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Let's Hear Your Old Deep Coin Settings


damatman88

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I'm always wanting to tweak my Equinox 800 settings to maximize searching for old, deep coins. Would love to hear from the experts here about their favorite. Specifically tones, FE/FE2, frequency etc. 

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Park 1, Recovery 3, Horseshoe off (accept all targets), 50 tones, FE2 at 0, and sensitivity as high/hot as you can possibly run it (and still keep it "stable" with respect to EMI).  

Steve

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Alas its not as easy as picking other folks brains on what settings to use,what settings works for someone will not necessary work for anyone one else.How a machine is setup across the pond for the local coinage and conditions in your specific location can be totally different to how we setup a machine here in the UK.

Things like ground conditions,metal used in the coins and coins size ie for the most part in the US the coinage is milled and to a certain extent a consistent standard in the metal/s used so you can be pretty certain of the consistency but here in the UK for many 100s of years the coinage was hammered and not milled and the size although pretty standard for each specific coin/s the purity of the gold and silver can vary by a massive margin and is basically dictated by how the economy was doing at the the time if it was going through a lean time then the silver quality could be reduced by a fair amount and i guess gold could also be as well but not to the extent of silver coinage and other silver artefacts. 

Also another factor and a major one as well is what is the ground conditions and also are the soil condition pretty clean or is alot of trash due to human habitation around the detecting site,if its a trashy site then one would not use the stock or large coil so this then could also means possibly using the smaller coil and then you would also need to adjust settings accordingly.

In detecting no one set of settings do it all,you can also get a high amount of different suggested setting that folks could post up but non may work as we dont have the full knowledge of your condition.

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4 hours ago, RickUK said:

Alas its not as easy as picking other folks brains on what settings to use,...

Excellent point, and one Steve H. has made so many times that I think he got tired of saying it and just bows out on the topic.  I do think native gold detectorists in particular are especially sensitive to this.  They typically have to deal with such different ground conditions (even widely varying on a local scale) that they tune their detectors for the site every time out, and sometimes even in the middle of a hunt.  Many carry nuggets or pseudo-nuggets (small lead) with them and start the day by putting those in the ground at varying depths, tuning the detector to maximize their signals.

The key, IMO, is to know what the different settings mean and how that affects performance.  For the Minelab Equinox, the key settings are choice of modes followed by Recovery Speed and Iron Bias.  Even selection of single frequency vs. multifrequency and which single frequency to choose can apparently squeeze out some targets that might otherwise be missed on occasion.  Secondarily (for the 800 model), setting # of tones, tone breaks, tone volumes, and tone pitches help one's brain focus in on the targets of interest.  (Notching has similar effect, and most modern detectors have some level of that.)

So, yes, tune your detector for your site conditions.  A good mantra that unfortunately many of us (myself included) too often forget to apply.

P.S.  I failed to mention Noise Cancelling and Ground Balance adjustment in my 'keys'.  I guess those are so second nature to me, and they typically tell you when they are set incorrectly.  But according to some knowledgeable detectorists, sometimes they can remain silent and still not be in their best positions, leading to suboptimal performance.  Simultaneous Multifrequency detectors (at least the ML Eqx) use the multiple frequencies to effect a ground balance which is why the Eqx manual downplays the need to go through a ground balancing procedure.  But there is evidence that taking the extra step helps.

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I'm with Dan mostly,

Coin and Relic hunting,

Park 1

Iron Bias F2 0

2-tones

Recovery speed 4

Sens. depends on area

I do gb

-----------------------------------

For Lake hunting, 

Park 2 or Gold 1

Iron Bias F2 0

 

2-tones

Recovery speed 4

Sens. depends on area

I do gb

 

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I will run Park 1 or Field 2, with very similar settings to above.  My difference is I go slow and set the volume high and dig tones that are faint with no VID. The Nox does not give you a number on the really faint signals, I always start with an oversize hole on these, after the plug I know I will need another 6 inches. 

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