![]() "It's mind-boggling what's out there," said Dennis McMullen of Niagara Falls, president of the Heritage Seekers group for almost 30 years. In his decades of hunting, McMullen has amassed quite the collection, including: uniform buttons from soldiers with the 49th Regiment of Foot from the War of 1812, a First World War cap badge, old jewelry and coins, musket balls, larger grape shot and even a cannonball.įellow club member Ron Nelles of St. Catharines is equally pumped up about metal detecting in Niagara. The club members use their hand-held detectors in public places, as well as on private property - but follow a code of ethics that includes repairing any holes they dig, avoiding disturbing vegetation whenever possible and respecting the rights of property owners. Nelles has metal detectors that can operate in both fresh and saltwater, which comes in handy during his annual holiday trips to the Caribbean. "My vacations are paid for with what I find." That's because in the first three days of one of those trips, he can almost always find a cache of jewelry, such as rings and bracelets lost by tourists on beaches or in shallow water, to pay for his trip. The metal detectors include sensors swept across the ground, which create magnetic fields that are altered when close to metal. Digital displays atop the hand-held units then assign a number value of between zero and 99 for each type of metal detected. McMullen said that users have to learn to interpret what their machines are trying to tell them. ![]() "You have to understand your machine and decipher what it's telling you." "It's like learning a different language," he said. Nelles said that with the combination of sounds piped into his headphones and a numeric readout, he can narrow down the nature of buried items as precisely as a pop-can pull tab from the 1950s to a gold ring - because a reading of 58 on his machine usually means he's found the latter. The detecting club meets on the first Sunday of each month at Coronation 50 Plus Recreation Centre on Summer Street in Niagara Falls, except in January and February. McMullen said newcomers to metal detecting are wise to join a club, because they can learn tips from veterans happy to share their expertise. ![]()
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