Gold conductivity?

[Jason]

I sent off for the DVD from Minelab about the Xterra 70. In it he said that they have a coil at 18Khz for less conductive materials like gold. What??? Am I missing something? Isn't gold the most, and best, conductor around? I know that gold coated jacks on your stereo equipment is the best. Is it different when talking about it in the context of metal detecting?

[fastforty]

A lot of the gold that MD'ers are finding rings up right along with foil and pulltabs, & that stuff will send any machine singing to the high heavens. Could be that they are talking about finding those nearly microscopic "nuggets" in non poluted areas (if those areas even exist, LOL).

[Jason]

Oh, and another thing... They were interviewing a guy in the UK to show the Accept/Reject feature. He said... "Alot of blokes in the USA like to reject dimes." Huh? Dimes?

[Brian]

Back to the sex of angels. Things that should apply, or do in the lab, don't out in the field. Better to compare conductivity when eddy currents and resistivity are applied.
Have a look at http://www.eddy-current.com/condres.htm
Seems to be more related to finding metals in-ground than most charts of conductivity.
Another thing to consider re the pick up of deep targets is that a gold coin whether buried two hundred years or two thousand hasn't changed in any respect. A copper or bronze item or anything combining various metals or just impurities has reacted with any soil acids and is no longer smooth and provides a larger target as the detectors signal eddy's over the surface. Think of a smooth one inch disc of card, the same size of corregated card has much more surface area for the signal to travel over.
Hope thats not as clear as mud.

[BostonMike]

Gold isn't the best conductor. Silver is the best conductor around followed by copper.


Reason gold is favored most is because it won't tarnish or corrode, so it's a pretty durable connection than silver or copper