5 month dry spell finally breaks - YAY

Finally cracked it for 2013 Costa...well done Mate. OLD SALT

Nice costasdee. Well done mate. I bet it felt good after 5 months.

It felt more than good, it felt AWESOME.
Cheers

Hi Costasdee just returned from Victoria, detecting with a person who knows you, Dan from Canberra, well done on such a nice piece. Hope you find many more in the months ahead!

Willo

Congrats Costas!

I'm new here (hello!) but swing a SD2100 and am always looking for any added info from those more experienced than myself.

Nightjar would you mind elaborating on your earlier post?! Sounds very interesting considering there aren't many knobs or dials to twirl

Here you go Avon,
Owned a SD2100 for about 10 years and purely by chance I found a way to tune it perfectly. Many questioned me when I was on noisy ground still using the 18" Mono when they with newer models could only use DD's.
Even let a few strap my 2100 on their backs to prove how stable it was.
This is what I came up with, take your time and carefully follow instructions and your machine will be purring without any chatter/warble.

Tuning your Minelab SD 2100:
Firstly you probably HAVE missed many nuggets with your SD "warbling" in your earphones. When I now get the slightest variation in the "hum" I scrape off the top layer of rocks, grass etc and if the signal has improved it is usually a small target, hopefully a nugget.
Getting back to tuning:
With the machine turned on and holding it at waist height with base of coil vertical, rotate 360deg, noting which direction the warbling is greatest.
Lay the detector and coil on the ground with the coil tilted up at about 45/60 deg and facing direction of strongest interference.
Place one hand on the box to keep it steady so there are not any false signals (as you can well imagine the 1 & 2 balance positions are not ultimately tuned at this stage) with your other hand using the small screwdriver, rotate the tuning screw clockwise. (At this point it may be easier to remove your back pack and lay it next to the detector) If you haven't achieved any improvement after say 20 rotations clockwise, rotate anticlockwise for 20 rotations (back to starting point) then keep rotating anticlockwise for another 20 rotations. (This pot does not have a "stop" so it may take time.)You may feel like a bit of a dork out in the middle of nowhere down on all fours with your butt in the air but believe me it is worth the effort.
If you persevere eventually the threshold will become a steady Hummmm! You will only need to readjust if you move to complete new mineralised ground or your machine again becomes unsteady. After you have your machine humming steadily stand up and go through the 1-2 positions of balancing your machine.
At this point it is advisable to select the “Tone” that most suits your hearing.
Using a small target (shotgun pellet is ideal) scrape a small hole and place target in the hole. Now swing your coil across the target, vary the tone until you get the clearest/ sharpest signal that suits your hearing.
LOW and SLOW and ALWAYS investigate any change in tone no matter how slight, those little grammers soon add up.
Pinpointing your signal:
When a signal is targeted, draw a line through where you think the target is, now step around 90deg and again swing and again draw a line through where you think the target is. Where the two lines cross will be approximately where your target is laying. (After you become confident you will find only imaginary lines are required.)
Coils:
Mono coils have a different target centre to your DD coils, practice with both using previous pinpointing method until you are confident. If the ground is highly mineralised and your machine continually chatters you may need to use your DD coil only.
Tip:
If your signal varies considerably while using the pinpointing method it is quite possible your target is ground noise. (Scrape of the top layer of dirt, the signal should increase if it is a target.)
Good luck on your next visit to the goldfields, and yes, I would be interested in hearing from you whether this advice helped in any way.
Nightjar

Thanks so much Nightjar!

I remember reading these tips (must have been from you) a while back and have indeed tried tuning my SD like this in the field. I turn and turn and turn that internal screw, but the warble does not seem to make a difference (and it is REALLY difficult to feel how much i'm actually rotating it).

I'll try this again next weekend, and will also take your advice and set the tone based off a buried pellet (which i've found a lot of so far!). I expect that will be a very interesting experiment in itself.

Thanks again for taking the time to post that!! I'll definitely let you know how i go.

Avon

Avon,
Remember to count the turns clockwise, if you don't get a result turn anti-clockwise the same number of turns. This will bring you back to original starting position.
Now keep turning anti-clockwise.
Repeat the exercise if need be rotating VERY VERY slowly.


Good luck

Peter

Great tips Nightjar!

It looks like I may even have a chance to get out tomorrow in the stinky heat.

Stand by for a full report...

Ok back from a quick 2hrs just out of Ballarat...

First of I want to apologise to CostasDee for hijacking his nuggie thread, which is FAR more awesome than learning how to set up a 2100 (you're my SD inspiration out there Costas). I considered starting a new thread, but the conversation is now flowing here so thought i'd better continue in case others read it in the future.

So Nightjar, I did everything you mentioned. Counted a minimum of 20 turns to the right, then 20 to the left. What I realised was that it was actually set pretty well to begin with! The best way to describe it, was that maybe the first 5% of the extreme left warbled, the middle was consistent (and close to no warbling at all) and the last 10% to the right warbled like crazy. It seemed to be working!! I ended up doing my best to set it "in the middle" of the no warble zone.

Next I buried a lead pellet and re-set the tone, with a view to achieve the "sharpest" signal I could. What I discovered was that I could pick up really faint signals a bit better with the tone tuned higher than what i've been using previously. When I first bought my detector i set the tone to what was "comfortable" to my ears. Now it is a little more annoyingly high pitched, but the faint signals seem to jump out at me more. THANK YOU NIGHTJAR!!!!!

Anyway I've never detected in that area before (i'm usually around Castlemaine and Chewton) so i'm not exactly sure just how hot the ground was, but i do know that my 21 ran smoooooth and i managed to pull 3 pieces of lead, plenty of junk, some pieces of Chinese pottery and a clay pipe!! Amazing that those new settings can pick up ceramics too

Anyway next thing i know, I was swinging away, got a SMALL snag on a bush and ............................................. radio silence. At first I thought i accidentally flicked the power off, but it was still on. Next I thought i'd knocked my power lead lose, but it was still done up tight. After coming home, jiggling, checking all leads and even looking inside the small aluminium battery box, I think my headphones may have died on me. I managed to re-attach them and get half a start up tone before everything went silent again. Since then nothing.

So the next step is to get a plug and test some new headphones. Anyone had any experience with this before?

Thanks again SO MUCH for the tips. I feel as though I have definitely increased my chances of hitting my first piece of gold (once again).

My Headphones Minelab Koss30 started cutting off on a last trip and i had to use another brand new one.
To my amusement had a same result so i suspected the battery audio out.
Quick trip to Coiltek and they told me straightaway the fault is in a heaphones. I said both of them?One brand new one couple months old?
The answer was that is quite common.So both to the repairs.

It strange as i have the same (third pair)of Koss30 for nearly 15 months and i never had a problem.Could be a new batch.

GoldEN

avon g wrote:
First of I want to apologise to CostasDee for hijacking his nuggie thread, which is FAR more awesome than learning how to set up a 2100 (you're my SD inspiration out there Costas). I considered starting a new thread, but the conversation is now flowing here so thought i'd better continue in case others read it in the future.

No problem avon g, I'm learning new tricks as well, so thanks from me to Nightjar. I know it's an auto tune and not a manual tune on the 2200d, but I recon I can use the procedure of sitting the detector on the ground with the coil on the 45 degree angle when next auto tuning, as I think this will help. And I too will try the buried target trick to get the sharpest signal.
Cheers

Thanks for the juicy info Golden. Looks like i'll be swinging by Coiltek soon.

Also congrats again Costas!! That 3.8g chunk is something i only read about in magazines.