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Chirping constantly.....your not carrying a mobile phone are you?

During my last outing I ran into an area where EMI was out of this world yet I've been to this park before and never had a problem.

After much testing and adjustments turned my mobile phone (carried on my hip) off...problem solved, why it was a problem this time and not previously I don't know.

 

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12 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

If shallow dimes and pennies are reading 12 or 14 along with everything else you are describing, you may have a defective detector or coil.

Other than that, when in doubt, lower your sensitivity. When learning a machine you sometimes need to walk before you run. The default of 20 is  too high for many urban locations. I use 18 a lot and have had to go as low as 16 at one park. The sensitivity control has more direct impact on electrical interference on the Equinox than any detector I have noticed in the past. My old F75 was noisy no matter what. Equinox can be very noisy at 20, but totally quiet at 18. A couple point drop in gain can make a huge difference.

I am hoping it’s obvious you should do a frequency scan first before going to the next step of reducing the sensitivity when dealing with EMI.

Steve has given you some very sound advise.  I would also add that after noise canceling as he suggests, auto ground balance then adjust sensitivity. 

Just the view from my foxhole... 

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Build yourself a test garden in a “quiet” space in your yard and see if your results are more in the normal or expected range as compared to your park experiences.  Park 1 is always a good place to start.

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My general suggestion is to start out in Park 1 and don't adjust anything except (EMI) noise cancel, ground balance, and gain.  BTW, a factory reset may be in order.  Definitely know how to do that and/or keep the manual nearby just in case.

A) EMI:  My experience (and that of many others) with this detector has led me to the conclusion that it is much more sensitive to EMI than typical single frequency detectors, and that's because it has five frequencies to pick up EMI.  Remember, EMI makes the detector chirpy when it is motionless.  If it's quiet as a mouse when motionless then the issue isn't EMI.  The auto noise cancel procedure is the place to start.  If still noisy, go through each of the 19 settings manually and make sure to wait about 5 seconds on each to let the detector adjust.  Choose the quietest of the 19.  If still chirping on the quietest setting then turn down the gain (see below).

B) Ground balance:  The manual and many users say to just leave it set at 0 and the multi-IQ will take care of things.  This is the best way to start unless you are in an area where mineralization is really an issue.

C) Gain:  the default (20) is pretty hot, and as others have said you can turn it down and still get lots of punch.  I'd leave at 20 unless the EMI mitigation above didn't work.  If you need to eliminate EMI with lowering the gain then just go down 1 step at a time (again, waiting at least 5 seconds between steps) until it goes away.  The EMI will typically be different as you move around in a park if it's the kind that is coming from power lines (often buried), etc. so you may need to (or want to) adjust down or up as you change locations.

Default is to use discrimination.  The horseshoe button toggles between that and the override of no discrimination.  If you're used to discrimination/notching then I suggest using it.  If you typically use other detectors wide open then go with that.

Lastly, don't expect to hit a home run the first time up to the plate.  It's easy ('cause it happened to me) to read all the reports here and think the finds are going to just pop out of the ground.  You need experience to grow confidence, and no detector is going to produce goodies where they aren't.  Don't get hung up with depth.  That will come later.  (My deepest coin is 6 inches after 67 hours of use, and most are in the 3 inch range).

If you don't have a test garden, just start by putting some coins on the ground and see how they sound as you vary the height of the coil.

One last thing worth noting and remembering:  the Eqx doesn't have an overload indication when you are over a huge chunk of metal.  Learn to lift the coil when you get a strong signal and see how high you can get it before it goes quiet.  Also the pinpoint mode can be quite helpful in these cases, although learning the pinpoint mode is a lesson (or series of lessons) all unto itself.

It's unfortunate you don't have an experienced Eqx user nearby to go through its use with you.  In the absence of that, your best teacher is yourself.  Dig it all and don't expect instant success.  Don't take anyone's TID values as gospel.  Learn those yourself when testing and as you are digging all.  As you build confidence you can start playing around with the zillions of settings, but do that one adjustment at a time and don't be afraid to do a reset if things get squirrelly.  This detector has so many settings it will take a lifetime to try them all, but in the meantime you'll be enjoying the ride!

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All good info, Gonna go back out today and try some of these things.

One other question, I have never seen a negative number come up yet. Although I know these parks have lots of old iron. Should I just dig all the low numbers too like 1 and 2? Are gold rings gonna be in that range? That seems to be what Im reading that gold is gonna always be in that iron range.

I found a couple gold rings a couple weeks ago with my Deus in this same park

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2 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

My general suggestion is to start out in Park 1 and don't adjust anything except (EMI) noise cancel, ground balance, and gain.  BTW, a factory reset may be in order.  Definitely know how to do that and/or keep the manual nearby just in case.

etc....

That is such a great concise start up tip I had to add it to the Minelab Equinox Essential Information thread. Thank you!

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1 hour ago, 57buick said:

All good info, Gonna go back out today and try some of these things.

One other question, I have never seen a negative number come up yet. Although I know these parks have lots of old iron. Should I just dig all the low numbers too like 1 and 2? Are gold rings gonna be in that range? That seems to be what Im reading that gold is gonna always be in that iron range.

I found a couple gold rings a couple weeks ago with my Deus in this same park

Target id 1 and 2 will normally be light foil or tiny jewelry. Rings will normally read higher.

Target ID Normalization

Some Minelab Equinox VDI Numbers

Another Equinox Target ID Chart

Target ID Numbers Can Vary With Search Profile & Frequency

minelab-target-id-chart-manual-enhanced.

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I have used my 800 a few times and have often experienced similar detecting. Many of the people here have suggested really good options. My first time out with the 800, I didn’t fully realize how to ground balance (settings, ground balance - hold the accept/reject button). Next suggestion I would have is go to a location that is easy to dig targets. I went to the beach and it allowed me to dig multiple targets quickly. Also, try reducing recovery speed. The manual suggests lower recovery for more accurate TID. This also could result in less ‘target’ alerts.

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Two possibilities for never having seen a negative number:

1. You don't have all metal mode enabled - the “horse shoe” button.  The “horse shoe” button enables / disables iron discrimination.  You may have iron discriminated out.

2. Your coil is not over iron.  Find a chunk of iron.  Play with the horse shoe button.

If you don't see negative numbers over iron after that you may have an equipment problem.

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4 hours ago, 57buick said:

All good info, Gonna go back out today and try some of these things.

One other question, I have never seen a negative number come up yet. Although I know these parks have lots of old iron. Should I just dig all the low numbers too like 1 and 2? Are gold rings gonna be in that range? That seems to be what Im reading that gold is gonna always be in that iron range.

I found a couple gold rings a couple weeks ago with my Deus in this same park

I agree with TedinVT -- if you have never seen a negative number, I'd bet it's because you have not hit the "horseshoe" button; Park mode defaults to discrimination of the lowest 11 digits on the display (-9 to 1), so that would explain why you haven't seen them.  If you hit the "horseshoe" button, you have toggled off all discrimination, and then you will see negative numbers AND hear corresponding, low iron tones...

Steve

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