Hello From Oklahoma

[locator]

Welcome aboard, Mongo. Glad you joined and yes, you'll find a lot of hints & help here if it is needed as there are a lot of nice & helpful people here. All I can say is, practice, practice, practice; that's  the key, and if in doubt, dig.

And about the bad weather... all was said from the posters above: reading books, reading the manual, reading the forums.

All The Best & Happy Hunting... 😊👍

[Mongo]

Been out 3 days in a row, has not been terribly successful treasure wise, but I am starting to find what a strong signal is, I have a dime and a nickel and two Pennie’s but they all gave me reason to believe they were there. I’ve been hunting in a large local park and of course, I am getting a lot of jumbled signals. What do you guys do to fight through noise to try and identify a reasonable target? Are there specific things I should be listening for, or adjustments I should consider? I used to coach hs football and know that the practice and repetition is necessary but bad practice or ignorant practice is what I’m concerned about. 
    I’ve been running in park 2 and have set (I think) the fe2 at 4. I also am recovery speed of 2. I also have already gotten in the habit of noise cancelling so should be good there. The park is fairly clean, so not sure what’s going on underground. Any suggestions or advice are appreciated. And no, I don’t have pics of my pennies, nickel or dime haha

[GB_Amateur]

Welcome, Mongo!

As you likely know already, part of learning a new endeavor is figuring out the lingo.  You're on your way.  You say "fight through the noise" -- right there you are using a word that typically carries special meaning in detecting -- noise.  Here is a summary of what that word means in detecting:

1) ElectroMagnetic Interference (EMI):  This gives itself away when the detector is held stationary but it continues to chatter.  It can be caused by many sources, particularly power lines but also cellphones and WiFi.  There are multiple ways to deal with it.  On the ML Equinox, there is a 'noise cancel' menu option which you likely already know about and read about.  That is step 1.  If that doesn't work, the next step is to lower the gain/sensitivity.  The Eqx will go pretty deep even down to a gain of 15 (maybe lower).  Another way of dealing with EMI is to lower the Recovery Speed.  But you are already set at 2 (equivalent to 4 on the 800 model) which is pretty low.  Finally, if all of the above fail, switch to single frequencies.  For park detecting, when forced to do that, I typically can get quiet response over the middle range (15 kHz, 10 kHz, 20 kHz).  Keep in mind that in mineralized ground (which you may have there in OK), as targets get deeper (say more than 3 or 4 inches -- depends upon the ferromagnetic content of the soil when this occurs), in single frequencies the digital Target ID's (dTID) will not be consistent with the values you see in MultiFrequency.  I notice this particularly in 4 kHz on my Eqx, which is a popular single frequency setting among some detectorists.

2) Ground Noise:  This occurs when your ground balance isn't properly set.  It reveals itself as the coil is (inadvertently or intentionally) raised and lowered (not just over a target, but everywhere), even by only an inch or so, near the surface.  In mild (low ferromagnetic) soils, this often isn't an issue with a MultiFrequency detector such as your Eqx 600, but even in my moderately mineralized Ohio River watershed soil I need to ground balance.  As with EMI, there is a menu option for ground balancing and your user guide/manual (and Sabisch's book) tell you how to do that.

3) Internal Electronics Noise:  This can happen on some detectors when the gain is near maximum.  Basically, some internal components can give off thermal variations which are amplified by the circuitry.  It is similar to EMI in that it will sound off when the detector is held motionless.  I doubt you are dealing with this unless possibly at the very highest gain setting, but I include it here for completeness.

Finally, maybe you aren't referring to what is typically called 'noise' but rather just getting a lot of signals from trash.  Dealing with that annoyance is an entire topic unto itself.  Consistency of physical location of signal (i.e. on the same spot on the ground) is an indicator that you have a target.  But then deciding if it's good or bad....  IMO, best to dig it youself and start to develop your mental spreadsheet of where different targets hit on the dTID scale.  You can silence the lowest (ferrous) signals completely with the Horseshoe toggle, or (I think on the 600 model) turn down the volume of the ferrous region (negative dTID values) to make it less annoying when swinging.  There are many audio and additional visual clues to deciding to dig/move on but you need to learn to walk before learning to run (or should I say learn to block and tackle first 😁).

 

[Mongo]

Thanks GB, very good info. I’ve found that running at the preset of 20 on sensitivity has been good i think, no chatter that I’ve noticed. Just a lot of false signals or inability to differentiate between the trash and good stuff if they’re close together in a hole. I’ve just been digging almost everything, and I guess I’m either in terrible trashy area or just not capable yet of finding those good tones. I just don’t want to be leaving stuff behind because I am hearing something that I’m not knowledgeable enough to interpret correctly. Is masking the right word? I get a lot of strong number blips that completely disappear when I dig, maybe the junky areas are a bad idea just starting out lol. I’ll keep digging, thanks for your help!

[F350Platinum]

44 minutes ago, Mongo said:

Thanks GB, very good info. I’ve found that running at the preset of 20 on sensitivity has been good i think, no chatter that I’ve noticed. Just a lot of false signals or inability to differentiate between the trash and good stuff if they’re close together in a hole. I’ve just been digging almost everything, and I guess I’m either in terrible trashy area or just not capable yet of finding those good tones. I just don’t want to be leaving stuff behind because I am hearing something that I’m not knowledgeable enough to interpret correctly. Is masking the right word? I get a lot of strong number blips that completely disappear when I dig, maybe the junky areas are a bad idea just starting out lol. I’ll keep digging, thanks for your help!

You write just like I felt a year and a half ago. Since I mastered ground balance and ensuring I noise cancelled first thing, those "disappearing" good signals stopped happening. It could also be simply that you are missing the target, but that is somewhat remote. Do you have a pinpointer?

I got a tremendous amount of practice hunting RV campgrounds, one time I dug 390 modern coins in 3 days, none with more than face value. There were a few wheats in there, but the campground was established in the 70s. I would think a park would give you similar coordination over time, but yeah, you're always going to dig crap. There are quite a few of us that post our trash! 🤣

Make sure you truly understand ground balance, that is going to be the key to your advancement.  If the detector is still beeping and booping when you hold the coil in the air, you have significant EMI that may require you to find a single frequency that is stable 5,10,15 khz. At that point you have to re-balance as well.

Make sure you don't hear anything in the spot you choose, or even better, dig a hole you know junk is in, get it all out, and balance the detector when all is quiet. 🙂

[Mongo]

Ahh, the ground balance! I usually only remember to do that at the beginning, but don’t ever do it again during the day. Maybe I need to do it more often? I’m actually pretty good at remembering to do the noise cancel stuff fairly often but never do another ground balance after that first time of the day.

[F350Platinum]

2 hours ago, Mongo said:

Ahh, the ground balance! I usually only remember to do that at the beginning, but don’t ever do it again during the day. Maybe I need to do it more often? I’m actually pretty good at remembering to do the noise cancel stuff fairly often but never do another ground balance after that first time of the day.

Two things first: tap "quote" when you reply, most get emails or push notifications letting them know you have replied. That'll get you noticed quicker. Second: "follow" your personal threads using the blue button at the bottom. 🙂 If you allowed yourself to be notified when someone comments you will get an email or push.

To tell ya the truth Ground Balance helps, but it ain't the be all. In some of my fields I can run sensitivity up to 24, I don't mind a "bump beep" or two if I know the detector is running hot. I use park 1 both in the fields and dry beach, I switch to beach 1 when I'm close to the water. That's pretty much it for me.

When I'm in one spot near a cell tower, I have had to use 15khz single frequency, in a campground it was 10khz. There are places where the detector will get too jumpy and then I will ground balance again. Lowering sensitivity helps too, you're on the right track. 👍 Best combo for me is stable (no EMI) with the highest sensitivity I can use, and I always try to get back to Multi when I can. Minelab says it's the deepest option.

You're doing great! Soon enough you will do better. 😎 Just keep at it. If you don't laugh when you dig pull tabs, try it. 😀

[Mongo]

25 minutes ago, F350Platinum said:

Two things first: tap "quote" when you reply, most get emails or push notifications letting them know you have replied. That'll get you noticed quicker. Second: "follow" your personal threads using the blue button at the bottom. 🙂 If you allowed yourself to be notified when someone comments you will get an email or push.

To tell ya the truth Ground Balance helps, but it ain't the be all. In some of my fields I can run sensitivity up to 24, I don't mind a "bump beep" or two if I know the detector is running hot. I use park 1 both in the fields and dry beach, I switch to beach 1 when I'm close to the water. That's pretty much it for me.

When I'm in one spot near a cell tower, I have had to use 15khz single frequency, in a campground it was 10khz. There are places where the detector will get too jumpy and then I will ground balance again. Lowering sensitivity helps too, you're on the right track. 👍 Best combo for me is stable (no EMI) with the highest sensitivity I can use, and I always try to get back to Multi when I can. Minelab says it's the deepest option.

You're doing great! Soon enough you will do better. 😎 Just keep at it. If you don't laugh when you dig pull tabs, try it. 😀

Crap, wish there was a “quote” button on my Nox, that’s a neat trick, thanks for the tip!

[JCR]

Your red Oklahoma dirt is probably more mineralized than many other people's soil. The more minerals you have to deal with, the more important is is to keep a good Ground Balance for stable operation & best target ID.

Welcome from East Texas red dirt!

[Mongo]

11 hours ago, JCR said:

Your red Oklahoma dirt is probably more mineralized than many other people's soil. The more minerals you have to deal with, the more important is is to keep a good Ground Balance for stable operation & best target ID.

Welcome from East Texas red dirt!

Yeah, I remembered today to do ground balance several times today. Anywhere from a 6 to an 87. I don’t know what those numbers even mean, but sure does seem like a big range. Go 100 miles any west direction and you run back into old fashioned dirt.

   Anybody have any tips on settings to help with mineralized ground?