Golden uMax/Garrett 1350 day...

[DavHut]

...I avoided the fairgrounds today and went on a detectabout. Ive seen several sidewalk projects around town and hit them today ... nut!
I did eyeball the marble at one of them, but they had all the signs of having been put down and refurbished several times over the years. Oh well, you never know til you put your foot to the soil.

Then I went to a local school that I know has been hammered, by me and at least one other. I had a plan today - I wanted to try running in max SENS/min DISC and see what happens. Yep, Mr. Lower Your Sens was crankin it up today. Well, let's just say I was pleased.

I really do consider myself a trash hunter and actually look for the stuff, trying to ID it in the ground. I actually get a little excited about finding it. This flies in the face of convention I guess, but I know that where there is trash, so too have people been. It is easy to date a site by the trash and you can categorize the stuff easily. Any goodies which surface as a result of this Trash Bias are...well, they're merely gravy. I dont even like gold and silver all that much, preferring to load my pouch with foil, iron, aluminum and what have you......................................................... OK, for you Net Challenged, take-everything-literally types - Im kidding about that part.

At the school I got a million foil wads, a bunch of iron whatsis, most of the little itsie bitsies you see down in front in the pic and the costume bracelet. THAT honker DISC'ed out just above nickle. Had I been at that DISC setting, running my SENS low and were it gold, it would have surely been lost.
Same old story, folks...Discrimination is for IRON. Use more and you've only joined a crap shoot.

Finally, some clearing has been done on land nearby the house, which so happens to adjoin the old George Washington Trail. Yes, kiddies, that GW. He passed through here centuries ago on his inaugural tour of the states, along the very road running by in front of this land. Most of the folks whizzing by have little idea, Im sure...

None of my old maps show much more than a possible old house on the property and I found only the usual shot shell bases, cartridge cases and iron junkola, including the screwdriver an big red handle-looking thing at the left. I did manage one 1946 Wheat Ear, but that aint much a' nuttin for around here. I never did see conclusive sign of a house. Maybe Ill go back tomorrow for a little more reconnoiter - we'll see.

Anyway, one of the good things about living here in SC is that you can multi-site hunt like this. All in all, it was a fun, Golden HI-SENS/LOW DISC sorta day.

 

[Dick from IA]

Nice hunt and story about it, Dave.

Think I'm ordering a Golden next week; or should I get the 1350? I'm back and forth but love the one battery, 2.2 pound vs. 8 batteries and 4.1 pound .

Happy New Year

 

[DavHut]

[size=small]Dick, when were talking the Golden compared to the 1350, were talking apples and oranges. They are vastly different.

First off, the Golden is light, for sure. It eats batteries faster than the 1350, but its not by much and it IS only one 9V, after all.
But that light weight, balance forward makes for a very smooth flow to your swing. This is important for all day hunting, say at the beach.

The Golden has what I'd call a genuine responsiveness, due to its analog circuitry. Now, the 1350 is no slouch and I dont often use the AM pinpoint to isolate a target as there is a fast enough response for that. But, there is a difference, even an edge, in the Golden's favor.

I feel the 1350 will go deeper overall, but that is not cast in stone and much depends on conditions. This ambiguity is mostly due to the way the two units respond over targets.
(Since I dont muck about with test gardens much, I can't offer a more definitive measure. Some love those test gardens; I find them too contrived and artificial to duplicate actual conditions. What happens in the test garden likely has little bearing out in the field; Sorry.)

Okay back to the depth thing. The Garrett does not have a modulated audio. So, it bongs with a "short" audio on deep targets, but without a change in amplitude. Sometimes it just a "blip" on the really deep hits. Some call this an "on or off" response, and I admit that it caused me no end of grief at first. After all, I came to Garretts from the Tesoro camp in the first place!
The Golden is the opposite. It signals weakly, but smoothly over deep good targets due to its modulated audio. You can "SuperTune" the Golden, like every other Tesoro, in order to punch through harder on deep targets; thats a good thing - but you need to be careful with it. Around a lot of surface trash, it's more confounding than anything else. Save the hyper drive SENS for the clear woods.
The Golden has no volume adjust, the Garrett does, which I like. But thats my personal quibble.

In my limited experience (1-2 years) with these units, where the Golden really shines is in target separation. It's almost unflappable in its ability to pick amongst targets, even with the stock coil.

The notch features also shoehorn very well with the separation abilites and are very useful to me. When I hunt very trashy sites for which I've learned the individual "trash suite," I feel assured that I can ID the various items with a large degree of certainty. In fact for some types of trash, there is a real resolution possible. Have you read any of my reports on the Fairground Lightbulb Dilemma?
Suffice it to say that the only solution for that WAS the Golden.

This is the real meat of the Golden, IMHO, and if this sounds like your sort of hunting, then time spent learning the Golden will be rewarded.

Which would I choose if I could only have one? Thankfully, I dont have to make such a choice, but if I did, I would lean pretty heavily towards the Golden. Its light, easy to swing and very capable. It suits my style of hunting, which is casual/hobby. Mike Hillis has referred to this style as "Cruising," and has made the claim that the Golden is possibly the best detector for this style. I wouldn't argue and I'd only improve it by adding a manual GB, along the Bandido/Vaquero line.

It's no secret that my best and deepest targets found have been detected with GARRETTS. A lot of others have been found with the many different Tesoros Ive owned. SO, Ive grown to using them both and I find they play well off each other, each for different reasons. I see no reason to change their ONE-TWO approach.[/size]