Detecting for a disabled person

My hips have packed up on me and due to the useless public hospital system in oz i only have to wait five years to get some non english speaking doctor to help fix me up .
That aside i am having great trouble these days doing my much loved hobby,i find it hard to drag all my gear over and around broken tree's rocks long grass and all the other obstructions we find when searching for the yella stuff.In fact it has come to the point where i have advertised in the forum for sale all my gear that has taken me years to collect.I DON"T want to give up detecting,but unless i can come up with some idea's to make things easier for me and others in the same position i will have to give up.
I need some sort of a light weight trolly so i can transport all the gear i normaly carry to the site in the bush where i want to search and a way to use my gpx4500 in one hand while i prop myself up with a walking stick.I know people will say if you are that bloody disabled what are you doing in the bush in the first place,jez,give it up man.People that dont know about gold detecting would'nt understand.
I would also like to find a way to get rid of the minelab harrness because at the moment when i find a target i have to take the harrness off so i can get down on my knee pads to dig the hole,then put it all back on again,walk ten feet and take it off again.If i could get a light weight battery that i could attach to the control box that would solve that problem and get rid of the harrness.Then i would have to work out some way of attaching the detector to my body maybe with abungy cord around my neck or some thing,jez i dont know.
Hey guys if any of you can come up with some idea's i would really appreciate your input.
Thanks in advance.sonboy.

Hi sonboy sorry to hear about your disability mate. This may sound like a silly question, but have you contacted Minelab? They may have the answer about how to attach the battery to the detector or, away how to hang it around your neck in a small pouch for easy removel without the harness.
Wombat

Hi Sonboy,
I under stand how you feel as I also had to have a hip replacement. Sold my caravan,detector & coils as could no longer do this great hobby. Then when the hip was replaced & had regained my strength 6 months later, got a 4500 & have never looked back.
Don't have a solution but as Wombat said contact Minelab ,also Reeds & Coiltek Manufactureing.
Hope you can have a hip replacement ASAP
Cheers
"TWO BOB"

hey sonboy, you have put up a very interesting problem, i know in the future something like this will happen to me . for some time now i have been toying with the idea of a harness simular to a fishing jacket......well modified fishing jacket....i am always finding pockets to put things into , but with your situation, maybe with a hip stick and the battery placed some where to ajust the weight on your hip.... might make things a little easier... as you said , .People that dont know about gold detecting would'nt understand...... that is so true..... hope this helps in some way.. cheers

Something like http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Gold-Trolley-Nugget-Finder-40-x-20-Mono-Coil-Minelab-Metal-Detector-/300637035248?pt=AU_Gadgets&hash=item45ff5d1af0 with a smaller coil attached. It would be easy enough to attach a pick holder & battery holder to it. You could also have a "Y" shape handle welded to it for one handed operation.

Sonboy. I understand exactly the position you find yourself in re. mobility and becoming less-abled. I have much the same problem, poor hearing, eyesight failling, legs and back aches, generally falling apart! my situation is the result of old age (80) However I find I can still do my detecting, I made the decision when I got my 4500 to just chase small gold by way of coil choice, where I detected settings etc. Have followed this thru with the 5000. Have a look at getting a lite weight battery pack for your machine, www.billandlindaprospecting.com sell very good battery and amp packs for the ML detectors. This will free you from the harness problems, I don't use a bungy, coil is on the ground, helps as a walking stick too! Usually get out a couple of times a week for a few hours and over the past 20 outings I have missed getting gold 3 times, missed 2 days in a row, gold is not big but all the specs add up, I weighed my jar contents last week and find I have just on 50g of specs and about another 50 in bigger bits. I find that I rarely have to detect out of sight of my vehicle so I am not trecking great distances. I met a bloke at Tarnagulla caravan park a couple of years ago, a keen panner, he was in a wheelchair! Used to bring his samples back to the park and pan them off at his caravan. I don't have that kind of fortitude!

Hope that your condition is resolved soon and that you are able to get out and about freely again soon. Best of luck, Hotrocks

Hi
I am training my Labrador dog to carry my gear.
Regards Neale

hotrocks you are a dead set inspiration.
i hope i can do as well as you when i am 80
cheers dave

Hi All
Try googeling Doc's Pocket rocket battery pack, this is mounted on the control box with external speaker, a small quad to get you where you want to be, stay near the quad which holds all other gear.
good luck
Lee

There was an article in the Gold Gem & Treasure magazine a while back about a guy who came over from Europe to prospect in WA..........

............................................*****WITH NO ARMS (and no artificial limbs)...his mates set him up with a foot mounted coil........It makes for very inspirational reading !

Gday Sonboy
Understand exactly your keenness to detect.
A mate of mine has a few issues and he has made a harness up out of thin pvc tube, say 19mm. It is one piece,glued together and simply slips over his head and everything is contained rigidly on the frame. A small plastic box is attached to it for the battery but if you can also get the detector onto the frame that should solve all. His bungy is attached in the middle at the front. Sorry I don't have a photo of him with it on. He lives in the bush about 700 k's from me. I tried it and it works well and is simple to remove and put on, no buckles etc.
Only reason I don't use one like it, is that I carry too much crap in my backpack as I like walking for miles in the scrub.
cheers
Brett

G'day Sonboy

Sorry to hear that you are at a disadvantage with all the usual gear needed for this hobby, however may I suggest the following.

My wife has severe problems with her spine and knees and cannot stand the pain of wearing the ML harness and the weight of the battery.

To overcome this I purchased a regulated power system (sd/gp voltage options) from Coiltek Maryborough.
This I have attached to the control box on a short power lead and hooked in a Coiltek Speaker also to the box cover.

She wears a light nylon webbing harness comprising two shoulder straps and a waist belt with "D" rings for the bungy.

She now detects with no weight on her body as it is all on the control box and with the bungy correctly adjusted all she has to do is push the coil to wherever she wants under "no load" conditions.
When she finds it necessary to dig a target she places the detector on the ground, unhooks the bungy and is free to dig or wander off as she chooses, the pick she carries in her hand although sometimes in the belt holder. I weighed the harness at 172 grams in total and that, apart from the tug of the bungy, is the only weight on her body.

I reckon a similar set up could solve your problems.(Talk to Coiltek m/boro about operating voltages, I think your machine runs on 12 volts, they could help with that aspect)

Cranky (Bill)

Hi there ,I was thinking about the difficulty of getting up and down when checking a target , seeing how you are already carrying a walking stick how about attaching a rare earth magnet to one end? as a lot of ferrous targets are shallow you could possibly eliminate a few without much fuss.
Taking this concept a tad further why not have a small long handled pick which doubles as a walking stick!!!
if the head was shaped right to fit in the hand with a small blade and a handle the length of your normal walking stick you
could REPLACE the walking stick with the WALKING PICK! and again use a magnet on the end
you would probably still need to use your normal pick for more serious digging but some of the small nuggets your after are probably fairly shallow?
I reckon if you got the size of the head and angle of the blade right it would be a winner and you wouldn't be carrying anything extra.
let me know if you have trouble tracking something down if you want to try it out.
cheers and happy hunting
nipper

This is my very first post to this forum & I am a complete novice but........ what about a push along golf buggy (The 2 wheel & a handle type) with your detector attached to that. I feel you might be eble to swing the buggy to simulate the motion used in detecting then tilt or move aside the buggy when you find a target & wish to dig.
Some of those buggies even have seats built in for when you become weary.
Cheers, Keith.

There is no law that says you have to cart a 10 ton ML and sundry trappings around with you.
If you are just looking for small stuff within a few inches of the surface the maybe you should try a Gold Bug Pro or GB 2 or GMT or MXT or even an Infinium.
They are all a lot less hassle to use, don't need giant battery packs that cost as much as some detectors. Will run from 10 to 30 hours detecting time and will find very small gold in some pretty tough ground.

But if you want to stick to the big guns then I guess you will have to use a bit of imagination.
For me and my crook back n legs I have pretty much called it quits on serious gold detecting and concentrate mainly on the beaches where the digging is easy