2/16/15 Report - Strategically Selecting Discrimination Settings. Rechargeable Batteries.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.BlogSpot.com.

Here is a simplified illustration.  It is not real precise, but I hope it helps.

If you are interested in finding gold jewelry on a beach or in the water and want to maximize the value of your finds, you should be aware of how discrimination will affect the results and the value of your finds.

As I've said before, back a lot of years ago I thought that women didn't lose nearly as many rings as men.  That was because I was using too much discrimination and missed many of the smaller women's rings.

The illustration above shows increasing ring size as you go from left to right.  The smallest rings are for babies and children.  Charms, ear rings and chains can also fall in this range.

On the right are the larger rings such as men's school class rings and championship rings.  Larger gold rings have more gold value, but small gold rings can be more valuable if they hold valuable gem stones.

The line plotted on the chart gives an idea of how the value of gold rings of different sizes.can vary.  The least valuable are small children's rings and small lady's bands.  The most valuable are typically diamond engagement rings.  High quality diamond rings do not typically have large bands, especially the highest quality solitaire diamonds.

Men's bands are typically bigger and have more gold weight. Men's gold diamond and gemstone rings can be quite large and hold valuable gems, although usually the gems are not of the same quality as those in quality engagement rings.

And then there are the very heavy championship rings, which usually don't have the highest quality gems, but are highly valued as sports memorabilia.

When I began serious water detecting I had a Fisher 1280X.  It had simple linear discrimination controlled by a single knob.  My initial setting was something like that shown by the orange line to the right of the chart.  I was then getting a lot of men's rings, but few women's rings.

If you have a simple linear discrimination setting such as that on the 1280 or the Minelab Excalibur,  you should be aware of what you might be missing.

One thing I want to show with this illustration is how you should strategically select your discrimination settings, simple linear or otherwise.

When I dialed back the discrimination to the level of the orange line to the left, I started getting more women's rings, which includes those in the high value engagement and gemstone category.

Large gold rings have more gold weight and gold value, but some of the most valuable rings will be those with quality gem stones.  They often have very small gold bands.

There are still small and possibly valuable gold items that will be missed even with the lower discrimination setting, such as diamond stud ear rings, which have very little gold weight.

Even if you have target ID, you should be aware of valuable targets you might be missing.  As I once demonstrated using the Ace 250, if you don't dig targets in the foil and aluminum range, you could miss something like 30 or 40 percent of the gold rings.

I am not showing precise experimental data in this chart, but I hope that it illustrates the main point  -- that you should be aware of the effects of discrimination so you can make strategic decisions with your settings.

------

If your detector uses AA batteries and you detect a lot, replacing batteries can be expensive.  In that case it can be worth spending on rechargeable batteries.  Every good consumer report that I've seen rates the Eneloop Pro as the best rechargeable battery.  An eight pack will probably cost you nearly $40, but it could be worth it.  They recharge quickly, don't loose their charge quickly during storage, and last long.

There are NiCad and NiMH batteries.  NiCad batteries can develop a memory and so it is best to discharge them fully before recharging them.   NiMH batteries, such as the Eneloop batteries, use a better technology and do not have the memory effect.

It can take a number of discharge/recharge cycles for your rechargeable batteries to reach maximum capacity.  You can see that if you have a battery tester.  After the first recharge, the batteries may only show a charge of something like 70 or 80 percent.  You can expect that to improve.

I get a lot of good use out of my battery tester.  If you don't have one I'd recommend getting one.

Here is a link if you want to read more about rechargeable batteries.

http://copquest.com/battery_care.htm

I was just informed that the Eneloop batteries were developed by Sanyo (not Sony as I originally typed) but were bought by Panasonic.

Champ F. also said, Always buy the highest rated amperage ones available since you will be using them for many many years.

Good tip.  Thanks!

----------

We are back to a small surf along the Treasure Coast again.  It will give you an opportunity to check out the low tide area to see what might have washed in during the larger waves.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

1/26/15 Report - Poor Beach Conditions For Finding Older Items On Treasure Coast Beaches.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.BlogSpot.com.

One Treasure Coast Beach Yesterday Near Low Tide.

Another Treasure Coast Beach This Morning Just After Low Tide.

Beach conditions were pretty much the same at the different beaches that I saw this morning.
They had small cuts up near the high tide line, while the front beaches were built up.  The front beach continues to accumulate sand.

I got rained on this morning just after my batteries started to get low.

The beach shown in the second photo had a small cut near the high tide line.  If you look at the upper left part of the photo, you can see it in the background.  It was just over a foot high at the highest.

The front beach on this beach was broad and flat this summer.  Now there is a good bit of sand over that.

I did a little (very little) detecting at this beach this morning before the rain came and my batteries ran low.

You can see a nice dip in the water in the second photo.  Notice the deeper water between the white water.  That would be some place to check, although I wouldn't expect much there.

The wet sand did have some targets on this heavily detected beach, but they were deep.  Both junk and good targets were deep.  I have no doubt that this beach has been detected a lot, and mostly only deep targets remained.

The bad thing about having to dig deep targets in the wet sand is that sometimes you can't get to them.  I had to leave some this morning that were too deep to recover down near the water.

Big Lots has some pretty good prices on AA batteries.

K-Mart was charging $14.99 for four rechargeable batteries.  Staples was two dollars cheaper for four rechargeable batteries.

You can get a pack of four "low drain" batteries at Dollar Tree for one dollar, but I haven't tested them well enough to say if you should use them in a detector.  They seem to work OK in the Ace 350, but I haven't really measured performance with those batteries well enough to say if the performance is just as good.  They do work.  I can say that.

On the Treasure Coast we're supposed to have around a two foot surf for the next couple of days.  The wind will be from the West, then it is supposed to turn and come from the North.

I heard that a couple of fronts and cool weather is coming.  That is all for now.  I'll probably add some to this post later today.

For now, Happy Hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net

7/6/14 Report - Two of My Top Three All Time Favorite Detectors, Flipping Coins, New Regulations On Taking Batteries On a Plane & Old Meteorite

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

One of my favorite all-time top three detectors.

A few of you might remember this detector.  It is one of my top three favorite detectors of all time.


Below is another of my top three all time favorites.




The one below is based upon Nautilus circuitry which was modified and put in a water proof case.

I had a few of these.  After trying my first one just a few times, I called the guy that made it and ordered another so I would have a backup of the same type.

Another one of my favorite all-time top three detectors.

This was my first modified detector.  Before I got it I was using primarily an out-of-the-box Fisher detector.

The first coil I had for this one was super hot.  The later ones, not quite as good.

I had an 18 inch coil for it that I used a little, but not much.

These two detectors worked pretty much the same.  The Nautilus didn't require ground balancing though.  Both nulled over iron.

These detectors were both very good on gold, were deep seeking, and would detect very small pieces of gold which is what I was targeting, and both worked well for that purpose.

When I first started detecting I kept track of my coin count, but after a while I targeted modern gold and wasn't much interested in coins or how the detector did on coins.  It seemed to me that the detectors that could detect small or deep gold exceptionally well also detected coins and other things fairly well too.  I didn't care much about finding other things, but did use other objects as information to point me towards gold.  Gold is often found near concentrations of other items, so if you know how things are accumulating, knowing where different things are will help point you to the gold.


Bill P. wrote in to say that when foot fanning, which I talked about yesterday, objects can get set on edge and therefore give off a more faint or no signal.   Certainly true!   Thanks Bill.

If you take a coin and lay it flat and then run your coil over it and then compare the signal with the same coin set on edge you will hear the difference in the signal.

When foot fanning in moving water it is easy enough for the object to fall out of the scoop and end up on the slope of the hole or back in the bottom of the hole on edge.   If you find that the signal has disappeared that is a good possibility.   If you've checked around the outside and inside of the hole and can not longer find the target, fan some more in the hole to uncover the object or flip it over or both.

It is always a good thing to experiment with your detector.   See what happens to the signal when you take an object and put it in various positions, including standing on edge.

Also, a broken gold ring will give a much more faint signal than a whole gold ring.


Things can get caught up in sea weed.  The other day an ear ring that I found was caught in sea weed which was buried under sand.  Chains will also get tangled in sea weed sometimes.



I've heard that TSA is being more particular about batteries and has some new limits on the batteries you can take through security.

Here is some of what one web site says about that.

...  As for exactly what you're allowed to bring onto the plane, it all has to do with the actual amount of lithium contained in the each battery. According to the new government rules:

The new lithium quantity limits apply to both your spare and installed batteries. The limits are expressed in grams of "equivalent lithium content." Eight grams of equivalent lithium content is approximately 100 watt-hours; 25 grams is approximately 300 watt-hours.

Under the new rules, you can bring batteries with up to 8 grams of equivalent lithium content. Most lithium ion batteries in cell phones and laptop computers are below this quantity threshold.

You can also bring up to two batteries with an aggregate equivalent lithium content of up to 25 grams, in addition to any batteries that fall below the 8-gram threshold.

For a lithium metal battery, whether installed in a device or carried as a spare, the limit on lithium content is 2 grams per battery.

The bottom line for travelers is most consumer-type lithium batteries are permitted. Very large, professional batteries are a different story. If you are unsure, contact the device's manufacturer

Here is the source link.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10396317/1/dont-lose-your-batteries-to-airport-security.html

Don't ask me to clarify that.

Just thought I'd make you aware of the issue.

It seems like extra laptop batteries and things like that are going to be a problem.  I don't know if that might cause a zealous agent to give you a harder time over detector batteries or not.


Scientists discovered a meteorite fragment at the site of a 9000 year-old hut.

http://www.naukawpolsce.pap.pl/en/news/news,400865,archaeologists-discovered-a-meteorite-fragment-in-a-9-thousand-years-old-hut.html

They figured some fellow fancied the unusual stone.

This is one of those types of things that I like to playfully think about.   Maybe the thing crashed through the roof of his hut one night.  That could have caused more of a stir than just stumbling upon a funny stone with the other finds of the day.  It could have either been seen as a sign from God, or, maybe the fellow just muttered, "What the heck," and casually went about his business and then one of the kids put it with the other stones.  Who knows?

In a few days the surf on the Treasure Coast is predicted to increase a little, but not much.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net