jmaclen,: .. Monte, I'm really sorry to hear about your recent loss of so many detectors due to theft. How many times has this happened to you in your career?
March of '65 until Aug.. '96 ... Never.
Aug. '96 my wife & I moved into the apartment for a mini-storage we just took over managing and I was tired. Outside the sliding glass doors to the patio was a tall wall and gate to the driveway. I had unpacked the moving truck and we had a lot of stuff in the apartment to still unpack, but the next day was going to be nice weather, a day off, and I was going detecting. I brought my two detectors in that evening because batteries were getting low in one and I wanted to do a coil-change on the other. Our first night at the apartment and the next morning I found I had been broken into and they took my detecting gear-belt with finds-bag, digger, my favorite rounded-off screwdriver., and a container I had been emptying my daily finds in.
On to Sept. '02 no problems, but that evening (different city, different employer, but another self-storage facility) I was upstairs on the computer and didn't hear them break in. One Tesoro I just got that day and a modified White's IDX Pro I bought the day before, all my detecting gear bag, headphones, recovery tools, hand-held radios, and a box of found gold and silver jewelry and about 20-22 US Silver Dollars I was planning to take to sell the next day. I don't know how they broke into that vehicle so quietly. I was only away from it for maybe 15 minutes, and I'm sure it took 60 seconds or less simply stuffing the extra things in a detector bag.
Then the biggie! I was loaded up and ready to head to a Central Oregon town to do a 2-Day metal detecting seminar. I had all my detectors loaded in my Tahoe except the four duplicated that were at my oldest son's place so he could make a detector tote. I had my detectors, all my hunting gear, suitcase, and most of my things except my Seminar Tote to go in last. My sister was staying at my place at the time and she got a call that our Mother had a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital in Portland Oregon. I'm just 20 miles from Idaho. My sister quickly grabbed some clothes and we headed out for a hurried drive.
I parked on the lower-level at the hospital, facing the offices and entry door, handicap parking spot, security camera maybe 20' to my left in a security-patrolled parking garage. I was asked to spend the night in my Mom's room, and in the morning I headed down to get my meds and take my insulin. I got to the elevator and had a call from security saying my vehicle had been broken into. They left the Ice Chest with my water, soda and insulin, but took everything else. three sets of new headphones, a new Nokta Impact, my FORS CoRe, two FORS Relic, s Bandido II µMAX, Racer 2, detector bags with all of my accessory coils and extra rods, suitcase, and just about anything else they could grab and toss into a van they pulled up beside it .... and blocking the security camera.
Big city .. Big crime. I live in a much smaller town and still keep detectors in my vehicle 24-7 unless it is snow-covered and too clod to go detecting But my GMC is in my driveway, under the car port, my entire yard is fenced and gated, and I keep things well lighted at might. Miss Rikki has keen hearing and other than those three times in 55 years I haven't had a problem Two times my vehicle was unattended, an the first was also because we unloaded stuff in the garage and didn't have room to pull in. The 2nd time I was only away from the vehicle to take care of some computer stuff and was going to go somewhere so I didn't park inside the gate and in a garage. The last was an unexpected medical emergency and I parked in the most safe-looking spot at the hospital.
Monte
