Just wondering

[Tom_in_CA]

haha, yes, I'll admit I'm lazy. When I'm on land in turfed city parks, I'm angling for silver . If I'm in a relic hunt situation (ghost-towns, stage stops, etc...), then of course, it's dig-all-conductors.

There's a guy in my city who does in fact get gold rings from soccer fields , parks , schools, etc... But if you pushed him, he'd admit that all-in-all, when it's all said and done (averaging in ALL the hunts, not just the hunts he found gold on), that his aluminum to gold ratio is very punishing. Not a hard task if you're doing sand boxes, (where digging is easy), but he's doing it in turf. He's got more patience than me. When/if I want gold rings that bad, I'd just go to the beach. The ratios there on dry sand are no worse, and digging is much easier. And if the wet beach is eroding, and all the light stuff being swept out, then the ratios get even better

Yup, I'm lazy.

 

[jackintexas]

What I was saying about 90%. It could be approximatley 90%. Of course you are right no one could know exactly 90% of almost anything......Jack

 

[jackintexas]

How many of you would like to have a detector with this feature.....Jack

 

[ironsight]

Consumer metal detectors have come a long way but they're still based on IDing metal conductivity and ferrous content. Sort of like the internal combustion engine which has come a long way but still based on the same basic principal.

Whats needed is a totally different concept.
One possibility albeit currently a cost prohibitive technology would be a system of ground penetrating radar or a tight scanning electron beam somewhere in the frequency spectrum...maybe even similar to LIDAR.

It would not necessarily ID metal conductivity but instead outline the form factor of the target on the screen. This would virtually eliminate not only pull tabs but also nails and other junk too. An added benefit would be no headphones required just a hi resolution glare resistant screen.

The trick would be to make it safe, deep seeking, compact, accurate and affordable without applying for a mortgage.

 

[jackintexas]

I suppose everyone is wondering why I came up with this question. Because I have actually done it. Out of 32 gold rings, 2 have bled into the pull tab range, I still get 30, Out of 103 pull tabs I used, 8 bled into the gold ring range I got rid of 95 pull tabs.. That is where I came up with approx 90% of gold rings and get rid of approx 90% of the pull tabs. I have worked on this project about 2 years on and off. I am still in the testing phase. I think there is one good way of hunting this way other than getting rid of the tabs. and two bad things hunting this way. The good thing everywhere is virgin territory. No one has probably hunted this way Number one of the bad things is the confidence factor.Someone would hunt and hunt thinking they .should have found a gold ring, they may tend to wonder if it really works.If they don't have a large amount of gold rings and a large amount of tabs for testing. they may wonder. Number two is the boring factor. You will not be digging a target every few minutes as they would coin hunting.It could become very boring as gold rings are not everywhere. They can be any where but not every where.. I am still on cloud 9 that I finally done what I have done....Jack

 

[Tom Slick]

Jack, I told you back on Oct. 15 that I could do it. Could have saved you at least two months off that two year project, you should have asked how.

 

[jackintexas]

-- moved topic --

 

[chuck ky]

The only way this could really work would be in actual hunting. How would you know that you are eliminating 90% of the tabs and getting 90% of the gold that's in the ground where you're hunting?

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Sorry, but I agree with Chuck. I am having my doubts about what you are saying.

When having an expanded 2-axis TID system (like the explorer), it may be true that there are VERY FEW gold rings that will read right at a certain recurring type round tab. The same can be said of the USA nickel: Very few gold rings will read exactly at nickel.

But the problem you will run into, is that there is INFINITE variations of aluminum junk . Ie.: Not just the few recurring brands of soda's tabs. There's munched up , folded, and broken tabs. There's can slaw. There's foil wads of infinite sizes and shapes. And there's infinite shapes, sizes, and karats (purity) of gold rings.

If you REALLY think you can pass aluminum, and dig gold rings, with the percentages you speak of, I have a quick and immediate test for you: Go out to an inner city blighted park in any large city near you. Go see how many gold rings you can dig, while leaving aluminum behind. I believe you will quickly abandon your claims.

 

[jackintexas]

Tom: I wish you were here so I could show you it can be done.....Jack

 

[jackintexas]

Tom: I could do a video, but you know and I know tricks can be done in a video.....Jack

 

[Tom_in_CA]

..... I could show you it can be done.....Jack

Jack, you're that confident, eh ? I mean, there's no doubt in your mind, right ? So then you'd be willing to put your money where your mouth is, right ?

Then here's the wager: You pay your flight out here to CA, and let's put it to the test. If it works, I reimburse you double your flight and time cost for days-off-work, etc...

I have JUST the spots for the test:

1) Any of various blighted urban inner city parks. But , granted, it could be argued that there's simply a low ratio of gold rings TO BEGIN with. But, with your confidence, that wouldn't mean "digging more junk", right ? It would only mean "going longer between yes-dig signals, right ? Or the other option:

2) There's a upscale all-girls private parochial school here in my city that dates to the mid 1960s. It's where the upper-crust (parents with $$) send their kids for private education.

Re. option #2: I often thought that *SURELY* those girls lost jewelry in their little athletic field. It's all fenced in an surrounded by houses, buildings, etc.. So it's gonna be virgin ground (especially for low conductors anyhow). Around here none of us spend time at schools this new, since our primary turf goal is silver afterall. So one time I went to this spot, and dedicated my mind to digging all low conductors even if it killed me. Because I figured that there HAD to be some rings there But low & behold, lawn mowers had tangled with aluminum cans over the decades, and the girls also apparently eat their lunches and snacks on this lawn (read "foil"), so .... after about 30 low conductor trash targets, my patience wore thin and I left. If gold rings are THAT high on my agenda, I could simply go to the beach (20 min. away from me). So it simply didn't make any sense.

But if there were a system to go to turf and PASS aluminum of all-sorts, and dig ONLY gold (even if only 90% accurate. Heck, even if only 10% accurate), people would be BESIDES themselves to implement this.

So are you willing to put your money where your mouth is and come demonstrate it ? If you can show you're right, you will have disproved the entire md'ing community's assumed premise, that aluminum and alloyed gold jewelry , on a size-per-size basis, can not be differentiated.

And remember: We would NOT be talking "ring enhancement programs" (where you simply edit out the most commonly recurring junk items, standard tabs, nickels, etc...). Because if THAT'S what you're talking about, then all those "ring enhancement programs" go out the window when you enter into an area of infinate foil wad sizes, can shrapnel, cut and bent tabs, etc.....

 

[jackintexas]

Hey Tom: If you are really interested. You can fly to DFW. I live in Fort Worth.. Where I hunt mostly there are seven million people. I am still in the testing phase. Then I will show it to Garrett which is 30 miles where I live. Randy Smith in Olk City. 225 miles from me. Hopefully in time you will see a detector with this feature at your local dealers....Jack

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Hey Tom: If you are really interested. You can fly to DFW. I live in Fort Worth.. Where I hunt mostly there are seven million people. I am still in the testing phase. Then I will show it to Garrett which is 30 miles where I live. Randy Smith in Olk City. 225 miles from me. Hopefully in time you will see a detector with this feature at your local dealers....Jack

Ok, sure, we reverse the wager: I fly there, and you reimburse my flight and time-off-work, if it doesn't do as said. Right ?

And I'm beginning to see a little waffling in your voice: Prior to this post, it could "most certainly be done". But notice now, it's "still in the testing phase".

If you can take this system out to an inner city blighted park, and accomplish even a 9 junk to 1 gold ratio (that's a 90% failure rate), you would be RICH INDEED. There are LOTS of us that would be MORE THAN WILLING to dig that much aluminum, if his end of day ratio were something even as bad as 90% off.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Jack,

In 2006, the city of San Francisco ripped out the turf, down to a level of 6 to 10", in one of their old-town parks: Garfield Square. This park isn't on the oldest side of SF, but it still dates to as early as the 1870s/80s-ish. The city was scraping off the turf on an entire side of the park, to make way for artificial turf athletic field.

This park is in a very blighted ethnic area of SF . So the turf was VERY junky. No turf hunters in SF would bother angling for silver there, that I knew of, prior to this. We all gravitate to the cleaner more upscale parks of SF. Because this one was just a sea of aluminum, zinc, clad, wino caps, etc... on the surface.

But as you can well imagine, when they scraped off 6 to 10" of turf, it was Christmas come early We pulled HUNDREDS of silver coins out of there. And made it into an article for Western and Eastern Treasure mag. Had a lot of fun

By about the 3rd or 4th night though, the construction crew had begun to fold soil back into the low spots of the scrape. I guess to get their correct gradient. So eventually, it became impossible to distinguish new versus old, since the const. soil started to get mixed up. But no problem: Since this was all just a jumbled mess anyhow, holes and digging were a non-issue. We continued to treat the site in a ghost-townsy "dig all" relic mindset.

I saved every single target that I dug over a ~2 week period. So that at the end, I could do careful analysis of ratios. And since I was digging all conductors, I did indeed have some gold targets. I think it was something like 8 or 9 gold items: a few rings, a watch back a pendent, and so forth. However, when I counted my aluminum targets, it was up into the thousands !

So you see: If a person had gone to a blighted inner city park like this, with the "dig all" mentality (lest he miss a gold ring), he would have been ONE SORRY FELLOW INDEED. The ratios simply weren't worth it. For this element of park anyhow (perhaps other parks or turf are cleaner and more forgiving).

So in your estimation, when that turf was still intact, and assuming there's no masking going on (ie.: clad or tabs COVERING a gold ring), are you saying that you can pass aluminum, and hone in on *just* the gold items ? And if so, to what extent of ratios are you thinking ? 1 in 5 ? 1 in 10 ? 1 in 20 ?

There was a dealer here in CA that at one time was making claims that he too had figured out (or that, at least, in theory, it was possible) to distinguish gold versus aluminum by sound. He would tell customers that gold sounded softer, or different, or more rounded, or ........ some such tonal difference. But I told him this was all a mind-trick. Just "selective memory". Because every time an md'r kneels down to dig something, we subconsciously think "this one sounds different". But when it turns out to be a tab or foil wad, then we subconsciously say to ourselves: "Yeah, come to think of it, it did sound a little junky". but lo & behold when we finally pop up a gold ring, only THEN do we remember our premonitions and say "aha! I *knew* it sounded different"!

Same psychology of thinking your dreams at night come true (eg.: waking up to the song on your radio-alarm that you were just dreaming about): We dream hundreds of dreams per night, that we promptly forget upon waking up. But if just one of them came true, then we'd remember that one dream and think "aha! I'm psychic!". So too is it easy to get fooled when md'ing, to think "gold sounds different".

 

[jackintexas]

Hey Tom: When I said in the testing phase, I am still trying to find as many gold rings as possible. I demo'd the unit at a club meeting a couple of weeks ago. Before that I got a lot of ribbing. After the demo there was some jaw dropping. The circuit I have works better in some detectors than others. So far the old minelab exterra 50 seems to have a little wider window than some others. Some detectors it will not work at all.. I have been in electronics most of my life This has been a project of mine for at least a couple of years or so. I love it when someone does something that many others say it can't be done.......Jack

 

[jackintexas]

I did not know if the pics came through or not. 3 or 4 are silver rings to fill t6he case. Some gold rings I have found.....Jack

 

[Tom_in_CA]

So even though still "in the testing phase", are you confident enough that you'll take up the wager ? If I fly out, you can successfully show that ?

 

[jackintexas]

Tom: I really do not care if you believe it or not. I was just stating a fact.....Jack

 

[Tom_in_CA]

..... I was just stating a fact....

Correct. It's a "fact". Not speculation. Not un-proven-as-of-yet. Not still experimenting, etc.... I don't doubt your confidence in the system as working-already Jack.

This is why you'd therefore have nothing at all to risk on the wager. Ie.: you would end up paying nothing (not having to pay for my airline ticket), since, as you say yourself, it's "fact".

Right ?