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Showing content with the highest reputation on 03/26/2018 in all areas

  1. 8 points
  2. Hi Folks Hope everyone is well out there. I was using the Equinox the other day at lunch time and working my way through a mess of bottle caps. This is one of those places that has been detected over and over again for years (local hotspot for detectorists). In fact as I was detecting a guy stopped his car and said to me "Don't waste your time, we have been over this field a thousand times" ( or something like that, I was taking my headphones off when he first started talking). If he hadn't of said that I probably wouldn't have shown him what I found. But, it was too tempting. Ha, maybe that was his logic all along. His eyes bugged out when I showed him the coins. Anyway we had a good talk, and know mutual other Detectorists. Nice guy. The coins rang in real nice around 27 and were about eight inches deep. I was running park 2 with high sensitivity. Recovery speed was at 6 and Iron Bias at 2. I am seeing screw caps coming in as high as 24 even a couple iffy 25s. The coins I have been digging have been above that so far (besides a buffalo nickel at another older less trashy site). Update I found a Barber dime at that park yesterday which rang up 25. That is the same ID as some of those bottle caps. So I will be digging those deeper 25s for sure.. HH
    6 points
  3. This works for us. cost a few more $ but you have a nice place to sleep and relax. The kawasaki Teryx 4 sips fuel to the point you dont even notice it. Thee is no wear and tear on the towing vehicle after you get to the hunting grounds. strick
    4 points
  4. Finally got a break in the rain in not so sunny Sunnyvale, and got an invite from some detecting buddies to go explore some outback sites. First site they'd already located an old homestead but were searching for two more. After a brutal (for me) hike up a mountain, we didn't find the homestead that was supposed to be up there, but the view was spectacular, so still worth the effort. Did a total of a solid 8 hours of detecting at various spots, and lots of hiking around. I had to dig all of this: To get this: We hiked back down to the site that they'd already found and after hours of finding nothing but bullets, and shotgun butts, I finally got my coil over some keepers. First was a well worn 1886 V nickle, it was so worn that I initially thought it was a token, then a shield nickle, but then in the sun I could see the V. Just a few feet away from that I got the badge looking thing, no idea what it is, looks like a Navy or Marines insignia, anyone have any ideas? Also got a Southern Pacific RR seal: And a couple of buckles: We went to a second site, it was purportedly an old picnic grove. The day before a 1907 $10 gold eagle was dug there, and numerous other coins over the years have been dug there, from reales, seateds to barbers, one guy got a V nickle, the other guy got a toasty IHP and I got the buckle above there, it's marked PAT. MAY 2,1990. The oddball looking buckle looking thingy above it is marked PAT DEC 21, 86. I've never dug so many beer cans, I stopped counting at a case I ran the EQ800 in Field2, noise cancel, GB, SENS between 21-23, everything else default. Didn't seem like I dug any more iron then any other machine, got a couple of nails, and a couple of BIG pieces of iron. If anyone has any idea what that badge looking item with the anchor on it is, I'd appreciate it. HH, Brian
    3 points
  5. I just got back from DIV 40 and wanted to give a quick report on how the Equinox 600 performed in the hot Culpeper soil. Mind you I am not proficient with the detector yet. In addition to the Equinox I took my GPX. I used the Equinox for a total of about 8 hours in the three days I was there. I did find some good stuff with the Equinox which included an Eagle coat button, minie ball and a New York coat button. For me I found that the Equinox ran quietest using the beach mode in five tones iron bias one and everything notched out up to 5. If not in the beach modes the machine was really chattery. It can accurately ID a Target to about 5 inches but has a real hard time with low conductors in that soil. With the adjustments the 800 offers you might get better results. At one point I buried a nickel at 6 inches in one of the fields and could not get it with the equinox, the GPX easily picked it up. Overall I thought the detector performed well and was very helpful in the iron infested areas. I know there were other Equinoxes there and some good stuff was found by those using them. I know of at least 1 breast plate found with the Equinox.
    3 points
  6. Just got back Not a lot of relics for me. Some round and minie balls but other then Twelfth GA flat buttons (some deep, old, and partial, others amongst thick iron) and some modern bullets and casings, I hit no period brass but plenty period lead and iron. I have confidence the Equinox would have pulled me a button if I had gotten my coil over one or two. So as a relic hunter...disappointment. I have a chance to redeem myself in a couple weeks. As a detector geek, it was a really good time. Some of the below is "repackaged" from abenson's thread, so if you are having Deja Vu... I wanted to start my own thread with all the info consolidated but also directly address some of abenson's issues based on what I observed, hence the repeat info. EMI, Ground Noise and Coil Noises: 1) Manual Noise Cancel helped on some occasions when Auto didn't pick the optimal channel IMO (a feature the 600 lacks). This was ESPECIALLY important here where you could have up to 25 - 50 GPX's within a few hundred feet. Only once or twice, though, was interference really bad such that I had to pause detecting. Never had to reduce sensitivity below 17 and tried to keep it around 20 and no higher than 22 (again, try to stay near the presets folks, they do appear to be optimal for most situations). 2) Did not use GB tracking (except in Gold Mode which has tracking on by default) but Auto GB'd frequently and found GB (in Field 2 mode) varied anywhere from 4 to 6 in some spots and between 44-56 in other spots. This variability could result in some adverse performance if you just went with the defalt GB setting or did not rebalance frequently. I also noticed a strange phenomenon when GB was set high (i.e., in the 40+ range) that the coil would false on impact with corn stalks or even if you just shook the coil in the air. This did not happen when GB was set close to zero. When I first experienced it I thought I had a loose coil connection or imminent coil failure until I cycled through the modes and noticed that it did not happen on all modes. I finally figured it out when I had re GB'd to a lower number and it went away. Will try tracking at the next mineralized site but did not want to "chance it" here. I have more confidence in it since using gold mode - one of the things I learned from gold mode. Also note that I did not really have a chance to actually gage mineralization because I never pulled out a detector with an Fe302 mineralization meter on it to correlate the GB readings to mineralization. 3) Very important to run the Equinox fast near its defaults on recovery speed. In this soil, 7 worked well on "ground noise" and sometimes 8. This is where the 600 maximum recovery speed limit might make a difference. I did not have a 600 to compare but I know I would not run Field 2 below its default of 7 which is higher than the max setting equivalent setting on the 600. I ran my Equinox 800 in mostly Field 2 and it was great. I used it all three days and only used the GPX for a few short hours in the morning of the third day. I forced myself to stick with it and while I did not score any Eagle buttons, did get some minie and round balls. One round ball was deep 9+ inches and ID'd clearly though the numbers wavered between 14 to 16 and you had to have the coil centered and wiggled to lock in the ID. I found one minie not deep but in highly mineralized and trashy ground under a tree root and the ID was very choppy as a result but dug and was rewarded. Iron tones (ground noise) abounded in the mineralized soil I set up two Field 2 programs. One I kept in the user profile which was basically the default Field 2 50 tones with Recovery at 7 (Very Important to note that this is slightly higher than default on the 600 which is limited to the 800 equivalent of a 6 setting max) and Iron Bias at 0. I used this program when in thick iron and wanted to be sure I did not inadvertently mask non-ferrous or to interrogate targets that gave off choppy high tones in my "main" Field 2 program (described below) to see if the high tone was falsing or wraparound (if the high tone increased in the presence of a ferrous tone then I could pretty much confirm it was an iron target and not a masked non-ferrous, this technique is not foolproof, however). The other I ran most of the time which was exactly the same but without much fear of masking in the open fields, I ran Iron Bias up to 6 to limit falsing on nail heads. I sill need to experiment with Iron Bias but I felt this set up well for how I was hunting. I also dialed in a little threshold. This enabled me to not be completely in the dark on iron if I chose to run discrimination. I made liberal use of the AM button either to flat out search in AM or to interrogate choppy high tones as describe above. Threshold kept me apprised of the iron situation full time regardless of the disc mode I used. In a thick bed of nails house site on the property, I experimented with Gold Mode and THAT was very interesting and promising. More on that later... Not a great DIV for me with respect to finds (and believe me there were plenty of great finds to be had, they were just concentrated in a few specific couple acre camp areas on 1500 acres of farmland), something I did not figure out soon enough, lol. However, it was a great opportunity to learn the detector as I put nearly 30 more hours on it and learned a hell of a lot. To be continued...
    3 points
  7. I have been detecting for over 30 years. Started out with a Whites 3000-D & after using multiple Whites products, I steered towards Minelab & they has been in my arsenal ever since. I have been a long time Minelab user, from the Explorer, E-Trac, CTX & soon to be the Equinox, just waiting for my order to be shipped). It will be real enjoyable not to have to use a harness like I did with the CTX. I noticed when I was looking for a more detailed explanation/answer about a detectors settings, how, what, where, when, why, or just general knowledge, I always seemed to end up on this site. Don't know why it took so long to join, but here I am & I hope I can contribute in the future. Happy Hunting Don
    3 points
  8. Well it's been a long month of testing and tuning but the Land Matters servers are ready to service a lot more users more quickly now. There was a little over a week during the past month where the mapping functions were pretty unreliable for some users. Although Land Matters was still serving more than a thousand maps an hour about 14 people a day had their maps become unresponsive during that time. 14 people out of thousands of users might seem like a small percentage but I'm sure it was a frustrating experience for those it happened to. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience you experienced. Land Matters servers have been running with the new server tunings for a week now with no errors or glitches. Even the most complex maps are being produced in under 4 seconds on average. All is good now. Thanks for your patience.
    3 points
  9. Welcome Don... Lots of good people here and tons info..... Also if you find something you want to share from another forum or a video that is relavent , you can...... Unlike some other forums that are so anal you can't even post a link to a video that might have an ad in it for other equipment...... No doubt about it this is the best forum out there.... And of course the kudos go to Steve for putting this all together for us. Also kudos to the great members that help make this forum what it is.
    3 points
  10. I’m curious to see how the speed of these detectors compare. When the videos from Detectival came out and showed some crazy swinging of the Detector over multiple targets. I checked to see if the V3i could respond similarly. I adjusted the SAT (self adjusting threshold) to 0 or 20 (can’t remember now). I got a similar responds to what I saw in the videos. I believe that the Equinox will process faster then the V3i. I believe this will be the advantage over the V3i. I would guess the ‘proscessor’ on the V3i is well over 10 years old. The Equinox would have a more modern proscessor, that is likely significantly faster. This should allow the Detector to read/display/alert more information. Overall, I think both detectors have many positives. I’m looking forward to getting my 800.
    3 points
  11. A reference collection of threads about the Minelab Equinox, grouped into rough categories. Minelab Equinox 600 Data & User Reviews Minelab Equinox 800 Data & User Reviews Minelab Equinox Software Update 1.7.5 Released Minelab Equinox Software Update 2.1.12 Released Equinox 600 / 800 Full Instruction Manual (English pdf 5.59 MB) Equinox 600 / 800 Getting Started Guide (English pdf 847.71 KB) Equinox Battery Charging Recommendations And Warnings Minelab Equinox Parts & Accessories Page Some Equinox Videos Done By Purchasers Can I Be Critical Of The Equinox Here? Equinox 600 Versus Equinox 800 Minelab E-trac, CTX 3030, Excalibur Versus Equinox Minelab Multi-IQ Technology Explained Selectable Frequency And Multiple Frequency Tips For Getting Started Equinox and Electrical Interference (EMI) Short Bursts Of Intense Static Or Interference More Tips For Getting Started Even More Getting Started Tips Latest Tips For Getting Started And Yet Another Getting Started Tip Loose Rods, Wobbly Rods, Rod Flex Important Tip - Global Vs Local Settings Minelab Equinox Factory Presets Minelab Equinox Tones & Advanced Tone Options Video - Adjusting Zones, Tones, & Tone Volumes On Equinox External Speaker Not Turning Off When I Plug In Wired Headphones Headphones That Work With Nearly All Detectors Equinox Recovery ( Detect Speed ) Settings Recovery Speed & Target Masking Recovery Speed & The Conveyor Belt Ground Balancing The Minelab Equinox Equinox High Mineral Tips If The Audio Is Open Gate Or The Snap Shot Type ? Iron Bias - What It Is Why Only 50 Points Of Target ID Resolution? Nickels Versus Tabs Bottlecaps & Equinox Target ID Normalization Some Minelab Equinox VDI Numbers Another Equinox Target ID Chart Target ID Numbers Can Vary With Search Profile & Frequency More reference links below the ad..... ads by Amazon... UK Target ID Numbers Canadian Target ID Numbers Australian Target ID Numbers U.S. Gold Coin Target ID Numbers Jewelry Target ID Numbers & Tones How Metal Detector Discrimination Works Iron Falsing A New Way To Do 50 Tone Audio Is Park 2 The Magic Mode?? Park 2 Compared To Field 1 Or Field 2? Park 1 & Field 1 versus Park 2 & Field 2 Multi-IQ Frequency Weighting Differences Between Park & Field Modes Number Of Saved Profile Slots For Custom Settings User Profile Button Gold Nugget Detecting Tips More Tips On Nugget Detecting With Equinox More Equinox Gold Prospecting Tips So What Is Gold Mode Exactly? Equinox First Gold Nugget Photos My First Equinox Gold Nuggets Equinox, Micro Nuggets Target ID Numbers For Gold Nuggets & Gold Jewelry Complete Set Of Equinox Physical Measurements Remove Or Reposition Equinox Handle & Pod Assembly? Waterproof Connections & Audio Jack Sizes Equinox, Lithium Batteries, & Air Travel Equinox Battery Life Test Minelab ML80 Wireless Headphones Check ML80 Battery Level Equinox Future Firmware Updates Minelab Discount For U.S. Military 2018 - Year Of The Equinox! Minelab Equinox - The Best All Around Detector I Have Ever Used! The Simple Reason Why Equinox Is Special The Video I Have Most Enjoyed So Far - What Makes Equinox Special I Saw In A Video Where Equinox Got Beat By.... Early Minelab Testers Question?? Equinox 800 - My Take, Commentary, And Testing Is The Equinox A Deep Seeking Machine?? Gold Coin Found With Equinox
    2 points
  12. Does it ride in the truck bed? Are you allowed to tow triples? The camper is a toy hauler. The quad goes in there. Really handy.
    2 points
  13. I recovered this platinum ring for a couple on the North Jetty. Now I know a couple folks down there that may be able to help out.
    2 points
  14. I've never used the Xterra, but the AM horseshoe button on the Equinox isn't a true all metal model in the traditional sense whereas it's a wide open, unfiltered all metals mode. It basically leverages whatever search mode your utilizing and removes all the pre-set notching so it's using zero discrimination. I think it's a very handy feature to be honest, great to quick check a target, or for relic hunters flip it on to quickly locate the iron zones and then go into your search mode of choice.
    2 points
  15. On one hand it's great to see people of all walks have great compassion for metal detecting and metal detectors but on the other hand we have to realize it's just metal detecting and metal detectors. That said I hope I'm the only one in a 50 mile area that owns an Equinox. Just saying
    2 points
  16. To be honest, I kind of don't mind that he's selling his. I had hoped that he would embrace it, but from the beginning he tried to find reasons not to like it, and IMO really didn't give it it's proper dues. He basically talked himself out of giving it a fair shake. BUT that may actually bode well for me, as I continue to learn the EQ800, and get better with it (I'm still employing my crawl/walk/run learning technique, have not wondered into the advanced settings at all, just learning the stock programs at this point) my hope is that I will start to out hunt him as my experience level with the EQ improves and I learn it's nuances and the tricks & tips to fine tune it for each site.... completely selfish I know
    2 points
  17. BTW if my relic hunting ineptness makes you doubt the Equinox capabilities in hot Culpeper ground, beside abenson's finds, doubt no more. I met a fella with an Equinox 800 who basically cleaned up at that bed o nails house site with two large cents, a 2c piece, and a CS buckle wreath. After chatting with him, found he was running Field 2 and frequently GBing, also. At least I independently had my machine running just like Mr. Success...and no...we didn't find the dang CS buckle tongue ... but oh how we tried. Lol.
    1 point
  18. OK, I'm coming from using an X-Terra 705 to a Nox. I have hunted in all metal for many years now with the 705 and have become accustom to all the mixed signals. Is this feasible with the Nox, lets say in Park 1? I know there are lots of options to opt out of all metal when needed but will all metal hunting be the best use starting out with this machine? GaryC/Oregon Coast
    1 point
  19. Got out yesterday with my new 6” coil for about two hours. This being the third time of hunting around this old house. This one is my first to hunt a odd ball yard as this one. The house has to be a hundred years old if not more. You look at it and think it’s got to be some old coins here. Be lone ee ! What has been done was the yard was dug up and hauled off. Then they came back and filled it in with one inch rocks or bigger. The ground is solid pull tabs and all modern coins. If any old coins is there to be found is in the driveway covered over asphalt. That 6” coil worked great along the sidewalk and I found like before nothing old. One thing about this coil it’s no need to push the pinpoint button . You just make some short waves over your target and you know where it’s at. I couldn’t say how deep it was detecting being the rocks keep falling back in the hole you were trying to dig. The rocks was so packed in it was hard to get my digging tool down in there. I’ll have to get back later to give a better report if and when I can find ground better ground. Till then. Chuck
    1 point
  20. I want to preface Tom's post by saying right out of the gate that Tom called me last night, and gave me his "report". If you don't care to read his lengthy write-up he posted on another forum (he doesn't know of this forum) his bottom-line was that he found it no better, no worse then his Exp2. He said he felt the audio was better on the Exp2, which I reminded him i's likely because after using it for 20 years, his muscle memory is auto-tuned to it's responses. He said he'd be selling it on fleabay. Hey gang. I've been at this since about 1975 or '76 (started @ about 8th grade). Been "up through the ranks" of everything from the 77b & Whites 66tr, through the VLF/TR era. Through the 6000 and ADS III era, to the Eagle and XLT era, etc... And now am currently using as Exp. II for most all my hunting. Occasionally grabbing a Bandido for certain ghost-townsy locations. Some of you know my finds from other forums, and you've followed Brian (Cal Cobra) and I's hunt exploits, to know that I'm no slouch in md'ing. I've pitted many machines before deciding to try something new. So I'm very aware of the "come-back" lines that can be raised for any perceived failure of a machine in a test. I've done my best to short-circuit any such shortcoming. Eg.: subconscious biases, etc.... First stop was a certain downtown/oldtown park in CA . It dates to the 1860s/70s. Soil is moderate to low minerals. Most all the easies has long-since been pulled. But a person with a deep-seeking turf machine (explorer, etc...) can still pull some silver, wheats, IH's, etc... I flagged a few suspected deepies with my Exp. II. Then pulled out the Nox 800 to try. I only used stock park 1 and park II modes. With nothing but a noise-check. No ground balance. No increasing the sens. No alterations of iron-bias or recovery speed. I also knocked out everything on the disc. from 17 downwards. So that I wouldn't be hearing the foil, nickels, round tabs, etc.... So too was I doing the same on my Exp. II , for purposes of this test. So that those factors are even between the 2 machines. My total take for this hunt at this park was a very worn '68 seated dime, a '92 P barber dime, a '28 merc., and a few teens wheats. Depth's ranged from 6 to 8" . The Nox 800 could hear all of them. More pronounced and tell-tale "fluty" in the Park-2 mode. Hence so-far so-good. HOWEVER: In each case, it seemed that the Exp. II was giving them with "more room to spare". On the Nox , it seemed I needed to know exactly where the spot was. And then "work at it". Nonetheless, it could hear them. So I wrote off the strength-difference as to being, perhaps, my lack-of-experience on the tone-nuances of a new machine. Versus the Explorer II, where I am very familiar with its language. I tried briefly to walk around with the nox to, likewise, find something to flag to test in reverse order . But when I went to try a few of those flags with the Exp, they were 4" deep zincs , or various other clad that I would not have even stopped to dig with my Exp. But , again, I wrote that off to un-familiarity with the Nox. So , at least, I have nothing conclusively bad to say about the machine so far. Since *technically* I could find the accepted signals with either machine (given some effort & persuasion). Oh: And I did try switching to 5 khz on a couple of targets. It did not improve their strength over the that of the multi-freq. And if anything, added chatter. Next day I took it to a certain center grass median strip in San Francisco. It dated to only the 00's to teens. The downtown high-rise electronic noise is awful. And the soil is funky minerals, such that deeper targets don't want to lock on. They seem to skew downwards on the TID. So that, for example, a silver quarter might read @ dime. A copper penny might read at zinc. And so forth. The strip is very littered with tabs, foil, iron, etc... On a certain block or two of this ~2 mile long strip, I have pulled many silver & wheaties in the past . And whenever I'm in the area, can be pretty certain that my Exp. II can get additional ones whenever I want. For this test, I found a clean spot of ground with my Exp. II. Tested to make sure there was no signals of any sort, so-as to provide the ground balance spot for the Nox. I balanced the Nox, and locked it (no tracking). For my explorer sens, I was at 19 for most of the time. Sometimes down to 15. For the Nox: Sens. between 18 to 21, depending on chatter. And perpetual noise-cancels at varying intervals on the Nox & Exp. Iron bias was 02 on both park 1 and park 2 mode. I did not try up to 5 & 6 as TN-sharpshooter recommends, for nasty minerals. Didn't recall that recommendation till now. But: Wouldn't that simply have put me at risk of getting fooled by large rusty nails globs ? In any case: Iron bias was 02. Recovery speed 6 on both. Multi-Freq. on both. Tones @ 50. Disc. set to reject all items from 17 and downwards. (again, this is the same for the explorer , where I've got the flimsy square tabs and downwards knocked out). I liked it when I hit the horseshoe button. It allows you to hear an all-metal sound, while simultaneously hearing your accepted targets in their correct TID tones (If I'm understanding correctly). I would definitely use that for relicky sites where I want to hear iron in the background, to perpetually let me mentally gauge the amount of human historic traffic I'm in, and the iron I'm' trying to contend with /see-around. Yes the modulation is very poor for the top 5" or so. Very difficult to gauge 1" vs 3" vs 5", etc... And I notice that the 6" or more, where there starts to be a "fluty" sound, is very narrow band. Ie.: you have to be right over your target, swinging "just right". And also: A shallower target can be made to 'be fluty' by simply happen-chance having the coil slightly higher, or being slightly off, etc.... Unlike the Explorer where I more immediately recognize the signals for what they are. But, again: Wrote all this off to my vast experience on the Exp., and experimental only on the Nox. At the San Francisco grass strip median: The first couple of targets I flagged and compared, proved extremely poor for the Nox. But then later I saw that I .... for some reason ....... had been in only 16 sens. (not sure how it got bumped lower since the day before). Once I put it up to 21, I could, like the day before, start to hear some flagged signals. Occasionally had to lower sens. to 18, since 21 was producing chatter. Likewise the Exp. II had to be lowered to 15 on those same stretches. As I flagged more signals, they again, like the day before, seemed bolder and stronger on the Exp. vs the Nox. One particular reverse order flag (found first with Nox) was one that the Nox gave a good fluty deep repeatable signal. And when I went over it with the Exp. II : I had to admit that I WOULD NOT have elected to chase this one with the Exp. Hmmm. I had to "coax it out" JUST to even see/hear what the Nox had even been beeping on. Hmmm, this was going to be interesting !! Eh ? Turned out to be a mid-conductor metal nut thing. That ... yes ... once out of the ground was indeed within my acceptance range on the Exp. disc. settings. So *technically* I should have gotten it on the flagged stage of the test (albeit with a TID I might have elected to pass). So this proved a plus point for the Nox. HOWEVER: At a certain point, I'd just dug a 1915 deep green wheatie. Which both machines had heard (albeit with some coaxing on the Nox). And once I'd covered the hole, I rechecked it. Just slightly off to the side, I got a sssuuuppeerr deep warble. Almost a null, but with a hint of something trying to warble in. This was a signal that, if it hadn't been for just having dug a deepie, and double checking for additionals, I might not have even registered. One of those "is this my imagination?" type signals. Yet ... you suspect "Oh, maybe there's another one down there @ same hole" type of moments. And it was slightly to the side, in un-disturbed ground. Now on THIS one: The Nox could not hear it. No flicker of the audio. No flicker of the #'s. Nothing , nada, zilch. Tried noice-cancel. Tried playing with the sens. Tried everything. It could not be made to get any hint whatsoever. Turned out to be a very deep 1919 wheatie. 7 to 8". Which, I know, is not "deep" for some parks. But here, as I say: Stuff in this depth range , in this soil, is funky. So IMHO this was a negative chalk mark for the Nox. on that target. I know someone will come on saying how it could have been heard doing XYZ. But realize that if you start "hopping up the settings", you then run the risk of loosing differentiation on other targets (ie.: EVERYTHING starts to "sound good" or "give identical signals", etc...). I did not have to "hop up" the Exp. II to get that signal. So IMHO, that one signal was given a fair shake. Thus to conclude for turf: IMHO : If you put 2 expert users in a deep-turf scenario: User #1 with an Etrac or Exp. II. And User #2 with a Nox 800. I do not believe the Nox user is going to out-hunt the Explorer user. At least not on THIS exact grass median I was on yesterday. This was not a test of iron-riddled ghost town sites. Was not a test of beach. It was only tests of various deep turf strategy cherry-picking for high-conductors type hunting. Oh, and for kicks & giggles, for those who might know what long center grass median strip in SF I was referring to: My total take was 2 mercs ('20 & '44), a silver roosie ('64) , 9 wheaties (1913 and onwards), and an '03 IH. The IH was in the hole with 2 twenties wheaties. And 2 of the wheaties were in a hole with the '44 merc. So if you count those pocket spill as "1 target", then the total take of oldies was 8 oldies. I also had various "woulda-couldas" that mimic old coins. Eg.: very deep copper grommets, hinge, flat brass sportsmans button the size of a quarter, and so forth. So even besides coins, there was "period targets" at-depth, that were counting towards the flagged tests, as being just as legitimate as if they'd turned out to have been coins. I had tried to do some videos of both machines. But it was a very windy day. So whenever I tried to unplug the jack to capture audio, I was getting tree-rustling, and car traffic noises too much. Nonetheless, I did end up capturing some audio tests, where a person can plainly see the Nox is needing "coaxing" to get in what the Exp was getting more boldly (again, I know this is user specific and a bias and familiarity I may have). But ... the viewer could judge. HOWEVER, as Murphy's law would have it: Each time I took great lengths to stop , video, narrate, etc... : Those turned out to be household doo-hickeys like hemweights, copper tent grommets, or whatever. Yes they are "period", yes they read in the coin range. Yes they were as deep as period coins. Thus yes they hold equal merit to a deep-turf-coin test. But it just took the wind out of my sails when they turned out to other items.
    1 point
  21. Amen to that! Anyway, though I fully enjoyed the description of how a master coin shooter painstakingly goes about his business, this entire discussion made me realize why the Equinox sets up well for me. I don't just do one type of hunting as I hit the beaches for coins and jewelry and scenery , the parks for same, the farm fields and the old home sites for period coins and artifacts, freshwater streams for whatever and encounter salt to mild to hot soil conditions, hot sun, pouring rain, blowing snow, ocean waves and can bring the same detector every time...now. Oh, and based on my experience with a bed o nails former home site feel I can get away without the 6" coil unless I am in very tight quarters. In other words, I do not really see a need for the 6" coil solely for separation. Point is, one detector, one coil and 90%+ of my detecting needs are met.
    1 point
  22. Dear Valued Members,For those who are curious about our company and team, here is a video about Nokta & Makro Detectors, enjoy! Dilek GonulaySales & Marketing Manager
    1 point
  23. Thank You, I look forward to being on this site quite a bit!!!
    1 point
  24. Follow up, same person but on the beach... http://www.dankowskidetectors.com/discussions/read.php?2,143873
    1 point
  25. Great job on the ring recovery.....
    1 point
  26. Okay guys, here is a quick run down on being behind the Nox for a few weeks now. Pictures are worth a thousand words so I will make each one brief as I can. First picture is of a box I just emptied my pouch out into. I actually had not emptied my trash pouch from all my hunts with the Nox. So there you see just what I've been digging the most of. You will see there ain't no can slaw or micro tiny pieces of aluminum in there. What you see are the good finds and bad mixed together. There are a few pull tabs, several aluminum screw caps and some other odds and ends. 20180323_222234 by Daniel Teague, on Flickr Site 1 - My yard. I put a description of it on the picture in red letters. The jest of my yard is this...it once had an 1850s house that sat on it, and several out buildings. By the time the 1980s rolled around, nobody was living in it any more and without any upkeep, things go down hill. The place was pretty much dilapidated, so they took a dozer and had some fun. We bought the place in the 1990s and I started detecting some time in the mid 90s. Since then, every detector I've ever owned has been over it and over it and over it. With each new model that came out, I would have to see if it brought anything new to the surface. Some times it did. Most times it didn't. It is loaded with iron and tin from the roof of the house and outbuildings, nails, door hinges, etc. This place was picked clean of high conductors by the CTX and eTrac and a plethora of coils for them. I was so desperate for signals that I eventually got to where I would dig anything that was above the 32 Fe line on the CTX, and had it worked down to where I could go out set up like that, and not hear or dig anything. Enter the Nox. I wasn't expecting it to do much HERE....maybe in other places but not here for some reason. That has not been the case. I've found things every time I take it across the yard. Starting with a pocket watch case that isn't pictured (its in my display case...forgot to get it out). Then a Spencer shell casing, then it just kept going. I'm still not done! The majority of this is found with digging only the 15 and up signals. There are so many in the 0 to 14 range that it will take a while to see what all they are. 20180323_222509 by Daniel Teague, on Flickr Site 2 is also on my property. I am clueless to what it really was, but in the early going I believed it was an old home site. However, lack of any home items like spoons, forks, etc has me rethinking it. All we've really found there are buttons and a few coins. There is evidence that something with a coal burning stove or furnace was there. But we've dug buttons by the boo coos and MOST of them with the shanks still attached. There was a mill that sat on the creek beside my house, and this place is within 200 yards of that. I have seen videos and hunts where guys are sifting and finding lots of buttons like this in areas for mills...something about them taking the clothes and using that material, and discarding the buttons. That might explain why so many buttons are here. No way that one family had THAT many clothes back then. I'm up to around 20ish with the Nox, and at least 100 over the years. Last machine to do any good in there was the MX Sport and Deus. It's a good test with the coal cinders and iron that are here. 20180323_222658 by Daniel Teague, on Flickr Site 3 is my bullet fields. If you've known me over the years on the forums, I talk about this place a lot. HIGHLY mineralized soil. The only VLFs to work in it are the ones with all metal modes. It generally takes a pulse machine to pull anything out of here any more. I have several videos of detectors at this place failing to produce signals on bullets we've located and then live dug. Some HEAVY hitting machines too. The Nox was a surprise here. It was best to run it in Field 2 or Park 2 mode with iron disc turned off...these bullets were deeper because we've hammered it with pulse machines and anything shallower or mid range has been picked over. Just to be able to pick up a bullet there past 6 inches is really saying something. These were coming in down to 11 inches in disc mode. I was super happy after this hunt. 20180323_222821 by Daniel Teague, on Flickr nox by Daniel Teague, on Flickr Site 4 is a local site in my town. We stumbled on it several years ago and its on of the places that actually has mild soil around here. Other VLF machines really put a hurting on it...I remember a buddy of ours hunting it with a 10x12 SEF coil on his V3i and digging 3 ringers crazy deep with it. I did the same with an MXT Pro and Ultimate coil. I actually only had about 20 minutes of day light left in the evening to hunt. There is one specific spot where coke slag is everywhere and most detectors have fits around it, except the pulse machines...and then they run into the problem of there being lots of iron in that area. I specifically wanted to see how the Nox fared in that spot. I need to go back there for sure. 20180323_222928 by Daniel Teague, on Flickr So what do you notice about the finds in the pics? Lots of low and mid conductors!! And not a lot of can slaw and slivers like people are thinking they are going to dig with the Nox. Actually my biggest trash item is probably the aluminum bottle caps at this point. They sound really nice...especially those yellow ones in the junk box with Mayfield on them. Those are milk container lids. I am more than happy and impressed with my machine and I know a lot more goodies are going to come. The thing to keep in mind here is these are places I and hunting buddies have hunted for years. I mean hunted into submission. The kind of place where when they ask "where are you going..." and you say where, they are like "Oh...well I gotta go count 4 leaf clovers in the yard, have fun". lol
    1 point
  27. Hey Sourdoughmoe, I would be happy with those results on a GPX 5000. Not sure why you get 2 additional inches when you raise the coil off the ground vs. scrubbing it on the ground for max depth.
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  28. That is a great bit of information and much appreciated...Vdi is unreliable in lots of cases. Found a nice Silver women's necklace a few weeks back that rang up as a low conductor.... like a gold chain would have...but it was silver. A METAL DETECTOR IS NOT A GOLD TESTER strick
    1 point
  29. I agree, and extra deep can answer a lot of questions when switching around on deep targets.
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  30. Very true, I have even found extra deep has found gold not particularly deep that for whatever reason was missed by HY and general.
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  31. Thanks canslawhero, Cal-Cobra, Steve for the individual information. I probably will learn the machine first as set up and then move into five tones with no rejection as I am accustom to. So many ways to hunt with this machine. GaryC/Oregon Coast
    1 point
  32. When you say all Metal I assume you mean hunting strictly by tones, no items rejected. This is very possible with Equinox, and mostly boils down to whether you prefer 5 tones or 50 tones. The best tone setup for getting really customized is Equinox 800 five tone mode. You can make each of five segments any size you like, and you can assign each segment it’s own tone and volume. Five tone mode can also be manipulated to create four tone and three tone schemes. Pages 46 - 50 of the Equinox Instruction Manual 50 tones is more of a factory preset mode but does offer a little more adjustability than most other models “full tone” settings. From the Minelab Equinox Full Instruction Manual, page 48 (click to enlarge)...
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  33. That is a beautiful seated and congrats on each recovery. You likely had the place to yourself if you hadn't shown him but I'd have done the same thing for sure. I'm sure he had other great advice for you as well.
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  34. Beautiful finds. You say they are $5 gold coins. I assume $5 value at the time they were created. What do they weigh? What purity of gold are they? Just the other day a lady I work with brought a Krugerand (I think that's how it is spelt) to work. A South African gold coin that weighs exactly an ounce. Beautiful . She has 7 of them that her father left her.
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  35. Mr Lighthouse I am 73 yrs old and believe me I wish I was 46 but if you don't drop to your knees to dig an iffy target you won't find the gold, silver or clad. Yesterday I dug 31 coins in less than an hour and that means I dropped to my knees 31 times in less than an hour. I hit a honey hole I am heading to at daybreak because I want to be gone before others see me there and start hunting it as well. Stay with the factory pre sets until you know your detector well enough to see the effects of changing from pre sets to a setting that may work well for others. You must also understand not all soil conditions are not the same and what works for Joe in Montana may not work for Bob in TN. Read the posts and watch the U-tube videos and often times you will find the guy on U-tube isn't very good. Just because someone does a U-tube video don't mean he is an expert. Learn techniques from them or learn what not to do as well. You need at least 100 hours on your machine as a newbie to understand the slight blips and the different tones so you know what's worth digging and even then you will dig a lot of tabs, bottle caps and cans. You learn by experience. Any old timer will tell you if you don't dig it you won't find it. After you get 100 hours on your machine changing settings will become 2nd nature and you will know what works and what don't. If you are only going to use your Equinox occasionally I would never change anything except sensitivity and tones. You never completely hunt a park or beach out. Whether you use the same detector over and over or different detectors you will always find something. Friday morning I was hunting a practice athletic field that was the main field for the school 12 yrs ago and before and I found a nickel in an area I have went over no less than 5 times with my E-Trac and 3 times with the Equinox. I thought the park was hunted out with the E-Trac and I have since found over $25 in clad with the Equinox. I took the Equinox there on my 1st hunt with it and in 45 mins found $1.46 I have had 6 detectors and the Equinox is probably easier to learn than any of them and by far the best out of the box. I had a V3i and I never really did conquer it. I found what worked for me after many hours of beating hunted out parks. I had an AT Pro that I felt I was as good as anyone can with it. I found over $2500 in clad in less than 2 years with it. One final thought. The only magic setting that works for everyone is the factory pre settings. When a man as knowledgeable as Steve says it's pretty good out of the box take his advice and run with it. I know it's a long reply but it's 5:30 am here and I am waiting for daylight to head out to my honey hole.
    1 point
  36. Hey Guys, Being a dealer here in the US for many moons, I have seen many mods come from Australia used on US ground. I can personally say I seen some friends use Ismael's mods on some of the early SD and GP's and they got great results. Over the years, Ismael used to contribute to many online forums, including mine back in the early days. As far as Woody, his mods look fancy and some swear by them. I have also heard otherwise. I'm sure there are ways to mod Minelab's and get better performance on some locations and certain types of gold without having to upgrade every couple 2-3 years to get the latest and greatest. I personally never used mods, just believed in learning the detector well, pay close attention for faint targets and prospect for new ground.
    1 point
  37. Hey Sourdoughmoe, Glad you kept the NF 8x6, it will be useful in the future for bedrock hunting and working around a lot of rocks, brush and such. It's one of the best clean up coils after working the area with a "prospecting sized coil" like the 14x9 you got. My favorite all around coil for detecting is and was the 14x9 elliptical Mono. If I located a good areas with nuggets, I would work it pretty hard with this coil and then come back at a later time with a larger coil like a 17x13 or bigger round in hopes of larger pieces at depth. At some point I would return with a small coil or a high end VLF for the dinks. I would also recommend doing testing outside, away from the house EMI. Thanks once again for your business and friendship. Wishing you much success with the new toys!
    1 point
  38. I hit the horseshoe button with the zone 1 (T1) volume set down to 1, works like a champ...
    1 point
  39. The Exp 2 is one of the best deep machines still ..... its standard coil is hot. What ive noticed is the EQ is a little more picky about the angle of the targets than an Exp is.
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  40. This has been the subject of much debate and I thought I would weigh in with a little this versus that to help offer a little guidance. I think Minelab was caught off guard by all this because the whole conversation from their perspective was supposed to be about AT Max versus Deus versus Equinox. Yet the majority of the debate is about this Minelab versus that Minelab. I guess that is a credit to Minelab but at the end of the day I am not sure they are too worried about what Minelab you buy as long as it's a Minelab The Minelab Sovereign and the Excalibur introduced the world to Broad Band Spectrum (BBS) which was Minelabs term for their first generation multifrequency detectors. The Sovereign and the Excalibur are tone based detectors with no screen and so are for people who hunt by ear. They act like very low frequency detectors and because of this are very strong on silver coins. They also do relatively well on gold targets though they are weak on the smallest gold targets. They are very well behaved detectors that handle harsh saltwater environments well, making the Excalibur perhaps the most successful underwater detector made. The BBS detectors are strongly biased against ferrous targets and better ignore ferrous than any detector I have ever used. Ferrous is almost invisible to a BBS detector. This comes at a cost however. The processing speed is very slow and combined with the strong bias against ferrous target masking is a problem with these machines. That is not to say you cannot find targets in ferrous trash. You can. It is simply an area where BBS is very weak. The next generation introduced Full Band Spectrum (FBS). The Explorer, Safari, and E-Trac further refined BBS and without getting into details the big addition was a two dimensional target id display that locates items on screen with a combination of a ferrous number and a conductive number. This dual target id combined with a screen added more refined discrimination capability to a detector already very well suited to people that hunt by ear. Anyone talking about the Explorer and silver will usually mention the great tones it makes on silver. The frequency weighting is very much in favor of low conductors and the Explorer series became famous for the ability to extract silver coins from park type scenarios i.e. turf hunting. A faster processor speed improved the situation with masking in dense targets to a degree, but the FBS machines still lag single frequency detectors a lot in this regard. The FBS detectors again are excellent at identifying and rejecting ferrous targets. The Minelab CTX 3030 introduced FBS2 which further refined things. I am being purposefully over simplistic by saying the CTX mainly added an even faster processor, color screen, and the ability to be submerged to 10 feet. FBS2 appears to be a little hotter on small gold items but the main strengths are still in silver and in ferrous rejection. The color screen added new features like target trace that allow more than one target to be displayed at once for world class discrimination capability. The BBS/FBS series have been extremely popular around the world and are to this day. However, the detectors faced competition in three main areas. They are relatively expensive detectors and they are relatively heavy detectors. And even though they can find good targets in dense trash they also leave a lot behind due to the slow recovery speeds. The Garrett AT series was revolutionary in creating detectors waterproof to ten feet that only weigh about three pounds and at a price so low it really turned the market on its ear. These detectors have been immensely successful in creating a high value combination of features at a very low price and with decent performance. This combined with top notch marketing makes the Garrett AT series very popular especially in the United States. The XP DEUS came out of left field and in Europe took the market by storm. These detectors are both extremely light in weight and extremely fast in target response and recovery speed. These two factors alone mean that a detector rally in the U.K. will be almost nothing but Deus detectors with a smattering of other machines. Deus does also focus on low conductor performance, as the recent addition of high frequency coils reveals. Remember that small thin silver items like hammered silver and cut silver coins actually respond as low conductors. Minelab saw this happening but the truth is coin and relic machines are a far distant second when it comes to profits compared to the gold machines. Any company only has so many resources and the GPZ 7000 development in particular was a major lift even for Minelab. Still, the company knew it would have to address the situation with detectors that did exactly what the Garrett AT and XP Deus did, which was target BBS and FBS where they are weakest. Price, weight, recovery speed, and low conductor sensitivty. Equinox does all this while also adding the latest twist on their multifrequency technology; Multi-IQ. The intent here as Minelab has made clear was not to replace the BBS/FBS machines but to augment them with another line that is specifically better in areas where BBS/FBS fall short. Again, weight, price, recovery speed, and I am going to add sensitivity to small low conductors to that list. I had a CTX 3030 and loved it. Yet I rarely used it. Why? My type of detecting. BBS and FBS favor people who hunt high conductors and typically favor people who hunt in mild to moderate ground. I do just the opposite. I hunt low conductors, gold specifically, and in highly mineralized ground. It is hard for people who do not hunt highly mineralized ground to understand how much it impacts detector performance, but seeing overall VLF depths cut by 50% or more is not unusual. Target id also suffers a lot in bad ground as does target masking from hot rocks and the ground itself. I know a lot of BBS/FBS users have a hard time grasping this, but in my ground there is no major benefit to BBS/FBS except for the fantastic target id capability, especially as regards ferrous rejection. Depth is easily matched or exceeded by the best single frequency detectors, which however suffer in their own way with unreliable target id. And the fact is multifrequency has always been weak on gold - not even Minelab suggests that BBS/FBS machines should be used for gold prospecting, although people can and do find gold nuggets with them. Still, you can't beat BBS and FBS for being well behaved, easy to operate, and in having top notch target id combined with best of class ferrous rejection. Arguably the worlds best machines for hunting silver in turf. Everything in designing metal detectors comes in the form of a trade. When you gain one thing you tend to lose something else. In general putting the fine details of Multi-IQ aside I think the Equinox acts more like a single frequency machine in some ways than what people are used to from BBS/FBS detectors. In particular we have the lightning fast recovery speed and extreme sensitivity to low conductors. Multi-IQ put simplistically adds the target id accuracy that single frequency machines lack in bad ground. In my opinion people coming from hot VLF detectors will take to Equinox more easily than people coming from BBS/FBS detectors. I love hot VLF detectors for what I do so Equinox is a natural fit for me. The move from the more stable well behaved BBS/FBS machines is more jarring for people I think because they are stepping into another world - my world - where they are perhaps less comfortable. People who hunt low conductors, especially in bad ground, and those who hunt non-ferrous in bad ground know that the ferrous/non-ferrous divide is an area fraught with danger. Reject too much ferrous, and you lose the non-ferrous. It appears impossible with current technology to get a clean ferrous/non-ferrous separation. I mean honestly, all I want is a detector that beeps on non-ferrous and shuts up on ferrous and does it with near 100% accuracy. This would seem simple given the difference in magnetic properties between ferrous and non-ferrous targets, but to this day flat steel, washers, hardened steel bolts and screws, bent nails, nails on end, broken square nails, etc all present problems for all metal detectors. It is a huge fuzzy area, and in the end it appears we have to make an unpleasant trade. Equinox in targeting the BBS/FBS weaknesses regarding target masking and low conductor sensitivity is making this trade. The machine steps back in a way and favors those who hunt by ear. Most of the commentary I see about target id spread and the potential limitations there fly over my head because I prefer to hunt by ear with a wide open screen in 50 tones mode for general park and beach detecting. If you are a BBS/FBS hunter this should be familiar to you and yes, you get something pretty close to familiar Minelab tones with Equinox. For field hunting (relics) or nugget hunting in dense trash I am more likely to go to a two tone type mode just due to the sheer number of targets but two tones does make a person more susceptible to ferrous squeaks tricking you than 50 tones where the nuances are more apparent. There is no right or wrong here because people seriously do tolerate this kind of stuff to a largely varying degree and so to say 50 tones is a magic bullet is just plain wrong. We all have to find the balance that works for us personally. Just remember there is a reason many Deus users tell people to stick the controller in their pocket and forget about it. Deus and Equinox favor people who hunt by ear. I apologize if this oversimplifies things but that is what many people need right now. I am leaving price and weight off the considerations below and just talking performance. BBS - only current model the Excalibur. For people who hunt by ear, great in saltwater, great on silver, very good on gold, superb ferrous rejection. Main weakness slow recovery speed, target masking. Moderate depth in highly mineralized ground on low conductors. FBS - current models Safari and E-TRAC. Basically same as BBS with marginally improved recovery speed, main addition target id screen with dual ferrous/conductive id offering very high resolution discrimination. Great on silver, superb ferrous rejection. Main weakness slow recovery speed, target masking. Moderate depth in highly mineralized ground on low conductors. FBS2 - CTX 3030. Slightly improved recovery speed, slightly improved sensitivity to small gold, color screen, target trace. World class discrimination. Great on silver, superb ferrous rejection. Main weakness slow recovery speed, target masking. Moderate depth in highly mineralized ground on low conductors. Multi-IQ - Equinox. World class recovery speed, world class sensitivity to low conductors in mineralized ground. Very good on silver in highly mineralized ground. Weaknesses are less visual target id resolution compared to BBS/FBS, weaker on silver in low to moderate soils, ferrous handling more akin to hot VLF detectors than BBS/FBS detectors. Unknown yet but may exceed or at least match BBS/FBS in saltwater environments. Again, I am purposefully oversimplifying things here on purpose. People including myself have a tendency to wander into the weeds with this stuff and get lost in the fine details. The bottom line is BBS/FBS and Multi-IQ are complementary technologies, each strongest where the other is weakest. For a certain type of user (me) Multi-IQ does indeed replace BBS/FBS. In my ground and on my targets including silver I see no benefit at all to BBS/FBS except the ferrous handling. Yet I know that is the price I have to pay to get the performance I want. On the other hand, people hunting silver in lower to moderate ground conditions have the edge with BBS/FBS and if you hate digging any ferrous at all these machines are best of class in rejecting ferrous. I hope that helps. I have to note again in closing this was never really supposed to be about this Minelab versus that Minelab but when it comes down to it Minelab is really happy to have that discussion. Equinox was specifically designed to compete with the competition, not Minelabs own detectors. Maybe a future version of Multi-IQ will give us the best of BBS/FBS and Multi-IQ in one detector but for now both offer their own strengths and weaknesses. And while Multi-IQ as currently available in Equinox is not perfect, it would be crazy to ignore the weight and price issues. They matter - they matter a lot to some people. Equinox in my opinion offers bang for the buck value that cannot be ignored, and for that reason alone it is going to be a sales juggernaut no matter where our little online debates lead us. And for you who love BBS/FBS - nobody is taking them away from you. Go detecting, be happy! Disclaimer - all the above is just my outlook and personal opinions and do not represent Minelab in any way, shape, form, or fashion. It is based on my own experience plus reports coming in from other people that I trust but should still be considered preliminary information/opinions. Nobody including me is an Equinox expert yet and no doubt its use will be refined as more people share tips and tricks.
    1 point
  41. I think a lot of those comparisons came out of us water hunters. We know that there are basically 3 VLFs being used in the salt water...... Xcal, CTX and the CZ..... with PIs being mostly nitch machines. There were and are a lot of advantages this machine offers for beach hunting..... weight, speed, multi AND single freq, simple to use, MUCH better priced once we added mod costs ect, easy to travel with, TID screen, completely sealed to include battery, AND it appeared it was going to be as good as the BBS/FBS in the water with the benefit of picking up some of the even smaller gold missed by them. Its overall use as a beach machine should surpass those machines IMO for gold hunting on the beach........ and lets face it we arent coin hunting. It may not get the depth out of the water, but if it gets the smaller gold it will all average out. Ive heard a lot of us asking for exactly what this machine gave us over the Xcal........ a great wading machine. Not been able to test it yet in DEEPER water.... so im guessing here, but it appears it will remove some of the fear people have about dunking the a $2500 CTX as well. I dont know going in that ML thought this machine may in fact be BETTER than what they have. When you talk salt water machines you ALWAYS compare it to the Xcal. Now you have a good option to bringing two machines to the beach..... one for water hunting and one for dry sand hunting for gold.
    1 point
  42. Well, I officially took a journey to the "dark side." I bought an Equinox 600. I really kinda wanted the 800 and may still end up with that model in the long run, but I just didn't see enough of a difference between the two to justify the extra $250 while money is tight. My belief is that if I want to chase a little gold I can still find it with the 600 with multi-IQ, and if I want more fine tuning, I have a V3i for that. In any event, I'm excited to see how I like it. If I like it a lot I will find a way to grab the 800 up shortly after I'm sure. Call me crazy, but I feel guilt for parting with my MX Sport though.
    1 point
  43. I think it's mainly the cost of compliance tests for the EPA. Takes a lot of vehicle sales to get that cost back. Jim
    1 point
  44. I've been driving the same 2001 Dodge diesel 3/4 ton 4x4 since it was new. This the 18th year. it now has about 307,000 miles on it, and well over 20,000 of those on dirt. It's never stranded me. I put $10,000 into it a year ago, and brought everything up to snuff. Now runs like new again. Even with that investment, the cost of ownership is under $3,000/year, with many years of use ahead. I put an aluminum flatbed on it when new, and it has hauled more equipment and supplies than can be believed. Or, pulled my little Alaskan camp trailer, with the 4 wheeler on the flatbed. I've logged every gallon of fuel put in it, and for all uses has averaged almost 17mpg. It would be the last of my possessions sold. Here's a pic of me stuck in the Wyoming clay a couple of springs ago. Had to wait 3 hours for it to dry out before continuing on.
    1 point
  45. Some people prefer more targeted results. Some people don’t mind digging more as it reveals finds others miss. People are doing different things with detectors and what suits one person won’t suit another. In fact what one person considers a weakness another will regard as a strength. So far there is no one size fits all. I already posted a link that describes the trades being made - here it is again resolution and target id stability.
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  46. Thanks Steve...Have 3030 and deus on hand so no reason to rush into things right now. Preliminary reports look mostly good so far and even if I ordered one now it would be a while before I got it so for now I'll just sit and watch....but thanks for that post as I'm sure it will get some attention. I cant imagine Minelab not testing high thick conductors at every angle. Watching closely.. Birthday not till April strick
    1 point
  47. OK, after seeing how nickels rang up at 13 I did an experiment. I notched out every single number on the Equinox except 12 - 13 - 14 and dug every target that rang in that range. Here were the results. The nickels were all 13 as were most of the square tabs. One crown cap read 13. Everything else was 12 or 14 or 12/13 and 13/14 readings. If I did it again and just went for the 13, I figure the trash would be a third less, but same number of nickels.
    1 point
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