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Thursday I went out to a Southern California gold location with a couple of friends. The intention was to prospect hard all day but things didn't work out quite that way. We did get a chance to hunt on an old patch that had raked hills and then another area where a quartz stringer had been chipped at many years ago. My friends attacked the raked hills which they thought had been detected with GB2s. They had 7000s. (I had my 7000 with me but I wanted to swing something different!) I started out on some of the same little hills but quickly tired of nothing good and I headed for some areas that had not been raked. We spent about an hour at this location and we were about to leave when I got a signal on my 800. It was a 1. I did a bit of a foot scrape and pick scrape and it was still there. This time it was not foil. I scrapped a bit more and was encouraged by its depth of 4 inches. I came upon a piece of quartz and got it out of the way and the signal was gone. I swung and the signal was in the quartz but the rock was dirty. I put it in my pouch with the other trash. It weighs about a pound and a half. We left. About 2 hours later we stopped at another place to explore and I had time to pour some bottled tea on the quartz. I looked and tested and my friend had a loop and he said it is definitely gold. I looked and sure enough it is. I haven't been able to do a specific gravity test on it yet but I don't think there is much gold. Upon further testing the 7000 can see it from about 15 inches above on an air test and the 800 can see it about 8 inches. There are a couple of more dense masses in it somewhere but I'm just glad the 800 could see it. I was in Gold 1. Mitchel

So after my debacle with Cabela's, I finally got to give my Knox a run. A nickle shy of 5 bucks the first time out. Penny, nickle, dime, quarter, half dollar is what I found. I started the day following the advise of one of the members. A very good post about touch nothing, except sensitivity, ground balance, noise cancellation. I also dug all targets to start understanding the tones, Park 1 has 5 tones (plus I don't want Steve to ban me for breaking golden rule 1). This went on for awhile, unsure the exact time frame. But after a time I made a few tweaks nothing major. I turned on 50 tone towards the end of the run. Did this to see what was what. It is different I can say that. Not sure I need that many tones but I will give it time. After awhile I started to skip over trash that I knew was trash after digging it repeatedly and monitoring the display. This went on for awhile till I was sure I had a handle on things. The Nox target id is superb. Then I broke the don't touch anything rule. I did this by pushing up the reject number to ten. I went back to swinging for a little longer. Then I figured in stead of mentally ignoring 14 and 15, which was always cans and the like. I notched them out to see how the Nox would handle it. Excellently is the answer. I know there are valuables that peg that range, but not in this park. Plus it was about "can this unit cherry pick". Boy can it!!! I forgot to mention one of the first things I did was back down the sensitivity to 10. That was after digging foot deep holes in a park. Not my cup of tea. I save that for my nugget hunting. Even at setting 10, I was still picking things up 8 inches down regularly. So yep even at less than half power the Nox KO's targets. The last thing I changed was target ID speed, I moved it to 7. That is the only thing I noticed with the Nox. I hit a few pockets of coins. The Nox registered the higher Target but not the other targets. Only after removing the higher Target AKA quarter did the dimes register. This might just be a learning thing. Now to what matters most. I can say without reservation 95% of the time I dug a Target I knew where it was and what it was, before I removed it. That is what makes a GREAT DETECTOR. All detectors find stuff, that is not what makes a detector good to me. What truly matters is that you can pickup a detector and in a reasonable time frame understand it and be one with it. This is why I like Makro stuff. It is intuitive, simple, effective and right price point. Minelab makes great stuff not saying they don't. But what I am saying is they have been king of the hill for so long that they can and do, produce a detector the way they want and force the customer to adapt to that methodology. This makes it hard to change brands. Minelab's can be hard to run. I picked up a monster to see what it was all about. ( Steve pre warned me, I already had a great unit and that they where about the same) but I had to see. The short of it is, I didn' like the monster or trust it. I never knew what I was digging. I never once had the eureka moment with that unit. How does this apply to the Nox. Simple, each coin I hit was "cash register sound going of in my mind". I dug far less trash today then I do with my Racer 2. I punched too deep, at times lol. After only a few hours I am confident with this machine. I have used the 30/30, etrac. This unit is far better, for the price, ease of use and ability to pocket the targets you want to pocket. It is the best minelab I have used hands down. Not to say the others are bad, they are not. But I have done alot of hunting with the same people using those machines. The Nox is intuitive, quick to learn, excellent price point, there's more power then you need. I will take this unit to the gold fields and Tahoe soon, just to see if it holds up against a Makro gold racer or a 30/30 in their respective niches. I truley believe the little Nox can. silver coins and gold nuggets are bucket loads of smiles and I can't wait to start smiling. I couldn't sleep last night for the excitement of running The Nox. I kept waking up too early. Like going to Disney World as a kid. Hopefully this post will help the next person that is on the fence, landing them on the Nox buying side. Sidenote, go big. Don't get the 600, the 800 is worth twice what they are selling it for. You don't get a little more, you get buckets more. Those fine tuning abilities make all the diffrences. Better yet don't get a Nox, I love having an advantage on the other guy swinging.

The Equinox is fine the way it is. I adjusted the shaft length and the cuff and no issues at all. I have seen guys say the Equinox is lighter than the At Pro and less tiring.. Who is going to notice .04 pounds when most likely they carry a lesche and a pointer and probably a pouch.. You want a detector that will wear you out try the Etrac.. Even after 4 days with the Etrac I was used to it and not sore... Most people that complain are loyal to other brands but bought an Equinox because if the didn't they would be missing out and they would be missing out if they didn't buy an Equinox. I have seen guys spend over $100 on modifications only to go back to the standard shaft and cuff. I have seen counter weights near the cuff.. I am 73 yrs old and have arthritis and move like an old man. I can hunt for two hours everyday and dropping to the ground to dig a target as much as 50 times but swinging the detector don't wear me out it's digging targets that does. All around feature for feature and dollar for dollar there is no better detector on the market.

Got to give the ring to the mother of the person, today. She will send it off shortly. She said her son was not expecting to ever see it again and the fact that it was found completely blew him away. Fun to return it and see his mom's face.

I detected a couple parks this weekend for a total of about 5 hours. One of the parks I have found a gold men's band at before. This time I found a class ring. While it's not gold (Lustrium), it's still special. It rang up a strong 3-4. I Googled the person's name which was in the inside of the ring and was able to track him down. He lives out of state but has family close by. Glad to be able to get it back to the owner. He could not believe that it was found after so many years. He was a 2009 graduate. Park 1, 50 tone, recovery 7, GB, and tracking on. The earring and other ring are silver.

After work a quick 2 hour hunt with the Nox 800. I hunted in Field 2 . It ran really steady. The last time I was there I had 3 or 4 non ferrous items in 6 hours of hunting. I feel that if I had had a full day I would have had a heap more targets with the Nox. Guy's with the few hours I've had with the 800 I am already impressed. The very smallest button was a 9 on screen and I can safely say that I would not have found that with my explorer %100. The tone was low and soft and deep! The circular bronze item is a first for me here in the US. I've found these before in the UK. I believe it is part of a specific kind of woven button. Another Wow moment was the shell casing. It was a high number mixed in with a pile of iron sounds and numbers. There was so much Iron in that spot I knew again I would not have detected the target. Back out again on Friday after work ? I'm not going to lie, its a learning curve but I think I did ok for the first couple of hours. All the best Sillllvar

Excellent report. Hard for me to disagree. It's quite a great unit. Wait until you REALLY get used to it, and learn how it behaves when targets are co-located with iron. That's when you begin to see the machine REALLY shine... Congrats on your purchase, and a really good "familiarization" session today. I totally can relate to that excitement you described, as well...every time I have a new, potentially exciting site to hunt the next day, I can't sleep either -- waking up every hour to look at the clock! LOL! Steve

People who use detectors in the water have been converting from S shafts to straight shafts for years. If the Equinox was a S shaft you would have just as many complaints if not more. Go figure. So four pages and a few more complaints, but not a single person has been able to name just one waterproof detector of comparable performance that has better ergonomics. Apparently and as usual Minelab takes heat for not being better than they are when everyone else is at a minimum no better and in most cases are demonstrably much worse. And no, detectors that are not waterproof do not count because removing the waterproof requirement removes a major engineering obstacle as regards ergonomics.

Thanks all, and JP.... Hey JP I had a question. DO you gain most of your knowledge on these machines with trial and error in the field yourself, or do you actually get to pick Bruce Candys brain ??? Thanks, Dave

https://www.americanminingrights.com/dredging-in-california-next-year/ Whether there is any truth to this, or it is stonewalled by legislation remains to be seen. Interesting though.

Hi all, My name is Joseph and am a lifelong resident here in Fairbanks, Alaska. After about 8 years of searching for gold with a pan, homemade sluice and 2" suction dredge, I'd decided to take a leap (after reading a few spectacular in-depth reviews here) on purchasing Minelab's Gold Monster 1000 at the beginning of April. I have a older Bounty Hunter tr/bfr detector and a older Fisher 1212x I'd found at a pawn shop although I learned they are both ok for finding decent size metals like keys/coins and hot rocks on the surface and the Bounty Hunter has helped me find black sands a few times, but not so good on the small sub-gram gold I normally find. The snow is still on the ground here, maybe 1ft in my yard and still around 7 feet in the area I like to spend the summertime prospecting. This past week I'd taken a short drive to one of the local fishing lakes to see if I could find some ground to get a little practice in and luck was in my favor. Not being to familiar with detecting non-ferrous metals, I thought it would be a good idea to chase after some of the tin foil and lead sinkers that had been scattered all over the beach from years of people that like to hang out there. With the large coil on, I'd held the machine off the ground to power on, let it complete the air test and started out in "All Metal Mode" at "auto plus one" sensitivity and was about 30 seconds before I'd heard the first loud beep with the meter slamming to the right, it took a few moments to find out it was the first small split shot lead sinker! So on to the next few targets I'd noticed plenty of beeps with the meter going the other direction (ferrous) I'd dug them anyway to make sure and turned out being single fish hooks. What got really annoying was how overly sensitive the GM1000 is on tiny pieces of foil and I mean tiny! It screamed like it was a large target until I turned the sensitivity to manual to the 6th bar which calmed things down and helped me focus on some actual large targets. After about an hour went by I had 14 lead sinkers, 5 hooks and a few pennies, I just had to check out the 5" coil. Round 2: I'd returned to full auto plus one sensitivity and found what cherry picking really was by simply lifting the coil up just a little to see if I could make any difference in the sound getting lighter response from the smaller targets and seemed to do the trick of avoiding some (not all) of the tiny foil pieces and continued to score some good size lead, a few dimes, nickels and then my first silver which looked to be a part of a bracelet or?? Didn't matter so much as it made my day! I was happy to then try out the "gold mode" for a while as I felt really comfortable with the full auto/all metal settings. I did not like the beep..beep sound it made while ignoring the ferrous targets after hearing a more wha-zip sound I had gotten used to and doubt I'll ever use it in that environment again. (maybe in the hills?) Although the meter seemed to be spot on still. So back to it, I got to dig a few more hooks, sinkers, 2 fly's, more coins, a broken cheap ring, some tiny shotgun pellets, a few bullets, a pellet gun pellet and then the magic happened, a beep like I hadn't heard yet... My first gold with the GM1000, first with a metal detector and first gold of the year was a 1" tall pendant (brass plate) with gold flakes and is my first Initial! A true blessing as the silver was a great find for me, it still blows my mind and if I never find another flake with this machine, I couldn't be happier with how my first experience went! Thank you to all who have posted about this detector and other forms of prospecting knowledge, I hope I can do the same as I get more familiar with the gm1000 and will do my best to help contribute to any info I may provide in the future! Joseph

Well for me at least ? So another 2 hour hunt at the pounded out early 1700's Hole, abandoned prob around 1850 or 1860. I Kept circling in the general vicinity of the home site and found a few more buttons and lead bullets. I had a faint but audible signal which read 13/14 and from a good depth out came the little Georgian strap buckle. The buttons were reading at 9/10 in Field 2. The little buckle might not be a silver coin but I'm totally happy that I found it. I've never found one so small or seen one to be honest! I think the conical button might be militia issue as I've had them before with militia insignia on the front. I like that button because the shank is Wayyy off centre! I guess that one was made on a Friday ? I thought I might be out this weekend but its rain/thunderstorms both friggin days ? Good Luck to all who get out! I'm really starting to think this Nox 800 is going to be one heck of a ride! Oh, penny in there for scale. HH Sillllvar

Found these with the 600 recently. Lead Man buried 4" deep Lead ingot (4.15 oz) - wish it was silver

I'll admit, my Equinox teaches me something new each trip. I truly love this machine over all others.

Personally I think the straight shaft was the perfect choice for the Nox but as stated if they would have used an s shaft people would be complaining and asking for a straight one. The design, ergonomics and most of all the power of the Nox 600,800 are all great. After all its the overall machine and its capabilities that we all bought it for.

A month later and a LOT of digging with the Hawg in various ground conditions, and the shovel is still like new! This thing is holding up to abuse really, REALLY well. Don't see any significant dulling edges, even after punching through gravelly soil regularly. If I lost it somehow, I would unhesitatingly purchase another! Frank

Lubrication on a beach often also comes from using suntan lotion/oil, not just cool water. The combo of water and oil can cause rings to literally fall off. (Don't ask me how I know this for sure! LOL!)

Dolan Dave, good question mate, I'd like an answer to that one as well. Why was the ferrite ring produced as an afterthought?

Mitchel, that is REALLY cool. What a beautiful specimen! And that gold is definitely there, and quite visible -- both left and right of your dime! Beautiful! Steve

Good info

No Complaints from me on the ergonomics, I think its the Dogs Bollocks ? Translation = Awesome. HH Sillllvar

Introducing the worlds first Equinox, the Equinox 100 was shown at the West Coast Computer Faire c. 1977. Wow this things been in development for like 40 years!

Well done! Cool little buckle. Dean

Looks like a good hunt

NICE digs! Steve

Nicely done, I like those older little buckles. Is that a flat button under the buckle?

I went out this morning to a beach that I call zinc beach because that's what I generally find there. Today was a minus tide and I got up early to try it one more time. I'm glad I did! The beach has high sand and a sharp slope about 25-30 feet to a mucky bottom at low tide. Right where the slope stops I have found some clad coins, a wheat penny that looked brand new and some aluminum bits. Farther out on the flat muck I probably dug 10-15 zincs in the couple times I had been there before. Today I walked out right where I had found some coins before and was heading right to the edge of the water. First target was a 1950 wheat that looked like it fell yesterday. The second target got my heart going! I saw a copper/gold colored edge and I thought it was another penny that rang low, I can't remember for sure what it rang up as but I think it was 10/11. I picked it up and realized it was a ring and right away started looking for marks. 18k and a C with a diamond above it as a makers mark! Awesome! I made my way to the edge of the water and walked back and fourth along the edge of the water moving back up towards the slope in a crescent shape (the water was higher on one side and I stayed right on the edge). I got a couple coins, another wheat and I dug some small trash. On one of the passes heading back down the side I got a 31 and thought it might be a quarter or a silver quarter. I was surprised when I saw the spoon and immediately rubbed the muck off the spine to see if it said sterling and sure enough! It came out bent like that, I wonder if someone was using it for something other than eating! My alarm went off for 7am and I started making my way back and got a quarter right near the hole I dug the ring from and thought to myself let me check around here a little more because I've found some heavy things right around this area. The next target I think was a 14 (I was hunting by sound more than by VDI numbers) and I dug a hole and checked the sand and muck I pulled out...nothing. Then I looked back down in the hole and saw it sitting there, another ring! Gold with a red/dark pink stone. It is cracked at the bottom and not a closed loop but still rang up pretty solid. I checked for a mark in this ring and all I saw was was looked like a weird sideways 8 and a K. I came to work (conveniently right down the street) and I washed it off and I saw the mark is a diagonal anchor with a K. I knew then it must be an old ring but my question to you all is how old and where could it be from? I'm thinking England. My town was settled in 1639, could it be from the 16-1800's? What about the C makers mark on the other ring? Any ideas?

The Ferrite is needed to accurately calibrate the detector, the ground holds varying degrees of Ferrite like signals called X. In Auto mode the detector will slowly measure any X component in the ground but can be adversely affected by Salt and Saturation signals. If there is no Ferrite available then the detector can be used in Auto mode and hopefully the ground conditions will allow for a reasonable X measurement. When Quick-Trak is triggered the X balance and G balance track really quickly then throttle back to their respective speeds, in the case of Auto mode the X balance is really slow with an active G balance when Quick-Trak is released. In Semi Auto mode the X balance is FIXED once the Quick-Trak button is released. If you do not have a Ferrite then with Quick-Trak engaged used the "Walk and Detect" method shown in the Minelab YouTube tutorials. Ideally it is better to use the Ferrite at all times using Quick-Trak in Auto, Semi Auto or Manual mode. Using the Ferrite is far more accurate than solely relying on there being enough X signal in the ground. Hope this helps JP

Thanks everyone for the comments! Tomorrow I'm heading to a jeweler and later to my local coin shop to ask them their opinions on the ring. I'm thinking I have something pretty old here. I am going to ask about repairing it also. I'll check back after I see everyone and follow up. I did go back out this morning to the same beach. Got more coins but I did get a little tiny rectangle, gold in color with a cursive "R" on it. It rang up around 12/13 I think and it has a pretty high pitched ring to it when I drop it so I'm thinking it's brass. It fits on top of a penny for size reference.

NICE job on your first hunt, sillllvar! Sounds like you will get along just fine with the Equinox! Steve

Went to a place that I knew had lots of trash, bits of metal and square nails and I've hunted this place out I thought. I had found a seated quarter and V nickel back in the day but nothing for the last couple years. This is why I got the equinox for places like this. Mostly shallow Target surrounded by iron.

I got my 1st silver this morning. A 1951 Rosie and found it less than 2" deep. I am guessing a pocket drop and the person didn't even know they had a silver or didn't care. I was actually going back through this park and digging signals I had passed on before because they were either iffy or I was tired of digging pennies. I have pulled over $150 in clad out of this park and based on my last two 1 hour hunts there is a lot more.Yesterday I pulled 10 dimes and 4 quarters in an hour and this morning I pulled 10 dimes 3 quarters and 2 pennies including the Rosie in less than an hour. I quit when guy asked if I could help him find his keys. He told me his girlfriend got mad at him and threw them in some bushes at a casino.. I am guessing they were either drunk or broke when she got mad at him.. I didn't find his keys because I couldn't even get close to the center of the bushes with my detector. I had several deep 30 signals but the ground was so hard past 5" deep I could not dig it with my Lesche. I chipped away at it for more than 5 minutes and only gained 2" so I quit. When we get a good rain I will go back try again but in the meantime I will canvas the park for signals I passed up on when I was digging 20 -25 quarters everyday.

What can I say.....I cant tell the difference between Boss speakers and kenwood lol.

If you are new to the hobby the 70 or the 705 are fantastic detectors. I found my first gold nugget with a 70 and they can still hold their own to this day against any of the other mid-frequency VLF's. You've been given a lot of advice here, if there's one thing I would add, it would be: Pick one detector and stick with it! The guy with an older model detector, who knows it well, will do just as good if not better than the guy that has a 'flock,' of metal detectors, none of which he has put enough hours on to truly learn there nuances. It takes a lot of time on a machine before you develop a connection to each and every quirk, sound, breach in threshold, etc. It's very easy in this hobby, as in any, to get caught up in having the latest-and-greatest equipment - try and resist the urge.

The number of people who replied to the survey is less than half of Kellyco's Nox 800 waiting list. LOL. This straight vs. s-shaft thing is just personal preference. Both sides will argue that one to death and a large contingent of folks will consider ML made a colossal blunder regardless of which shaft ML went with. I think its funny that Plugger and Anderson have made a living out of putting straight shafts on S-shaft detectors (Excal and Deus to name but a few) and are now also making a living putting straight shafts on straight shaft detectors (the Equinox). Neither configuration is the "perfect" solution AFAIC as I use both configurations without complaint.

As far as a "challenge" goes the "waterproofness" is irrelevant to me but as to the matter of ergonomics this is the only real improvement the Equinox needs , a decent arm cuff which doesn't require a strap and that allows you to slip your arm in and out with a snug fit as the result. Amazing what you can do with a heat gun a piece of ABS

One thousand and one............and counting..........

I was waiting for the crack in the head moment.

Fish, it really depends on what type of hunting you want to do. In my opinion, the Vaq covers the bases pretty well. I have owned a Bandido II and still have a Silver Sabre microMax, as well as a compadre. Others like the Mojave or Tejon as well, though I haven't spent much time with those machines. One way to customize your machine would be to get additional coils.. I have the 12x8 and the 5.75 both in widescan and concentric, and there aren't many sites I feel limited in with those tools. Some great information from Monte and others in a previous thread that I started (link below if you haven't read it). Tim.

Most forums have rules against linking to other forums and so they will not allow their members to link here. Another reason why I started this forum. Forums should be about sharing information and prohibiting relevant links is censoring useful information. On this forum I want people to provide links anytime information elsewhere is mentioned, and no matter if that is another forum or not.

The D2 is epoxy-potted, but not completely filled. So weight can vary a lot depending on how much epoxy was used. And that can vary a lot depending on who is running the epoxy machine, it's all a manual process.

Anyone using hydrofluoric acid in high concentration form please be extremely careful even if you know what you are doing. It's bad if comes in contact with your skin, bad if you breath the fumes, it will eat through glass containers. Any specimen that have been treated using hydrofluoric acid, the specimen need to be neutralized. Unless you know and fully understand all the risks don't consider using hydrofluoric acid for treating gold specimens. Again please use caution when using this stuff.

This is what it looks like after the hf treatment. Sorry LipCa, I couldn't find the after pictures this morning.