A Deaf Prospector with GPZ 7000. Ricky has been fossicking for gold for a month at Peak Downs Goldfields in Clermont, Central Queensland. In the first four weeks, just over one ounce of gold was detected by him. But unlike other people fossicking for gold, it is an experience that is very different. Ricky is profoundly Deaf, he doesn’t hear anything and communicates through sign language. Ricky was born profoundly Deaf, is an adventurer and loves being outdoors doing all kinds of activities. He took up an interest in gold prospecting while on holiday in Australia’s Victoria State in October 2019. How does he hear the gold detector while out in the goldfields? Ricky says, I took up the challenge of using the machine with headphones that produces only sound. With my deafness I put the volume up to a maximum of 20 on the GPZ 7000. I trialed it with the best Steelphase audio enhancer around and put it on full volume, which produces large sound vibrations for me, so my brain can recognize the sound. A hearing person can hear me from some distance if I pulled my headphones away from my ears. That’s how loud it is. At the beginning I started having side affects from the vibration sounds through the headphones. When I turned the gold detector off, I had trouble sleeping at night. My brain would still be hearing ringing in the ear (tinnitus) from the memory of the vibration sound. It took time for me to get used to the vibration sound and be able to tolerate it, because I hadn’t heard anything loud for a long time. I am now able to drop the volume down to 18 with the lowest threshold pitch at 40. This is all trial and error and a learning experience for me. I am doing much better now. I wore a hearing aid in my childhood, but heard very little and it doesn’t work for me now in adulthood, so I don’t wear them. I have no idea how the vibration sound while fossicking will affect me in the long term and what it will do to my ear drums, but I hope Minelab can create something better in the future to improve the next generation gold detectors, especially for profoundly deaf people.
