New Settings For Deep Silver

[damatman88]

I recently did a custom coin shooting program I really like searching for deep silver: park 1, multi frequency, 50 tones, Fe at 0 Fe2 at 0, recovery at 1, -9 through 11 notched out keeping 12 and 13, notch out through 17 keeping 18 through 40. I hit a clad dime today at 8 inches and realized I was running my sensitivity at 16 because of EMI! BTW, always run sensitivity as high as possible and ground balance before hunt. I am really starting to learn my Nox and am loving the versatility and depth as well as target separation. Let's hear your settings....

[damatman88]

Thanks phrunt, I'm not new to metal detecting, just new to the Equinox 800. I welcome any advice from anyone who is willing to share. I've watched lots of YouTube videos and read a lot on different forums, but please chime in if you know of anything that might sharpen my hunting skills. Thanks!

[GB_Amateur]

3 hours ago, damatman88 said:

recovery at 1...

That's really slow, but they put it there to be used and if it's working for you, that's what matters.  I haven't experimented below 4 and lately I've been running either RC of 5 or 4 in Park 1 for coin searching.  I run Field 2 with recovery speed 6 or 7 (Iron Bias F2=0) in user profile mode to investigate targets.

[Badger-NH]

In my test garden, I found no increase in depth on coins below a recovery speed of 4.

It's nice to have settings lower than 4 but speeds that slow are not practical at most of the places I hunt. Maybe in some very clean soil with no iron or mineralization searching for larger targets, I might use 3, 2, or 1.

 

[Chase Goldman]

Normally, I would go with Park 1 or Field 1 as they are most heavily weighted to high conductors.  No real need to stray far away from the defaults other than removing discrimination as desired and # of tones is a personal preference that doesn't affect performance.  F2 iron bias seems to be most effective on ferrous falsing while mitigating the downside of such filtering, namely, non-ferrous target masking.

However, if you are really solely focused on high conductors like silver to the extent you are notching out everything else, then Multi IQ frankly doesn't bring that much to the table.  In fact you are putting detector transmit power into simultaneous frequencies you are really not using.

Therefore, you should really consider giving 4 khz single frequency (SF) a go with some caveats. 

If power line EMI is not an issue (low operating frequencies tend to be more susceptible to general power line EMI - but noise cancel can still be used to attempt to find a clear shifted 4 khz channel) and iron junk target density is not an issue (Iron Bias is not operational in SF - but you don't seem to be utilizing its advantages anyway), then 4 khz might be a good option.  Seems to run with less noise than 5 khz and you will get slightly deeper ground penetration for high conductors like silver.

The only other thing you miss out on by going SF is the forgiveness Multi IQ brings to the table with a less than optimal ground balance (which manifests as more ground noise heard when operating with no ferrous discrimination).  So having a sat ground balance or using tracking (recommended ONLY if ground phase is constantly changing across the search area) is critical. Ground noise level is also exacerbated by running recovery speed so low (1) with no real payoff in increased depth (as Badger noted) just a higher noise floor. 

The main goal with Equinox is balancing and optimizing the signal to noise ratio.  In a nutshell  noise cancel, get a sat GB, run sensitivity no higher than necessary (it is no fluke that ML chose the default setting to be 20 out of a max of 25).  Optimize recovery speed to trade optimal swing rate vs. target separation, while not running it so low you generate excessive ground noise.  Use iron bias as necessary to minimize ferrous falsing without compromising separation leading to target masking.  Good luck!

[mn90403]

Gordon Heritage has a few 'programs' he publishes for the 800.  But what does he know?  haha

https://pmdg.org.uk/files/Gordon-Heritage-Equinox-Programs_2.pdf 

[mn90403]

Here were some of my thoughts when I was new to the 800.

 

[Wendell Clark]

I do not notch out anything. Good targets at depth can have very different or no VDI reading. My usual start settings would be Park 1,Iron (horseshoe) on. NC, GB, 50 tones iron volume set at 1,no threshold, recovery speed at 4, 0 iron bias. Sensitivity seems more like a throttle to me, 19 or 20 to start but can be adjusted up or down depending on conditions. Basically unfiltered....I read it here a long time ago and it has worked for me. Oh yeah, I hunt as though my shoelaces were tied together.