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TDI Beach Hunter Compared To Equinox 800 W/15" Coil


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I am a frequent beach hunter of S. CA beaches and have found over the last couple of years that almost all hunters are using Equinox 800's.  Not like the old days where you would see Fishers, Whites, a random Garrett and even a Tesoro on occasion.

Which leads me to the reason for my post.  My go to machine on the beach is an Equinox 800 with a 15" coil.  It is rock solid, gets great depth and has rewarded me with a lot of nice3 finds.  However, I also have a TDI Beach Hunter.  Now before I stir up all of the PI guys who will insist that a PI will go deeper than an Equinox,  I'm not going in that direction.  What I am curious about is the deeper targets vs. more trash targets aspect of using one machine vs. the other.  My own personal experience has been that when I have used my TDI Beach Hunter, and the competition is using Equinox 800's, I am always low man when it comes to good finds.  While I may be getting better depth, the amount of junk I have to dig (rusty hairpins in particular) slows me down in terms of coverage while the Equinox guys are covering a lot more area and finding more good stuff.  Have any of you had a similar experience and if so, when can you justify using the TDI Beach Hunter (or a different PI for that matter) instead of the Equinox 800?

Bill (S. CA)

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Sounds like you know the answer already and need to stay with the Nox, maybe only use the TDI when things are bleak. I use my Excalibur a lot, but when things get bleak or I find a area where I feel the AQ (PI) will shine then it may go next trip. I guess you might say I break up my beaches in sections from what I found the last trips out or may have noted..... then discriminate each section in my mind with the info gathered........then take the best machine I feel will do the job .

 

And I would say 95% of the hunters here have Nox's

Years ago I will never forget over on Findmall, Steve posted about the Garret LS.. his final words were..

"Use what works".

 

 

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On 12/30/2021 at 10:12 AM, Joe Beechnut OBN said:

And I would say 95% of the hunters here have Nox's

I’m a big fan of contrarianism in my detecting. If a place is getting hit 95% with one model, a certain class of target is cleaned up and essentially gone, but another class is also being completely missed by all those same detectors. Being the oddball person sometimes really pays off. And if I’m anything, I’m an odd ball :laugh:

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1 hour ago, Bill (S. CA) said:

Equinox guys are covering a lot more area and finding more good stuff.  Have any of you had a similar experience and if so, when can you justify using the TDI Beach Hunter (or a different PI for that matter)

Well, that is the equation. Reasonable coverage or lots of digging. 

I can remember days where I did not walk down the beach even 100yds and after 4 hours was exhausted after working the Sovereign in pinpoint mode [Very PI like] 
I usually had a big bag of chit junk and coins and the occasional goodie. 

Now I do the whole 1.5 miles of beach daily in 4 hours. My good finds are up, and my body likes me more.  Hummmm.  Depth....not losing that much! 

 

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14 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

I’m a big fan of contrarianism in my detecting. If a place is getting hit 95% with one model, a certain class of target is cleaned up and essentially gone, but another class is also being completely missed by all those same detectors. Being the oddball person sometimes really pays off. If I’m anything I’m an odd ball :laugh:

Leave it to Steve to point out my "oddball" status!  Glad that a few of us share that moniker.  Thanks to everybody for the replies. 

 

Bill

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3 hours ago, Bill (S. CA) said:

I am a frequent beach hunter of S. CA beaches and have found over the last couple of years that almost all hunters are using Equinox 800's.  Not like the old days where you would see Fishers, Whites, a random Garrett and even a Tesoro on occasion.

Which leads me to the reason for my post.  My go to machine on the beach is an Equinox 800 with a 15" coil.  It is rock solid, gets great depth and has rewarded me with a lot of nice3 finds.  However, I also have a TDI Beach Hunter.  Now before I stir up all of the PI guys who will insist that a PI will go deeper than an Equinox,  I'm not going in that direction.  What I am curious about is the deeper targets vs. more trash targets aspect of using one machine vs. the other.  My own personal experience has been that when I have used my TDI Beach Hunter, and the competition is using Equinox 800's, I am always low man when it comes to good finds.  While I may be getting better depth, the amount of junk I have to dig (rusty hairpins in particular) slows me down in terms of coverage while the Equinox guys are covering a lot more area and finding more good stuff.  Have any of you had a similar experience and if so, when can you justify using the TDI Beach Hunter (or a different PI for that matter) instead of the Equinox 800?

Bill (S. CA)

I do a fair amount of older beaches In New England. In sand that is not mineralized, I would stick to the EQ w/15" coil all day long over a PI. I would probably run it with recovery speed at 1 or 2 if I could handle it. Sensitivity as high as I could get it without falsing. In that scenario, I would have excellent discrimination and maximum ground coverage and depth. The PI would probably not give me any advantage and would actually hinder progress, speed wise. Now bring in some mineralization or worse yet, what I call banded mineralization, and the PI's rules in the depth category. On my beaches, the sand is layered with tiny bands of magnetite in-between clean sand layers. The EQ struggles terribly in this situation making the disc function irrelevant, since I'm not getting any depth anyways. Coins at 15" sound faint and sweet on a PI... on the EQ they sound like.....threshold 😄 In respond to the trash targets with the TDI vs EQ, I think that I would try and find slope areas where the lighter targets get washed out to shore. Only there would I use the TDI. The other thing is that if I were running the TDI  in a certain area and didn't get anything deep, then I'd switch to the EQ figuring that area is sanded in. Only break out the TDI if you have a reason to do it, basically mineralization or if enough sand is removed and you are getting close to a hard packed clay layer. When I get that close to bottom (within 15-20") only the PI can reach them targets before they get sanded back in.

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Being a So.Cal hunter myself having the same set ups , I know exactly what you're talking about. But I have on a  few occasions absolutely crushed it going behind the Noxers. What others have said here is spot on. Though they are not mentioning 1 very key element. The mentality of HOW they hunt. I have posted many times in detail before on this. But frankly now , I won't be sharing anymore of these "secrets" on giving others an edge in areas we all hunt.

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24 minutes ago, King-Of-Bling said:

Being a So.Cal hunter myself having the same set ups , I know exactly what you're talking about. But I have on a  few occasions absolutely crushed it going behind the Noxers. What others have said here is spot on. Though they are not mentioning 1 very key element. The mentality of HOW they hunt. I have posted many times in detail before on this. But frankly now , I won't be sharing anymore of these "secrets" on giving others an edge in areas we all hunt.

Going behind some of those guys has huge benefits. they clear all the surface trash for you 😁

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I like to start with the VLF and get a feel for the beach...this may take all day depending on the size of the beach... if  I find myself  hard up for targets then it's back to the truck for the TDI pro with clean sweep coil.. it's fairly simple...how much do you want to dig? 

strck

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