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Question About Equinox Manual Ground Balance


Ringtail

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What techniques do you experienced users have for manual ground balance in areas with hot soil, lots of iron, and lots of EMI?

Most of my hunting is in Northern Virginia in areas with hot soil that reads in the 40s or 50s on the Equinox. These spots also have lots of iron and EMI from electric fences, nearby houses, etc. My technique is start with auto noise cancel, then I find a spot with no metal and do a manual ground balance. I also do frequent manual ground balances periodically, especially if when switching from one type of terrain to another. It’s surprising how much the ground balance changes even in different parts of the same field. I found that in my dirt auto ground balance seems to drift, possibly due to the combination of lots of iron, high EMI, and hot soil.

Usually my technique works fine, but I find it hard to accurately ground balance when I get close to an EMI source (ground balance numbers sometimes shoot up to 70s or 80s). Usually I move away from the EMI, and also turn down the sensitivity to get an accurate ground balance number. Then I go back to the spot  where I want to hunt and turn the sensitivity up as high as I can go without getting too noisy. 

From what I have read on this forum, ground balance is not much of a concern for Equinox users in areas with mild soil. My experience in my hot soil is that getting an accurate ground balance is key to keeping the machine quiet and finding deep targets.

I’ve been using the Equinox 800 with the stock coil for about 2 months and have been very impressed with the results. I used a White’s V3i for about 5 years and after lots of research and experience was able to use it to its fullest potential (found lots of relics and coins). Now I’m going back to the same places and finding more stuff with the Equinox, go figure.

One other observation: when I used the V3i,  I tried all of the coils available from the manufacturer. I found out that all of the concentric coils were less susceptible to EMI and allowed me to turn gain all the way up with boost on. The double D coils for that machine were way too sensitive to EMI.

As I said, I’m finding lots of great stuff in pounded areas with my Equinox and have no complaints at all. However, I do think that a concentric coil would help in high EMI areas.

FYI - I usually hunt in Park 2, RD 7-8, IR 0-3.

I used Field 2 with the same setting for the first month with great results, but Park 2 seems to lock in on deep signals better. 

Joe

 

 

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If you ever find yourself happy with automatic noise cancel, try also manual noise cancellation to remove Emi, sometimes also help if at noise cancel hold the coil about 10-15cm to the ground ... What helps ... is the low recovery speed...As for the elimination of EMI in the Whites Spectra V3, use a smaller coil but still the depth of the coil-Mars sniper 6x10 ", 5hz band filter, Txbost ON, and Modulation  audio - to 1- max2 ...

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Try Park 1 and Field 1. The lower weighted frequencies might do better in your area.. Added discrimination helps quiet down EMI, sometimes dramatically in my experience, although I know you don’t want to use much for relic hunting. I’m a Park hunter so it’s easier to get away with heavy discrimination when needed.

I don’t  know how many points your ground balance is changing from area to area, but if it’s only a couple points it shouldn’t affect your depth.  At least it hasn’t in my experience.

Bryan

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yes, try also to shut down Allmetal, it will also help you, rumbling when you are under electrical lines...

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Thanks Cabin Fever, that’s good advice. I haven’t tried Park 1 and Field 1 much. Is it just me or do Field 1 and 2 seem almost identical. When you look at the factory pre-sets in the owners manual all of the settings are the same except Field 1 is 2 tones and Field 2 is 50 tones. I’m guessing that the frequency weighting and signal processing is different.

El Nino - you’re absolutely right. Turning off all metal silences a lot of EMI. I usually hunt with it off unless I’m searching a new site and trying to find out where all of the iron is.

Thanks!

Joe

 

 

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7 minutes ago, phrunt said:

In bad EMI I just take off my 11" coil, put on my 6" coil, lower my sensitivity to about 15 and do an auto noise cancel,  if still noisy I up my discrimination a bit and do an auto noise cancel again, if still not happy I change my noise cancel number manually until it clears up.  If still no good I change out of Multi IQ into my desired single frequency, usually 20khz works a treat as does 40khz, 5khz and 10khz are the most effected by EMI around here and after doing that I can normally up my sensitivity again.

Any one of these things may sort it out for you.  Don't discount manual noise cancelling though, I find it often works better than the auto noise cancel.  Just try each number until it clears up. 

Phrunt, 

I guessed that about the 6” coil even though I don’t have one yet. I’m excited to try the 15” coil for searching large fields but I’m guessing it might be more susceptible to EMI than the 11”, since it’s a bigger “antennae”.

Thanks for the thorough list of ways to cut down on EMI. I’ve tried all of those things at least once but I need to try manual noise cancel and single frequencies more often, they didn’t work the first time I tried them and I didn’t try any more. EMI comes in all different forms and sometimes it’s specific to a small range of frequencies and sometimes it’s over a broad range of frequencies. I used to switch between single frequencies to kill EMI with my V3i and it worked very well. I’ve been reluctant to use single frequencies with the Equinox because Steve H. says the Equinox works “magic” with multiple frequencies, lol.

But if the EMI is really bad and all else fails single frequency hunting is detecting has to be better than not detecting at all!

Joe

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Phrunt - I took your advice and just ordered the 6” coil. My dealer only had one in stock.

Thanks,

Joe

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29 minutes ago, Ringtail said:

Thanks Cabin Fever, that’s good advice. I haven’t tried Park 1 and Field 1 much. Is it just me or do Field 1 and 2 seem almost identical. When you look at the factory pre-sets in the owners manual all of the settings are the same except Field 1 is 2 tones and Field 2 is 50 tones. I’m guessing that the frequency weighting and signal processing is different.

El Nino - you’re absolutely right. Turning off all metal silences a lot of EMI. I usually hunt with it off unless I’m searching a new site and trying to find out where all of the iron is.

Thanks!

Joe

 

 

Jo each Mode has different weighted multi frequencies that can affect your hunt. I don’t pay attention to what the factory settings for each Mode are.  I go in to the Mode and customize it for my hunt. You can set up the exact same tones, Recovery Speeds and other settings for all the Modes but get different results because of the way the Mode Frequencies are weighted differently..  

Dont let the factory settings of one particular Mode stop you from trying it out. Make it yours.

Good luck,

Bryan

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Cabin Fever - thanks I’m going to try the other modes.

Joe

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Guest Tnsharpshooter

Higher Emi environments, using sensitivity between 20-23 helps for me.

Also should say, I did some testing using other detectors trying to aggravate Equinox Emi wise. Not exactly a lab experiment, but my testing imo reflects Equinox even when noisy (Emi) is a much harder detector vs single freq detectors to kill off it’s performance moreso.  My airtesting of Equinox reflected some still very good detection at good airtest distances even when it was compromised somewhat.  

A person may be better off to tolerate some noise using Equinox and still find deeper items vs scaling it back.

 

 

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