Legend Vs Equinox 900 Park Hunt

[BigSkyGuy]

17 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

Actually, I have heard just the opposite.  Namely, generally Lower detector operating frequencies perform better in mineralized soil.  Similar to reactivity/recovery speed, however, there probably is a sweet spot operating frequency range that works best.

I think the performance of high frequency vs low frequency detectors in mineralized soil depends on the specific type of mineralization present. Some iron minerals, such as maghemite and fine grained magnetite, have what is called frequency-dependent magnetic suspeptibility. Which means the magnetic susceptibility depends on the frequency of the transmitted signal. The information that I have seen seems to indicate that the higher the frequency the lower the ground response, at least for the few soils tested. Minerals that are not frequency dependant tend to produce less ground response at lower frequencies for a given magnetic susceptibility. My ground is mostly moderately mineralized by magnetite-related mineralization. I had an 8kHz Blisstool that did not operate in my soil very well at all compared to my 16kHz Vista X, or Equinox. I get at least one more inch of depth with these detectors compared to the Blisstool. The Blisstool is a very deep machine in some ground. In mild Ohio soil I found a tiny 1 Pfenning coin at 10-inches with the Blisstool. Not saying this will be true for everyone, but higher frequncy detectors work better in my soil and maybe Jeff's as well.

[Jeff McClendon]

3 hours ago, Sirius said:

To be honest you might not need a detector to go that deep depending on the parks you go to, so it might be better to be able to filter out some aluminum? Like most of the parks around me are about 60 years old and stuff doesn't get buried that deep in that amount of time. if extra depth is needed, then a bigger coil might do. Though pin pointing the target might be a bit more difficult due to the large coil!

I like to detect as deep as possible with the detectors I have on hand. However, the most recent stuff is definitely near the surface in most of the parks I detect in. I actually find some of my best finds near sidewalk and path tear outs and anywhere that the ground has been cultivated for flower and shrub beds.

Anyway, right now in the Denver area, being able to dig 6" deep is a miracle due to the layer of perma frost just below that level.

[Sirius]

22 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

I like to detect as deep as possible with the detectors I have on hand. However, the most recent stuff is definitely near the surface in most of the parks I detect in. I actually find some of my best finds near sidewalk and path tear outs and anywhere that the ground has been cultivated for flower and shrub beds.

Anyway, right now in the Denver area, being able to dig 6" deep is a miracle due to the layer of perma frost just below that level.

The areas around where I live used to be heavily farm land, so the best i'd find deep down is big iron, even in parks. Ngl I envy the east coasters with their old lands and old finds.

[Jeff McClendon]

On 2/21/2023 at 4:00 AM, JCR said:

Jeff,   Thank you for the test comparison . There is a lot of good info in you observations. My East Texas iron ore based red dirt is not as bad as your soil. It is normally 3-4 bars on the Legend’s meter depending on moisture. 
 I use M3 often. In Park it is noticeably better dealing with Al trash than M1 or M2. Your multiple testing since getting your Legend bears this out. 
 What l have also noticed is that M3 is often the best choice in wet ground as Nokta stated due to it’s soil moisture subtraction. Where M3 seems to fail for me is depth in my higher mineral red dirt. M1 is noticeably deeper. I wonder if the soil moisture subtraction is the difference?  Take away the mineralization and M3 is a little deeper. It’s not the weighting, it’s the mineralization.

As Steve H reminds us, soil is what matters more often than not. Our own testing in our own dirt is the best gage but l learn from others too. Your well rounded efforts are appreciated.

Thanks JCR and thank you for reporting your experiences with Park M3. I will definitely be experimenting with it when I go to areas that aren't effected by lots of magnetite mineralization.

I agree with you about using Park M3 for very wet ground which is one reason I was excited to finally try it out here with the ground semi frozen at the 6" deep or so level and very wet above that. I wasn't wanting to go deep since that was impossible and I was mostly concentrating on high conductors, modern trash separation and trying out the LG24 coil. Overall, I was very impressed by the Legend's performance. 

In the past before Version 1.10, using Park M1 or Park M2 on semi moist, moderate to high iron mineralized ground out here would result in lots of spurious 10 and 11 target ID and audio responses which were ground noise and annoying. I did not experience any of that with Park M3.

The surprise for me was with the Equinox 900.

Testing it against the 800 a bit on frozen ground and in the static tests I use, I already had noticed an improvement in target separation and recovery speed. I know how the Equinox 800 detects in my area for modern trash detecting. My amount of experience with it is way past the "muscle memory" stage. The Equinox 900 is definitely faster than the 800/600 for this type of hunting.

[Steve Herschbach]

On 2/20/2023 at 10:22 PM, Digalicious said:

Hi Chase.

I've never heard of that for ferrous based mineralization. Then again, what about soil that has been fertilized with fertilizer that contains sodium and even some metals?

The ground mineralization I'm referring to is ferrous based mineralization, and ya, the lower the frequency in that ground, the worse the performance. With that said, I'm referring to very low SMF modes like the Legend's M3, to which I suspect is similar to the D2's Deep HC, and the Manti's HC mode (likely the received weighting being 10 khz and below). None of which I would use in highly ferrous mineralized ground.

In general lower frequencies are less reactive to ground and therefore get better penetration on high conductors in difficult soils.

[Digalicious]

1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

In general lower frequencies are less reactive to ground and therefore get better penetration on high conductors in difficult soils.

Is that for salt ground as well as ferrous based mineralization? I don't have either type of ground, but from what I've read, lower frequencies deal with salt ground better, but it's the opposite for ferrous mineralized ground. 

Then again, by "lower", I was referring to around the 5 khz range. Do you  mean "lower" as in around the 12 to 15 khz range? If so, is that why single frequency detectors are often in that frequency range?

[Steve Herschbach]

2 hours ago, Digalicious said:

Is that for salt ground as well as ferrous based mineralization? I don't have either type of ground, but from what I've read, lower frequencies deal with salt ground better, but it's the opposite for ferrous mineralized ground. 

Then again, by "lower", I was referring to around the 5 khz range. Do you  mean "lower" as in around the 12 to 15 khz range? If so, is that why single frequency detectors are often in that frequency range?

Just lower. 8 kHz would be a standard lower frequency but the Fisher 1280x designed for saltwater runs at 1.5 kHz. It’s all trade offs. In general I’d say under 10 kHz as lower frequency, 10-20 is mid frequency, above 20 is the high end.

12 - 15 is better on low conductors than lower but still good with the silver, and a good compromise compared to even higher frequencies. It’s been a good choice for general purpose do it all machines. But silver only 3 - 5 khz have probably been the focus more often than not.

[Steve Herschbach]

I need to update this but it is still a good basic reference.....

 

[Digalicious]

Thank you for that Steve.

So is there mainly two types of mineralization that a detectorist may encounter? Ferrous and nonferrous? Or, salt and magnetite?

For the ferrous based mineralization, is it always the lower the frequency the better, or is there more of an ideal frequency for that? Perhaps a mid rang from 10 to 20?

[Steve Herschbach]

The link I posted just before you posted gets into details. To a large degree the truth is multifrequency is best now.

Just depends on where you are and what you do. Florida it's salt. West coast beaches it's magnetite and salt. Gold prospectors in deserts it's magnetite and salt. Lots of places it's very little of either. Half of metal detector design or more is about getting the detector to play well with the environment.

https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/1599-gb-numbers-mineralization/?do=findComment&comment=19002