It's All I Need

[Mark Gillespie]

Thought I would share a few of my actual, field experiences with the Equinox 800.

1. It truly is a turn on and go detector.

2. The most accurate detector I’ve ever had on proper identification of buried targets over 5” in depth.

3. No need to run high sensitivity to detect in areas where the sink rate is very slow.  I’ve found a sensitivity of 16 will detect and correctly ID coins to 7” deep. 

4. There is no need to ground balance unless hunting is mineralized ground.

5. Side by side comparisons with other detectors finds the Equinox will more accurately ID coins in the 6-8” range.  This was very surprising to me.

6. I’ve become very good at knowing what a coin is before digging.  Very good example is a nickel verses a beaver tab by the audio/ID response (not one by itself)

7. With use, there is a lot of target information is the audio response that lends to target identification.

8. If you find an area where there is a lot of EMI and noise cancel doesn’t help, turn it down. See #3.

9. In extreme trash the machine will still give an audio hint of good targets surrounded by other targets.

10. Very versatile, even though the need to make adjustments are not common.

11. Surprise, the more time you have with the Equinox the more I learn.

 

Final note: It will take a lot to find a better machine on the market “today”.

 

[GB_Amateur]

2 hours ago, Mark Gillespie said:

I’ve become very good at knowing what a coin is before digging.  Very good example is a nickel verses a beaver tab by the audio/ID response (not one by itself)

Mark, could you go into more detail on this one?  I'm curious what I should be listening for, both here (nickel zone) and elsewhere.  Also, is this technique depth and trash dependent?

[flakmagnet]

Mark, I agree.

[Mark Gillespie]

11 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Mark, could you go into more detail on this one?  I'm curious what I should be listening for, both here (nickel zone) and elsewhere.  Also, is this technique depth and trash dependent?

After digging many of these pesky targets I noticed the audio would be slightly elongated compared to a nickel.  Now the other deciding factor is if the numbers are more toward the 12 than the 13 I'd lay odds of what it will be.  Now using both the audio 1st and the ID numbers second I can say I'm as close to 99% sure of what I'm digging.  I will add I'm more confident when it comes to IDing a nickel before digging.  It's amazing just how much information the Equinox gives the user if they will listen very carefully.  I must admit, it took me weeks before I started slowing down and studying the targets before digging.

 

 

[Tometusns]

14 hours ago, Mark Gillespie said:

Thought I would share a few of my actual, field experiences with the Equinox 800.

1. It truly is a turn on and go detector.

2. The most accurate detector I’ve ever had on proper identification of buried targets over 5” in depth.

3. No need to run high sensitivity to detect in areas where the sink rate is very slow.  I’ve found a sensitivity of 16 will detect and correctly ID coins to 7” deep. 

4. There is no need to ground balance unless hunting is mineralized ground.

5. Side by side comparisons with other detectors finds the Equinox will more accurately ID coins in the 6-8” range.  This was very surprising to me.

6. I’ve become very good at knowing what a coin is before digging.  Very good example is a nickel verses a beaver tab by the audio/ID response (not one by itself)

7. With use, there is a lot of target information is the audio response that lends to target identification.

8. If you find an area where there is a lot of EMI and noise cancel doesn’t help, turn it down. See #3.

9. In extreme trash the machine will still give an audio hint of good targets surrounded by other targets.

10. Very versatile, even though the need to make adjustments are not common.

11. Surprise, the more time you have with the Equinox the more I learn.

 

Final note: It will take a lot to find a better machine on the market “today”.

 

Kinda fun to hunt with huh??

[Chase Goldman]

It's all about the audio and TID stability.  [i.e., you pretty much nailed it, Mark G.]

[Andy2640]

Yes indeed, the ring-pulls have exactly that! an "elongated" tone.  Cheers - Now i know i'm not imagining it.

[Buzzard]

I have to agree, it is all I need . I now pick up the Equnox and my MXT and MX Sport just sit..going to sell them

[Chase Goldman]

1 hour ago, Buzzard said:

I have to agree, it is all I need . I now pick up the Equnox and my MXT and MX Sport just sit..going to sell them

Good luck.  I'm out there too, but there are a lot of similar decent used detectors suddenly out on the classifieds now.  Wonder what is causing that...?  

[Chase Goldman]

 

3 hours ago, Andy2640 said:

Yes indeed, the ring-pulls have exactly that! an "elongated" tone.  Cheers - Now i know i'm not imagining it.

Yes,  I have noticed that lighter trash type metals like aluminum or non-coin objects have a longer tone and/or a distorted tone (if bent or asymmetric) and also have softer rising and falling tone "edges".  They have less "ping" than coin targets.  This helped me to differentiate between molten aluminum slag (which I still dug some "examples" until I got the tone down) from a tractor fire and the CW cartridge box breast plate I dug in the same field, pictured below.