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Mercury Dime Teaser


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4 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Thanks Daniel - that made me laugh! :laugh:

All I want a detector to do is two things. 1. Make more finds for me more easily. 2. Do it as ergonomically as possible. When I say ergonomics I mean visual and audio interface as much as physical design.

That is what the Equinox is doing for me. Just imagine swinging a FBS machine that is as fast as a DEUS in the trash if not faster. Yet when you are in the open, throttle it back to slow speeds for more depth. Best of both worlds.

There is more to it though. Multi-IQ is actually new and by that I mean different. There is something going on there with target id I have not figured out yet. I don't mean that in a bad way at all. This detector really talks to me. I guess I really don't care after all what everyone else ends up thinking about the Equinox. All I know it that is what I am swinging from now on! Well, that and a GPZ :smile:

As usual great info Steve.  Was hoping for you that 16 Merc was a D! It seems you have found the sweet spot on sensitivity and reactivity settings for that site. 

I have mild soil here so am actually a bit jealous of what appears to be a site unlocker for you guys out west.  2 bar 81-85 is the worst I have to deal with and NO reports anywhere on the net of the Equinox in mild ground. 

That something about the target ID you mentioned, would it have to do with it staying stable/accurate even at high reactivity settings?  Audio as in human intelligibility?

The short time I had the Impact I found it to be a great audio machine but lacked in TID especially in co-locate situations.

Tom

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10 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Equinox is not only getting that little bit better target id at depth, but also unlocks coins next to trash, so it is a double whammy.

Now that's what I was hoping you'd say!

 

10 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

OK, I hear everyone going "yeah, yeah, 6" or 8", big deal".

Not from me.  You're finding valuables in sites you've hunted well before.  It's not because you're smarter (well, you might be a little); it's not because they were recently reseeded; it's not because you missed them previously due to carelessness or poor technique.  It's because the tool in your hand is better.

In my experience, the critics worth listening to aren't the ones hiding in the bushes waiting for the slightest slip-up to pounce.  Your finds, experimentation, experience, and especially your writings have established you as someone to take seriously.  And in the end, there is only one critic who really matters.  (No, not your wife, but don't tell her I said that!)

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In my opinion the magic of Equinox is Multi-IQ. The single frequency modes are more like legacy modes that are there for us in case we can find a use for them. I admit that lately what with time being very short (weather is going downhill fast) I have focused on using Multi and finding a few more silver. I need to play more with the single frequency stuff, but honestly, an Equinox running is single frequency is just another metal detector running in single frequency. No magic there except the speed and the ability to pick the frequency.

Here is one useful practical aspect of single frequency. You can pick between Multi, 5, 10, 15, and on EQX800 20 and 40 khz.

Lets say you are getting a lot of EMI running in Multi that you can’t get to settle down. The Equinox is not particularly prone to EMI but I have experienced it more close to powerlines than was the case with the CTX when running maxed out. Usually all you need to do is lower the sensitivity a few notches and the EMI goes away. If it does not.....

Just hit the Frequency button and cycle quickly through each frequency and give it a listen. EMI tends to exhibit more at the low frequencies, so you may see that 5 kHz is noisy and each higher frequency less so. Whatever the case, you will find that with all the frequencies to choose from one will run quiet. Go with it for that location. And remember, each frequency has the Noise Cancel option, which allows for 19 levels of frequency offset to further tune a given frequency to avoid EMI.

There is a lot to experiment with here. Four base operating modes with multiple frequency variations and reactivity/recovery speed/detect speed options from extremely slow to lightning fast alone mean more combinations than you can shake a stick at. And nobody should think the names of the modes are more than rough guides. Field Mode is hot on small stuff (think thin hammered and cut silver coins, small gold jewelry) and so may find use with dry sand and tot lot jewelry hunters. It rivals Gold Mode as a potential prospecting mode. And Beach Mode, which runs in Multi only, has potential use in difficult ground mineralization for all types of detecting. Equinox is basically a detector toy box :smile:

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7 hours ago, Jackpine said:

That something about the target ID you mentioned, would it have to do with it staying stable/accurate even at high reactivity settings?  Audio as in human intelligibility?

I am a hunt by ear guy with meters acting more as confirmation. I like running full tones and I find the audio suits me quite well. The target id on this thing has hair splitting accuracy and stability with solid id locks on all but borderline targets.

The deep stuff is harder to describe. Target id will start to vary by swing when targets get borderline. Take a swing, one number, take another swing, another number. There is something about the way I “massage” a deep target with multiple swings and getting multiple numbers back where I make the swing just so, and know it is right. Like knowing you made the perfect golf swing and the number just locks. Hard to describe but you probably know what I am talking about. 

As the targets shift to ferrous at depth, a ferrous “donut” appears around a coin at depth in full tones, with a high tone squeaky in the middle. If that squeak matches the magic numbers for copper/silver (I specifically am not mentioning what those target id numbers are in case they shift on further tweaking) then it almost assuredly is a deep copper/silver. They are my favorite targets.

The target id accuracy makes this a cherry pickers dream. Due to limited time I am doing just that and digging almost nothing but coins.

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Steve,

This is just great stuff.  Every time you post, about using this unit, I am gleaning more and more info that will be so helpful once I get mine.  That "ferrous donut" around a fringe-depth good target, with a high-tone "squeak" in the middle?  I'm going to remember that one...

Steve

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2 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

There is a lot to experiment with here. Four base operating modes with multiple frequency variations and reactivity/recovery speed/detect speed options from extremely slow to lightning fast alone mean more combinations than you can shake a stick at. And nobody should think the names of the modes are more than rough guides. Field Mode is hot on small stuff (think thin hammered and cut silver coins, small gold jewelry) and so may find use with dry sand and tot lot jewelry hunters. It rivals Gold Mode as a potential prospecting mode. And Beach Mode, which runs in Multi only, has potential use in difficult ground mineralization for all types of detecting. Equinox is basically a detector toy box :smile:

Really great report and info, Steve, thanks.  You are really starting to get at what a lot of us have been super anxious to hear about for the last couple of months:  how the detector "feels" in a true real world environment specifically with regard to audio and target ID.  The repeatable coin ID "squeak" is a term you may have coined (no pun intended) that we'll be hearing a lot once this detector gets into consumers' hands.  

One question about the Multi IQ that hopefully you can answer is about how the frequencies operate in the different Multi IQ modes.   Specifically, what parameters change when you go between Park, Field, and Beach?   Do the relative strengths of each frequency change depending on mode?  Even though it is still in Multi, do the signal strengths change among the individual freqs?   When in Park, for example, is there more  energy put into the 5 kHz frequency than the other freqs?    On the V3i, for example, you can operate in either multi or any one single freq.  When you are in multi, the signal strengths of the three frequencies are always the same and are not adjustable.  If on the Equinox, the relative signal strengths are different for each mode when in multi, this would give the operator a huge new adjustment capability never seen before.  Maybe I'm just dreaming, but that would be awesome.  

Maybe there is some other tweaking going on too between the modes, like Beach having a faster auto ground balance tracking?  Can you shed any light on what is going on under the hood when you switch modes but stay in Multi?  Thanks.  :smile:

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That is proprietary information that Minelab does not share in detail and I will be surprised if they do. It is in effect the highly secretive and protected "secret sauce". To this day Minelab has cloaked just what it is exactly that BBS and FBS machines are doing. People argue about number of frequencies when that is a red herring. What is Minelab doing internally by way of algorithms to compare and process the multiple frequency information - that is where the real magic is. It is telling that although the BBS patent expired long ago that nobody else has produced a BBS knockoff. The frequency info is easy to determine with a scope, but that tells you nothing about the internal processing.

All information about how Multi-IQ works comes direct from Minelab and nowhere else. What you read, I read, and with just as much interest. Minelab will be doing more Multi-IQ information releases that will no doubt shed more light on the matter, but certain details will remain secret no matter what.

I mean seriously, how many detector companies keep full time physicists on staff?

minelab-equinox-r-d-engineers-team.jpg

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1 hour ago, steveg said:

Steve,

This is just great stuff.  Every time you post, about using this unit, I am gleaning more and more info that will be so helpful once I get mine.  That "ferrous donut" around a fringe-depth good target, with a high-tone "squeak" in the middle?  I'm going to remember that one...

Steve

That probably only exhibits in real bad ground that is trying to pull targets into the ferrous region. I would not expect it in milder ground. And you have to be in full tones.

It is different from ferrous junk targets that also tend to fire off some high squeaks as the ferrous "wraps high". But on equinox there is more spread between the target id of a high ferrous wrap and silver coins then I have seen on other detectors, so they tend to be painfully obvious. I will be able to say more about that whenever Minelab tells me the target id numbers are locked in place but for now I am avoiding talking about specific id numbers and what they might mean. Things may shift still.

In other words, I can speak to generalities as best I can, but if I tell you that nickels ring up as 16 it could very well be that the number shifts to 15 or 18 in the final build. No big deal but I don't want to put stuff out there I will have to go back and correct or clean up later any more than I have to.

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26 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

That probably only exhibits in real bad ground that is trying to pull targets into the ferrous region. I would not expect it in milder ground. And you have to be in full tones.

It is different from ferrous junk targets that also tend to fire off some high squeaks as the ferrous "wraps high". But on equinox there is more spread between the target id of a high ferrous wrap and silver coins then I have seen on other detectors, so they tend to be painfully obvious. I will be able to say more about that whenever Minelab tells me the target id numbers are locked in place but for now I am avoiding talking about specific id numbers and what they might mean. Things may shift still.

In other words, I can speak to generalities as best I can, but if I tell you that nickels ring up as 16 it could very well be that the number shifts to 15 or 18 in the final build. No big deal but I don't want to put stuff out there I will have to go back and correct or clean up later any more than I have to.

Steve,

Totally understood, on the target ID numbers and not being specific about them in your posts yet.

Also, I was wondering that very thing (about the ferrous "donut," and whether it might be more pronounced in bad ground, versus mild).  My thought though is that even if it is happening to you on 7" dimes, for instance, I might see the same thing but instead on a 9" or 10" dime (with my soil milder than yours, but still hot enough to cause your average single freq. unit to start calling coins iron at 6" to 7" deep...)  Will be interesting to test in my dirt, but my thought was that what you described might be a signature clue for identifying fringe depth targets even in my dirt.

ALSO, (you must be reading my mind), as I am reading and pondering your posts, I had been wondering about the details of how you were able to recognize that "ferrous donut" around a non-ferrous target, because I'd think you'd still have "falsing iron" to deal with, which might act somewhat similar, audibly.  But, you offered up some unsolicited explanation that answered that for me, as well!  I knew you were good, but a mind reader?  ;)

To be sure I understand -- and I'll just use numbers for the sake of the argument (realizing as you said, that they may change)...when you talk about the spread between the "iron wrapping" tones/IDS, and the high-toning in that "ferrous donut" that suggests "good target" to you...are you saying that any "wrapping" or "falsing" iron is constrained to say the 39 or 40 ID, while the highest "non-ferrous" high tone might be limited at the high end to say 36 or 37 -- and thus you have a "gap in there" (say, around that 38 number) between REAL high tones and iron falses -- that stands out audibly as being pretty obvious when running multi-tones?  As opposed to a situation with say another machine, where the highest of non-ferrous IDs/tones might "overlap" with the ID/tones generated by the iron "falses?"

If what I just laid out in trying to understand what you are saying is correct, then WOW.  That, for me, is a BIG, BIG deal.  It's in my opinion one of the hardest things to "master" when hunting in thick iron and trying to "unmask" -- i.e. with some machines you have to spend too much (in my opinion) time and brain-power to filter the FALSE high tones from the potentially REAL high tones; if this machine puts some "separation" in there, so that you can have more faith in your ability to hear what is likely just a "false," versus what a likely clue of a non-ferrous target hiding in the nails?  That is potentially HUGE.

Steve

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