Goldpick's 2020 Deus & Equinox 600 finds

Prospecting Australia

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Danny13 said:
Goldpick , would love to purchase some of your antiquities to add to what I have to educate my children .send me a pm if your happy to sell a few choice items with the story behind them :)

PM sent!
 
Yesterday I was intending to give the Simplex+ its first run in the field at some known locations, though it was apparent when I got there that detecting was out of question due to extremely high grass and snake risk. Racking ,my brain on where to go next I headed to a reserve that had produce some very old coins in the past, only to walk away with two 20c coins and a sore hand from the extremely hard ground - at least the first two coins for the virgin Simplex.

With only a few hours to spare, next up was an old forestry site that I really had no luck on from years ago, but at least the ground was sandy and soft and the grass levels were very low. An initial scan with the Deus found a few junk targets before latching on to a near surface threepence, so things were looking up. That was followed by another wheat threepence, so time to break out the Simplex for another run. A little further on running the Simplex in Park 1 program (compromise between depth/good recovery speed) I hit another high conductor which turned out to be a small religious pendant. With some tight gridding the Simplex scored its first Silver, a very nice condition 1928 Sixpence.

In the fading light I had a bit more of a recce around the site with the Simplex with not much more luck, although there were tons of nails and buried junk to contend with really warranting a smaller coil to pry out more good targets.

So what were my inital impressions of the Simplex+ in that short amount if time, pretty impressed really, reminding myself that in basic form this is a sub $500 detector and not an $800+ Equinox or a $2000+ XP Deus. I actually favour the Simplex ergonomics wise over the Equinox, it is simply that much more comfortable to swing for longer periods with that nice rubberised grip and seems a bit better balanced overall. With the carbon fibre lower shaft fitted there was nil flex that saw inital complaints on the stock item (even stock shaft now has a new end plug to help prevent movement).

Tone wise you can pick out crown caps (and there were a few) via iron grunts on the edge of the coil, deeper iron had it showing very bouncy ID's and high tone falsing iron is readily distinguishable whe circling around the target with the coil (high tone to iron grunt). The discrimination on this detector is a little different than that found on other detectors - it is all done via auto or manual notching, or you can chose to not hear the iron by simply turning the iron audio down or off. The auto notch feature allows you to run a junk target under the coils, then press the confirm button to reject that item - or alternatively you can manually select ID blocks to reject.

I didn't bother ground balancing as like on the Deus and Equinox, it is only recommended to do so if the ground warrants it, and in my case the soil was pretty much devoid of mineralisation (Simplex now has a mineralisation meter added). Still getting used to pinpointing targets using the tip of the coil, stuffed it up a few times though should get used to it after a while - the pinpont mode also differs as it is momentary vs something you physically have to switch on/off.

A few things I had to contend with were pinpointer/detector crosstalk, my XP Mi-6 just didn't get along with the Simplex running around 12.4 kHz vs 12kHz on the detector. I tried frequency shift on the Simplex to position 1 and things calmed down, but not totally, it did quieten the detector down though there was still some feedback on the Mi-6 . Also had crosstalk with the Pulsedive, though that was remedied quickly with the frequency shift -- the pulsedive also had 40 selectable frequency shift channels should you want to make further changes. A useful feature on the Simplex is quick access to a mute button should there be any interference coming back through the coil or from nearby detectors. Anyway, I still have to do some playing around with the wireless pinpointer setup before I go out next, and also try pairing up the wireless headphone.

So far so good with the Simplex, initial thoughts on it are mostly positive for what is really good value package. Will try and do some depth tests next time out, with limited time I did try with a deeply buried sixpence, only to realise that it was too deep for not only the Simplex but also for the Deus and Equinox - doh! :lol:

Pulsedive charging up
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First ever Simplex target, only 20c!
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Deus silver
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Second Deus silver
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First decent Simplex target
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First Simplex silver
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Sweet!
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Twins??
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Junk 'n' good stuff
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Second day out at the same location with the Simplex+, starting to get used to the tones to a degree, though plenty still to learn. Starting to dig a few deeper targets now, bit of a battle given there being a fair bit of junk around, really liking the modulated audio which gives a bit more perception of depth/size for a target. The site is starting to come alive despite earlier thoughts of being a dog, really have to work under bushes and difficult areas to get the good stuff.

Didn't get any silvers, but on the flip side a very nice condition 1918-1919 dog tag came to light, then nearby a 120 year old Victorian HP was found below the base of a tree. I thought the kiddies golf club head was pretty cool, some poor sod was swinging a bit hard back in the day. :D

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I figured it was time for something different, so a cross border trip was called for to detect a lake shore that I had been several times in the past. Recent images on google earth revealed a receding shoreline, so it was a good opportunity to see what targets may lay in wait. I took the Deus for this hunt as I knew I would be out for a decent number of hours, so packing something light was definitely in order.

Things looked ominous to start off with, with swarms of monster mosquitoes threatening to carry me away, must have nearly emptied half a can of tropical strength insect repellant all over to keep them at bay. :argh: The night certainly kept me busy with targets, though a lot of time was taken up digging BB's and lead sinkers - 32 coins were found all up with the oldest being a Victorian 1887 threepence found in the freshly exposed mud. Other predecs included 1938 & 1922 hp's, 1919, 1917 & 194? pennies, 1943 sixpence and lastly a 1944 threepence.

Was pretty knackered by the time I got home, having my eyes peeled for roos all the way back - Maccas for brekky then into my scratcher. :)

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Two sites with two detectors today, first up with the Simplex at some ww2 era house site, then onto a much older site with the Equinox. The first site had firebreaks freshly ploughed, so it was a good opportunity for a run over previously detected ground to see if any targets we missed. Not much turned up other than the roo penny, Mexican pin, Lesney truck, some BB's and what I thought was a coin turned out to be a blank copper disc.

The second site was literally just around the corner from the first, and I was keen to try and pick up some deeper targets with the Nox, hopefully dating into the 1800's. There were quite a few low conductor targets still remaining, including a few buttons, thimble, and the best high conductors were the 1928 and holed 1908 half pennies and a lone threepence. I am still sure that I can squeeze some more targets from the area, the only thing standing in my way is the vegetation which should die off with some dry weather. A King William sixpence and various 1800's coppers found on a previous trips points towards quite an old site, pretty sure it was a staging point for early settlers many moons ago. :D

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My new Nox 6" coil arrived just in time for a trip into the field today. Last time I was out hitting a rubbish pit behind an old house site, the stock coil just wasn't cutting it on seperating out targets amongst all the buried junk, so this coil should prove more effective. Damn it is small though, although the next smallest coil I own is the OOR 4.7x5.2" coil for the Racer 2 which is more like a hockey puck than a coil. :p

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Mate the 6 inch coil is a weapon, but it does take some mental fortitude to keep at it and not get over whelmed in a large area.
I've found most of my gold with it, because other hunters either couldn't get their coils into spots or gave up with all the trash signals. I found with the 6 inch suddenly there were good signals in spots I'd written off.

The other plus, is it's super light! Swing that thing all day every day. Good luck !
 
I have been a bit lazy posting over the last week, I have actually been hitting some old ruins over a couple of days to see what the Deus and Nox could find. The ruins are well know and have seen a detector or two over the years - or so I thought. Truth is many of the good targets weren't easy to find, having to deal with a fair bit of junk, high grass and the ever present danger of snakes (did see a Tiger on the way there). It was quite exhausting though very hard to put the detector down once the targets started flowing.

Both of the dog tags are consecutive years - 1899 to 1900 & 1900 to 1901. The oldest coin was the threepence (1912), and the oldest copper was 1915, most of which were in a poor state. The Australian Military button was the best of the button finds, almost thought it was going to be a coin with it reading so high.

As mentioned there was a lot of junk around the site, I could have filled a bucket with the items that were discarded when back at home - including a couple kilos of lead which has is going to be recycled once I fill my container.

All up very happy with the results from both detectors. :D

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