First time out.

[Jim.]

Morning all,

I am a new owner of a used x terra 70, I also have a high frequency coil, a 3kz coil and the standard coil. I have been testing the e terra in my back yard now for a week and feel reasonably confident with it, this forum has been a wealth of priceless info freely given, which has shortened my learning curve considerably. I thank you all for that!
I'm about to hop into my car and hit the local goldfields!! I am lucky enough to live within an hour of some old historical mine sites, which hopefully will give something up to me. If I come home empty handed I won't be dissapointed, I don't expect to much first time out. At the very least I will get a bit of exercise and some fresh air.
I will post a few photos of the area I go to when I get back arvo, along with any finds I make.

Regards to all,

Jim.

 

[xwyokid]

Good Luck. First time out can be a little trying. Follow your proper set up and go for it.

 

[Beale]

Welcome to the site! A big congrats on the 70 also! I hope you do well on your 1st hunt, Beale.

 

[7centsworth]

Welcome to the site , you have a good detector there. I look forward to your pictures.

 

[Terra1959]

Gday jim,

Welcome to a fellow Aussie.
Victorian ?
you will have fun with the Xterra mate, great hobby too.

t59

 

[Furious T]

You've got a great machine to help you get started in this hobby, Jim. Dont be too disheartened if you dont score some nuggets...you can always go after the refined type of gold any time you want. My '70 has been great in this regard. All the Best.

 

[Bavaria Mike]

n/t

 

[David]

You've got a great machine to help you get started in this hobby, Jim. Dont be too disheartened if you dont score some nuggets...you can always go after the refined type of gold any time you want. My '70 has been great in this regard. All the Best.

Furious, what do you mean by refined type gold? To me that means after the refiners have refined it. Or by mistake do you mean fine gold? Thanks anyway.

But I can tell you that the X-70(or 5) in Prospecting Mode(Iron Mask off)with a HF(18.75 kHz) coil(especially the 6"--5x10"--10.5" HF DD's, and 9" HF CC if mineralization allows a Concentric) will find some very fine gold specimens(like in quartz), sponge(holes in it), wire, and mico small grain sized fine gold(nuggets, if you can call them that, you have to wet your finger to pick one up) that the gold prospecting Pulse Inductions{SD/GP(X), TDI, and Infinium LS} will not even beep on--not register on.

 

[Jim.]

Hi all,

Thanks for the replys and encouragment to my post, here's how the day panned out! I arrived at the goldfields at around 8am and found a spot that looked reasonable, I was looking for some hot ground that would try out the x terras capabilitys and give me some time to get to know the machine. The only thing I didn't muck around with was the Iron Mask, everything else was fair game. The x terra surprised me.......after setting noise cancel and ground balance as per the book, and running in prospecting mode with the threshold on 20, tones on 10, and sensetivity on 20. I started with the sensetivity at max then wound it back until the machine mellowed out. I also used the tracking option, without this feature the machine couldn't keep up with the changing ground conditions. I dug everything and had a great day in the bush. No gold was found, but I'm sure if I walked over a piece i would have found it. I've attached a couple of photos........I hope they work.

PS the only downside I can find so far is the stand, its useless I will me modding mine so the machine can sit without falling over on uneven ground.

Regards to all,

Jim.

 

[Furious T]

Jim, looks as if you had fun, and detected in one of the beautiful parts of our planet. The good targets will come. Sounds as if you're not worried about experimenting with settings, and that's good.

Dave, when I referred to refined gold I was just referring to raw stuff that's been made into jewellery. HH

 

[David]

Ok thanks for explaining Furious.

Beautiful pictures Jim.

"The only thing I didn't muck around with was the Iron Mask, everything else was fair game." Yes do experiment with Iron Mask (IM) from 5 to 20 on small iron nails and see if is knocks them out. On IM 20 it may also knock out tiny small micro nuggets also, but the advantage is you will still get no loss of depth at IM 20 and dig less iron trash.

If you are picking up a very old square nail, and smaller tiny nails and pieces of iron, that means no one detected that exact spot there before you and it is virgin. It is a good sign. Looks like you are using the 5x10" HF DD which is the best coil for what you are doing. Your advantage over a PI machine as I said before is getting very small fine micro gold that a PI will not pick up, and also you can run in discrimination C &T Mode with the 70(in Pattern 1, or All-Metal and observe the TID numbers) in very trashy goldfields as a PI has very poor discrimination. Also the 70 is very lightweight and very compact is an advantage.

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

Good luck on the gold hunting Jim! It looks like you ust have had rain recently.
Who knows, you might find Lassators reef if your real lucky!
Mick Evans.

 

[jreb]

good luck from athens tn usa

 

[Jim.]

Hi all,

I had a mate that claimed to have seen Lassiters reef in the sixtys.................he was one of the smartest down to earth men I have ever met, you could have knocked me over with a feather when he told me about it.
Thanks and good luck to you to Jreb
Hey Mick talk about rain we've had twice our annual rainfall already this year.................and it's hammering down right now. (my 3 year old grandaughter got such a shock from the continueous rain I had to throw a bucket of dust on her to settle her down)

Regards to all,

Jim

 

[jreb]

good luck i own a 70 also i hope you find a giant nugget