I just got back yesterday from 4 days at Tipaburra. I went with a few members of a detector club, (Southern Seekers) from Adelaide and had a great time looking around the many places where gold was found, which is just about everywhere and anywhere around the town.
I found 15 tiny nuggets and 3 specimens which is the first gold I have so far found. I got some good advice from club members on how to setup and even won a bunjee cord which I desperately needed for long periods of detector use. I am new to detecting for gold so made a few beginners mistakes initially like losing a couple of pieces of small gold while digging them up and and pinpointing them. My technique quickly improved, (it needed to) and I eventually worked out a system with a scoop that allowed me to collect them.
The SD2300 was so easy to use, basically switch on and go with no noise or false triggering. Ground balance worked without needing to press the quick balance button and threshold only needed to be set once. Only when demonstrating in the caravan park to a guy interested in buying one did I need to use noise cancel to stop a little background noise from interfering.
I found single pieces of small lead shot down to 10" in red sandy clay around the creeks in the gully's and found an unbelievably small nugget which weighed in at 0.008g. This piece was weighed today on my A&D FX 120i scale which has a resolution of 0.001g. Must be a record of some kind, (smallest ever found?) as when I was getting down to the final pieces of sand in my scoop it was the larger of the 4 remaining "sand" grains left. To find it I scraped the surface gravel off with my pick and the small but sharp signal was still present in the ground. I scraped the surface soil off, (maybe 1/4") and scooped it up a very slowly got down to the final 4 grains off sand and found it. Great confidence boost for my new detecting skills!
All the small gold gave off clear and sharp low volume signals when searching and much louder signals as I got closer to them. I found the specimens in dark brown sandstone and even one still attached in iron stone to a large 10" cube of quartz. Found the little nuggets just under the surface ironstone and quartz gravel and down to 4" deep under the surface stone cover. Did not find a single hot rock in the 4 days I was there but others did with a variety of detectors including the ML5000. My conclusion is that I made the right choice for my usage and it was just so easy to use. It really needs a rear stand of some sort so it stays upright when you put it down to pinpoint with your scoop. I had to lay the coil flat every time on the hill slopes and even on flat ground to stop it from tipping onto its side.
Ian
The tiny "fly spot" above the 5 cent piece is the 0.008g "nugget"
I found 15 tiny nuggets and 3 specimens which is the first gold I have so far found. I got some good advice from club members on how to setup and even won a bunjee cord which I desperately needed for long periods of detector use. I am new to detecting for gold so made a few beginners mistakes initially like losing a couple of pieces of small gold while digging them up and and pinpointing them. My technique quickly improved, (it needed to) and I eventually worked out a system with a scoop that allowed me to collect them.
The SD2300 was so easy to use, basically switch on and go with no noise or false triggering. Ground balance worked without needing to press the quick balance button and threshold only needed to be set once. Only when demonstrating in the caravan park to a guy interested in buying one did I need to use noise cancel to stop a little background noise from interfering.
I found single pieces of small lead shot down to 10" in red sandy clay around the creeks in the gully's and found an unbelievably small nugget which weighed in at 0.008g. This piece was weighed today on my A&D FX 120i scale which has a resolution of 0.001g. Must be a record of some kind, (smallest ever found?) as when I was getting down to the final pieces of sand in my scoop it was the larger of the 4 remaining "sand" grains left. To find it I scraped the surface gravel off with my pick and the small but sharp signal was still present in the ground. I scraped the surface soil off, (maybe 1/4") and scooped it up a very slowly got down to the final 4 grains off sand and found it. Great confidence boost for my new detecting skills!
All the small gold gave off clear and sharp low volume signals when searching and much louder signals as I got closer to them. I found the specimens in dark brown sandstone and even one still attached in iron stone to a large 10" cube of quartz. Found the little nuggets just under the surface ironstone and quartz gravel and down to 4" deep under the surface stone cover. Did not find a single hot rock in the 4 days I was there but others did with a variety of detectors including the ML5000. My conclusion is that I made the right choice for my usage and it was just so easy to use. It really needs a rear stand of some sort so it stays upright when you put it down to pinpoint with your scoop. I had to lay the coil flat every time on the hill slopes and even on flat ground to stop it from tipping onto its side.
Ian
The tiny "fly spot" above the 5 cent piece is the 0.008g "nugget"
, that's incredible. Congrats on picking up your first bits, I'm sure many will follow.
