Another new guy cking in, from NE Texas. I've held off posting for a while, my 1st ever detector arrived today, Mon 10/28.
I've been researching quite a bit & finally decided that due to the high iron content here, my 1st MD should certainly have some type of automatic ground balance, & that manually adjustable GB would be a Very Good Thing too. (How much iron? They built a steel mill here, iron ore was strip mined locally & processed well into the 1970's. The nearest point of the old strip mines is probably less than 5 miles from home. No foolin'.) Finally snagged a Bounty Hunter Land Ranger- unused, with both 8" & 4 coils, plus some little bag & trowel, for a pretty good price. Maybe I'm wrong, but suspect the manually adjustable GB will sometimes make a big difference.
Plan to 1st just stay at home. We were told long ago that on this site there was an old rural 1-room school *Way* back, say 1920s or earlier. There was also a house/cabin that was used as some kind of church retreat, possibly before the lake was built, some of its old concrete foundation is right in front of the house, top is at ground level. A couple of huge old trees that would have been around back then for kids to play under, plus a ditch that's supposed to be the remains of an old road-bed. It'll at least be good training for learning to dig & leave as little trace as possible.
Looking forward to it- I've already bought a few 4-paks of 9V batteries, a Fiskars Big Grip digger/soil knife & a Harbor Freight Mini-Shovel to go with the small Wilcox kid-sized trowel. Will be ready to go when I can get outside with the Land Ranger tomorrow.
I've been researching quite a bit & finally decided that due to the high iron content here, my 1st MD should certainly have some type of automatic ground balance, & that manually adjustable GB would be a Very Good Thing too. (How much iron? They built a steel mill here, iron ore was strip mined locally & processed well into the 1970's. The nearest point of the old strip mines is probably less than 5 miles from home. No foolin'.) Finally snagged a Bounty Hunter Land Ranger- unused, with both 8" & 4 coils, plus some little bag & trowel, for a pretty good price. Maybe I'm wrong, but suspect the manually adjustable GB will sometimes make a big difference.
Plan to 1st just stay at home. We were told long ago that on this site there was an old rural 1-room school *Way* back, say 1920s or earlier. There was also a house/cabin that was used as some kind of church retreat, possibly before the lake was built, some of its old concrete foundation is right in front of the house, top is at ground level. A couple of huge old trees that would have been around back then for kids to play under, plus a ditch that's supposed to be the remains of an old road-bed. It'll at least be good training for learning to dig & leave as little trace as possible.
Looking forward to it- I've already bought a few 4-paks of 9V batteries, a Fiskars Big Grip digger/soil knife & a Harbor Freight Mini-Shovel to go with the small Wilcox kid-sized trowel. Will be ready to go when I can get outside with the Land Ranger tomorrow.
