G'day guys.
I took the my ACE 350 (US) to a spot where folks can fossick for gold, I usually pan and sluice there and I still haven't covered petrol money...
However one of the guys I pan with found a lovely 2g nugget about the size of a small bean, so of course the ACE 350 was tested with it. In the air test with the sensitivity at 5 bars (we have highly mineralised soils in OZ, set the ACE 350 any higher and it will continually false) the nugget was easily picked up at 5-6". We made a little hole in the ground, just 2" deep, off to the side of the creek, where the soil was damp not wet and there was a lot of rock from the old mines about, the nugget was dropped in covered and the soil stamped on. This time the sensitivity was down to 4 bars as at 5 the ACE 350 started to false at 5, once again the ACE 350 was able to detect the nugget without any problem, it chimed off as the coil passed over it and I was able to pinpoint the little nugget. However, the nugget did not register on the display where I expected it to, I was expecting 2g of 24k gold to sit right in the middle of the display, instead it clearly showed up to the left of the display, one notch to the left of the US 5c, well into the foil section of the display. Remember this is not the 'International' model and after using both down here I much prefer the standard ACE 350 over the 'International' model, it is probably a case of what I am used to but I find the spread of tones better on mine.
I doubt that I have missed any gold nuggets writing off a signal as foil in the bush, as the areas I visit are 'highly mineralised' and the gold is very small, flakes of what we call 'sugar' gold and the only way to recover them is by panning and sluicing. I'd like to get my hands on an AT Gold one day and test it at the creek, as I am sure it would find small nuggets hiding in among the mining spoil. It was good to know that the ACE 350 will find gold of 2g and over if it is close to the surface, I doubt my ACE 350 would have found the gold in the hole it was dug from as another brand of dedicated gold detector with a 'Goldmaster' coil had failed to find anything in the hole (a rather large shared pit we dig in) on that day.
Has anyone else on the forum use their ACE 350 in the field looking for gold and if you found any was in registering in the gold section of the display or in the foil section towards Iron? I had discriminated out everything but the gold section of the display and had the sensitivity to the maximum for the local soil, the coil standard DD was just off the ground and I had my headphones on. If I had not been looking at the display I would have missed the nugget, now I will set the discrimination down to where the nugget showed and turn up the volume on the headphones a little.
I took the my ACE 350 (US) to a spot where folks can fossick for gold, I usually pan and sluice there and I still haven't covered petrol money...
However one of the guys I pan with found a lovely 2g nugget about the size of a small bean, so of course the ACE 350 was tested with it. In the air test with the sensitivity at 5 bars (we have highly mineralised soils in OZ, set the ACE 350 any higher and it will continually false) the nugget was easily picked up at 5-6". We made a little hole in the ground, just 2" deep, off to the side of the creek, where the soil was damp not wet and there was a lot of rock from the old mines about, the nugget was dropped in covered and the soil stamped on. This time the sensitivity was down to 4 bars as at 5 the ACE 350 started to false at 5, once again the ACE 350 was able to detect the nugget without any problem, it chimed off as the coil passed over it and I was able to pinpoint the little nugget. However, the nugget did not register on the display where I expected it to, I was expecting 2g of 24k gold to sit right in the middle of the display, instead it clearly showed up to the left of the display, one notch to the left of the US 5c, well into the foil section of the display. Remember this is not the 'International' model and after using both down here I much prefer the standard ACE 350 over the 'International' model, it is probably a case of what I am used to but I find the spread of tones better on mine.
I doubt that I have missed any gold nuggets writing off a signal as foil in the bush, as the areas I visit are 'highly mineralised' and the gold is very small, flakes of what we call 'sugar' gold and the only way to recover them is by panning and sluicing. I'd like to get my hands on an AT Gold one day and test it at the creek, as I am sure it would find small nuggets hiding in among the mining spoil. It was good to know that the ACE 350 will find gold of 2g and over if it is close to the surface, I doubt my ACE 350 would have found the gold in the hole it was dug from as another brand of dedicated gold detector with a 'Goldmaster' coil had failed to find anything in the hole (a rather large shared pit we dig in) on that day.
Has anyone else on the forum use their ACE 350 in the field looking for gold and if you found any was in registering in the gold section of the display or in the foil section towards Iron? I had discriminated out everything but the gold section of the display and had the sensitivity to the maximum for the local soil, the coil standard DD was just off the ground and I had my headphones on. If I had not been looking at the display I would have missed the nugget, now I will set the discrimination down to where the nugget showed and turn up the volume on the headphones a little.