the water line. The only worrysome thing was one day when I found a size one stainless fish hook buried about 6" under the sand (we used to just dig anything out of the sand with our bare hands), I thought.. hmmm what if it had have been a needle off a discarded syringe? So if you do fossick on the beaches, be sure to use a perferated scoop to dig out your finds. You don't want to get a stick injury from a syringe eh? One of the hazards of modern urban living I guess.
Like anything else you get what you pay for. Two different types of detectors (A) coin and treasure machine VLF (very low frequency) machines, generallly not much good for chasing gold because the goldfields are mosty highly mineralised - machine will be very noisy due to the ground noise from the mineralisation. Good for chasing coins and artifacts on beaches and parks where there is little mineralisation. The good (expensive) ones have very good discrimination circuits allowing you to 'tune out' undesirable targets - saves a lot of digging and frustration.
(B) For chasing gold you really need a Minelab (Ozzie company) Pulse Induction machine. This type of detector largely ignore mineralisation and so allows you to hear those soft mellow tones from a gold signal. Buy the best you can afford - ideally models from the ML 4000 up. The ML 4500 is a great machine and the ML 5000 at $6500 for starters is brilliant. BUT you need to learn how to use them out in the field - the latest models have dozens of menu driven options. Get it right and the machine will just purr.
These machines are very sensitive to small gold say - 0.1 Gram at a few inches down to a metre deep on a 1 oz slug. Be prepared to dig some big holes!
just purchased a metal detector from a place called miners den here in adelaide, don't know much about detecting, looking to do it mostly on the beaches just for a bit of fun and to see what i can find, now that summer is on it's way,,does anyone do any detecting while on their travels, had any good finds and have you found any good locations to go detecting,, they say it can be very rewardiing at times
