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Park1 Vs Park2 Dilemma


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I have always heard on the forums Park1 is better for silver than Park2. I have also heard Park2 is better for nickels. For the longest I only used Park2 for practically every hunting situation. It just seemed to be the best all around for me. Basically though starting about a year ago I started using Park1 a lot more. In using Park1 more often it seems my old nickel finds have really fallen off. I just don't find as many. Strangely my silver finds have crept up at the same time. I don't know if it's some kind of conformation bias I'm experiencing or if it's real? I've found plenty of small silver dimes with Park2, but now I'm having my best quarter year ever using Park1 all the time. I really don't know what to think. Maybe I'm over thinking this stuff.

On what I consider deeper silver dimes 7"-9" I have checked in the wild and found Park1 hit does stronger than Park2. The reason I always used Park2 mostly was because it didn't seem to false on deep iron or bent rusty nails as bad. Like when I turned on the iron it was more likely to give a iron grunt in Park2 which kept me from digging so much.

As of today I'm sitting on 34 silver coins for the year which is to be honest is more like my yearly total most years. Old nickels are way down, and IHP's are down a little. Is it possible the differences in Park1 and Park2 can account for this? Every time I go out now I am faced with the dilemma of which one to use. 

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This may not be practical for you, but I often will use both on the same site and literally go behind myself or hunt the same ground from a different direction using Park 1 or Park 2.

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4 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

This may not be practical for you, but I often will use both on the same site and literally go behind myself or hunt the same ground from a different direction using Park 1 or Park 2.

Actually yesterday I was hunting a place with horrible iron and little nonferrous. I was in Park1 at first and did find 2 silvers and an IHP. Later due to having to check so much iron falsing from multiple directions I abandoned Park1 for Park2 and wouldn't you know it found a hem weight and three buffalo nickels where I thought I had been over already. The place was to big to totally go back over everything again. Could be starting out I was focusing more on silver, and later started listening more for mid tones.

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I have found that it depends on how much trash and how wet the soil is for silver.

Either mode is great on silver and hits hard on it.

Good luck and good hunting.

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I like Jeff's point about going over the same ground with each mode if time allows. Park 1 is lower frequency weighted so it's going to favor higher conductors and Park 2 is higher frequency weighted so it is going to favor lower conductors. I feel like they hit the same on quarters and dimes. I have noticed that Park 1 seems to go a little deeper but I also feel like I'm missing the small gold with it, whereas Park 2 will hit very tiny gold and other small low conductors but I don't feel like it misses any silver within reach.

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Park mode is for sites with a lot of non-ferrous trash. 

Field mode is for sites with moderate to high levels of ferrous trash.

Park 1 and Field 1 are for general hunting and focus more in the silver range (VDI 19 and up).

Park 2 and Field 2 focus more towards targets in the gold range. Nickels, gold, tiny silver coins, tiny silver jewelry (VDI 19 and down).

Whether you are hunting at a park, field, cellar hole or woods doesn't matter. Choose the mode depending on trash levels.

My sites have moderate to high ferrous trash levels. I typically hunt in Field 1 and only use Field 2 after a site has been hunted out in Field 1. 

Field mode is a little deeper than Park mode. I rarely if ever use Park mode.

If you find Multi to be a bit noisy at high Sensitivity, switch to 15kHz and it should quiet down. Sensitivity has a huge affect on depth.

The manual explains it pretty well.

 

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I've actually gotten to the point that I only use Park 1 for all my hunting except beaches and gold nuggets. Works for me both park hunting and relic hunting and I don't feel like I'm missing much. Used to use Field 2 relic hunting until I started comparing signals in the field between Field 2 and Park 1. Park 1 almost always gave a better tone and tighter target ID so now that's what I use most of the time.

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25 minutes ago, abenson said:

I've actually gotten to the point that I only use Park 1 for all my hunting except beaches

This is exactly where I am with the Equinox, I believe Chase does this too now. 👍 I use frequencies (4kHz and others) to further analyze iffy stuff, but Park 1 does the deal for me. Sometimes I'll bounce iron balance around, but lowering it generally tells me I should have left it where it was after digging iron.

On the beach sometimes I can use Park 1 up high, but mostly it's Beach 1 in the dry and 2 in the water.

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Other than the sort of stated in the manual frequency weighting between Park and Field modes 1 and 2, I don't see a huge difference in iron infested or aluminum/steel infested areas between the Park and Field multi modes. I add about half of the iron target ID range to each one for coin/jewelry/relic hunting in each mode and use the 1 modes for most hunting and go over the area (if possible) with the 2 modes afterwards.

For micro jewelry hunting on land/freshwater I am usually using either Park 2 or Field 2.

For gold prospecting I am definitely using either Park 2, Field 2 or the Gold modes.

Iron or aluminum trash......it is all the same to me in all of the land based 1 and 2 modes.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 5/31/2022 at 11:27 AM, abenson said:

I've actually gotten to the point that I only use Park 1 for all my hunting except beaches and gold nuggets. Works for me both park hunting and relic hunting and I don't feel like I'm missing much. Used to use Field 2 relic hunting until I started comparing signals in the field between Field 2 and Park 1. Park 1 almost always gave a better tone and tighter target ID so now that's what I use most of the time.

Interesting observation.   Considering we hunt similar relic sites, I'll have to try comparing Field 2 (my go to relic mode) with Park 1 on some iffy or weak signals to see how it works out. 

During the hot as Hades month of August I'll be hitting a favorite site of mine (it's conveniently located [more or less] en route to a business conference) where the EQX800 bagged a $1 gold coin after we'd hunted the same site for a decade, as well as dozens of seated coins, Phoenix buttons, and other keepers.  I would not be surprised if there was another gold coin there, I believe there may have been a trading post at that site. 

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  • The title was changed to Park1 Vs Park2 Dilemma

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