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Discriminator Or Detector?


mn90403

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The primary reason I bought an Equinox 800 was because it was going to let me discriminate better than any detector I had or knew I could buy.  It would save me from digging many, many bad targets.  That is what I focused on.  Second I believed that it might 'see' some targets that have been missed.  When it came out with the standard coil I think it lived up to its billing.  I've found gold and silver at the beach and gold nuggets in the gold fields.  The discrimination has helped also with the 6" coil in can slaw to find good vs iron targets.

When it comes to the 15 inch coil at the beach I'm beginning to wonder.  While using Beach 1 and Beach 2 in wet sand I feel like I have to dig everything to get all of the clues I need.  I still find myself comparing this coil and detector combo against the 3030 and the Explorer SE Pro. (I dug most everything with them also.)  The clues I seek are not just the type of metal but size also.  Tonight's hunt was an example.

I went to a beach I know pretty well and found it to be without a cut and gently sloping.  The waves have been at 14-17 second intervals so I expected targets to be deep if I could find them at all.  The tides are staggered so that one of the lows is very high compared to the other.  (It is this high low tide where I found most of my targets tonight.)  There is not much current and there is not much wind.  Big things didn't seem to be moving as I didn't see many rocks.  But, we have to hunt what we get on any particular session so away I went.

My set was Beach 1/21/5-6/5 tones/no discrimination and everything else pretty standard.  Going out I swung fast looking for good targets and clues.  I had to see where the energy in the water had buried my targets.  There were very few in the normal places but I did find the earring at the top left after a few pennies and one nickel.  I went on to try areas where I have found hundreds of coins and many rings but nothing tonight.  It was a nice night when I returned to the area where I had found the two pieces of small jewelry.  I was no longer 'driven' as I am many times so I took a more thorough, casual approach and made sure I dug everything.  This was when I found most of the objects in the pictures.

Everything was still on all metal but I was digging the bobby pin sounds, the -4, -5s and the 2s and 3s. (The leaf earring at the top left was a 2!)  I was saying to myself 'Do you know what you are not digging?'  I thought I did but I was also surprised several times.  On a 'good' night I might have skipped digging many of the penny sounds but I dug them and found good clues.  One negative sound was the stud in the bottom right.  It was a negative number but it is a small object for the big coil.  Many of the targets were small.  As you can see the 'bump-bump groan' sound produced a fair amount of trash also.  There were wires, hooks, bobby pins and a toe ring and a rose piece of small jewelry.  There is also one of those iron Euro 1 cent pieces.  Tonight they were all interesting.

After all of these little objects were found in most of a 100 yard stretch out of 2 miles of walking I came across another negative number.  It didn't sound any different than the other nearby targets but then I hit something with the scoop.  It was large and out popped the piece of threaded pipe.  I would have expected to have my 'doors' blown off but it was not any louder than the bobby pins.  I know it can be set differently on the volume and I should do that.   The Beach 1 low numbers have a certain volume.  Now it seems that determines the headphone volume more than the adjustable volume on the detector.  Anyway, I was quite surprised that it was not louder.

To wrap all of this up and get to the point of the topic, it seems that the 800 with the 15 inch coil detects small objects well.  The depth was up to 8 inches.  Some of the deep sounds don't ID well so I don't rely upon the discrimination.  There is a range of good targets that could be 'missed' if you only dig by the numbers.  It is important to know what you are not digging and only skip a target when there are other better targets near.  Even tho the 800 is a fast detector, the 15 inch coil likes to be swung slow.

Mitchel

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The Nox doesnt have a lot of modulation if you are using a high freq tone and sensitivity.  Its very much like running a 10 out of 10 gain on say and Explorer..... making all targets louder.... which isnt a bad thing if you are working trash areas.   Big targets like cans and sun glasses can really sound the same until you start digging..... but switch it up to 50 tones and see what you get.   I think you may find an improvement in sizing a target as well as IDing some of that iron/mineral falsing...... especially if you are running AM... which i highly suggest for the beach.

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 Nice post Mitchel. I am having similar results with the 15 coil on beaches you are familiar with. I am impressed with the coil's sensitivity on smaller items and I have been adjusting what signals I dig. I find listening to how "solid" (for lack of a better term), the signal is no matter what the number on the vdi, has made a difference. Nice work!

 

 

 

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9 hours ago, mn90403 said:

The primary reason I bought an Equinox 800 was because it was going to let me discriminate better than any detector I had or knew I could buy.  It would save me from digging many, many bad targets.  

 

Your opening statement really surprised me and drew my interest.  What made you conclude it had such world class discrimination?  I don't recall that ever being a hyped selling point.

I never considered buying the Equinox for its discrimination.  I bought it because I knew it would run stable at the beach; have fast, adjustable recovery for separation in trashy conditions; had stable target ID at depth; could be used wet or dry; and was versatile enough to run at the beach grabbing jewelry, in highly mineralized farm fields snagging relics, and in gold fields snagging nuggets and everywhere in between.  I have owned (and still own) other detectors with better discrimination schemes.  In fact, I generally prefer and have most success with Equinox running no discrimination whatsoever.  

But as as I re-read through your post, I see you were running no disc also.  So that makes me think you were really talking target ID vice disc or some other performance aspect of the detector.

Also, if I do have a performance knock against Equinox, it is that lack of target modulation with depth or size that you have observed.  Forces me to use pinpoint too often just to get a read on target size or depth.

BTW way to adapt to the language of that big coil. I too have found it surprising that it has such a strong affinity for the tiniest of targets.  Congrats on the finds.

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Chase,

When I say discrimination I mean accurate ID of a target.  This would mean that gold would not be masked or confused with iron stones.  It would mean that you could 'see' through can slaw that others could not.  With the new and improved multi-frequency it would be hard to fool this detector.  

What I think I have now is a very good detector that needs quite a lot of interpretation to get everything out of it. (I just opened my package from Clive with the Advanced Guide in it.)

For the last couple of months I have not used any other detector.  As they say, results may vary.

Mitchel

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Tonight I went back to the same beach.  When I got there someone was detecting 'my area' so I leap frogged the detectorist and then worked my way back.  Sure enough they came my way and I went back to my area to see what was left.  (I wasn't overly concerned because they walked very fast and had a hand scoop!)

The setup was exactly the same except I put on the 11 inch coil.  I found I could run it at the same sensitivity (21) but I also bumped it up to 23 near the end of the session.  Swinging the 11 is a delight after many sessions with the 15.  The beach was similar to last night even tho some big waves were coming in at 15-17 second intervals.

The hunt was about the same length of time and when I got back to the area I found an earring (the brass looking one).  I slowed down and began finding hooks and bobby pins like the previous night and in the same level of sand.  I was able to see it with the 11 and some targets were 10 inches.  The little rings (3) were not negative but low tone.

The most interesting thing was to find the matching earring from the previous hunt.  When I got up this morning and looked at the cleaned first piece I noticed it still had the holder.  I thought the second or matching earring would be around some place and I found it.

Both coils work on the beach but the 11 is a bit clearer.

Mitchel

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Nice! Are the little rings 4 real, or junkers?

 

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5 minutes ago, Sinclair said:

Nice! Are the little rings 4 real, or junkers?

 

The little rings are nice but they are not silver or gold.  I got a couple of silver rings earlier in the week but they are not pictured.

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Bummer - But, I'm always happy to find any type of ring :smile:

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Nice finds. I don't think the Nox is even close to the CTX as far as cherry picking goes. If I were going to a trashy park the CTX is still my first choice. Beach, relic, and gold areas then the Nox gets used. 

strick 

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