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They just lay in the ground. Big pile. Total Number of Coins 190. 20 coins I gave to the farmer.Coins are with me. Coins of Empress Elezaveta and Catherine. (1754 -1782). This is a copper five kopek. Big coin.

Well, after reading about the high number war nickels I finally got one at an old fairground in Kansas. Hits a solid 21.I was sure surprised to see a nickel in the hole. It's a 1943 s.

So said my friend Tony from Florida. He came to me in Russia in search of old coins. Finds Tony.

I was cleaning out the shop and came across some extra PVC fittings and a 1/2” thick sheet 16”x9” of a black Corian like material I picked up as scrap from tap plastics a while ago. They claimed it was something special they had for some project and the material was very resistant to things sticking to it? Figured I’d see if it was good for use as a miller table, so I collected the odds and ends I could find cleaning my junk and Home Depot was kind enough to fill in the gaps.tomorrow if I get a chance I’ll run a little dirt through it. DIY Miller Table;

Sit in on as many seminars (classes) as possible, talk to the venders (as most are real prospectors) and listen to those asking their questions to the venders. Most people at the panning troughs are new b's

With your "I can't loose" attitude why the heck aren"t you out prospecting? There hasn't been a gold show within a reasonable traveling distance from my location for years.

You better take more than 1 machine for sure. Back when I went there to donate sweat to the flies, I took 2 GP-3500's and a GB-2. I sold one of my 3500's after the trip to Jack Lange, as the amount of gold I found did not allow the weight for me to take 3 machines back home. The SDC-2300 being so compact is a serious consideration in my book.

Thank . Very nice friends.

I get asked so many questions in the early Spring about Gold Detectors, one of my specialties. To help some of you newer members to DetectorPropspector that use a Ground Balance capable VLF gold detector, this video I did a few years back on the White's GMT will help you. Even if you have the newer Gold Monster 1000 with no Threshold, this video has some recovery tips to help. Proper Coil Control and correct recovery tools are very important when trying to find tiny gold.

Pretty sure the mint buys the sheet metal and then cuts them into planchets (discs). At least that is what they were doing back during the war. That is one theory, and a good one. But there are other hypotheses. For example, can being in the ground leach out enough molydenum to raise the TID? What we really need is someone to show that an uncirculated Warnick has a high (in the 20's on an Equinox) TID. Then I'm convinced it has nothing to do with the coin having been in the ground.

Hello! My name is Paul. I live in Perm. It is east of Moscow in 1000 km. My device (1) Garrett AT PRO ... American version. My device (2) Whites Spectra V3i Vision. I have a lot of interesting finds. I'll be glad to new acquaintances.

Couldn't agree with that more. I think they post the seminar schedule on the GPAA facebook page. Make sure to go to any presented by Kevin Hoagland, Mike Pung, Bill Southern. Mike will be hawking his equipment (Gold Cube, Banjo Pan) when he's not lecturing. Don't be shy in introducing yourself to Kevin and Mike (they aren't even close to being shy as you'll find out)! BTW, although the show is on both Saturday and Sunday, the lectures are typically Saturday only.

I will be at my booth, "Jim's Metal Detectors," along with my pal Rob Johnson of the "Spud Diggers" YouTube channel. Drop on by... HH Jim

This is my treasure of the time of the Great Russian Imperialist Catherine.

I recently got carried away and added some off topic info and photos to a post when I asked about Where are all the Beach Finds. TMox & GB_Amateur shared info that was good. Sorry for adding some off topic stuff, so I edited and am starting a new post. Is the true value of a find, what someone is willing to pay or is it what you feel it is worth? I think it is a little of both and here is my spin. I was chasing big gold nuggets at a well known Big Gold Mining camp in AK 10+ years ago. In fact, it was Steve who talked me into going there as he knew I was pretty good with a detector. Back in the day when he and I were both Minelab Dealers (when he worked for a living), we used to bump stories and detector knowledge off each other. Anyway, I found a beauty of a coin in the old original part of the camp which is upstream from the current camp. It was an 1882 Morgan Silver Dollar. I was so excited to recover this piece of history and it was only my 3rd or 4th silver dollar find in my carrier, at that time. Well when I got back camp and showed the other nugget hunters and the families who owned the mine, I could tell they really wanted it, especially Mrs. Wiltz. She even offered to buy it from me for $100. Now this is when the value comes in. At the time and current, the 1882 Morgan Dollar in that condition would probably sell for $20 to $30. But yet I have one of the Mine owners offering me 3 to 5X is book value? My heart wanted to keep her happy, but I could not let it go so easy. Finding a Morgan silver dollar is extremely rare (even though there are millions, YES- millions) with a metal detector at an old site. $100 is a great offer and I would never get that same from a coin store. But when you don't need the money, it doesn't mean as much. I declined, as I told her I wanted to take it home and share with my dad, the same guy who helped me learn detectors as a young kid back in the early 70's, my mentor. I also wanted to enter it into the Metal Detecting Club - Finds of the Month Contest. Fast forward to the following Summer of 2006. I took it back up there and to this day (I think anyway) it is still hanging on the wall up for everyone to see. The memories, shakes, natural high I was going though when dug was priceless. Letting my father flip that coin a few times (amongst the much more valuable gold nuggets) while I told the story and watching him light up as he was so proud of me, was worth it. Getting to tell the story over again at the metal detecting meeting and of course winning the "Best Coin of the Month" category, was worth it. Seeing the smile on Mrs Wiltz face when I handed the plaque to her, was worth it. Heck, I spent close to $300 for the custom matting and framing....and it was worth every penny of it. A $20 coin worth Memories of a lifetime is the true value in my mind. 1st 3 pics are of the Frame, the silver dollar, with certificate and photos of find. Last 2 shots are actual pics of the moment I dug it up. I'll never forget that day. What's your thoughts of true value?

I don't know if the mint makes the planchet or they have a company make them. But either way it's obvious there are variances in the mix. Which just makes our hobby a little more interesting.

There was a lengthy discussion about war nickles on the dankowski forum and it was concluded that during the war time there were significant variances from the typically noted 35% silver, 9% manganese, and 56% copper composition. San Francisco was a major contributor to WW2 building ships, subs, munitions, etc., so I don't doubt that there were times the mint simply couldn't stick to the formula due to war time needs.

Here are a couple that will confuse you. My first ever war nik was high reading of 23-25. The few after that were solid 13-14. The one on the left is 13-14 and the one on the right is 23-25....both are '43 S. I read somewhere that it was at the discretion of the mint to ever so slightly bump up the silver content. I believe I read it this way but I could be wrong or forgot the details of what I read.

Ok, I guess I misunderstood what you thought was confusing, but I was also familiar with the two other long-time threads that had been contnuously discussing this issue so there was no doubt in my mind about what Tom was saying. Funny, I can now see that depending on your frame of refrence you could find the original post perfectly clear or totally confusing, especially when it comes to the nuances of foriegn or US coinage. Nevertheless, war nickel or not it was a high VDI for a nickel (denomination) coin. The use of the term "nickel" is a misnomer in this case because it is related more to the denomination of the coin than it's metallic makeup.

Nice find! I have had war nickels read higher than 13 or 14 but never a 21 that I can recall.

Sure! That small subset of the "silver" nickels is really odd... Steve

Kansas is next to Oklahoma. Are we really seeing a pattern here?

Welcome to the forum, and awesome finds, congratulations from California!

Brian, I've been using a couple of three port chargers like the one you mentioned above. One thing I've found is that with these "smart" chargers they sometimes won't go into a charge mode unless there is a decent drain or pull on the charger. The charger will just sit there because it doesn't notice the item that's plugged into it. If there's not enough draw or pull nothing happens. I've solved that issue by most always plugging in the detector at the same time as the earbuds or headphones. The detector draws enough to keep the charger in charge mode and not just in maintenance mode. If this makes any sense.

Worn but very nice?

Hi BH. I appreciate your kindly welcome. I believe with about 98.6% percent of my soul that metal detecting is the next great and interesting experience in my life. Really happy that this forum exists. It seems like an oasis. Back at YOU BH, all of the luck you sent my way, and I raise you double the luck!!

Hi Julie. Thanks very much for your welcome. I am an empty vessel when it comes to metal detecting. It's ALL learning from where I stand. I plan to stick to FP Modes. Until the time comes that I understand the purpose (the why?) of a setting change, the effect of any changed setting, any counter-balancing setting, then I will not hunt with a random set up. You mentioned Gerry. He has prepared me for my first hunt this weekend. He knows his stuff and took the time to explain answers to my questions. You cannot have made a better choice than buying from Gerry. e practically insisted that the important link he emailed be watched. It is about Tones. The You Tube itself is about the X-terra 705, but shares with the Equinox much of the Tone info. I watched it a couple of times. Gerry is correct. All the links he sent will help with the Equinox learning curve. Looking forward to getting word of your success. Curtis

Haaa, good place to be in on the ground floor I won’t forget and will take good care of you’re early commitment as soon as the first royalty check arrives my accountant will be in touch with the documents for your review and signature. New videos for your viewing pleasure soon to be released... “cat with hair ball” and the timeless classic “Feline fains indifference.”

I'm taking names for a Pre Order LIST here in the US (not even on my web site yet) so contact me direct. Trevor at CoilTek called and was giving me some info on these coils that is not in the brochure. The prices are in the photo below I am posting, as is my business name. Realize I am not taking money, just getting names for those who want one. Are these coils for everyone who owns an SDC-2300? I would never say such, but I do not know. The 10" ellip coil will be able to sniff out tiny nuggets better than the stock 8" coil and will also have 2" more of ground coverage per sweep. Many of the folks already are familiar with Elliptical coils and their ability to get up under brush and rocks, in those tight areas nuggets like to hide and the areas others can't get their larger coils (virgin ground pockets). The 11" round coil will give the most depth on larger gold and you get 3" more of ground coverage. It is the deepest of the 3 accessory coils and vs the stock coil on bigger gold. The 14x9" is a hybrid coil which will offer best ground coverage per sweep and increased depth on larger gold. If you already own a GPX or GPZ along with the SDC, then you probably do not need one of these coils. But I imagine that is not most of the folks who own an SDC-2300. Here is a fact that just happened 2 weeks ago with my staff members in AZ. One was using his SDC-2300 with stock coil and found a small patch of nuggets. He cleaned the patch out and called Lunk over with his GPZ-7000. Sure enough, Lunk smiles with a golden grin. He shows Wade exactly the spot and lets Wade listen. Wade spent some time on the target and went through all the settings, trying to get the signal to respond and nothing. Luck carefully removed a few inches and let the SDC check it. Sure enough, Wade could finally hear it. Folks it was just a matter of a few inches and Wade would have had the largest nugget of the hunt. He feels the 11" round would have heard it and paid for the coil right there. What was the nugget Wade missed in that small patch? Just another 1/3 oz'er to ad to Lunks collections. Again, Contact Gerry's Metal Detectors if you want to get on the Pre Order List (not taking payments until I have them in stock and I call you to ship) to get one sooner as Trevor said there will be a limited supply coming into the US at 1st, which is typical.

Magnets probably cost more than the digging tool :) Brian.

Stepping into this thread late, so don`t know if what I say has already been said. Take two machines, if one go es on the fritz you have a back up. If you get on a patch use the 2300 to pick up the small easy gold quickly, all gold is good, don`t waste your time looking for the Welcome Stranger. Then go back over patch with the 7000 to get the deeper stuff, learn to grid, (drag a chain) it will pay benefits and you will leave less gold. In Vic the lead shot will drive you crazy, in WA more trash free areas. OZx4 Rege

The changes to the TDI SL were about increasing the sweep speed, without loss of sensitivity to small nuggets. That was accomplished by changing the aforementioned capacitor values. Here's what Reg posted on this mod. "The caps being removed are C20 &21, .47uf and will be replaced with .22uf. Use 50v Panasonic, or Rubicon Stacked Metal Film Polyester type." Credit to Reg Sniff The only other change was increasing the battery voltage to 16.8 volts. There is a small risk of trouble by doing that. The capacitors in the power supply are only rated for 16v. But I don't know anybody that has used the higher voltage that has had problems. I've been using the 16.8v pack for 2 years. It does make a substantial difference in depth and sensitivity. Jim

Dont forget to brag on the leaf blower,,,lol

Wow" Enjoy! Ig

Hi Paul, Thanks for identifying the coins. It must have been very exciting when you found them. Were they in any type of container or bag? Do you still have them?

I'm afraid I'm not going to be much help, but I can give you some detail on the mods you're talking about. Reg designed these mods for the original and pro TDI's I don't know if he went any further with the SL. I've had two mods installed in my TDI machines, one was to eliminate the threshold warble, drove me crazy in both TDI's and in my GP3500. I now can run either TDI wide open in gain and have a totally smooth threshold. The other mod was to increase sensitivity to small gold I believe it has helped in that regard but have no proof. At the time (two to three years ago) Reg was living in Colorado Springs, he was working with a fellow in Pueblo that was qualified to do the changes and was doing them. I had him do the changes to my machines. It is possible that I still might have his email address. I will have to look for it and it may take some time if I can still find it. To the best of my knowledge Reg never did make the internals of the mods public, however he frequented some of the more technical forums than I did so maybe he did turn them loose. You can PM me if you want me to look for the email address. It will take me a while though as I have changed email services and ISP's since that time and I'm right in the middle of fine tuning a couple of rifles and also doing taxes. Mike

Greetings to you Poul, ....you have nice finds .., a nice pile of silver coins "Kopiejka", "Dienga", .,and 5 Kopiejka- Catherina... Also, I'm sorry for your dog that he died..

So sorry to hear that. She was a beautiful dog!

Wow! That is an incredible find! Awesome dog looks all worn out.

Hi Paul, Good to hear from you. Looks like you are in a good area with lots of history. I too would be interested in learning what those silver coins are. They look to be hammered and some are struck off center. Did you find all of them at the same time? ?

I find the little bits of gold are more of a challenge so every time I come across a bigger piece like in your pic I re-bury it so the newer detector guys can have some fun and excitement with an easy find! All joking aside...IMPRESSIVE!!!!!

Welcome to the forum! I hope you will tell us about that amazing pile of coins when you have the time

I had actually commented/pics some photos of finds on anothers post that was similar, but realized I did not want to steal his thunder. In my part of the country our lakes draw down each Winter/Spring to make room for the up and coming Spring/Summer runoff. This allows for some detectable areas though maybe not as perfect as beaches. Well when you live 500+ miles from the Coast you learn to adapt and find opportunities some others don't think of. Here is a quick story of a trip to a well known high country lake thousands visit each year. I was heading to NV to do our 1st of the year 3 days Field Training Trip on Gold Detectors. Sometimes I like heading down 3 days to a week early to get some time alone. Not that I do not enjoy detecting with others, as those who know me, will fess.. I actually prefer enjoying a swing with other like minded seekers. (hints the 3 days training we offer) This allows me a variety of accomplishments if desired. Sometimes testing a new model of detector, or coil. Other occasions I could be actually Prospecting for new areas and greener pastures for future hunts. Or I usually end up seeking an early coin/trinket from the trashy rustic RR stops along my course there, even though I have hunted them many times over. Getting down to Rye Patch and not feeling it (got to have the gut feeling it is the right site), I drove on past and kept the truck/trailer heading West on I-80. Lake Tahoe was on my mind as was a nice gold ring or two and always a silver coin as consolation. Pulling my camp trailer all the way up (Boise 2730' - Lake Tahoe 6225') found me in snow and not just a dusting. Not thinking all the way through my last minute change (I should have called 1st) left a lump in my throat as I drove around trying to find an open area for my 50' combo to settle for the night. Now is not a good time to find out most of the camp sites on the CA side were still snowed in and closed. I spoke with a Forest Service lady the 2nd day as I ended up sleeping over night at a school parking lot in Kings Beach and she told me of 2 camping sites they just plowed. She was certainly a trip saver for me. Finding my way that afternoon to said site and paying the daily fees to camp (nothing is free in CA), I was eager to get out in the water. Mistake #2 (no wet suite as I had not planned a dip in the snow banks of the chilling Tahoe waters. Heck, I'm USMC...just do it!! was my thought and desire. Shorts and tennis shoes is all I needed, lasted about 45 minutes and 15 targets, which none were gold or silver of choice and the day was shot. Certainly was one of my cold/numbest & dumbest water/beach hunts I have dipped. 2nd day I came back with a new plan and hunted gravels/rocks along the banks (out of the water) and after many scratches, digs and picking...YES.. scored a nice heavy yellow metal ring. Interesting how they stack the rocks on the shoreline, so I took a few picks of my stacked 3030 next someones artwork, heck why not? On a side note: If ever around there and you enjoy smooth dark ale beer, a World Beer Cup Gold Medal Winner is by far my favorite. Double Nut Brown Ale made by Mammoth Brewing Company is serious winner. A couple days later as I was picking more signals in the rocks along the shoreline, this nice black disc appears. Did not even realize it was a coin at 1st, but when I turned it over I could read "ONE DIME". Ended up being my oldest coin to date from Lake Tahoe, an 1856 US Seated Liberty Dime. So if you know of an old high country lake or swimming hole...or just want to try something different, maybe this short story will inspire? At least the dark ale lovers get a tip of beer greatness. And be sure to plan appropriately...and let others know where you'll be.

I stick with mainline manufacturers and highly recommend anyone not wanting to waste money do the same. Aliexpress in particular is a well known distribution site for counterfeit product and as such not to be trusted at all.

Pluggers on eBay makes a nice hip mount. Got one for my tdi beach hunter. Just started using it. Thing goes deep.m still learning GB, Gain, freq balance. Got much better at it today. Does very well in dry sand too. Have to arrange bolts and nuts a bit, but worked great. Picked up an easy swing too. That takes the weight off your arm used it today. Works good too

Hi, I couldn't wait to get the Equinox 800 to Arizona for some gold prospecting especially since the area in Colorado where I live is frozen pretty solid. The first site I hunted was in the Little San Domingo Wash area which has been pounded by lots of people for over a hundred years. I used the Nox 800 exclusively in Gold 2 with the 6" coil due to an abundance of human metallic trash, with sensitivity at 15 to 16 (falsed over those settings) with -9 to -4 discriminated out, iron bias 3 or 4, recovery speed 4. Hot rocks were hitting in the -9 to -6 range and also sometimes in the 12 to 14 range with the classic boing sound just at the edges of the coil and almost nulling in the center. I dug every detected metallic target in roughly a 30'x40' area. Iron targets were consistently in the -9 to +16 range depending on depth, size and amount of oxidation. Many of them jumped that whole range depending on direction of swing. When I was not using the horseshoe (all targets accepted mode) the iron targets would have very brittle, broken, clipped sounding audio and would be easy to identify just by sound alone. 100% of the time I checked those targets by pressing the horseshoe button and iron was suggested with -4 to -9 numbers included in the very jumpy target IDs. After digging each of these targets, (60 or so) iron was confirmed. I detected 19 non ferrous targets which all turned out to be lead, brass, aluminum or steel bird shot. Small lead, aluminum and shot gave beautiful evenly rounded tones and target IDs in the -1 to 4 range which were very steady and repeatable even after checking the target from a different direction. Larger lead and shell casings came in between 8 and 20 consistently with even, repeatable tones and solid numbers. The two nuggets pictured were both found near other targets, which is probably why they were missed. The .5 gram nugget was 4" deep with an iron target about 2" away and above the nugget. I never heard the iron initially. I only heard the classic zip-zip with a solid 3 target ID. When the horseshoe button was engaged I could hear and see target ID evidence of the iron target too. The two targets were clearly and separately defined and easy to identify as ferrous and non-ferrous. I was really exited to find that small nugget attached to caliche in that situation! The 4.5 gram nugget was 5" down, up against a large piece of hot volcanic tuft/basalt bedrock. The Nox 800 gave soft boings on the bedrock in several places near the nugget but the nugget screamed out a fantastic round signal at a rock solid 14. I thought it was going to be a 38 cal. or bigger slug. I was really surprised when I saw that first bit of gold peaking through the dirt!!!!! I lucked out on one other tiny picker at this location too during final clean up with the XP Deus. I also got to detect near Stanton on some placer/pegmatite deposits with tons of hot and cold rocks, huge prickly pear cactus and my least favorite----cat's claw bushes=OUCH. I completely shredded a virtually new pair of gloves on those things along with my hands too. I didn't find any gold with either my GPX 4800, XP Deus or the Nox 800. The GPX 4800 is one deep machine and hunted beautifully in this rugged area. I dug several up to 1 foot deep, less than coin sized lead, iron and tin targets that could have easily been gold with a NF Sadie and stock 11" mono coils. Any thing bigger was just not very practical since this was a boulder strewn, thorny area with very little open ground. The Deus with 9" HF coil at 54kHz handled the hot and cold rocks fairly well and was reasonably quiet in Gold Field. It always gave excellent audio responses to detectable targets and gave a predictable horizontal XY graph line for buried iron targets and very angular zig zags on near surface iron. Lead targets had more of a rounded, almost cursive writing indication on the XY graph which looks a lot like gold responses. The Nox 800 with 6" coil in Gold 2 again gave very clear indications of what to expect from the targets under the coil and after digging, those indications were confirmed every time with no surprises. There was some nasty hot magnetic schist, cold ironstone and unbelievable amounts of magnetite which sometimes confused the Deus and especially the GPX 4800. The Nox dealt with them very consistently with the magnetite giving iron signals, the magnetic schist reading in the 12 to 14 range and the cold ironstone high pitched VCO screaming at 39. Special thanks to Bill Southern and Tammy and also Rob Allison for their guidance during my fruitful trip. The Equinox 800 proved to be an outstanding and very trustworthy prospecting detector! Jeff

Once you got the basics down, I posted this in other forums but geared to those with a new Christmas present who are new to detecting and/or the Equinox... For those who just got a new Equinox but who have less detecting experience (Equinox is their first or second machine), I recommend a few things to help you climb the Equinox learning curve faster:Test it out on test targets in a test garden or at a productive site like a park, athletic field, or on a dry sand part of the beach to get used to its language. It can be different than what you are used to, but the way to learn it best is to just get out there and dig targets.While you are learning the machine, avoid the temptation to adjust any of the user settings or to switch modes. Stick with a single mode, preferably Park 1 (works well even on the dry sand of a salt beach), at the default settings and get really comfortable with the machine. Since each of the modes behave somewhat like a different detector, you want to avoid the situation where you are climbing multiple learning curves at once.Even though each of the modes are "optimized" for certain types of targets and detecting situations/site conditions (see the manual), any of the Park/Field modes used at their default settings will work for 90% of targets and 90% of conditions and there is plenty of target overlap between modes (i.e., you can find silver coins in a relic mode such as field 2 and relics in a coin mode such as Park 1), so pick a mode and stick with it while getting comfortable with the Equinox. Quick Mode Summary (remember, these are the optimizations, all the modes will detect most non-ferrous target types, just that some will be more sensitive and you may get slightly more depth or the optimal targets will "pop" more in certain modes):Park 1 - high conductive and large deep targets like silver and copper coins, coin spills, and coin caches. (Low frequency weighted). Minimal falsing due to high iron bias setting and disc at 1. 5 tonesPark 2 - mid-conductive coins and small, typically gold, jewelry items (higher frequency weighted). 50 tones. No iron bias. Disc at 0.Field 1 - Similar to Park 1, designed for plucking non-ferrous out of plowed fields, but weighted towards high conductive targets (most coins) therefore just a 2 tone mode. No Iron Bias. Disc at 2.Field 2 - Similar to Park 2 - but optimized for relics and small mid-conductive targets such as brass, lead, tin, nickel, pewter, gold, and, unfortunately, aluminum (nature's little practical joke on detectorists). Disc at 2.Beach 1/2 - Optimized for high conductors but will find gold jewelry on wet sand (Beach 1) and surf (Beach 2). Disc at 0. Medium iron bias.Gold 1/2 - VCO audio mode ideal for nugget shooting or mid conductive relics, will display a target ID but no audio ID just tone intensity and pitch raises with larger and/or shallower targets.The default settings are fine for 95% of normal detecting situations. The only adjustments you need make are to noise cancel the machine, run a ground balance (even then you can get away with the default ground balance setting for most situations), and then adjust sensitivity only as high as necessary to keep the machine running stable. Anywhere from 18 to 22 on sensitivity will give you plenty of depth. There are situations, especially in mild ground or where there is low EMI where you can run up to the max sensitivity, if desired. But avoid overdriving sensitivity just for the sake of trying to max it out, you will likely just introduce noise and instability and end up doing worse than if you just left it alone or reduced it a bit. Sometimes, even when the machine appears stable (i.e., no chatter with the coil in the air) at high sensitivities, there may be other subtle clues you have sensitivity too high such as excessive iron falsing or unstable target IDs, so be aware of these "tells" if you are running at high sensitivity. Site conditions other than EMI levels such as ferrous and trash density also play into the sensitivity level setting decision. In some cases, establishing target separation is more important than depth (discussed more in the recovery speed section below), so establishing your best recovery speed setting in balance with the right sensitivity setting will optimize the situation at hand.When you get comfortable enough to adjust other user settings such as discrimination, tone breaks, recovery speed, and iron bias. Go easy on the adjustments so you don't turn the machine into something you can no longer recognize. Performance settings such as recovery speed and iron bias only typically need need to be adjusted one or two clicks from the default at most. Higher recovery speed settings improve separation in high trash but set too high and you will affect depth. Trying to lower recovery too low to max out on depth (similar to overly increasing sensitivity) you will start to introduce ground noise, especially if you don't adjust your swing rate consistent with your recovery speed setting. Iron bias helps (a little) with iron falsing but it can also tend to mask keeper targets hiding amongst the iron (which counters the primary advantage of Equinox, its fast recovery speed enabling separation between trash and treasure). I just leave Iron Bias at 0 most of the time.Use Beach mode only on salt sand beaches (wet sand and surf). Any of the modes will run stable on dry salt sand beaches and in freshwater conditions. The beach modes can be slightly less sensitive in normal terrestrial hunting because they are optimized for salt ground conditions and will also throttle back transmit power when high mineralization conditions are sensed, so don't use the Beach modes other than at wet salt sand conditions.Avoid the prospecting/gold modes at first, until you have a level of comfort with the machine, because it does not have tone ID and uses VCO pitch audio, which is a whole different ball game and has a learning curve of its own. All modes and settings have their advantages and tradeoffs (downsides). Learning how to master the Equinox by balancing those tradeoffs and understanding what the tonal nuances are keys to success. To get there, you need to put in the swing hours and dig a lot of trash targets and you will gradually kill it out there. There are no shortcuts, so avoid deviating from the plan out of frustration. Be patient, learn and you will do well.Finally, there are no absolutes, so don't be afraid to experiment a little but also, if something is working for you, stick with it.

Like a lot of folks I find that a single frequency can help in bad electrical interference situations. The other use is for those who encounter hot rocks. Many rocks that hit hard in Multi will be much weaker or disappear entirely at the right single frequency. This principle can be used anytime you are dealing with undesired targets that throw off signals at multiple frequency levels. For those hunting jewelry lower single frequencies can make thin foil less responsive or invisible while still retaining better signal strength on most jewelry items.

The Monster has a Fun factor that I have never really experienced in any other Detector. It’s simplicity is a beautiful thing. Bryan

I have to confess, Minelab gave me a free hat last year. It was after the 3rd time I had to send my CTX in and the frustration level had reached a fever pitch. It was a nice gesture and if I was running a metal detecting company I'd put a hat into each detector box I sold just for the optics of it. That being said the hat had no influence on my purchase of an Equinox. The fact that it can and has gotten me more coins per hour in the shortest time frame that I have ever owned a detector is what has me sold. I said on this forum I had no interest in selling my other detectors once I got the equinox but after 10 days of using it I simply realized I wasn't going to use my deus anymore nor my excalibur for how I hunt and for what I hunt. I'm not a collector of detectors but rather a collector of cool things my detector can find and for my money I'm finding more coins and better coins since I got the equinox. The problem with all the drama and hate is that people have lost the ability to debate based on facts and now seem to debate solely on their feelings. All one has to do is look at all the junk going on around you and the arguments people have and it's easy to see. The fact that you can buy three Nox's for the price of one CTX doesn't make the Nox a lesser machine than the CTX. I finally got the scrap metal guy to come take my $5000 big box HDTV that I bought 10 years ago that I replaced with a better TV that cost $899. The fact is there is better technology now and it's cheaper to make and replicate. This concept also applies to metal detectors. In life kids do what feels good and adults do what they have to. Hating on a public forum for metal detecting is what a kid does today on social media.