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As you may know, I've been complaining about beaches being super sanded in lately, and I've been searching for beaches not so affected by this seasonal cycle. Mainly I've discovered that hunting places where bulldozers have stirred up the sand helps alleviate some of the sanding in problems, but the tide will bring the sand back fairly quickly, so there's a short time frame of when the dozers leave and when sand fills the cavities they've left behind. I will also correct myself, from what I said earlier about how I thought beaches where you have to pay to get in are not great hunting spots. They are absolutely great places to hunt; as long as there are swimmers, there's treasures. That being said the area that was bulldozed over had been sanded in again, so I had to look elsewhere to hunt for treasures. Thus, I went an 45 mins south, to a place where I had previous found a coin line before, and had consistently found to have coin lines whenever I went. When I arrived and started detecting, the coins started popping out left and right. That's when I noticed the elevation of the sand was much much lower in some places compared to when I hunted the same area previously. A cut had formed! I feverishly moved along the cut as it rose higher and higher, finding all sorts of quarters, dime, nickels and pennies. The tide was against me this time, as I planned to hunt this area last and it was rising fast! (I was at the concrete ship beach early that morning and found some coins, but not a whole lot) Luckily most of the finds were up against the cut so All I had to do was move along the cut and hit every target I could hit. Eventually I came across a target that I thought was a nickel, oh it was a nickel alright, but not your standard nickel! It was a buffalo nickel, which told me that old stuff was washing up! (or at least being washed out from the cut) "I had to continue quickly, there could be silver coins here!" I thought to myself. So I did, and eventually came across another target with the TID of 44. I was busy pinpointing another target I had pulled up and planned to pull the higher TID target, second. When I finally got around to it, I pulled out a silver ring. Color looked a bit off, and I thought perhaps it wasn't silver, but hey a ring is a ring. (later on I checked and it's marked 925 though it's been pretty worn away) Continuing down the cut, I kept pulling more and more coins. Eventually I pulled up a silver quarter and a silver dime close to each other, as they tend to be. By the end of the cut the targets were few and far between. Satisfied with the finds for the day I turned around and started walking back, while looking for any targets I missed. By this time, it was high tide, and the water was close if not already at the cut, so I had to move quickly. One of the last targets was a high tone and I dug it up, I discovered that I had found another silver quarter! I knew this cause I checked the edge, and even scratched at it with my fingernail to try to expose any copper that may be covered up with patina. Also checked the date and it was from 1964. Overall it was a great haul, and much needed one at that! I will be back down again this week .Hopefully there will still be more treasures to find!

Minelab, What the bleep did you do to my Equinox? This is going to be a rant. Hopefully I will be able to keep it clean and factual. Today, April 25, 2023 I completed the first 100 hours of moderate to high iron mineralization turf hunting for coins and jewelry with the Equinox 900. I also have 30 hours of gold prospecting and 10 hours of saltwater beach hunting so far with the Equinox 900. I thoroughly enjoyed gold prospecting with the Equinox 900 using the 6” and Coiltek 10X5” coils. It performed like I am used to with the Equinox 800 using its two Gold modes set for multi frequency operation. My saltwater beach hunts at Los Angeles and San Diego area beaches were inconclusive, mostly because of bad weather (very few people out) and sanded in conditions. So I am going to try to give a review of the Equinox 900 from my experiences with it on land for coin and jewelry detecting in moderate to high iron mineralization at local parks with varying degrees of steel alloy and aluminum trash where even modern coins can be down to 8” deep. I really like the upgraded shaft system, new hand grip angle design, new arm cuff, thicker 11” coil ears and hopefully the new waterproofed control housing of my Equinox 900. I also really like the vibrating hand grip feature along with its customization provided on the 900. Plus, I really like the seemingly improved iron handling and the definitely improved target separation and recovery speed. Depth seems to be a bit better. Sensitivity has been increased from 25 to 28. EMI mitigation is similar to the 800. The ML85 headphones are a slight improvement to me as far as being less muffled and bass heavy compared to the ML80s. They do not offer the best ambient noise prevention compared to some other manufacturer provided wireless headphones or the most balanced sound quality. They do pair easily. I do notice some wireless signal drop outs if I turn me head quickly, etc. The display, backlight (red) and user interface are mostly unchanged from the 800. I still wish the 900 had more than one User Profile. The onboard pinpoint function is much more stable than the wonky pinpoint activity built into the 600 and 800. It does have a form of real-time target ID also while in pinpoint mode. The addition of Depth Tones or ferrous/non-ferrous 2 tone VCO audio for the Park, Field and Beach modes seemed like a nice addition. I have no problem with the VCO ferrous tone. The VCO non-ferrous tone sounds really bad through my ML85s with lots of incongruous drop outs and strangled, inconsistent, ridiculously high tones. Alright, anybody that knows me personally or knows me from these forums knows how much I like to outright rabidly love the Equinox 800 even with its questionable waterproofing, stock shaft build quality, pinpoint function/non function and its compressed low to mid conductor target IDs. I hunt in many public areas that are drought prone so these municipalities only allow coin popping/screwdriver target recovery. Big fines and possible confiscation of equipment if a person is caught digging with a shovel of any kind in these public areas. Accurate target IDs are essential for me in these areas along with accurate tones and accurate tone quality. So, I spent another 3 hours of my life today, using the Equinox 900 at a very modern trashed park that I have repeatedly hunted over the last four years. I will give the Equinox 900 credit. I did find 11 clad dimes and 13 pre 1982 copper Memorial pennies which were in the 4” to 8” deep range. These could have easily been silver dimes and earlier pennies. I have pulled many silver Roosevelt dimes out of this park along with some Mercury dimes, wheat pennies and Indian head pennies. I also found 6 modern nickels that I had missed. I will chalk those finds up to the improved Equinox 900 target separation and recovery speed. Did I have a good time using the Equinox 900. Absolutely not. If I had been blindfolded and someone handed me a detector that I could only use 5 tone audio for target ID, I would have guessed the detector I was using was a Garrett Apex or the new X-Terra Pro in 5 kHz. Target audio was all over the place even on shallow targets. The actual numerical target IDs were too of course, even on shallow targets. I had my 900 setup for 5 tone operation with tone breaks set at -19 to 0 for iron, 1 to 23 for low conductor aluminum foil, small can slaw and small gold jewelry, a small US nickel bin from 24 to 27, all sorts of pull-tabs and aluminum trash and zinc pennies from 28 to 69, and the rest of the US high conductor coins and silver jewelry bin from 70 to 99. I also double checked many of the clad dimes and copper pennies before digging using the AT full tones audio setting. I was using Park 1 Multi, sensitivity 25 of 28, ground balance and EMI noise reduction performed, accepted -9 to +99 target IDs, 5 tones, threshold tone OFF, iron audio volume level set high enough to clearly hear it through headphones, recovery speed 5, iron bias 1 which was enough to make most steel crown bottle caps have some iron tone audio and tonal breakup. This is what I experienced…….. - 4”+ deep flat laying clad dimes and copper pennies were triple beeping during left/right DD coil passes as if they were on the surface. - Target IDs for those 24 high conductor coins were ranging from 68 to 98 during normal sweeps circling those coin targets whether they were 4” deep or 8” deep with very little possibility of telling the difference between a clad dime and copper Memorial penny. - Those target audio responses were crossing over a user set audio tone break. - The wide target ID range was not caused by co-located targets…..it happened on every one of the 11 clad dimes and 13 95% copper pennies. - Soil conditions were slightly moist but nothing unusual. - Surface to 4” deep US nickels had target IDs from 23 to 28 during sweeps around the targets so tone audio encompassed three user set tone bins. - Switching to full tones had zero effect on tone accuracy or target ID accuracy. - Similar audio and tone behavior happened on various types of pull-tabs, can slaw, aluminum bottle caps and of course steel alloy bottle caps. Basically, I could have had similar results using the Equinox 900 set on 10 kHz. Target ID and tone stability were non-existent compared to the Equinox 800 in Park 1 with similar settings. The kaleidoscope of sounds produced on beginner level basic targets in 5 tones or all tones was a joke. Single digit notching might as well have been 5 digit notching since basic targets had at least 5 or more different but repeatable target IDs instead of the 1 to 3 standard target IDs seen detecting the same targets using the Equinox 800. Sure, I wanted a slightly expanded target ID range update on the Equinox 600/800. Nokta got it just about right by adding an extra 10 target IDs between the ferrous/non ferrous tone break (ID +11) and the mid to high conductor tone break around +40 on the Legend. Minelab, why did you instead go from 50 total target IDs to 120? Whose bright idea was that? Who field tested these detectors for overall target ID accuracy and stability? This hunt today WAS NOT AN ISOLATED INCIDENT or one off. It has been this way for me since hour number 1 of coin and jewelry detecting in my area. I still have an Equinox 800. I have used the new, improved coil ear 11" coil that came with my 900 on my 800 with no issues. Using the 10X5" Coiltek on my 900 does little to improve target ID accuracy and multi tone stability. There have been rumors and some indications that a software update may be in the works for the Manticore. For heaven sakes Minelab, offer one on the Equinox 700/900 too for target ID stability! I am not looking for answers or advice from anyone on this forum about what I wrote and experienced. If you want to agree or disagree with what I have experienced, that is totally fine. Just don't try to theorize, pontificate or otherwise tell me I don't know what I'm doing. Even though I only have 100+ hours on the Equinox 900, I know how to use this detector. Minelab, you are welcome to write a response explaining this detector behavior. thanks for reading if you made it this far. Sorry for the long post and the rant.

Great reporting Jeff, thanks. I have always and to this day still think the Equinox was the machine that made the clear and undeniable jump beyond what came before. My expectations for anything since have been minimal, and everything I’ve seen has told me I was not wrong in that.

Its always cool to see an xray of the coils dont you think... even though I know exactly what goes in them it allows me to ensure everything looks as it should - which it does and why they are operating excellently! BTW - the black area is our invisible magic dust that ensures people have the best chance of success!! That is our secret sauce recipe! 🙂😉 In regards to the bunch/ spiral type windings all the coils for the GPX6000 are bunched windings. The only coils that are truly spiral windings are the ELITE coils and the Evolution from NF. We refer to bunched windings as the wire is arranged 6 wide by 5 high for example. So if you cross section the windings you would see this layer construction. For the flat windings you would see 1 wire high by 20 or so wires wide. All one continuous strand. From all of us here at Coiltek we appreciate the support we have had for the GOLDHAWK coils and look forward to new and exciting coils to come in the future! Trev

Hey fellas, It's been a bit since my last post! Still here lurking in the shadows though! I've had pretty crap luck on good finds but detecting is still my therapy and I've bopper around steadily. Combined with point lookin! Yesterday evening got off work in (al) was close to the field of dreams so I headed for her! Got out,shot the crap with owner and set up 2 d2s or one remote and 9" unit and the ws6,wsa and 11×13 strapped my pads on and took off! About 10 steps in 93,94,96 93 signal was sounding much like some frustration materials but that's high numbers so I dug. Probably 13" down this baby popped out and I was a happy son of a buck! Wild this spot is as bullets and many things are 3" deep so this find tells me I need a damn earth moving company to stack the relics! Lol Made my day,week and broke my whiny butt no good finds mentality! Be safe fellas and enjoy

I had someone from my detecting club question an old Chinese coin I found on Magnetic Island which pre-dated the arrival of Europeans.. I didn't really know how to respond as it seemed that he was saying I had faked the find.. Thankfully another member pointed out that Chinese fleets had been active along this coast for many years before Europeans arrived.. I don't usually need anyone to stand up for me but on this occasion I was stumped for words by the idea that anyone would bother to fake such a thing.. I can't see how faking the find of a worthless old coin can make anyone feel better about themselves, even if they get the admiration that they crave.. I could simply put it down to jealousy because I'm lucky enough to live on an island where there's still plenty of places which have never been searched, but it still left a bitter taste in my mouth.. It's always a horrible feeling being accused of something you didn't do.. It did make me wonder if the dude making the accusation had a guilty conscience.. Perhaps people see my posts and think that every time I go out I find something amazing, but they don't realize that most days I don't find anything at all.. Maybe I should also post pictures of all the crap I find? I must admit that for a while I used to hesitate before showing my finds to the folk at the club, wondering if I'd be accused of faking again.. But now I don't really care anymore about what others think, I know I found all those things in my finds boxes and that's good enough for me..

Every time I get a hair away from pulling the trigger on a 900 or Manticore, I read something that makes go back to thinking I should just find a used 800 and wait for something better. Well keep up the reports, curious to hear if any planned or potential updates help, and if there is any compelling reason to use one of these newer machines for prospecting over an 800. I like new stuff, but not stuff that doesn't work well.

Has anyone else noticed a huge uptick in obvious faked finds being posted? Not here...but on other sites and in particular, social media hunting group pages? I'm talking about silver and copper coins "in the dirt pile" pictures that have zero oxidation, patina, etc and the silver look like it's been rubbed on with metal polish paste...that kind of luster to them. I guess they thrive on comments or something. I saw some tonight on an arrowhead group I'm on...guy had 5 modern points posted together that are the kind you get at the souvenir shops, gas stations, and such...not even made from material found here in the US...and claims he found them at a certain place near me. If he did...somebody planted them as a joke. I thought he was posting the picture as a joke but he said he knows their real because he knows other people have found native rocks there too. 🤔 Well heck...I guess beer cans are from the Civil War because we find them on property we also find Civil War relics too. Stuff like that probably shouldn't irk me but for some reason it does.

Here's ya an arrowhead example of what I am referring to.

Although I would love for Minelab to give an option to choose between having the 50 tone version of the old 800 as an option to use on the 900 and Manticore, I'm not holding my breath. But if they make the ID more stable that would be great too. My biggest challenge has been learning the new ID for all the targets I hunt. I've literally got to dig everything from 20 and up at relic sites now. Jeff I'm not really seeing what you are on either the 900 or Manticore in my hundreds of hours of use now on both. No I can't tell the difference between a clad dime and a copper penny every time. I can call nickels most of the time on either machine, the tab separated from the ring does get me sometimes. Honestly I don't hunt parks all that much. But when parks were the only places I could get this winter I did quite a bit of park hunting with both the 900 and Manticore. Double and tipple beeping on surface coins yea, in the ground an inch or more no I'm not. The difference may be that I'm running all tones exclusively on both machines, recovery at 3 or 4 no matter the site and I've never hunted above 23 sensitivity on either machine. I've found especially on the Manticore that high sensitivity levels are counter productive and yes you will get erratic ID's when the sensitivity is run to high. I will say I prefer the 900 in iron trashy sites and for gold hunting, I prefer the Manticore over the 900 at parks and beach sites. I've been debating about get rid of one or the other and for now I'm keeping both. Once a small coil comes out for the Manticore the 900 may go.

I am now a proud owner of a Nokta Legend 😄

The stock 11" is a junk coil. I've seen 2 cut open now and the shielding is poor (40-65 ohms per inch and an entire width measurement of only 50 ohms on one in particular). The bunch windings had bulges in them both, some almost a cm wide. This explains the noise and the altered sensitivity in sectional areas of the the coil. A chip on one had a re-soldered joint where the pcb etching was destroyed. Amazed it still worked TBH..... If the first 2 are anything to go by, it seems likely that the stock coils were made by the lowest bidder in Malaysia. Both of these 2 coils would have been rejected by any QC team in Australia, Japan, USA or EU. Thankfully we have the Coiltek and NF coils now.....I haven't used either of the ML coils since owning a 12x7 and a 10x5. Just need a smaller DD coil and the NF 16x10 to complete the arsenal.

Silver coins often pop out of the ground looking like they were lost last week. And clad coins often look like they were lost 200 years ago. Just a soil and type of metal thing.

June 1 2002 When we got up to the dig site Vern hiked up the mountain to start the pump. When he got it fired up we noticed the water flow was weak so Vern & I followed the water line back up the mountain. It looked to have been cut in several places. We wondered if we had been sabotaged. We didn’t have the parts to make the splices so Jim went into town and got what was needed plus a few extras just in case. By the time we were done it was nearly noon. Jacob shook his head and told us this was a bad sign. He reminded us that bad things can happen when gold is involved. We shook it off and got to work. Everything went pretty smooth for the rest of the day and we put a big cut into that mountain. By 7:00 PM we had processed 40 yards of gravel and cleaned out the tom. We decided that Jacob would begin doing the cleanups every day while the three other members of the crew would do the mining. Seeing as we were now processing more gravel the cleanups would likely to take longer. So we figured that when Jacob finished the cleanup he would head up to advise us on the mining operation. He was more than happy to do it. We told him that if this became too much for him or he got bored we could switch off from time to time. Jacob laughed and said he never got bored when working for gold. I couldn’t help but agree. TO BE CONTINUED ...............

Instead of this being a one-time issue, like I said in the write-up, I have seen this behavior since hour number one of coin and jewelry hunting use in at least 20 different area parks that are in 4 different cities with 4 different staffs and ground maintenance strategies. This was not an isolated occurrence. Also, there were no EMI issues at this park today. If there had been the display would have been going nuts with lots of target IDs showing up when I was not moving the coil. I would not have been able to run this Equinox 900 at 25 sensitivity if there was an EMI problem.

I had a few people think my silver finds were fake, sometimes my coins come out of the ground looking like they were never in it. Especially silver coins. It must just be my soil type. Here is a quick example, I just pulled up the first photo of a days hunt to find a coin that looked like it was never really lost. Look at the 1940 threepence second from left, looks near new. The others look pretty good too, all I do is wash the dirt off under the tap with a bit of water. I always clean my coins before putting the photos up so they can be seen better, no point putting up a dirty coin photo. I was even accused of this photo being fake having coins I didn't find on it, I found every last one of them and have photos of each ones dig hole 🙂 So while I agree it's sad some feel the need to put up fake photos of finds, and the dodgy Youtube channels and so on that are doing it for some sort of hits financial gain are terribly wrong sometimes people get false accusations too which can be a bit frustrating. It's when you put up photos like this some start to understand it's probably not fake. This was all from one small field, and it's had all the spendable cash removed before the photo being taken, so another hundred or so coins taken away and spent 😛 Successful nugget finds sometimes get accused of being fake too, perhaps because they may seem too good to be true. Sometimes it's jealously I guess. But it goes both ways, yes people fake finds, but people also find stuff and get accused of it being fake when it's not.

Situation normal. One large prospecting Youtube channel that for reasons beyond me many people find to be reputable (and I see still occasionally posted here too) both fakes finds as well as charges people for gold tours to places I am well acquainted with and know are being salted. Like 1st time detectorists using 20 year old coin machines, 6 inches off the ground, and finding 1/4 and 1/2 ouncers buried 1 inch deep in places gridded by hard core, full time gold detectorists for 40 years - that level of ridiculousness. The fact it's being done where I literally recognized the exact washes, bushes, trees, etc was just the icing on the cake. Yet when I tried to point this out to the very people I thought were being victimized, I was told I was the liar and demonized. Not one "thank you for letting me know I'm being ripped off". Learned a lesson quick there. People generally want to believe every color of BS. And if you are the one ruining their dream, you are the a-hole, not the snake oil salesman. This, among other thievery, lying, and cheating were a big reason I decided to stop making videos myself, and remove myself from social media for the most part, aside from this forum, it's all toxic these days IMO, and not representing actual reality. I prefer to live in reality myself.

I remember someone asking me early on if I was able to differentiate a copper cent from dime with the M-Core and my answer was I did not think so they read bout the same usually in the high 70's to low 80's most of the time where I hunt. Zinc pennies will be in the 60's if they are good condition..I can see your frustration with such a large spread between copper cents and clad dimes. The only thing I don't like about my M-Core is.... I ONLY HAVE ONE COIL FOR IT MINELAB! strick

I'm going to hone in on this as it might lead to something meaningful. (I don't have a 900 and it's way too early for me to comment on the Manticore's performance.) Here are my counts on clad dimes and 95% copper Memorial cents for the five years that I used the Equinox 800 (w/11" stock coil) almost exclusively. These are in chronological order 2018-->2022 clad dimes: 213, 196, 151, 265, 112 -- total of 937 copper Memorials: 326, 314, 300, 355, 161 -- total of 1456 That occurred from 1194 hours of detecting mostly parks and schools. To this day I cannot distinguish a clad dime from a copper Memorial, not from the audio and not even from the VDI (digital target ID values). Both hit around 25-26 with of course a few 24's, etc. Have I ever gotten an ID in the high 20's? Rarely on a deep Memorial and then it's not consistently up there but jumpy 24-29 or so. My depths for these go down to about 8" although the vast majority are 6" and less (mostly less). Could I tell them apart? I would do just as well by flipping a coin (pun intended). (OK, a coin biased 60::40 because that seems to be the natural ratio of Memorials to clad dimes as shown in the above totals.) So what's going on? There are many possible explanations but IMO the most likely 3 are: 1) Our specific Eqx 800 units perform differently, 2) Our settings are different, leading to the discrepancy, 3) Our ground mineralization is so different that it results in this discrepancy. #1 is by far the least likely, IMO, partly because others have said something similar to what I said (see UT Dave's post above for example) and you, Jeff, have (I'm pretty sure) used multiple Equinox 800's. #2 doesn't seem out-of-the-question but enough people have tried widely different settings and it seems someone (more likely many someones) would have pointed this out if they noticed that settings A gave significantly different VDI's than settings B for the same target. #3, well, hasn't this been the bee in the bonnet for years if not decades for many reported differences in detector performance? I'm seeing a pattern here. Could your Eqx 900 VDI wildness be due to your difficult ground -- something many (especially beach detectorists) and even Minelab don't notice (or maybe swept under the rug in the latter case)?

I try to be careful about calling BS on people's finds unless I know for absolute certain its faked. Reason being, I found some pretty unbelievable coins myself back in 2012, and if someone else had posted them I'd probably question it too. I've also dug some silver coins that came out of the ground looking like they were minted yesterday. Just depends on the soil I guess.

Not too different, with high conductors, so far, for me, with the Manticore. But, maybe not quite as bad as you are seeing in your dirt Mr. McClendon. I'm only about 50/50 calling copper Memorials from clad dimes and 75/25 calling clad quarters from pennies or dimes so far with the Manticore (but I think I'm improving). But, I'm digging all those anyway. So, it hasn't bothered me much. Low conductors though, different story for me with the Manticore vs. what you are seeing with your 900. For me, my parks and beach, the Manticore calls nickels quite noticeably easier than I do with the Nox 800. And I think the 800 calls them pretty well. They only occasionally smear across three digits, but usually only two and often only one. The actual digits vary slightly by dirt and EMI. But the high end of the worst case three digit smear is below where almost all the square tabs I've dug bounce into. Lead bullets, same thing, pretty tight, solid VDIs. Lead .22LR slugs are common on the beach I go to and they are usually only covering two or three digits even at 8" deep in heavy salt. The only gold ring I've found so far with the Manticore was as solid a VDI as I have got with the machine, a non quavering 25 from two directions. And, for that matter, square tabs hold a pretty solid VDI, just higher than nickels 😁. Mid conductors don't seem too bad either, in between low and high as far as VDI stability goes. Jacketed pistol bullets are a common target in the 40's and they are usually pretty tight on the VDI. But copper pennies and up, I can't call as accurately yet with the Manticore as I can with the Nox 800. Worth mentioning, I never did get super accurate calling copper pennies from clad dimes with the 800 either, but a bit better than I'm doing so far with the Manticore. But same as you are seeing, anything between 70 and 90 is kind of a crap shoot as to copper penny, clad dime, clad quarter or silver coin or .925. I do feel like the high conductors, sloppy VDI's notwithstanding, "jump out" of aluminum trash stronger with the Manticore too though. Not that it really locks on hard to a high conductor comingled with square tabs, but it's easy to repeat the signal and narrow it down - the speed of the machine showing itself I suppose. End result being, with only about 25 hours of park hunting with the Manticore, I do feel that if I'm wanting to cherry pick, the trash ratio is certainly no worse, and probably slightly better than I do with the 800. I'm just less sure of what the non-trash will be before I dig it. None of which contradicts what you are seeing with the 900 on high conductors! And I'm definitely not trying to tell you how to run your machine. Just trying to share how I'm adapting to similar behavior with the Manticore. And, - Dave

First, I can’t use single frequency here where I detect whether it’s on the 900, 800, Legend or Deus 2. That just makes the target ID instability much worse. I have to have accurate target IDs and tones or the detector is worthless to me. Absolutely impossible to dig it all where I detect most often for coins and jewerly. Setting upper tone breaks where you suggest will not change the fact that clad dimes and copper pennies are reading from 68 to 98 on the 900 depending on what direction the coil approaches them and if they are 3” or deeper. Equinox 800 on those same targets at that depth- clad dimes are a consistent 24 to 26 and copper pennies are 26 to 30 at worse using Park 1 Multi no matter where I set tone breaks or recovery speed. I don’t want the Equinox 900 to detect the same as an 800. I want it to be BETTER than the 800 when it comes to actual detecting.

Very good write up Jeff, I have thought about selling my 800 for a 900 but have been reluctant to do so. I know they go deep and separate well, but so does the 800. Being a cherry picker those jumpy ID's would be useless to me in our manicured parks.

I'd just go the 800 myself in your case Jason, pick up a cheap one from someone "upgrading" to the 900 😛 You don't go diving, you look for gold and if you want ID accuracy for cherry picking the 800 is great. I'm not at all surprised about your report Jeff, I've been saying the same about the Manticore ID's since I got one, a big disappointment there, especially seeing they advertise it as having better ID's, that's a blatant lie if you ask me. I like everything about the Manticore, in fact love it, the ID's are it's let down, of course with messy ID's comes messy tones. It's certainly a step backwards when it comes to ID's and for that reason alone I will still keep using my 800 for situations I need that accuracy. The CTX is well and truly still king for ID.

I remember showing a big handful of jewelry I found in Hawaii detecting at a show, and a gal approached me and said "yeah, but you really did not find it." I actually was so caught off guard I was flabbergasted. It simply never occurred to me in my life to fake a find. I actually don't care about the stuff I find - it's the fact I found it that means everything to me. Back when I collected rocks people wanted to give me rocks for my collection, and I had zero interest. A rock somebody else found or bought meant nothing to me. I told that gal that no, I found that stuff, but she clearly did not think it was possible to find jewelry like that. Wasn't really calling me a liar per se. More like I was a person that claimed I saw little green men and believed it, when she knew they did not exist. I will say I am extremely cautious on ever calling anyone out - in fact I don't do it. Not my job in life to be the finds police. With the amount of lies and BS that occur on social media faking a coin find has got to rank pretty low on the scale.

Nice finds there dogo, especially the fox hunt button. It immediately reminded me of this two piece button found at my favourite relic site in my home town here in South Oz. Also late 1700’s. I am yet to ID the maker as the backmarks are very faint.

In general I just feel sorry for people like that. How sad their lives must be, their craving for attention, that they feel a need to try and impress people with fake finds. The ones that do it to make money… that’s just fraud, and they are thieves. Prosecute them. The ones that are just doing it for attention though, well, I hope they can find some other way to fill that empty hole in their lives. Even the thieves - not for one second would I want to trade my life for theirs. Broken people.

Seeing as it has been a while since I have had a chance to post entries from the 1950 mining journal of Jack Murphy I am going to put it all up on the site from the beginning & it will include the latest entry at the end. It isn't all that long & that way the followers of this part of the mining operation will have a chance to re-read the past entries & refresh their memories. My apologies for getting so far behind on this part of the story but I have had to do some traveling involving various projects including the story of my grandfather's tale of the lost gold shipment. Cheers. LOST GOLD AT THE DEAD MAN’S MINE THE 1950’s ERA This log is based on mining crew records and stories about the gold claims known as The Dead Man’s Mine during a period of exploration and mining from 1950 to 1959. The work was not continuous and some of the crew members changed over the years. At the request of remaining relatives of the old crew members, names have been changed.This record of mining activities comes from claim owner Jack Murphy and two people who leased the claim from him during this period and also includes additional information based on several old reports and stories given to me by local historians. April 25 1950 Attempting to re-open an old mine shaft on the north claim. It is flooded out and there are some safety concerns. Historical data indicates rich gold deposits partially mined in 1936 but more deposits remaining at sloped bedrock to dropped zone bedrock from main shaft depth of 56 ft. Depth of deposit not yet known but according to geologist may be 20 - 50 ft lower than shaft bottom. Crew is assembling today and tomorrow with camp being set up on site. I was told that several of the 1936 and 1937 crew members were killed over gold here. This was confirmed to me by state geologist who had input in the previous work. April 26 1950 The last of the crew arrived today with the diesel pump which was taken up to the shaft via the old mining road. We have pumped out the mainshaft. We are digging a sump area 12 feet below the old level to manage water issues if required. We needed to blast the bedrock to get below the 56 ft level. The actual shaft is 36 ft in depth with a horseshoe drift dropping the level to 56 ft and ending nearly beside but 20 ft lower than the mainshaft where an area of raised bedrock exists. This is the area of the 1936 strike and is nearly against the western side of the fault. According to the state geologist maps bedrock should drop away to the north and south of the mainshaft bottom at some point. The mainshaft itself is sitting just 20 ft west of the fault. It is our intention to drift along the raised bedrock in a northward heading staying close to the fault. There may be gold on the unexplored raised bedrock area but it is our understanding that large deposits may exist in the lower unraised levels where the main deposit was not disturbed. A significant discovery may occur anywhere along the raised areas but more likely at dropped depths going down from 56 ft to 110 ft. April 27 1950 We were delayed today dealing with some water in the lower drift near the 56 ft level. We got our pump in place and have sent the water up and out. The mainshaft will need some additional timbering in certain areas before it's safe for the crew. The drift also needs work. I figure at least a week or 10 days before it is done. We are taking timber from the nearby trees and sawing them to width and length. I think the ground water will dry up some later in the season. For now we are working in heavy ground. April 28 1950 Some of the crew's families visited the project this morning. We have now fenced off the entire area for safety. Mucking and light bracing has begun in the drift. This will be a lengthy process. While mucking operations are advancing I am panning the material being removed and seeing some signs of gold deposits. This is good news and has buoyed the spirits of all involved. We are employing a mechanical winch to remove material from the drift. Funds are tight and we are hopeful of our first gold in the next 10 days. Everyone is hard at work with their designated jobs and expecting good results. April 29 1950 Late yesterday we experienced a near tragedy when a small portion of the drift collapsed near the opening at the bottom of the mainshaft. This is the 36 ft level and is unstable. There were two crew members further down the drift to the north. The ground is heavy and there was a fracture of the tunnel ceiling just past the entrance. All hands were busy shoveling out the caved material from the shaft side and the two crew members dug away from the north side. We were able to get it open fairly quickly and there were no injuries. This just serves to register the potential danger here with all the crew. We are presently working at taking a second look at the walls and ceiling of the drift and may need to use more timber in any suspect areas. The progress is slow. We are also pushing fresh air into the drift.The last thing I want to do is make a trip to a crew member’s home to deliver tragic news. May 2 1950 Slow progress continues on the drift. We’ve had to use the pump several times but incoming water has begun to slow some. We are pumping the water into a holding pond formed by a low lying area. We will use this water to wash gravel once we begin to mine. The mucking and tunnel bracing is nearly half completed. Traces of gold are showing in the extracted material so we are confident of finding a deposit somewhere further past the end of the old workings. May 8 1950 We have completed the rehab of the mainshaft and drift. We are opening a new tunnel extending northward along bedrock near the fault. A drifting drill is employed where the rock is heavy and solid. We are calling this Drift #2. I expect to make some good advances into the gravels in this area. I also expect the bedrock to drop away at some point according to the geology reports. If this happens we will need to excavate a shaft down to find true bedrock and an expected jackpot. May 9 1950 The drift is now well underway to the northerly direction. We are keeping a uniform tunnel being 6 ft in width and 6 ft in height. To date Drift 2 is well timbered and stable. We have made 5 ft of headway. There has been nearly 11 tonnes of material removed with nearly a quarter of it being heavy stone 6 to 10 inches in size. Gravels were washed and some light gold was extracted although it failed to pay for the work done to remove it. We are working the bedrock up to 6 ft above of gravel and rock in search of the heavy coarse gold we believe is in this channel. The old workings were completely mucked and washed providing nearly one ounce of gold. That was the remnants of the big strike of 1936. The Stevens brothers crew did not miss much and left us little. May 10 1950 We advanced another 4 ft north and are against very heavy ground. The work is slow and requires timber support. Not much in gold values to speak of at this point. I have talked with the geologist and he tells me we are on the correct course of action here. The gold may be dispersed in widely scattered deposits from what I understand. Drifting and crosscutting the channel is costing about $29 /ft and the long hole drilling another $1.05/ft. When I am able to show some good values there will be participation by several small investors in the project. The investment has to be justified. We are now using air lines of 3 inch in size as well as vent lines of 10 inch in size. May 15 1950 Seeing as we are still not sure of any definite investors coming into the project I have applied to borrow the sum of $10,000 from the Sacramento Deposit Bank. Previous exploration now seems to conclude that the body of the blue Neocene gravels being sought runs along the fault and is contained in this location. At great cost, I have brought in equipment to conduct some churn drill exploration in the northerly ground. I was able to secure a second mortgage on my house for immediate funds which are needed. I am very confident of the success of the drill reports. We continue drifting along the 56 ft area and have made slow progress. May 19 1950 The churn drill holes. The first hole was drilled 50 ft north of the portal. Blue gravel was struck at 68 ft and remained in blue gravel until reaching bedrock at 110 ft. A second drill hole was placed 50 ft north of #1 hole. This hole also struck the blue gravel at 75 ft but was stopped out at 85 ft due to large boulders. A third hole was drilled 50 ft west of the portal and reached a depth of 100 ft before being stopped out before reaching bedrock. There was no blue gravel encountered in hole #3. This seems to indicate the deposit is located in close proximity to the fault on its westerly side. Due to the expense and failing to reach bedrock in the 2nd and 3rd attempts I have decided to cease drilling in order to retain as much capital as possible. We will evaluate the churn drill values on site. Cost per foot of drifting $36 Miner’s daily wage 19 Hoistman’s daily wage 15 Geologist 95 May 21 1950 From the geologist – For 800 ft in the area along the west fault from the original portal and going in a northerly direction in the channel show good potential for significant pay streaks. Gold values per cubic yard from drill samples #3851 9.3 cents #3852 1.12 #3853 22.2 cents #3854 93.4 cents #3855 4.6 cents May 22 1950 We have advanced the drift on the northerly direction 42 ft. Careful examination of gravels found on or near bedrock (within 6 ft) of the bedrock contact reveal no values whatsoever. This is the first time such occurrence has been noted. The possibility of entering an area some 150 ft farther along the present course from the surface is being considered as it appears that bedrock may lie nearer the surface than originally suspected. On the subject of the loan application, I have heard back from the bank and they advise I am unable to secure the funds requested without putting up sufficient collateral. I am looking into this as well as contacting several potential investors who previously had shown interest in the project. If sufficient funds are not procured I may need to terminate the project soon. May 23 1950 To date we have processed 150 yards. The gold value is $102. Drifting continues along the bottom of the gravel channel. One raise has been driven upward 20 ft into the gravel in search of better sorted strata that might carry higher gold values. Most of the gravel thus far is poorly sorted and contains abundant clay and decomposed volcanic rocks. The gold content is extremely fine grained and ranges from a trace to as much as $10 but is averaging less than $1 per yard. May 25 1950 I am switching the current operation from drifting of bedrock to raising in the channel gravels. I have found that the fine, silty material immediately overlying the bedrock is nearly barron in gold but the cleaner quartz gravels higher in the channel carry much higher gold values. I have decided to put up four raises to test these gravels. The raises will be 4’ by 4’ and 20 ft long at an angle of 45 degrees to vertical and timbered solid. Because of the timbering the estimated cost will exceed the previous expense budget. However, I remain confident of good values to be found. I am also awaiting the decisions to invest in the project by several interested parties. May 29 1950 The mine has been shut down for several days.The entire crew including myself has become sick with some kind of influenza. Only the watchman, who is tending to the mine pumps, has been out working on the property. The rest remain in camp and in rough shape. I have been too ill to attempt any work for more than a few minutes. The estimated cost of raising is $990 and may be our last attempt to mine depending on results. June 6 1950 Most of the crew has gotten back to work. The first raise shows consistent values in the gravels above bedrock. The raise holds promise and there is renewed investor interest in the project although there has been no formal commitment. We are proceeding with steady work. June 13 1950 Having completed just two of the raises above bedrock we have secured the confidence of one interested party who has now agreed to fund a continuation of our northward drift along the 56 ft level. Drifting in the old channel just 12 ft north of our previous stoppage we have hit an area of what I believe will prove out as sizable tonnage. Several samples have indicated a gold content of $8.50/cubic yard. The gold there consists mainly of colors retained on a 20 mesh screen. We will push on and we now believe in the possibility of a massive deposit that may lie deeper as dropped bedrock is encountered. The mood of the crew is high. June 15 1950 We continue to advance the drift northward and making another 8 ft of headway in the last two days. Gold values have been spotty but still averaging rich assays. We have not seen any sign of sloping or dropped bedrock to date. I still remain very confident that the big strike awaits. For now, I have abandoned the plan for two additional raises into the quartz zone as it would take needed funds from the main plan. Heavy timbering has been needed in this area which has added some expense to the projected cost. There is little to do at this point other than continue north along the 56 ft level collecting gold as we go. June 17 1950 We suffered a partial collapse of the drift yesterday and are re timbering one section. There was no danger to the crew. The assays have faded once again to poor. I still have the option to do two more raises into the quartz zone if needed. The investor we have is leaving this decision up to me but is in this venture for the same reason we are, which is a sizable strike. That, I believe, will only occur on a drop zone of the bedrock which remains elusive. June 20 1950 Particularly interesting in the area of consideration is a capping of rhyolitic boulders and debris resting conformably on bedrock and overlain by the gravels containing values. This capping, as opposed to andesitic flows common to the area, indicates that gravel deposition in the channel flows common to the area, indicates that gravel deposition in the channel occurred in Eocene geology, measurably increasing the property’s potential. With due regard to sound mining practice and possible bedrock contour fluctuations, we are presently making every reasonable effort to bring our working level into accord with gravel elevations and to begin complete analytical washing operations. June 22 1950 We have made another 25 ft of headway in the drift. At the gravel-bedrock contact it appears that the drift is indeed cutting a Tertiary blue channel. A somewhat muddy condition in the channel, together with the existence of a sand bar in the drift back indicate that we are presently cutting benches near the inside curve of the old channel. There were 30 yards of material washed with a recovery of only ⅛ ounce of gold. Values contained in the gravels occur evenly distributed with no unusual concentrations on or about bedrock, clearly indicating that the bench gravels at our current position were not in the main flow or trough of the channel where more abundant water would have concentrated the values near bedrock. Bedrock conditions appear very favorable, with the constant variance in elevation of five to six feet over very short distances, with many pockets, crevices, etc. June 25 1950 As we are drifting northward we are now seeing bedrock beginning to rise above the 56 ft level and are now at 48 ft. This is a bit of a surprise to me and I have not talked with our geologist as of the time of this entry. The gold values have remained low. I have been expecting the opposite to occur with a sudden deep drop in bedrock leading to rich values. We will continue to drift and are now in all or nothing mode. I have not discussed this new occurrence with the investor but will be meeting with him tomorrow. June 28 1950 After meeting with our investor we have been advised that he will terminate all funding of the project on July 1 unless we have proven ground that will pay for the work being done as well as show a profit. We have advanced the drift and the bedrock has continued to rise to the 44 ft level and we are only seeing trace amounts of gold. We will push on for a few more days and if we fail to hit a streak I may attempt to fund another week from my own funds. Our geologist still believes a payday awaits us if we are able to continue. Spirits in camp are low but no one is ready to quit. July 2 1950 I was unable to talk the investor into continuing to fund the project. There is still some hope that we may find the drop in bedrock and I am using the last of my personal money to continue work. The bedrock has now begun to slope downward once again and we are all hopeful this is what we have been working so hard for. I have also been able to secure a loan from the bank equal to 50% of my truck’s value. This combined with the last of my personal funds may keep us afloat for several more weeks which I feel is more than enough time to achieve success. The geologist has gone missing on the project and I have been unable to contact him for further advice. July 3 1950 We continue to follow the bedrock on a gentle downward slope and are washing poorly paying gravel. I have still had no luck in making further contact with the geologist and now assume he has abandoned the project. In camp tonight the mood of the crew was low but no one has left. It appears the men are as stubborn as I am and will work until we find our jackpot or run out of money. July 6 1950 The gravel continues to lack value. The sloping bedrock has flattened out and what gravel layer exists is thin and barren of gold. I have finally made contact with the geologist and he will be at the mine tomorrow to give his evaluation of the project. July 8 1950 After consulting with the geologist yesterday I am still convinced we will find a glory hole in the bedrock somewhere to the north of our current drifting. I have enough funds to continue mining and exploring for another week. The gravel is still not paying for the work but the slope is declining gently to the northwest away from the fault. July 12 1950 From the geologist now on site : An inspection was made on the mine July 11 accompanied by project leader Jack Murphy. At the time of the inspection the operator and miners were in the process of transporting a mucking machine through the channel. The operator was advised on the timbering required. The drift has now broken into blue gravel which is supposed to be a favorable condition for gold values. I instructed Mr Murphy on the procedure of keeping records on the number of ore cars and the amount of gold recovered. I am requesting that this information be recorded in the operator's monthly report. The crew now consists of a hoist man, two miners, and the supervisor Mr Murphy. I intend to stay on the project site for the next few days or possibly weeks until a determination can be made of the feasibility of continuance of this project.

I've been an early user of both the 800 and 900. I have 1000's of hours on the 800, and several hundred now on the 900 in parks, desert, and ocean, including underwater. To me the 900 is everything I expected it to be and what the 800 should have been from the beginning. Getting used to the expanded target range took a bit of getting used to, but, I like it. Sure instead of a nickel being 12 or 13, it's now a 24-28. Tabs on my machine are usually higher in the low 30's. The ones that aren't, are usually bent, broken, corroded, or partials. The 800 had the same issues with those. You get into black sand at the beach and the target numbers get thrown out the window. Target I.D.'s will be all over the place, as it was with the 800. I believe the sensitivity range is actually expanded, not just more divisions of the same pie. 22 on the 900 seems to be about the same as 20 on the 800 for instance. I can also run the sensitivity a bit higher and still keep it stable with the 900 over the 800, which gives me a bit more depth. I could never determine a copper cent from a clad dime with the 800 with any certainty, and still can't with the 900 although my guess percentage has improved a bit. Not a biggie for me as I will recover both regardless. I usually run Park 1 on land and dry sand, Beach 2 in the ocean and wet sand, Field 2 for tiny gold jewelry, full tones, horseshoe on to hear the iron, threshold tone, recovery speed at 3 or 4 most places (higher around picnic tables and fire rings), iron bias at 0 unless bottle caps are an issue (then FE @ 4 does the job) and sensitivity adjusted as needed to keep it stable....actually a tiny bit chatty as I don't mind that under most situations. As always, you mileage may differ due to your specific site conditions and personal preferences.

For me, the most important thing I experienced in my post which is also why I listed it first was: - 4"+ deep flat laying clad dimes and copper pennies were triple beeping during left/right DD coil passes as if they were on the surface. That type of audio information has been happening since day 1 of Equinox 900 use on those smaller coins. It is also happening on other coins and targets at that depth. I expect some whacky audio and IDs for coins on edge. Wild target coins laying flat that are roughly 4" deep or more usually (on the Equinox 800, Legend and Deus 2) just give one response on a left swing pass and one response on a right swing pass which is a good indication of a target that is not on the surface. A lot is being made about not being able to tell the difference between a US clad dime and a US 95% copper penny. Personally I am going to dig both for many reasons at this point in my life. When I get even less capable of recovering targets due to age that might change. I will definitely skimp and pass over some US zinc pennies. I never skip over potential silver jewelry/silver US coin targets by not recovering US clad dimes and 95% copper pennies. The point about US clad dimes and 95% copper pennies is that I am seeing an up to 30 target ID spread on these coins as I interrogate the target and circle them along with many instances of triple beep responses. These are not super deep targets but they aren't shallow either. I didn't just see that once. I saw that 30 target ID spread 24 times yesterday. I saw exactly the same thing on my 3 hour hunt the day before at a completely different park with completely different soil type. I switched to Full Tones and saw the exact same thing. I have seen this over and over with the Equinox 900 on these coins from day one of use. Sometimes I can call a clad dime vs a 95% copper penny using the Equinox 800. Sometimes I can't. There is some target ID overlap. However, 95% copper pennies usually read a little higher on the Equinox 800 from my experience. I fill up a 12 ounce coffee can with 95% copper pennies about every 6 months. After I look through them for anomalies and key dates, I tumble them quickly and deposit them at my bank. I used to save them incase the US Government decided to allow selling them to smelters for scrap copper. That probably won't happen in my lifetime so recently they just go to the bank. All of the Equinox 600 and 800s I have owned (five or six...can't remember) detected virtually the same. The level of iron mineralization absolutely effects the level of target ID accuracy. Same with salt. The Equinox 600 and 800 with their 40 digit non-ferrous target ID range for the most part are a USA full spectrum cherry pickers dream detector except for the target traffic jam in the 11 to 15 target ID area. The Legend with its 50 non-ferrous target IDs (excellent stability by the way) is even better. Deus 2 with its 75 non ferrous target IDs is just a little less stable. I do see clad dimes and 95% copper pennies exchange places sometimes target ID wise, nickel target IDs can also change by one target ID number depending on ground balance and ground conditions. However, I have not seen any of those detectors have a six digit spread at the same time on US nickels or up to 30 different target IDs on clad dimes and copper pennies repeatedly when these coins are fairly shallow at 4" depth even in the crazy dirt around here.

I would be very interested Jeff in your observations regarding the same site and lower sensitivity settings vs your 25 sensitivity settings. At my locations low to medium mineralisation with high trash causes information overload, lower sensitivity quietens and stabilises my machine down when things get noisey. Pretty sure updates are on the way and stability will be improved. The 800 is still up there and a great machine put it in the 900 body with new shaft, include a back button for navigation in the menu system and improve its unmasking and separation abilities in line with the 900 and I would buy it at a drop of a hat. Provided it also came with a module. Don't care about the flash light or the vibration. There my rant over 🤪

I would like to say in the same time frame you're talking about your detectors I'll be talking about mine the same way, a couple of which I've paid almost 10 grand for, yet I honestly think they'll not even last much more than 10 years if that and one of them I'd be surprised if it lasts 5 years let alone a few decades or more. These White's machines are high quality troopers as evident by the age of them and the devoted users still swinging them. Electronics are becoming more and more disposable every year so I would say keep them if you enjoy them, you know them and love them and you'd struggle to get them back if you sold them. A new detector will have better features and be lighter and possibly find more. If you're struggling to find stuff then maybe a new detector may help, if you're doing fine and are happy I see no reason to change and start learning all over again. I can have a great time with any detector you throw into my hands, and that's what it's all about. Depending on where you are (soil type) and what you do with your detectors even perhaps just selling one and buying a modern entry level detector like a Vanquish, X-terra Pro or Simplex or even the crazy low priced relatively high end Legend might give you a boost into the new modern detectors without paying too much money.

I have confidence they will fix it, especially on the 900, it's just a blinged up 800 and includes extra Target ID's with the same software tweaked a bit, it's instability should only be jumping around an extra three or four numbers over what you'd expect with the 800 with it's larger ID range. Something more is going on by the sounds of it, the Manticore with less ID's should be even more stable than the 900 but it doesn't sound like it is. I'm sure all these detectors share a lot of the code and hardware with each other. If anyone recalls I was constantly commenting how stable the Nox 800 and Vanquish are in my soils, to the point I cherry picked almost constantly and was rarely wrong with my prediction of which coin it was going to be that popped up. I can't do that with the Manticore, I can't have that confidence. Some may say I need to learn the Manticore, I didn't need to learn the Nox or Vanquish, I turned them on and found coins with great success based off the target ID's alone. I don't need 100 hours to see that a coin in mild soils with no junk is not as easy to find accurately as it once was, I've done side by sides with the Nox 800 and Vanquish on targets against the Manticore, I know which works best at identification in my conditions, in saying that I've had a lot more than 100 hours now but I knew long before 100 hours, in 10 hours perhaps. I hope they can improve it, but I fear with detecting there seems to be a bit of give and take, they gave other improvements maybe at the detriment of Target ID's. The thing that bothers me the most about this is they were and are still marketing the Manticore as having improved Target ID's over the Nox 600/800... and that to me in my conditions which for most detectors are the easiest conditions around is simply not true. I would not trust accepting and rejecting targets with such unstable Id's. I could do it down to the notch on the Nox. If they can just fix this the Manticore is near perfection for me, it's the only gripe I have with it although a rather big one, if they fix it I'll be happy as can be. Everything else about it is fantastic, they just weren't capable of hitting a home run on this one and the original Equinox is the detector that was the real game changer. I believe the Manticore is very overpriced considering its shortfall. Please fix it Minelab, at least acknowledge it and say you're working on a firmware update to resolve it, give your customers some indication that you care. At the moment those singing loudly with disappointment are damaging your sales far more than saying we didn't quite get it right and we are working on a firmware update to fix it.

My D1 11” coil battery is still performing after more than 10 years. When I want to go hunting I always take a look: if battery is half charged I go. If it’s less than half charged I recharge it. My WS4’s battery needs to be changed while the RC’s battery is still performing like the coil’s one..

I realize that many detector users do not have to worry too much about target ID accuracy or tone bin accuracy. Sometimes I don't have to worry about it either, like when I'm gold prospecting or at the beach. As long as I get a hit or can get a hit with enough information for a ferrous vs non-ferrous determination, I'm good to go. If you have that kind of freedom to dig just about everything that beeps, the Equinox 900 will be just fine. At least 75% of my hunts do not have that kind of freedom. Instead I am trying to pick my way through thousands of modern aluminum and steel alloy trash targets in public areas with high iron mineralization in order to find at least some modern USA coins, maybe some older USA coins and some silver and gold jewelry too. USA zinc pennies can be a challenge on any of these newer high gain SMF detectors like the Equinox models, Manticore, Legend and Deus 2. I fully expect some major weirdness on zinc Lincolns. I don't expect weird target ID related stuff on US modern nickels, modern clad dimes, 95% copper Lincoln Memorial pennies, modern clad quarters or older copper and silver USA coins and I also don't expect any weird stuff on most regularly occurring aluminum and steel trash. I don't get any from the Equinox 600/800, Legend and Deus 2. Their target ID responses and tones on those US coin targets and common occurring trash are consistent and very predictable even in close quarters with aluminum trash if those coin targets are well within the depth of detection. That is simply not the case with my Equinox 900 which is really too bad. I did not buy it as a specialty detector to only be used for certain types of dig it all hunting. I bought it to replace my Equinox 800 and to do most of the heavy lifting between it, my Deus 2 with 9" coil and my Legend. A few months ago I posted a comparison that included a question that went something like "Between the Equinox 800/900, Deus 2 and Legend, which one has to go and which ones get to stay?" At the time I thought for sure the one to go would be Deus 2. That has totally flipped. Deus 2 isn't going anywhere and neither is my Legend. I already sold one of my 800s to buy the 900. My remaining 800 isn't going anywhere either after experiencing this 100 hour test with the 900. Unless the 900 gets a well needed target ID stability software update soon.......it's going bye, bye.

Provided there is minimal salt content in the ground, the 17x13" will be more successful running Normal than the 12" coil. But in difficult ground, I am finding General/Difficult to still offer excellent depth and retain a lot of sensitivity. If I get a very iffy signal, I switch to HY to check.

All good, we have the X-rays now from Strick and his mighty X-ray machine, turns out NF, Coiltek and Minelab have done all the same windings, this is the 12x7" NF 🙂 I had forgotten you told me, sorry, I'm getting old.

Yes, there are people who don't like mining as we will see.

Jeff, I had the same feelings about the 900 as you in the beginning. I could not for the life of me, to break pennies out of the clad /silver dime range. After a week of fooling with different breaks I ended up with this. T1 - 0, T2 - 58, T3 - 77, T4 - 92. This allowed the penny tones to stay below the good stuff (silver). The T3 setting is the most important number for me. My soil is iron rich shale/clay so I'm used to bouncy ID's. The key for me is tone, I only use ID's as a reference as they are not generally accurate. For some reason tones just do not lie on the Equinox machines. Try the T3 77 break and see if your machine improves. And check your clad dimes and pennies in Park 1, Not in full tones, It can make a difference. I will say the 800 is way more stable but the 900 works really well once you get past some of the strange setting adjustments. In my experience the 900 just does not work well with 5 recovery speed, for me it likes 3. Also it seems to respond to single frequency much better. Once I got the, it's an 800 out of my head is when I started to set up the 900 differently. Don't give up yet, You will get it ironed out.

Phrunt, I also use the Atrex EMI screen before firing up my Equinox 600 or the Impact and indeed watch for a few min before deciding on frequency choice on those machines. Correct Dig. Lowest = 4.4kHz Highest = 18.4kHz

Even on the Manticore I have similar results. For a company that stressed how great the target ID was, it is not. Expanding the range made it worse. The E Trac had way better Target ID than any of the new models. I find the Manticore ups the target ID on copper cents when they are deep to 98 or 99. Way higher than they should be. I don't know if your 900 does that as well. I like the Manticore but it seems it is only good at certain sites. I want to say non EMI sites, but it has worked well on some of those too. Kind of hit or miss on if it's going to work or not. I bring it along but hardly ever pull it out to use. Getting a bit more than disappointed in Minelab recently. I hope they work out your problem Jeff.

I am winding through AZ, NM, NV, and the CA desert. My route isn't set yet and will be flexible as I go depending on weather and whatnot. I agree that hunting gold in areas where none has ever been found would be the best way to not find any. I don't work tailing piles or patches that are detector hot-spots even if there is good gold still there. That said, I do like to hunt "two canyons over" from proven ground. There, I expect to find 1. nothing or 2. a bit of gold that was overlooked or not worth the effort of OTs working the rich diggings two canyons over. I do use all the tools recommended in this thread. The reason I asked opinions about a places that match my criteria is that I thought "crowd sourcing" might be one more tool in the tool box. It was worth a shot. Unfortunately, a few people didn't understand that I'd never be interested in rooting around in their holes and thought I was asking to do just that. Hard to get to places with little gold is what I'm after. How would I know there's little gold there? Because gold was found, but not a lot, and so there's no beaten path leading there and little reason for others to hunt since what was little to begin with is less now. That said, even in such cases I still won't hunt the garbage heap that coughed up little gold, but rather, I like to cast about two or three canyons over. I don't dream of prospecting in ranges where no one has ever found gold, or where people have found millions of ounces. Motherload area CA, ranges where a trace of gold has never been found, Superstition Mountains, and in or around LSD or Rich Hill are perfect example of a places I'd never sweep.

I will be getting back to transcribing the 1950's operation soon. I didn't forget about it. The papers are spread out on my desk.

I'm with you on that Simon, I can think of about 20 that were stained badly or black. I have not posted certain coins that I have found for the reason that someone might think or challenge my find. I have found peace dollars that I did not post and recently a 1985 one ounce silver bullion coin. I think most people, Even here would start to think something is a bit wonky about finding the larger silvers. So you will never see any of my big silver coins being posted . I privately post to my three great friends that are forum members. That being said. I try to photo my coins at the site and leave them dirty, followed by a clean up at home. But sometimes they just come out of the ground really nice. I really like to believe that all the coin finds I have seen on DP since I joined are all legit finds.

Don’t overthink it. Charge before use and the regulator will do the rest. I don’t think it is a good idea to run the battery flat as recommended above, even though the regulator will keep it from going below the minimum safe voltage.

That’s just a personal call. If you’ve been detecting since the 70s then like me you are near the end of your journey, and the detectors you have may be all you ever need. There is no genuine reason to ditch them, as they are unlikely to fail. My DFX is not going anywhere. Or maybe like me you just want to try something new. But it does mean going from being expert with a detector to learning a new tool, and your knowledge and expertise with the old tools does actually matter. I’d not get a new model and expect the finds you are making to change a lot. You’ll just be making them with a different detector. So what is it? Stay with the tried and true, the one you are comfortable with? Or try a new toy? Your call, there is no right or wrong answer. Best of luck to you either way, and welcome to the forum!

I wasn't referring to videos or YouTube. I was more referring to the detecting groups and such on Facebook that people post pictures of "finds". This is exceedingly bad on pages like the Manticore Facebook pages, and similar machine specific groups where they are really trying to push a machine.

Added these to my growing museum collection. I have never used these machines before. I just like the old ones. I picked up 5 machines as a lot locally last year. Nothing special, but they are just cool because they still work. Only one of the crossfire coils worked. I found a used 10" Hothead coil online for a little over 30 bucks shipped. I will see how it works on these. Single tone machines, no pinpoint button, very simple. Check out the original price tag on the GTA350 lol

Very True! My "radar" will go off, but I would need to be sure before calling out somebody of faking a find. I just stay away from FB detecting pages and You Tube to lessen the problem!

If they keep the 800 alive and kicking after stock runs out they may build it into the 900 body and provide the new model 11" tougher ears coil with it, if they do that I'd seriously consider buying a new 800, especially if it remains cheaper than the 900.