Camping and Treasure Hunting
Camping is a great outdoor activity, and it seems most times there is always plenty to do. Well how about adding another activity to the list? It can be relaxing; exciting; educational; and could even make you some cash on the side. I’m talking about treasure hunting with a metal detector.
When I was much younger, living in the UK, I used to go out each Sunday morning and scavenge around the local area with my trusty C-Scope metal detector. There was not a single occasion when I didn’t return with treasure of some sort. One week it may have been a bag of musket balls; another it may have been a pocketful of recent British coins. I remember one trip, I unearthed a solid silver groat from the reign of Charles the Second – I still have it too.
By now you will appreciate that I used the term ‘treasure’ quite lightly, but it is the finding that is the real treasure; and with some research and a bit of luck, you could find real treasure – gold nuggets, early coins, battle field relics, and so much more.
There are basically three types of metal detector, each with their own pros and cons, but they all rely on the effect that buried metals have on a generated magnetic field.
The BFO, or beat frequency oscillator detector is the simplest. It is used to tune two oscillators to the same high frequency. Then any metal in the search coil oscillator range will shift the frequency of it relative to the second oscillator, resulting in an audio tone.
A less elementary detector measures the amount of oscillator phase shift between a known condition and one where a metal object is influencing the oscillator field. These can be very sophisticated in design with microprocessor control and both visual and audio displays.
Finally there is the pulse induction detector which measures the amount of time for a magnetic field to collapse. Think of it in terms of blasting a horn in an empty room and listening to the echo dissipate. In the case of the PI detector, any metal in range of the initial pulse will cause the magnetic field to collapse over a longer period of time.
Hopefully the lapse into the basic technology didn’t dampen your resolve to give treasure hunting a go. It really is a lot of fun for the whole family, and if you find something, it’s double the fun.
For the more serious minded that might be interested only in gold prospecting, the rise in the price of gold has seen reborn interest in the subject. My wife and I recently stayed at a bush camp at an old gold mine in Queensland Australia. Whilst there I spoke with a young guy who just days earlier had found a 51 gram nugget with his detector. By the look of the heavy gold chain around his neck it wasn’t his first find either. When I asked him if there was much gold left around those parts his reply was, “Bloody right there is!”
If you do decide to try it out there are certain ‘rules’ of the past-time. The most important one is in obtaining permission from the landowner to hunt on their land. The other rule of equal importance is to always fill in any holes you may have dug looking for that elusive nugget! That said, grab a detector and let’s go prospecting on your next camping trip.
A Camping and Treasure Hunting Adventure
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