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Beach Day For The Equinox


Skate

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This was hunt #3 for me putting me at 6.5 hours on the equinox now. I usually last about 2-3 hours a hunt due to needing a 2nd hip replacement so I envy those of you who can swing all day.

I hit the beach in Ventura after school today hoping the storm and high tide would result in some erosion. I figured since it was cold, had just finished raining I'd have the beach to myself. I get out there and there is a family having a picnic and one of the women is in a bikini getting out of the water. Only in California will you find people in bikini's swimming in overcast 55 degree weather with a water temp of 57. I digress so here's how the equinox did on my black sand beach.

I used beach 2 as I hunted the wet sand. The Equinox didn't disappoint. It was a dime magnet. I can't recall finding this many dimes (11) in such a short two hour hunt. The VDI was spot on from 24-26 on every single one. My first target made a slight chirp that was faint so i decided to investigate and it was a dime at least 3 scoops down. It isn't sugar sand so I was probably down about 16 inches in the heavy rock/pebble sand. The quarters were each 29-31 I had been using my Excal II on the wet sand and it's a great machine but tone only and now with accurate VDI on the Equinox I think the Excal is going to get a little dusty. The shore break is such that I don't get out beyond my knees so all i'm going to need are the waterproof phones. 

I didn't find anything of real value, I dug every target for the first hour and then cherry picked the high tones until I left. The nickel rang at 12. It was a foot down and no matter how many times I turned 90 degrees on it the VDI was 12. The junk hit mostly at 9 and 15-17. I dug two or three zincs and the VDI was 19-21 each time so after those 3 I just ignored those #'s for the remainder of the time. I didn't really expect to find gold as I need the summer so folks can replenish the sand. The couple times I dug an item with iron you could easily hear it. It made a sound like Pfft at the end of the tone.  Interestingly enough i did get 3 different ghost signals where it said there was a target, I dug, dumped the sand checked the hole and the sand pile and the target disappeared. Made no sense whatsoever. 

Pinpointing was a chore. As good as I could pinpoint at the park the other day was as bad as I was today in the sand. I don't really use the pinpointer, I try to wiggle my way to locating the target. I dig, swipe the pile with my foot and scoop the target. Today I dug, swiped, scooped, swiped etc., etc. I'm willing to say the problem was me but it was an issue. 

I guess you could say I'm now an official Minelab Equinox Fanboy. I have complete confidence that if a ring of any shape or metal was under my coil I would have heard it clearly and cleanly. It handled the wet sand with little to no falsing. I bumped up the sensitivity to 25 just to see how it would do and it got a little chatty so I backed it down to 22 and it was quiet. It got so quiet that I turned up the threshold to where it was audible so there was at least a sound. One issue I seem to be having with the headphones is that they cover my ears so well that they really block out external noise. Twice now I've had people walk up on me and I had zero clue they were there. It could be that I'm just concentrating so hard that i'm zoning out or that my ears are the perfect size and fit for the headphones. 

I'm going to get a second equinox as soon as there is an inventory available. I'm going to get the 6" for the dirt and keep the 11" for the beach. The equinox works better out of the box for me than probably any detector I've owned other than the MXT or maybe the ATpro for turn and go detecting. I have to go to the Junk fair with my better half tomorrow at the fairgrounds so I likely won't get out again until Sunday. 

Best to all 

IMG_0957.jpg

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Skate,

Good to see you get to the beach.

Your experiences on the beach are similar to mine.  We should get together some time and see what we can learn from each other.

This afternoon I went out also.  I thought the storm would produce larger waves but alas it did not.  Our beaches are not holding very many coins right now for lack of energy to move them.  I hunted for patches and it was not to be.

I have the volume up on the bluetooths and I think the pennies are louder than the quarters.

Mitchel

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Thanks for the invite Mitchel, I'd love to meet up some time, I could learn a ton from you. 

I agree about the waves. I feel like we got screwed again by fake stormwatch. All week the mouth breathers on the evening news have been hyping this storm so I had planned to hit it today to coincide with the low-1.0 tide and score something. The quarters and dimes had been there quite a bit as they were toasted and most unreadable. After looking through the pennies I did get a 1940 wheatie which is a rarity for me on the beach. 

We need to get Steve to come to SoCal for a field trip:biggrin:

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Skate,

If Steve came now he would be disappointed.  I'm disappointed with our beaches.

Mitchel

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Excellent report, Skate! Thank you.

I noticed nickels coming in at 12-13. Not ever 13-14 so far. 13-14-15 is always a square tab (so far). 17-19 in modern sites has always been junk but in old sites the large "three ring" bullets come in 17-19. Somebody had posted that they were irked that the Equinox's VDI scale was "compressed" in to 40 numbers of non ferrous and that it is going to cause issues (they probably hadn't even used it yet). To me,  so far, I find the Equinox ID to be rock solid and reliable. It does not feel "compressed". If the tones are good and the ID is bouncing around it has been junk. I, also, don't use the pin pointer function much. Never have. I have a pretty good "feel" for where the target is under the coil, if necessary,  I use the wiggle and pull back method. Anyway, I'm loving the Equinox thus far. I'm down to just three machines now...GPX, E-trac, and Equinox. I don't feel wanting for any other machine currently offered by anybody and my man cave is a lot less cluttered by various machines. I'm confident that I have all my bases covered. 

Looking forward to more reports from the field.

Dean

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11 hours ago, Skate said:

We need to get Steve to come to SoCal for a field trip

That would be easy to talk me into. I was actually watching the storms myself considering a drive down. The reality is I just got back from a road trip to Florida to visit my 87 year old father for his birthday week plus saw my business partner of 45 years in his new digs in northern Florida. About 6000 miles of driving in the last three weeks. Suffice it to say I need a little time before I make another drive, but by comparison a drive “over the hill” to California is nothing. Interesting factoid - it is almost exactly the same distance to drive from Reno to Anchorage, Alaska as it is from Reno to middle of Florida.

I had a fantasy trip in mind that included detecting here and there along the way, but weather across the middle of the country was so poor I gave that up and spent the extra time with dear old Dad. I made it back just in time to beat this storm which has been dumping snow on Reno for two days now. No way I am heading over the passes until this all clears. And right now I am very happy to be a homebody!

But I do love beach detecting just as much if not more than prospecting and popping over to where you guys are would be fun so it might be something we can do. My problem is so many irons in the fire all the time but if the timing all ends up right you never know. Though looking at my calendar right now it might be next winter before I have the time!! If it is meant to be an opportunity will appear and I will pounce. If not, well later then.

There has never been any question at all for me about how Equinox will perform on the beach. It was one of the first things I got to test about the machine. Crazy hot on low conductors on highly mineralized black sand salt and freshwater beaches, and way better discrimination than the PI detectors I normally favor for such detecting. Another reason why my ATX is going up for sale and I feel comfortable not having a PI beach detector for the first time in ages.

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2 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

There has never been any question at all for me about how Equinox will perform on the beach. It was one of the first things I got to test about the machine. Crazy hot on low conductors on highly mineralized black sand salt and freshwater beaches, and way better discrimination than the PI detectors I normally favor for such detecting. Another reason why my ATX is going up for sale and I feel comfortable not having a PI beach detector for the first time in ages.

Thats saying a lot. I was worried about the depth of this new detector.... but after a couple videos what I was seeing was as deep or deeper then my CTX. With fairly accurate ID! Now wishing I ordered sooner. One CTX and AT Gold on the chopping block. Keeping the Deus cuz I dont want to piss off Merton. 

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Steve,

It sounds like I have a better chance of seeing you in Reno before you make it down here.

I'll up my Equinox on the beach appraisal with the larger coil.  I'm just wondering if I'll be able to swing it without an assist.  I had been using the CTX without an assist and then I got the 17".  After about a week I had tennis elbow and could never swing that on its own again.  That is still my preferred beach setup over the Equinox.

I haven't used it since I got the Nox.  With a bit better beach conditions then I could see the true Nox performance.

Mitchel

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9 minutes ago, mn90403 said:

I'll up my Equinox on the beach appraisal with the larger coil.  I'm just wondering if I'll be able to swing it without an assist.

The 11” coil is a little nose heavy but nothing I can’t swing all day long. The 15” coil I am sure I will be rigging up a counterweight to balance the machine. The total weight will not be bad compared to most machines because Equinox is so light to start with, but there is no doubt in my mind that the 15” will be too much out front from a balance perspective, and balance is more important than weight. A lead counterweight under the armrest will probably be all I need, but there are other options if need be.

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