Eq 600 5 Khz Crushing Multi On Depth

[Dances With Doves]

2 hours ago, CaptainCoinSpill said:

I don’t know anyone with an eq 600 around here.  Contacting seller is a no go, he doesn’t respond and has been “not cool” to deal with... so I’ll leave it at that.  Earlier I had some new developments.  I did a reset and multi seemed to regain the strength that I have heard about.  My park 1 and 2 I had disc 20 and up(before the reset that seemed to hurt multi??)because I would be in a 5 foot area digging trash for hours...you wouldn’t believe how trashy our parks are.  This time I opened up with the standard disc and dug a ton of trash but multi seemed better. It is almost impossibly to ground balance because I can’t find a clean spot.  Now...for the first time I had hella emi issues...had to drop to 18 for clarity.  Weird how this hasn’t manifested itself before.  As I tested 5mhz vs multi, multi showed to be the superior choice!  However, later in my hunt when I moved it went back to 5 mhz being the better choice.  Could it be different soils doing this?  I constantly tested one against the other, and I keep having to shift which is why we have those options I assume.  But I didn’t think it would be this taxing in such a short duration on each site.  Overall I do feel a lot better and I hooked into a coin spill earlier!  All passengers aboard...captain coin spill hooked into one!

   When you had the xterra did you use the 3kz,and how did that work on  your  coins?

[CaptainCoinSpill]

33 minutes ago, Dances With Doves said:

   When you had the xterra did you use the 3kz,and how did that work on  your  coins?

I featured the 3 mhz 17” cors aka boat anchor.  Honestly I got that in the winter on a killer deal and only used it a few times.  Depth was about 10” but I never put the time into it to optimize the performance of it.  To be honest I wished I’d just opted for the 10.5 or 11” (don’t remember the size) standard DD Minelab coil.  On the 705 I never liked the aftermarket coils as much...the 10 x 5” gold coil was by far my fav but the depth lacked.  I was so locked into an Eq that I only ran the boat anchor two or three times.  Overall, I didn’t see anything special from it the few hours I ran it.  Depth tests showed an extra two inches over the 10” and concentric standard coil that came on the 705.  To answer the question would have to be inconclusive unfortunately.

[palzynski]

5 hours ago, CaptainCoinSpill said:

… )because I would be in a 5 foot area digging trash for hours...you wouldn’t believe how trashy our parks are.  This time I opened up with the standard disc and dug a ton of trash but multi seemed better….

If you are on trashy areas the 6 inches coil is much better than the 11 stock coil , this small coil is a must on trashy areas … And it has still a good depth

[GB_Amateur]

On 6/18/2020 at 10:39 PM, CaptainCoinSpill said:

My park 1 and 2 I had disc 20 and up(before the reset that seemed to hurt multi??)because I would be in a 5 foot area digging trash for hours...you wouldn’t believe how trashy our parks are.  This time I opened up with the standard disc and dug a ton of trash but multi seemed better. It is almost impossibly to ground balance because I can’t find a clean spot.  Now...for the first time I had hella emi issues...had to drop to 18 for clarity.

That's a pretty high discrimination threshold.  EMI reports (i.e. the erratic sounds) can be TID dependent, so possibly you were just hiding it with your discrimination.

There are several nice tone features on the Equinox that aren't found on many detectors, and particularly detectors most of us have cut our teeth on over the years.  One of these is adjustable tone *volume*.  What many of us do is eschew the discrimination threshold completely and use either 5 tones (my choice) of 50 tones.  In both cases you can turn down the volume on the low end (non-ferrous end, iron end -- the negative TID numbers) so they they just kind of quietly grunt in the background.  This has a lot of advantages, but I think one of them might expose the problem you were (potentially) having -- silent EMI hidden by too high of a discrimination threshold.

I've done well hunting with sensitivity set at 18 (also 17) so if you have to live with that you should still do well.  Another thing which can quiet EMI is lower recovery speed.  I use 5 typically, which is the default for Park 1.  Some use 4 and others even lower, although you need to adjust your swing (and your ear) as you go to low numbers, let's say below 4.  Operating frequency choice can be affected differently by EMI, since a lot of EMI is narrow band (tight frequency range).  Although Minelab won't say, many people have done spectral analysis which seems to indicate that multi-frequency transmits a low frequency (near 5 kHz) and a high frequency (upper 30's kHz) so if your EMI is being transmitted close to one of those then multi-frequency will be noisy whereas the right choice of single frequncies may be quiet.  As usual, start with the settings you want but adjust as necessary.

You mention ridiculously trashy parks.  Are the trash targets aluminum, iron, hot rocks,...?  My old parks have iron either because of razed buildings where they left lots of nails or because the land was previously used for agriculture or industry with associated structures, fencing, etc.  My feeling is that iron is the worst, but aluminum (pull tabs, can slow, screw caps) can also be quite annoying in old picnic areas.  Sometimes when the iron trash is bad it may help to run lower sensitivity as iron seems to get worse (relative to desirable targets getting better) with higher gain.

We all want to go as deep as possible and sometimes it seems like a badge of machismo people flash when they say how high of gain/sensitivity they operate.  But it's not a linear scale by any means (i.e. turning down sensitivity by a factor of two doesn't decrease the depth attainable by a factor of two) and sensitivity is one of those things that can be optimized for the site and the targets you seek.

 

[CaptainCoinSpill]

18 hours ago, palzynski said:

If you are on trashy areas the 6 inches coil is much better than the 11 stock coil , this small coil is a must on trashy areas … And it has still a good depth

Ok I’ve been thinking about getting that for a while now.  I know on my prizm 5 I leave the 6” dd on it but it’s only good to 6”.  I have found the coins I’m looking for are 7-10” typically.  What is your opinion on a depth loss % versus the 11” standards coil?  I know it’s relative to every location but in your case % wise?

[CaptainCoinSpill]

12 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

That's a pretty high discrimination threshold.  EMI reports (i.e. the erratic sounds) can be pitch dependent, so possibly you were just hiding it with your discrimination.

etc.....

Wow that is an incredible response!  I think you pretty much summed up a lot of my concerns in a few points.  First I realize I had a crazy high disc and once I opened it up multi was back to normal and 5 kHz was actually a bit deficient(but not by much).  Second, once I opened up the disc I started having emi issues...guess what was 10 yards next to me? Huge power line.  So the disc covering the emi aspect hits 100% home in my case.  In addition, once I lowered my sens to 20 I seemed to get less moving targets and better ID across the board.  I hooked into a coin spill  shortly after.  The trash that is everywhere are beaver tails, beer caps, and foil but not as bad as the former two.  I haven’t adjusted the tone level and cut off yet so I think that is my next move.  I also want to get the 6” coil but in the meantime I feel I can still separate well with the 11” due to what I have seen.  I also get a high tone flash one way on a swing and then nothing when I swing the other way?  Sometimes I’ve went over and over and dug and mostly is it some weird iron.  However, I pulled two wheaties that were 9” or so in the scenario as well.  On my past machines if you here a weird crackle or anomaly on the tones on target then that was an indication of trash?  Does the same hole true on our powerhouse?  Or is that not so much ironclad vs single vlf machines?

[Chase Goldman]

Ok Captain,

You have a lot of stuff going on here and I will try to address it individually.

 

24 minutes ago, CaptainCoinSpill said:

First I realize I had a crazy high disc

Why did you do that in the first place?  As far as disc is concerned, just leave it at the mode default of 0, 1 or 2 as applicable, for now.  Nothing is gained by cranking on disc, as you found out.

BTW - how many tones are you typically running?  

23 hours ago, CaptainCoinSpill said:

 I haven’t gb’d with each change because it’s so hard to do it where I’m at and didn’t think it would make a difference.  I eventually can get it done...when I look back at the gb settings=.it has changed drastically and I don’t have tracking on?  I think there is something along the lines of gb, drastic soil changes, initial changes to program, and Proper programming in relation to conditions.

I never buy the argument that you can't find a place to GB.  Just turn the pinpoint mode on, swing the coil to a point where pinpoint is silent and pump the coil to GB there.  Regardless, even if there is a huge variation in ground phase, it really should not result in a dramatic reduction in depth if not perfectly balanced.  The main effect of improper GB on Equinox is just more ground noise (iron range grunts with TIDs of -9 to -7).  In fact, people often mistake this ground noise for multiple ferrous targets (believe me, it's not).  So the best method to determine if you have a target under the coil is to go to pinpoint mode.  BTW - just as GB asked, what kind of trash are you encountering - ferrous or non-ferrous or both.  Makes a difference in how you attack the site.

If you are getting a lot of ferrous junk, then you will want to lower sensitivity and possibly increase recovery speed to enable you to "sift" through the ferrous.  Lowering sensitivity lowers the propensity of the ferrous targets to overload the coil.  Increasing the recovery speed setting enables you to unmask non-ferrous targets in the vicinity of ferrous targets.  Using a 6-inch coil under those conditions helps you to fare even better.  The deal hear is no at all about getting depth, but being able to hear those shallow keeper targets that have been masked and are invisible to detectors with slower recovery speeds.  Coil control is also important - if you get a sweet, but intermittent, high tone.  See if you can wiggle the coil across the target to lock into that tone repeatedly.  If you can do that, then dig that keeper.  

23 hours ago, CaptainCoinSpill said:

It’s seems like the more disc I have the less effective multi is?  Any truth to that?

I have no idea because I don't crank disk up that high, I seldom even use notch.  In fact, I really prefer hunting with no disc using the horseshoe button as long as the iron is not too crazy.  Otherwise, I just leave it at the mode default.  If you want to disc out iron, don't set disc any higher than 2 and don't use disc to block out non-ferrous junk unless you are using basically a precision notch (e.g., 14 to 19 to knock of pull tabs an zincolns) and even in that case, I won't do it for fear of knocking out a gold target which can show up anywhere from 2 to 20+.  I mostly hunt relics, so they usually fall right in the aluminum trash range.  Try to hit sites without a lot of aluminum trash, but sometimes it just can't be avoided so you have to dig it unless you are experienced enough (which is a nice way of saying you have already dug a ton of aluminum) to know the tonal nuances associated with can slaw and bent tabs.

You also said: 

Quote

As I tested 5mhz vs multi, multi showed to be the superior choice!  However, later in my hunt when I moved it went back to 5 mhz being the better choice.  Could it be different soils doing this?  I constantly tested one against the other, and I keep having to shift which is why we have those options I assume.

How were you determining in the field which was the "better choice" between multi and 5 khz?  Were you interrogating targets with multi and 5 khz or where you switching back and forth as you started getting less finds?

Also, here is a little primer mode optimization for specific targets - Best general purpose mode is Park 1, it is also good for high conductors and larger targets.  Field 1 is a great two-tone mode that also favors larger or more conductive targets.  Park 2 and Field 2 are geared towards small targets, gold, and other primarily mid-conductive targets like nickels and brass/lead relics.

Another variable is your iron bias setting.  Too high and it can mask non-ferrous targets.  Too low and you might be subject to more iron falsing.  Note that iron bias is disabled while in single frequency.

HTH.

[CaptainCoinSpill]

1 hour ago, Chase Goldman said:

Ok Captain,

You have a lot of stuff going on here and I will try to address it individually.

 

Why did you do that in the first place?  As far as disc is concerned, just leave it at the mode default of 0, 1 or 2 as applicable, for now.  Nothing is gained by cranking on disc, as you found out.

BTW - how many tones are you typically running?  

I never buy the argument that you can't find a place to GB.  Just turn the pinpoint mode on, swing the coil to a point where pinpoint is silent and pump the coil to GB there.  Regardless, even if there is a huge variation in ground phase, it really should not result in a dramatic reduction in depth if not perfectly balanced.  The main effect of improper GB on Equinox is just more ground noise (iron range grunts with TIDs of -9 to -7).  In fact, people often mistake this ground noise for multiple ferrous targets (believe me, it's not).  So the best method to determine if you have a target under the coil is to go to pinpoint mode.  BTW - just as GB asked, what kind of trash are you encountering - ferrous or non-ferrous or both.  Makes a difference in how you attack the site.

If you are getting a lot of ferrous junk, then you will want to lower sensitivity and possibly increase recovery speed to enable you to "sift" through the ferrous.  Lowering sensitivity lowers the propensity of the ferrous targets to overload the coil.  Increasing the recovery speed setting enables you to unmask non-ferrous targets in the vicinity of ferrous targets.  Using a 6-inch coil under those conditions helps you to fare even better.  The deal hear is no at all about getting depth, but being able to hear those shallow keeper targets that have been masked and are invisible to detectors with slower recovery speeds.  Coil control is also important - if you get a sweet, but intermittent, high tone.  See if you can wiggle the coil across the target to lock into that tone repeatedly.  If you can do that, then dig that keeper.  

I have no idea because I don't crank disk up that high, I seldom even use notch.  In fact, I really prefer hunting with no disc using the horseshoe button as long as the iron is not too crazy.  Otherwise, I just leave it at the mode default.  If you want to disc out iron, don't set disc any higher than 2 and don't use disc to block out non-ferrous junk unless you are using basically a precision notch (e.g., 14 to 19 to knock of pull tabs an zincolns) and even in that case, I won't do it for fear of knocking out a gold target which can show up anywhere from 2 to 20+.  I mostly hunt relics, so they usually fall right in the aluminum trash range.  Try to hit sites without a lot of aluminum trash, but sometimes it just can't be avoided so you have to dig it unless you are experienced enough (which is a nice way of saying you have already dug a ton of aluminum) to know the tonal nuances associated with can slaw and bent tabs.

You also said: 

How were you determining in the field which was the "better choice" between multi and 5 khz?  Were you interrogating targets with multi and 5 khz or where you switching back and forth as you started getting less finds?

Also, here is a little primer mode optimization for specific targets - Best general purpose mode is Park 1, it is also good for high conductors and larger targets.  Field 1 is a great two-tone mode that also favors larger or more conductive targets.  Park 2 and Field 2 are geared towards small targets, gold, and other primarily mid-conductive targets like nickels and brass/lead relics.

Another variable is your iron bias setting.  Too high and it can mask non-ferrous targets.  Too low and you might be subject to more iron falsing.  Note that iron bias is disabled while in single frequency.

HTH.

First off thanks for taking the time out of your evening and the detailed response to the issues I’m having...I really do appreciate that more than you know.  I’ll address each point one by one.   I run 5 tones, and ran that high of disc because I couldn’t move without digging shredded cans and various pull tabs and beer caps.  If I was on an old relic site I would run it open for sure.  All the places that I have to hunt are stuffed with trash.  I’ve never ran pinpoint to GB this is the first I’ve heard of it.  Now I run it def more open although I haven’t dug a good target under 20...just seems like nothing is decent in this one horse town regarding low conductors.   High tones is all that produces anything and believe me I dig A LOT!   I interrogate the heck out of every target switching from 5 to multi and back at every angle.  Most of the time multi didn’t even see the target I got from 5 mhz and they were good digs.  I believe the higher disc adversely affected multi big time...at least in my case it was clear.  I typically run fe2 and speed at 2 as well.  I’ve toggled the two of them and def see the difference although no difference in depth and id to me.  To me there isn’t much way of getting around digging shredded aluminum due to the various shapes and thickness.  I’m decent at listening to the sounds but some times I can’t tell if it’s trash aluminum.  I still have more to learn on this machine for sure.  In the am...I’m leaving for Galveston and hitting the beaches for two full days.  Hopefully I’m proficient enough to make it happen!  Thx again!

[CaptainCoinSpill]

Anyone have a 6” for sale on here?  Should I ask this in the selling section?

[palzynski]

7 hours ago, CaptainCoinSpill said:

Ok I’ve been thinking about getting that for a while now.  I know on my prizm 5 I leave the 6” dd on it but it’s only good to 6”.  I have found the coins I’m looking for are 7-10” typically.  What is your opinion on a depth loss % versus the 11” standards coil?  I know it’s relative to every location but in your case % wise?

- Using the 6" you will loose around 10 or 15% depth vs the 11"coil I think , no more. In fact the drawback of the 6 coil is its low surface coverage because of its very small size . Then the 6 coil will be great for relatively small areas , gardens , paths , etc  .. and less suited for large surfaces like open fields . However it is a very light coil , so fun to use I like it  … 🙂  And possibly this small 6 coil might be less sensible to EMI than the big 11 coil ...

- Concerning the disc , I never changed this setting on my 800 … I prefer to change a minimum of factory settings on my machines

- For info the settings I use with my 800  on iron trash areas are :

     . low/medium iron trashed area :      Park2 factory , sens 25 , iron bias from 0 to 4  

    . high iron trashed area :                      Field2 factory , sens 25, iron bias from 4 to 6

- Dig only when you have a repeatable signal on both sides

I have a 800 and not a 600 , so the 600 might be a little different .. However I am quite sure that you will find the 6 coil very good on difficult/extreme areas with your 600 ..