Wanted: Information On Minelab Equinox Gold Modes

[Tiftaaft]

9 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

he one thing that concerns me the most when mentally ruling out digging signals with too much 11 or 14 is the possibility that it's a nickel on edge.

The last one not-withstanding (it was a 12-13) but I have found many of my War nickels in that 14-15 range... probably also gave me some 13 in with it... but I definitely not locked in at 12-13.  So that is another reason I dig the upper fringe when I'm nickel hunting.  Out of the ground....12-13... but in the ground, I have found a range of tones for War Nicks. 

[Tiftaaft]

I spent about 1.5 hours at the old school near my house using the 6" in Gold 1, multi, disc at 9 and below, sens 22 (ground was pretty quiet tonight, and started in recovery 8... but I felt like I was getting only threshold on anything past 6"... and at this site... anything between the ground and 6" is modern trash.  After digging a fair amount of can slaw, pull tabs and ring pulls, I dialed recovery back to 4.  I started hearing some more faint targets... not a bunch, but a few... I was going pretty sloooooow with my swings.  Anyway, I had a screamer of a 15 tone (a couple of inches down) and just off from it I was getting a more faint 12-13.  Pin pointed a hot target at the spot of the 15... and a softer pinpoint where I heard the faint signal.  So I cleared the ring pull out of the way, and focused in on the faint 12-13 signal... it was there... so I switched over to Park 1 to test it out... I have Park 1 set in 50 tone, wide open, and I was getting some iron tones around it, along with a bouncy 12 and 13.  Still faint.  Dug what has to be the crusty-est nickel I have ever dug.  You can barely make out the outline of the face on the front, and maybe one of the legs of the buffalo on the back.  It was at about 7" - dead center of my plug.  Not sure I would have stopped on that in Park or Field... especially with that ring pull screaming right next to it.  But at least in this case, Gold 1 did let me know there were two targets there.  Or maybe the 6" let me know.  Hard to tell.  That was my only "keeper" of the hunt... though I did find a clad dime at about 6" where it no way should have been.  I was in recovery 8 at the time... so maybe the quick recovery helped me find that one where it was masked before... thanks Badger!

After a couple turf hunts in Gold 1... I can say... I'm not mad at it.  

~Tim.

[GB_Amateur]

2 hours ago, Tiftaaft said:

Dug what has to be the crusty-est nickel I have ever dug.  You can barely make out the outline of the face on the front, and maybe one of the legs of the buffalo on the back.

Was this under/close to a tree?

[Tiftaaft]

8 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Was this under/close to a tree?

Yep, it sure was... right next to a tree.

[GB_Amateur]

1 hour ago, Tiftaaft said:

...right next to a tree.

The reason I asked is because of the condition.

I was out a couple years ago and had an idea that an old tree I had searched near might have had people sitting up against it, possibly losing coins in the process.  I got as close as I could to the trunk, including carefully searching between the exposed roots.  I pulled out three coins (that I can recall), penny, dime, and nickel.  The dime and nickel were orange, and the nickel in particular looked like it was considerably degraded.  I was all excited (well, sort of) that I had an old nickel, maybe a Buffie.  When I got it home and was able to see a date, it was from the 1990's!  (Dime was clad, penny was a Memorial.)

I don't know the type of tree and it's since been cut down.  It was deciduous but not oak or silver maple.  Anyway, my hypothesis is that the acid from that variety of tree is especially damaging to 75% Cu, 25% Ni composition of our USA nickels and the clad layers on our modern dimes, quarters, and halves.  Some trees are good magnets for people who drop coins, but subsequently gets even by degrading the nickel composition coins in short order.

Here's a related post about a coin I found, hoping it was a USA large cent.  (Even more disappointed with this one.)

[GB_Amateur]

Got in 5 hours of hunting with Gold 1 at an iron infested site I have hunted pretty hard with both the F75 and Equinox, small and medium coils on both.  This particular spot had produced well for me (~40-50 Wheaties, one silver quarter, several silver dimes) as it was an unsearched 1920's home's yard when I got to it.  The house was torn down and footprint backfilled but fortunately they left the yard alone.  I doubt anyone has searched it but me.

Day 1 (2 hours) I used 6" coil in Gold 1, notch below dTID of 5, Recovery Speed (RS) = 5, Iron Bias F2=0, gain=20.  (I hadn't noticed the ground balance was set to Tracking, which is the factory default.  I would have switched out of that if I had noticed.)  I found one masked Wheatie and one masked 95% copper Memorial.

Day 2 (3 hours) I started out with same settings except I tried RS = 7.  After about 30 minutes I dropped that to 6 and pretty quickly after that, to 5.  (That's about when I noticed Ground Balance was in tracking and switched that off.)  I'm not used to discrimination sounds let alone the clipping that is added by fast recovery and I was really getting annoyed.  I don't think the tracking ground balance had much effect in this situation.  The slower recovery speed certainly fit my ear better but as to whether it helped or hurt unmasking -- ???

The only Wheatie I found in this spot on day 2 in Gold 1 seemed like an accident although I'm not sure.  I got an iffy signal (all my signals in these 5 hours were iffy) and dug a nail at about 5 inch depth.  When I checked with the Garrett Carrot after removing the nail I found the Wheatie in the loose ground (3 inch deep at the time I found it).  So where was it initially before I disturbed the ground when digging the nail?  I also found another 95% copper Memorial, well masked.

Here are the trash and 'treasure':

None of the three dimes and only 2 of 3 Wheaties were found with Gold 1.  (When I left the heavily hunted area with lots of iron trash remaining I switched over the Park 1.  In that mode on virgin ground I found the 3 dimes and a Wheatie.)  At the edge of the property, the maintenance workers had cleared some bushes that previouly blocked my detecting.  The two clad dimes were about 4 inches apart and 4-5 inches deep.  The silver dime -- early 20th Century (?) Canadian, date worn off -- was a pleasant surprise.  I found it in what I think was previously the property's trash pit, probably where they burned household trash -- a practice quite common here into the 1970's (and later in much of the USA) until air pollution concerns discouraged/banned the activity.  In my experience those are producers if not too iron-trashy.

Quite a few of the nails were doubles -- meaning I got two nearby nails from the same hole.  I think that situation can be particularly deceiving, conspiring to give somewhat repeating high dTID's.  The two spherical steel balls, ~5/8" diameter, both read pretty clean 13 when centered under the coil.  I don't know what they are, possibly some kind of bearing but also maybe part of toys or games.   The sparkplug is huge -- never seen one like that before.  There's a large Allen Wrench (hex key) on the left.  I segregated ferrous vs. non-ferrous (lower right) in the photo.

My conclusion is that there is a place for Gold 1 in my coin hunting toolbox.  Did it find coins I wouldn't have found in other modes?  I don't really know.  One thing I've started to experiment with is whether or not Gold 1 works well in investigating iffy targets.  It seems (very early observations that may not hold up) that weak/deep targets that sound good (but of course not close to perfect), giving high dTID's in Park 1 and Field 1 can show differently (lower TID's, sometimes negative or low positive single digits) in Gold 1.  So far, most of the time when this has happened (handful of times) they turn out to be trash.  In one case where Gold 1 confirmed high TID's it was a deep Zincoln.  I'll continue to experiment with that and report further in the future.  Deep cans (an aluminum one in particular) signaled high TID's in both Field 1 and Gold 1.  That's to be expected, though.  It's the good signals that turn out to be iron (e.g. nails) where Gold 1 has indicated lower dTID's than Field 1 and Park 1.  So far no iron sheet metal so TBD there.

[Tiftaaft]

4 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

My conclusion is that there is a place for Gold 1 in my coin hunting toolbox. 

Doesn't sound like you will be leaning on that setting over your standard setup... unless you can find some value in using it as a secondary check on some targets... if I am following?   

[GB_Amateur]

2 hours ago, Tiftaaft said:

Doesn't sound like you will be leaning on (Gold 1) over your standard setup... unless you can find some value in using it as a secondary check on some targets... if I am following?

Correct, at least for my typical sites.  When I get out West for some ghost-towning this summer it may be a different story.

Right now I don't have any fresh sites to work, and until the pandemic is in the rear view mirror I'm hesitant to knock on doors looking for permissions.  That means learning mode is front and center.  I'm going to concentrate on quality of target sounds.  Unmasking is the last frontier and until the technology improves significantly I think it's going to be up to our ears and brains to find the remaining good targets in our previously hunted sites.  At least that's my (naive?) view.

[Tiftaaft]

9 minutes ago, GB_Amateur said:

Unmasking is the last frontier and until the technology improves significantly I think it's going to be up to our ears and brains to find the remaining good targets in our previously hunted sites.  At least that's my (naive?) view

You are anything but naive GBA.