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The recent storms have resulted in seas that have stripped off the summer's accumulation of sand from the beaches I hunt. Managed to get over there (Atlantic side) yesterday afternoon with my recently updated Equinox 800 to try my luck for a few hours. Quick summation of my impression is that the detector ran quieter and as deep or slightly deeper than before, with a much more accurate depth meter and the stable tid, even at depth, that we have come to expect. I mostly hunted the wet sand, with some shallow water thrown in. Mostly Beach 1 stock settings, some Beach 2 in the water. I found a lot of coins, some as deep as 8-12 inches, a pyramid sinker, and a big hoop earing. The only junk target I got fooled by was a mostly intact crown cap that sounded great and rang up at 24/25, no iron grunt. Dug a couple iron targets just to verify they were what I thought they were - a couple tent stakes, a bobby pin, and a screw. Something I have noticed that I have not seen discussed yet is the newly recalibrated depth meter and its accuracy across coin sizes. My other detectors are calibrated to one coin size, so their depth meters are accurate on one size coin and less so for all others. The Equinox appears to be correlating the tid with the expected coin to display expected depth. The result being that the depth meter is pretty accurate on both the dime and the quarter (penny and nickle, too), unlike any of my other detectors. Overall, the updated detector was even more fun to use than before. It may not completely replace my Pulsescan TDI for beach hunting but the TDI is going to get a whole lot less use.

And I get excited when I find something 100 years old............. Awesome find!!!

I use park 2 because I have very trashy parks and it seems to unmask the coins better. All things are a trade-off.....park 2 is a bit more challenging to use in trashy conditions. I see a lot more one-way signals and complicated signals but they usually wind up being something good. Suprising how many coin spills I have found with this detector- it separates better so I get diggableTIDs where I believe other detectors that have gone over the same spill just averaged everything into a TID that would indicate junk.

I have had my 800 since May 5th. It is my first Minelab, so I am still trying to get down the very subtle audio nuances that signal good target but I am having a lot of fun learning this machine. Great, light-weight package. Love the rechargable battery and the wireless headphone options. Each of the different modes are vastly different than the others, which means it will be a long time before I get tired of playing with this one. Let all the nay-sayers do their thing. The less people that have this machine, the better it is for me. Is it perfect? Is any detector? However, all my complaints are nit-picky on this detector. Worth the wait!

A couple months back I was playing with my MX Sport and a nickle buried a few inches down on its side. I just ran out to check the same scenario with my Equinox 800 and found the exact same result.... If I sweep the coil directly above the nickle perpendicular to the face of the coin, my detector sees the coin and gives the proper TID and pinpoints the coin correctly in all modes. However, if I sweep the coil directly above the coin but parallel to the face of the coin, I get a very jumpy TID. As I pull back from the coin the TID stablizes at 13, as would be expected for a nickle, however, now the center of the coil is about 6" away from the coin (top edge of coin is 2" deep). Continue sweeping as I move the coil toward the coin, and then past it, and I see the same result on the other side of the coin- proper TID with the center of the coil about 6" away from the coin. Now, I pinpoint the coin sweeping parallel to the face of the coin. I get two pinpoints, each about six inches away from the coin perpendicular to the face of the coin. If I draw a line connecting the two pinpoints, the coin is located at the center of that line. Depth of the coin affects the distance it pinpoints from the actual position of the coin. Deeper coin pinpoints further away. The only time I have trouble finding the coin on its side is if I sweep directly above it and parallel to the face of the coin. Same result for both the MXS and the Equinox.

I noticed the lag, too. Not horrible but enough to bother me. I just use the wm08 with ear buds because I do not notice the lag with those. Also, ear buds are a lot more comfortable in the heat. I'll save the other headphones for our week of winter.......

Third hunt today. Weather is cloudy with scattered showers so fewer folks at the park. I went to an area where I have found some older coins in the past. Between the large number of people that metal detect in Florida, and the rapid sink rate in our sandy soil, old coins from a park are something to celebrate. Today I managed to grab two, both wheats- one a 1930 at a measured 7", and the other a 1918 at a measured 7 1/2". Both were masked by iron. Park 1, default settings but with -9 thru 9 and 14 thru 18 disced out to give my ears a rest. Both hit TID of 24-25. I was really looking forward to finding a bunch of nickles, based on what I have read but I have been digging only trash so far. Amazing how many targets of various shapes and sizes will ring at a solid 13 from all directions - which was my criterion for digging. Gotta learn the sound nuances! Some observations: On shallow targets, the horizontal detection range of the coil is at least as wide as the coil. However, as the target gets deeper, the horizontal detection range rapidly decreases to only a few inches in the center of the coil. This is normal for any DD coil, but is more pronounced on this coil than I have seen before. Hence the ability to separate very well for a relatively large coil. However, this means if you desire deeper targets you need to have good sweep discipline - go slow and make sure you overlap your sweeps. Also, despite the fact that this is a very "fast" detector, you definitely want to follow the owners manual direction to sweep 2-3 seconds for a right-left-right cycle. Especially in a trashy park. Finally, as a noob to Minelab detectors, I found it very helpful to disc out non-coin ranges in my trashy park. Once I understand the sounds that desirable targets make, I will back off on the disc, but until then I found it far less taxing on my ears and my brain. Oh, one last thing, as with most detectors, the higher you crank the sensitivity, the smaller the targets you will detect. One area I was in allowed me to max out the sensitivity. Had a great sound and was expecting a deep nickle. Took me about 10 minutes to locate a shallow split shot that was about 1/8" in diameter. Oi!! Sensitivity went right back to 20 after that.

Nice!

Well, I spent about 3 1/2 hours on the beach - Atlantic side. Not a lot of targets. Used beach 1 out of the water and beach 2 while wading. Tid was very accurate - correctly called all the coins before digging them. Sensitivity was 20 - 23. Detector was very quiet in and out of the water. Pinpoint was very accurate as well. Had several targets that were deep - took several scoops to retrieve. Most were less than 6". Just for the heck of it I toggled through the other programs to see how they reacted in the damp sand. I was able to use Field 1 on sensitivity 17 as long as I was not in the water. Did retrieve one very small target while in that mode. None of the other modes would play nice on the beach. Take for the day was 3 dimes, 3 pennies, 1 quarter and a nickle. No jewelry. A couple square tabs, part of a screw, and a little unidentified whatzit that may have been some kind of earing back. I would have liked to spend some time at the low tide dropoff but surf was up and no waterproof headphones so did not risk it. All in all, an educating and interesting afternoon.

(Finally) received my 800 yesterday after a very long wait. First impression: wow, what a small box! Opened it up, assembled and put it on the charger. Took about 3 hrs and 15 minutes to charge. Also charged the headphones and the wm08 - they took about an hour each. Only had time to go in the back yard and try it out. Headphones paired without any trouble. Delay is slight but noticable with the headphones. Shaft is solid with no wobble. Felt very nose heavy until I shortened the shaft by one adjustment hole, then nicely balanced. Arm cuff is very wide but not uncomfortable. Menu and adjustments are very straight-forward to use and navigate. Brought my bucket of targets out to try and see what the detector had to say about them. This is my first Minelab, so gonna have to learn the language. Played around for about an hour and then had to stop for the day. This morning I had a chance to do some detecting in a couple spots around town. Decided to try the wm08 module with my Skull Candy earbuds. No trouble pairing. No noticable delay with the wm08 module and worked great with my earbuds. I am going to have to be patient learning the language. I hear very subtle differences in the sounds but it will take some time to understand. As expected, my junk to coin ratio was not good. I expect this will continue until I understand what the detector is telling me. I was using park I, mostly sensitivity of 20, noise cancelled and ground balanced as needed, sweep speed 6, iron bias 3, 50 tones. I hunted in more out of the way places because it is Saturday and the parks are full of people. I mostly dug TIDs that corresponded to coins. More often than not, I got non-coin items. This detector is not as precise in tid as I would like but from what I have read, once you understand the sounds you can improve the treasure/trash ratio. Detector ran very quiet, even under the power lines and near the transformers. Surprisingly, my Garrett carrot caused no chatter on the detector (it does with all my other detectors). I forgot to turn my cell phone off but it never caused an issue, maybe because it was on the opposite side from the detector? Most targets were 7" or less. Couple dimes, couple pennies, bunch of can slaw, some brass shell casings, screw tops, heavy foil, brass compression fitting, a big aluminum gutter nail.....nothing exciting. I think this detector is going to grow on me. All new detectors are an adjustment over what one is used to using. I am planning to hit the beach this late afternoon. Supposed to be scatterred showers but since both the detector and I are water resistant, what the heck!

I hunt the Atlantic beaches. Best plan if you want to hunt without wading is to go an hour or two before low tide, hunt in a "w" pattern, with the bottom of the w being the water line, and the top of the w being the high tide line ( or beyond). After you have recovered 10 - 20 targets look back down the beach in the direction you have already hunted. You will see that there are one or more lines parallel to the water where you have recovered targets. Detect those lines to maximize your target recovery. Florida beaches are hit hard but most people that I have observed are pretty lax in their coil sweeps - no overlap, so there is usually stuff to be found. I suspect the best stuff to be found is in the water but it is tough going on the Atlantic side. You will have to arrive early on a late spring or summer day to have calm conditions. Prepare to have quite a workout if you arrive later than about noon. Gulf side does not have the wave action but I believe the water hunting is far more competitive.

Amen to that! I had a lady come up to me on the beach and show me her $20,000 plus diamond ring and ask me if I would return it to her if she lost it and I found it. My reply: is your name engraved on it? She had a very thoughtful look on her face after my response...

I had my name in the hat on 9/22. Still no word other than it may be April......and no, not Kellyco.

Nice!

Yes, MontAmmie. I was way more patient when nobody had one. Now it feels like I am one of the few that is still waiting. I put my name on the list on 9/22 and still have no idea when I might get one. Beach is starting to get resanded already and the hot weather is coming fast. I have the opposite prime detecting season of most of the country. Hoping to get mine before its too hot to detect the parks.