Park 1 Vs Field 1

[aygore]

Hello, 

I've been using the machine for a couple of months now with some good results. 

I've been mainly hunting in Park 2 and Field 2 modes, even though under certain conditions they produce  additional noise. 

For now, I would not like to modify any of the factory presets in any mode.

I've been staying away from park 1 because of the high iron bias setup as it can truly mask some good targets in trashy conditions. However, the detector is really quiet in Park 1 and if you have a signal, it is usually something decent. 

Field 1 on the other hand has 2 tones and 0 iron bias. I've been wondering if anyone here has any experience using Field 1 in the field ? Is it still quiet, even though the iron bias is set to 0?

Would be great if anyone could share an opinion on Field 1 mode. 

 

Regards, 

Igor

 

 

[DukeBoxer]

I use field 1 but I changed the tones to 50. I see you don't want to change the factory presets but changing the tones from 2 to 50 isn't a big deal and its easy to change it right back. That's the only mode I use to hunt in parks and fields and it's treated me very well. If it's noisy turn down the sensitivity, that'll calm it down and you can still get good depth at 15 sensitivity

[flakmagnet]

It's also easy to dial the iron bias back in Park 1.

[Sinclair]

Do you own the Nox 600 or 800? If you own the 800, simply save the profile you want to have a play with as user profile. You can then compare it to the desired factory profile with a press of a button..

If you feel like you‘ve messed something up, you can reset that single profile, or save a fresh factory profile as user profile again.

[Horst]

I run the Nox800 in Field1 since I got it. I run 2 tone, Iron bias 4, recovery speed 6. I have some +100 hours with the machine and really like this setup. Coins pop out nicely. Just foil fools me here and there. I have a 6" coil waiting for me in California. When I go over in Septemper I want to try it on nuggets planning on Gold 1 or 2. When I bring it back to Germany I want to try out Park1 + 2 with the 6" hitting some real trashy places. Regarding your question: Is it still quiet, even though the iron bias is set to 0?  IMHO the iron bias does not have much to do with "how quite" the machine acts. First thing I do when firing the unit up is a frequency scan. Then I look for a spot I do not find a signal and perform a manual ground balance (pumping the coil) - I stay away from auto ground tracking as I experienced additional noise when the machine tries to track into pieces of trash. So in average trashy areas I use manual (pumping) GB. This is what caused me most of additional noise. A good way to quieten down the machine is reducing the sensitivity. A sensitivity of 18 will still get you good depth even though I try to run as high as possible. If in really, really high mineralized grounds you may want to use single frequencies depending on what you are searching for.....small nuggets real shallow try 40 or 20 khz if you are going after artefacts deep try 5 or 10 khz. In general you can't beat multi frequency and Iron Bias only works in multi. The higher the Iron Bias setting the higher the probability the machine will identify a piece of metal under the coil as Iron. You might consider purchasing the book(s) written by Clive James Clynick about the Equinox MD. They helped me a lot understanding the machine better and swing, swing, swing practice makes perfect.........good luck to you

[aygore]

Thank you all for the tips. I've been amazed with the kindness of the people on the forum. I've been here for a while, and I've never seen any hate?

On the upcoming Saturday I am going with my brother for a hunt. I am going to stick to field 1 factory preset, maybe  I will increase iron bias a bit and save it in a user profile. 

13 hours ago, Sinclair said:

Do you own the Nox 600 or 800? If you own the 800, simply save the profile you want to have a play with as user profile. You can then compare it to the desired factory profile with a press of a button..

If you feel like you‘ve messed something up, you can reset that single profile, or save a fresh factory profile as user profile again.

I own 800 version. 

 

 

[Horst]

yes that is probably the right way to go. Set Iron Bias to 3 or 4 and listen for quality signals. Try to run the coil over at a target at different angle and speed. If the numbers don't change much that's a good indicator. I also have a user mode set to 10 khz. If i'm not sure I will switch over to the user mode and check my target again. A coin for example will not change much. If it is some kind of trashy target the numbers will get weired...means I have a solid let's say 20-21 target but using the user mode I will get a 30 reading popping in or a -3 or so....usually it will be trash. Another good thing to do is narrowing your sweeps where you get the best signal. Then hit the horeshoe - all metal mode - and pump the coil right on the target. If you get lots of iron sound - dig it and you will find trash in 99%..... I am still diggin a lot of trash but I am trying to prove the machine to be wrong......I have to admit that the machine is hard to beat.....dig trash but dig trash when you already have the idea that it will be trash.....take some coins with you - different ones....once you dug a hole throw your coin in and cover the hole...try again and learn the sound you will hear....I like running 2 tone...scratchy non consistent tones, good signals you hear just from one direction or short clipped sounds are usually not worth diggin' but the more experience you gather the better but you should have an idea first of what you are doing or expecting to find...all metal is very good learning the machine and pumping the coil over your target is a good way to open your eyes...please let me know how things work out for you as I am learning my machine a well - sorry for all the corrections I had to make as I am faster writing than my mind follows---sometimes

[Horst]

and one additional note from my side....here on this forum you will find a whole bunch of very nice people....and I am very thankful for that...

[Horst]

running 2 tones - for me - is somehow easier to concentrate on the "quality" of the sound than running 50 tons where you hear a lot of different sounds. That scratchy sound or broken up sound - for me - is hard to hear when I am using 50 tones - I run a Nox 800 as well

[UtahRich]

aygore,

I've been using my 800 for a little over a year now and have spent most of my time hunting some hard hit OLD parks, some private yards and a few ghost towns / mining towns for good measure.

For the parks and yards, I mostly hunt with the 11" coil, for the Ghost towns I use the 6" coil. 

I've spent most of my time experimenting with Park 1 & 2, Field 1 & 2. For the type of hunting I do in the Parks, I've settled on Park 1 using 5 tones. I don't care for the Field modes in the areas I typically hunt.  I still roll from Park 1 to Park 2 , Field 1 and Field 2 and check signals and keep coming back to Park 1 & Park 2 for my hunting, with my minor adjustments.

My minor adjustments for Park 1?  I have my iron bias at 2 and my recovery at 6. If I go lower with the iron bias, I start digging A LOT more rusty iron nails. When set at 2, I dig rusty, deep, bent nails occasionally.  I could set Iron Bias higher, and put some distance between me and the rusty nails, BUT it impacts my ability to unmask targets close to the rusty nails.

My other adjustment is setting the Recovery at 6, which still gives me impressive depth AND separates close targets better than lower settings. If the trash level is LOW, I can adjust this lower. However, a lower setting also lengthens the audio response and I don't care for the target response with really LOW settings. It does buy me some extra depth but it reminds me of the LONG audio response setting on the old Explorers and Etracs. AND, one of the big selling points of the Equinox 600/800 is the ability to separate and unmask good targets from bad.  When I'm hunting areas already hunted by decades of other detectorists, why would I want to essentially turn this off by turning the recovery level WAAAY down? 

Again, I typically start with these settings and can tweak a little this way or that IF the area I'm hunting allows.

For hunting Private yards, since I will be recovering MOST conductive targets, I will typically use Park 2 with the 50 tones (factory setting). Again, I stick with the iron bias of 2 and recovery of 6. Again, I can adjust if needed. 

Another thing I am doing while hunting is using the 'U' horseshoe all-metal button so that I can hear the iron audio. I have the Iron volume set very low.  This gives me much more information as to what I'm sweeping the coil over and helps me when deciding if I'm getting an iron false or a possible co-located good target hiding adjacent to iron.  I am a fan of 'iron audio'.

Also, I leave my ground balance on 0. 

Hope that gives you some additional information to ponder over as you're getting to know your 800.  I've been detecting for a rather long time and am impressed by my 800 and its' ability to find tough targets where others have been many times before.  It isn't a magic wand, but it is a very good tool. Be smart. Learn how to use it and be patient.  Start experimenting with your settings when you find a possible target and see how the changes impact the audio and visual ID's and remember the audio ID trumps. 

Good luck - Rich (Utah)