Hi pat
i don't personally consider Rupert as far away. i was born and raise in Twin. my mother still lives in Kimberly. I have a step brother who lives in Declo. We live far enough apart that an impromtu 3 hr hunt in the afternoon isn't practical. But a Sat or sunday would be okay. let me tell you a little about my self. I'm 61 and going to retire 1 Nov. When i was a kid i had a real interest in prospecting, rock collecting and such. my grandfather was a roofer, but his true love was prospecting. He passed away when I was young, but as a teenager my grandmother and I used to go ghost town hunting, rock collecting and fossil hunting. When I was 12 in 1962 I wanted a metal detector really bad. But I didn't have the money. I saw an add in a magazine for a DIY metal detector for $20.
$20 was a lot of money to a 12 year old in 1962. i worked hard and put together the money and sent off for it. When it arrived i was excited. When it finally arrived i had to assemble it. The transmitter was housed in a wooden box, which the coil passed through.
The coil was a garden hose that the coil wires ran through. The receiver was a pocket transister radio that you tuned to the right channel. It did work, but would only detect large things. So out of desperation I burried pieces of scrap iron from my dad's pile all over our backyard.( i got my butt busted for that one).
Fast forward 50 years which covers a 20 yr military career etc. One of my other hobbies is Astronomy and one of the local metal detecting guys told me he knew where there was a possible meteor crater. So i decided i needed a metal detector to search the site. So I ordered an old BFO metal detector off E-bay. I quickly found out it was only a slight improvement from the one I bought in 1962. So my friend suggested i get an ACE 250. So i di the research and decided to get a Tesoro Compadre. It's a great little machine, but I wasn't totally happy. So I broke down and bought an ACE 250. For the money it is a really good machine. I'm just as pigheaded when it comes to my pointer. My first and second pointers were from Harbor freight. It took me two pointers to realize they have a short life expectancy. So then I bought the generic pointer from Kellyco. It's okay but I ordered a garret propointer. It's arriving today. I coin shoot for clad only for practice, my preference is old coins and artifacts.
So tell me about yourself.
Garry