NEWSLETTER OF THE THREE FORKS TREASURE HUNTERS CLUB

Transcription

1 NEWSLETTER OF THE THREE FORKS TREASURE HUNTERS CLUB VOLUME XXI ISSUE 7 SEPTEMBER 2004 EDITOR: Chuck Marcum PHONE: (918) graytcote@cox.net The Outpost is published monthly by the Three Forks Treasure Hunters Club. The club is a member of the Federation of Metal Detector and Archeological Clubs Inc. It is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of metal detecting as a hobby. No brand or model of metal detector is endorsed by the club. Membership is open to the public with the only requirement being that all members follow the Treasure Hunters Code of Ethics. Club dues are $25.00 per family yearly. Any comments or stories that you would like to contribute to your newsletter are always welcome. MEETINGS: First FRIDAY of each month. TIME : 7:15 P.M PLACE: Wagoner Community Building at the corner of Jefferson and Cherokee streets in Wagoner Oklahoma. NEXT MEETING: September 3, 2004 BOARD MEETING: The third Thursday of every month at Martin s Restaurant on Hwy. 16 in Okay Ok. at 7:00 P.M. CLUB PO BOX: P.O. Box 753 Wagoner, Ok CLUB OFFICERS: PRESIDENT: Andrew Winters VICE PRESIDENT: SECRETARY: Donnell Winters TREASURER: Nancy Coffey BOARD MEMBERS: Gene Coffey Vicki Lang Gilbert Leake Chuck Marcum Tom Neville Francis Tracy Mary Tracy

2 Our Club Meeting Nights have been changed to the first Friday of the month. Upcoming Events September 3 Three Forks Club Meeting September 11 GPS Class September 18 FMDAC Hunt September 25, 26 Battle of Cabin Creek Re-enactment October 1 Three Forks Club meeting October 10 Tulsey Town National Hunt October Diamond Hunt Outing November 5 Three Forks Club Meeting November 13 Shiloh Relic Hunt November Three Forks Fall Club hunt December 10 Three Forks Christmas Dinner GPS Class I will be giving a GPS class at the Oklahoma Department of Transportation Building in Tulsa at 10:00 on Saturday September 11 for anyone wanting to attend. It will be a field class mostly on the basics, including how to enter coordinates, setting waypoints, and following the GPS to a destination. We have two Geocaches hidden in the park there. One of them is The Bedstead Bank which is a Multi-Cache that I also set up as a training course for learning to use a GPS. For this cache you will start out by entering the latitude and longitude for the first leg into the GPS, then follow the receiver to a spot where you will find another set of coordinates to enter which will lead you to the next set. Finally the fourth leg will get you to the hidden Bedstead Bank Cache. After you find the Multi-Cache you can find the harder Back Through the Years at Bedstead Bridge Cache. To view these cache pages go to select hide and seek a cache, select key word then type in the cache name. I will have some extra GPS Receivers for anyone wanting to use them. Bring your GPS Instruction Manuals and charged batteries. There is an old barn out there you can hunt around, a pond with stocked fish, and picnic tables. Spend the day in Tulsa and attend the ITTHC Meeting that night. The Department of Transportation Building is between 36th St. N. and 46th St. N. on the service road on the west side of Highway 169. If you have any questions you can or call me. My cell number and address is on the front of this newsletter. Big thanks to Richard Carr and Jerry Callison for giving an excellent talk on finding and digging outhouses at last month s meeting. If you weren t there you missed out. September Program Jerry Harlin will be giving a program on the Steam- Boat Arabia which sank in It was recently located and dug up in a soybean field with most of it s cargo intact. Jerry will be bringing a really good video about the excavation that we will watch. If there is enough interest we may get a group together to go tour the museum in Kansas City.

3 AUGUST PRIZE DONATIONS DONATION SHARED BY SHARED TO Delta Ranger Knife Western and Eastern Magazines Rock and Gems Magazines Antique Traders Bowl and Candle Set Christmas Bell Recipe Cards Iodine Bottle Iraq Trading Cards Scanner Radio Scanner Radio Scanner Radio Tool Box Aluminum Cup Aluminum Cup B & B Pickles Peppers Squash Wall Shelf Magnifier Work Gloves Wind Chimes Pouch and Bottle Carrier Two Silver Dimes Silver Round Silver Round Glenn Briley Jerry Harlin Tony Morris Richard Carr Mary Tracy Mary Tracy Francis Tracy Richard Carr Chuck Marcum Nancy Coffey Gene Coffey Nancy Coffey Donnell & Andrew Winters Vicki Lang Three Forks Three Forks The 50/50 Pot of $38.50 was shared to Jerry Harlin. The Donation Drawing was shared to. The Display Donation was shared to Tom Neville. The Attendance Donation was shared to Jerry Callison. Jim Simmons Paul Turley Jerry Harlin Mary Tracy Andrew Winters Paul Turley Glenn Briley Paul Turley Nancy Coffey Richard Carr Tony Morris Francis Tracy Jerry Harlin Paul Turley Gene Coffey Gene Coffey Tony Morris Paul Turley Shawn Gilbert Francis Tracy

4 AUGUST FIND OF THE MONTH WINNERS PROS Oldest Coin 1. 18?? Indian Head Cent Chuck Marcum Wheat cent Tom Neville D Wheat Cent Jim Simmons Jewelry 1. 14k Gold Ring Jim Simmons 2. Child Bracelet Tony Morris 3. Ring Tom Neville Val. Coin Silver & Gold D Mercury Dime Jim Simmons Barber Dime Chuck Marcum D Mercury Dime Tom Neville Valuable Coin - Other D Wheat Cent Tom Neville D Wheat Cent Jim Simmons D Wheat Cent Tony Morris Relic 1. Sageeyah, OK Token Tom Neville 2. Bar Token Tulsa, OK Jim Simmons 3. Coal Tag Tony Morris Military Relic 1. Tear Drop Bullet Chuck Marcum 2. WWI Button Jim Simmons 2. WWI Button Tom Neville Non - Metallic 1. Cork Screw Marble Jim Simmons 2. Swirl Marble Tom Neville AMATEURS Oldest Coin Wheat Cent Richard Carr Wheat Cent Tim Schlup Wheat Cent Mark Gilbert Jewelry 1. Diamond Bracelet Vicki Lang 2. St. Christopher Medal Richard Carr 3. Gold Plated Ring Tim Schlup Val. Coin Silver & Gold Barber Dime Shawn Gilbert Washington Quarter Jerry Harlin Mercury Dime Mark Gilbert Valuable Coin - Other s Wheat cent Richard Carr Wheat Cent Tim Schlup Wheat Cent Jerry Harlin Relic 1. Silver Pencil Tim Schlup 2. Thimble 3. Tiger Knife Vicki Lang Military Relic 1. Musket Side Plate Mark Gilbert 2. WWI Button Jerry Harlin 2. WWI Button 3. 45/70 Bullet Richard Carr Non - Metallic 1. Shoe Shine Bottle Richard Carr 2. Marble Vicki Lang 2. Marble Tim Schlup 3. Butterfly Shawn Gilbert Golden Eagle Award Vicki Lang found this really nice Diamond Bracelet appraised at $1500.

5 First printed in September 2000 GPS, Maps, and Relic Hunting By Chuck Marcum You have always heard that the key to finding relics is research, but all the time you invest in doing that research will be wasted if you can t find your site. You need to be 100% sure that you ve reached your researched destination. Sometimes you can be a few hundred feet from a spot and miss it completely. If your site is next to a section line road you won t have any problems you can clock from the corner and step a distance out to it. If your site is out in the middle of a section with no roads or fences to go by, in the middle of a forest where you can t see a hundred feet in front of you, or maybe even out on the lake where the water level is always changing you re going to need help. Any tool you can use to give you an edge to finding that spot ought to be taken advantage of. Today s technology has provided us with these tools, they are a combination of digital maps and hand held GPS receivers. If you can put your site on a 7.5 minute quadrangle map, get your latitude and longitude to the site, and learn to follow a Gps receiver I can guarantee that you ll get within 100 ft. of that site no matter where it is. There are a lot of different digital map sites available where you can download USGS 7.5 Minute Quads. I m more familiar with Delorme s 3-D Topo Quads Software. Oklahoma comes on 6 CDs. To find a location you just type in the nearest town or landmark, any place you stop your curser it ll give you the latitude, longitude, and elevation. I can also download my GPS into Delorme and all my waypoints will show up on the map or I can upload waypoints or routes into my Gps from Delorme. For more information on this software you can go to their site at Before getting this software I had a plastic overlay I d have to put over the paper map. Then I d have to add or subtract latitude and longitude it was also in the old 1927 Datum. Delorme is very simple to use. I m going to use the ghost town Appalachia for an example. I hunt it every once in a while looking for a token for Jack with no luck so far. The first thing you need to do is to get all the old maps you can get pertaining to your site. Next you need to transfer the site from the old map onto the new map. You can do that in a number of different ways, by eyeballing it, by making an overlay, or by scaling it off of the section lines. After you have it on the new map you have to get coordinates to it. There are different coordinates you can use such as latitude and longitude, UTM, or military grid. I m more familiar with latitude and longitude. With Delorme you can stop the curser right on your site that you put on the new map and the latitude and longitude will show for that position. Next you need to enter the latitude and longitude into your GPS. Now your map work is done all you have to do is follow your GPS right to your site. One thing to remember is that your original source has to be accurate. The GPS will take you to the spot you put on the new map. We had an outing awhile back to a Mission we used one old map as a source. We plotted it on a new map followed the GPS to the position but the site wasn t

6 there. The map wasn t any good. It is best to get all the old maps you can and compare all of them. When you are Relic Hunting you will eliminate a whole lot more sites than you will find. There are a lot of different brands and types of GPS receivers on the market today. There are units for cars, boats, and Surveying. The perfect one for relic hunting, hiking, fishing, and hunting is the compact handheld. The accuracy now for a good model is anywhere + - 1ft. to 80 ft. Close enough for swinging. I bought my receiver two and a half years ago. I decided on a Lowrance Global Map 100. I chose a Lowrance because the factory is located on Skelly Drive between 11 th St. and I-44 in Tulsa. It s a good thing I did because recently I was downloading a software upgrade from their web site into my computer then I uploaded it into my GPS. The next day I noticed my maps had disappeared from my GPS screen. I uploaded a couple of more maps from my Map Select CD, still no maps on the screen. I called the support person at Lowrance and she couldn t figure out what it was. At lunch time I drove over to the factory and went into the service department. A technician looked at it for a while I was getting a little discouraged, then he took it into the back probably conferring with other techs. He came out and showed me what it was. The navionics got turned on when I was upgrading. The moral of this story is to buy local. If I had another brand I would of had to send it to their factory, pay shipping, been out of a GPS for a couple of months, and maybe even a repair bill for their labor since it was out of warranty. I decided on the Global Map 100 because I am a map freak. The unit comes with a background map and has three different map screens. I got the package which included Mapselect software on CD where I can upload more detailed maps than the background map has. I can also make custom maps to upload. It also came with a computer cord. I paid $450 for the package. I think it s about $100 less today. I haven t seen the package price. The unit itself is $199 The Mapselect CD and cord is $160 now. You can get by with just the unit but I would also recommend getting a download cable, you can use it with other software. You can also download GDM 16 from the Lowrance site. It ll let you download your waypoints along with some other features. Lowrance s address is When you enter the coordinates you are creating a waypoint. You can name your waypoints. I have named the ones below Appalachia and intersection 3. My receiver will store 750 points. You can also set points with the map curser on the screen or set one at your current position. The place you park is a good spot to set one. It saved us more than once. You then want to navigate to your waypoint which is your site. The navigation screen will give you a compass bearing in degrees. North being 360 or 0, East being 90, and south being 180. You ll need a compass with the bearings on it. The distance is shown in miles and tenths. A tenth of a mile being 528 ft. When you get closer than a tenth it will be in ft. In the example below the direction or bearing is N 111 E a distance of 950 ft. Once you get used to it it s pretty simple and if the site isn t there you ll know your source was wrong because you went to the exact spot it said it was. Anyone interested in more info. give me a call maybe we can go hunt and I ll show you how good it works. One of the 3 Map Screens One of the Navigation Screens I will be updating this article real soon. I now have the newest Lowrance Receiver the ifinder with 128mb capability. There is also new GPS and Map Software out now with map calibration and map overlaying programs. New Map with the Waypoints & Coordinates downloaded to it.

7 First printed in March GPS, MAPS, AND RELIC HUNTING II By Chuck Marcum It has been two and a half years since I wrote the first article on this subject. New technology in equipment and software warrant a long needed update. GPS and digital maps is as much a part of Relic Hunting to me as a shovel and metal detector. We covered most of the basics in the previous article. In fact looking back on it, it was pretty basic and just the beginning of what was to come and what will come. In just two short years it has already progressed to map calibration. This means that we can take any scanned map with three or more known points, import it into a GPS or map software. Then match three or more spots same is true with our computers, software, GPS, and the way we are doing things in our everyday life today. It has gotten to the point where I feel if I don t learn something everyday the day was wasted. If you are not continually learning and upgrading you will get left behind in today s high tech world. We all need to realize that a big part of relic hunting research today is learning and using all of the tools that modern technology has to offer to give us that edge to find that big civil war camp, ghost town, or old house site. I m going to break this up into three parts, GPS, GPS and map software, and Map Overlay Software. GPS The first article was about the Lowrance Global Map 100. Still it is an excellent GPS receiver and is still being sold. You can get one with the map CD and computer cord for An older map layered on a newer map with two coordinate boxes. on the scanned map to the same spots on a newer topo map. After we get it calibrated we can then travel on the map with our mouse getting latitudes and longitudes to any spot we want, upload the coordinates into our GPS and go right to our hunt site. Not only can we now calibrate old maps we can overlay as many of them as we want on top of newer topo maps and get the now and then total picture of a researched area. With this map software we can also get our coordinates anywhere on the map. These softwares are at their infant stage and they will continue to get better and better. Today life is just a continual learning experience, especially for me. I m now using GPS, computers, and software for work and play. At work we are using GPS, two different handheld computers for data collecting, Transits with onboard computers and laser distance readers, one software to download our handheld computers into our PCs, and another software to draw all of the data. Usually once we learn how to use all of this it gets upgraded and we start learning it all over again. The New Lowrance ifinder GPS Receiver

8 Lowrance has a new ifinder Pro out since May Academy Sports on 41st street has them for $ and the ifinder for $ The Global Map 100 is now obsolete. around $ As of the spring of 2002 Lowrance came out with their new top of the line handheld receiver, the ifinder and I got mine in May. The biggest difference between the receivers is that the ifinder uses a multimedia card for memory with a capability of up to 128mb. The Global Map 100 has a two partition memory of 1mb apiece. Which means the map details are a whole lot better with the ifinder and the capabilities with all of that memory is really going to be interesting in the near future. The Global Map has three map screens and two navigational screens, the ifinder only has one of each. At first I missed that, but I don t anymore. The Map screen zoomed out to 60 miles Global Map hooks directly to the computer via serial cable where as the ifinder has a card reader that hooks up with a usb connection or serial if you need it. Both the ifinder Plus and the Global Map Deluxe comes with Map Create CDs. These will add more map details to your background map already in your receiver. When you upload map details from the map create 6 CD for the ifinder you ll also be uploading points of interests within your custom map area. Points of interests includes addresses, coordinates, phone numbers, and map positions to places such as restaurants, motels, stores, hospitals, etc. Have you ever been far from home, out in the middle of nowhere heading to your hunt site and suddenly realized you didn t bring any batteries? Instead of wasting a lot of time trying to find a store you could push the find button on your ifinder, choose shopping, enter nearest and all of the stores in the area will show on the screen beginning with the nearest. You can view the store s address and phone number, locate it on the map, and even navigate to it using your Locating a point of interest in the ifinder ifinder s navigation screen GPS. The points of interest is also very handy when you are traveling. With the map CD you can create a corridor map along your route, say a mile or so each side of I - 40 with all of the map details, exit info, and points of interests. When you want to get a motel a few hours down the road. You can go to the find button, spot a motel you want, get the phone number, call to make reservations, then navigate to it. Another new feature of the ifinder is the use of WASS short for Wide Area Augmentation System. This is a position accuracy enhancement system being tested now for full deployment by the FAA for aircraft navigational systems using GPS. This makes the feet accuracy even closer. I have wrote about the Lowrance receivers because that is what I m most familiar with after have using them for years. Garmin and Magellin top of the line receivers are also good. I would however recommend a receiver that has plenty of memory, one that is capable of adding more map detail, and be able to hook up to your computer for uploading and downloading data. The rest of this article will deal with GPS software, map overlaying, and using your GPS receiver along with them. These combinations will make finding that hunt site a no brainer, where all you have to do is follow your GPS there and start digging.

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