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I managed to get in a short coin and relic hunt today with the Equinox 900. I was at a high altitude 1880s site in the Colorado Central Rockies. I really wasn't expecting much but I will definitely be returning to this site again. It was a site with a clearly marked stone foundation. The ground was loaded with both iron trash and extreme iron mineralization. The harmonica reeds and the 45-90 Winchester Repeating Arms WCF shell casing were near the surface and were easy pickings. The other targets were deep enough to have extremely jumpy target IDs. This was not the Equinox 900's fault. I blame it on extreme mineralization and tons of iron trash. The 1876 seated silver dime was barely giving a non-ferrous response 5" deep but it gave enough for me to go after it. The 1886 V nickel did not give a nickel ID until I had removed about 4 inches of dirt. I dug plenty of other 1880s trash. If you see something you recognize in this photo besides the things I mentioned, don't hesitate to chime in. I am not much of a relic person. I was using the Equinox 900 with 6" coil in Park 2 Multi, with -9 to 99 accepted, DP tones, sensitivity 20, iron bias 0, recovery speed 5.

Dear Valued Members, This is to inform you that based on demand, we will continue to produce the Gold Kruzers and shipping it to the distributors. Thank you & Happy Hunting! Dilek

June 4 2002 We had 2.7 ounces of gold out of the 60 yards we ran yesterday. I guess it’s ok but none of us are getting rich after a four way split. We had a quick meeting and discussed a way to process more yards per hour. It would require a large trommel or multiple toms. That would require more water and we’d have to deal with triple the tailings to move. The excavator was capable of digging all the pay we could dream of running in a day so I made a few calls to see what was available. Jim and I decided to go to Reno to look at a couple of trommels and Jacob and Vern stayed at camp. We ended up buying a real nice rebuilt 40 yard per hour trommel. At least that’s what it was rated at. I figured even with a worst case scenario of processing 200 yards a day that would triple our production and hopefully the gold weighs. We also bought two brand new pumps and an old skid steer. We will have everything up and running in two days. The equipment will be delivered to the mine tomorrow. Jacob said he is going to miss seeing the tom processing gravel but is very happy to hear about running three times the gravel. Tomorrow will be a busy day. TO BE CONTINUED .................

Hey all, Went detecting this past Saturday at a school that has seen many detectors and managed to pull a few silver coins. Strangely, all three of the coins last digits are a four. A 1934 Washington Quarter, 1944 Mercury Dime, and a 1954 Rosie. The Rosie was down about six inches and completely on edge. It still provided a great sound. How any one missed a Silver quarter is beyond me. I was cherry picking due to time constraints. Happy hunting, John

I just got a perfect closet queen MXT. Absolutely like new. On a whim, I decided to try it with my Bigfoot for DFX/MXT. air test only, coil lying on a table. MXT in relic mode with full boost....shock. ID on a dime at 7"+, nicely audible threshold break at 9"+. Whatwhatwhat??? OK, so I try the 14" elliptical DD. 2 to 3 inches less... So I power up my OK DFX in its deepest mode - prospecting...with the same Bigfoot. a bit less than the 14" ... I have searched the forums a bit for experience with the Bigfoot and the MXT. I have found no such results. Need to get in the dirt with it.

It's nice to see Garrett at their marketing finest, and they do appear to have a great following in Italy, this event seems to be a yearly thing and Garrett are right behind it every year, they've already got their 2024 date of April 28, 2024 locked in. Looks a whole lot of fun. I couldn't find the official Garrett video on Youtube, they only put it on Facebook it seems, so it's posted above. And this is the Detectorshop.it video of it, they're the importer of Garrett into Italy. I wish we had events like this in New Zealand, we are just too small of a market to get any attention. Heaps of prizes with all the detectors given away, they even gave away Axioms!!!!!!!

I stumbled across this video and thought what a cool idea, you could put on some workman type clothes and wander around the beaches even during high traffic times collecting all the recent drops and act as if you're just a worker cleaning the beach 😛 In some places this type of thing would be quite successful, and a bonus is you really are cleaning the beach, you'd have a lot of rubbish to dump at the end of your scooping session. I wonder where to buy these things, they even seem to make them with wheels, although I think I like the one in the video better than the one with wheels. https://www.cleansands.com/store/p40/SAND_CLEANING_TOOL_-_Production_Starting_Soon.html

I'm just out enjoying the great weather hunting with mine. No real complaints except I wish they had the small coil available.

I just never lose my sense of "aw" when I see tumbled pieces of petrified wood. I can't help but wonder what that tree looked like some hundred million years ago, what types of animals were in existence and of course was gold plentiful? Below is my latest batch I took out of my rock tumbler after tumbling for over 4 weeks. I loaded up another three tumblers tonight of various types of rocks. They should be ready next month.

This is an excerpt from the old Gold Fields TV show, now being posted on YouTube over six years later by the GPAA. Fun little gig. I have not seen Kevin in years, guess he has a new show chasing Aztec Gold. Geez, I look like a fresh faced youngster - gained a few pounds, wrinkles, and gray hairs since then! “GPAA's Kevin Hoagland meets up with detectorists Steve Herschbach and Chris Ralph at Rye Patch, Nevada searching for gold nuggets with their Minelab metal detectors.” Here is the full episode which actually features Chris Ralph a lot more than me:

I've really been surprised there has not been as much discussion about the Manticore as I thought there would be since it came out. That is much other than the ability to find one initially. I don't know how hard they are to get presently. Have they not sold that many I wonder? I'm doing what I consider great with mine. I'm far from a detector expert, but have detected long enough with Minelab detectors, and especially the Equinox to understand the Manticore decently well. I'm pretty sure it bridges the gap between say the CTX and Equinox. The Manticore's upgraded EMI mitigation as others have said really sets it apart. I have used AT-HC most of the time, and I personally think it's better than Park1 on the Equinox for silver. I have pulled silver from places I thought there was none left. Places that I had really worn out with the 800. Not like one silver, but several in one hunt. Five this past weekend from a park. The only reason I made the 45 minute drive was because weekend before last I had a 4 silver hunt from another site I was pretty sure I'd be wasting my time at. I ran the Equinox at both these places on the ragged edge settings wise. Park1, F2-0, Horseshoe on, Recovery 3-4, and Sensitivity as high as I could stay stable. I run the Manticore the same way basically AT-HC, lowered Ferrous-Limits, no discrimination/horseshoe on, Recovery 3-4, and only like 22-23 sensitivity. The crazy thing is mostly the silver I dug was not like really iffy. It was straight up I think I need to dig that for sure. A few were that's silver no doubt about it. One particular Merc I dug last Saturday was in horrible trash, but when I hit it I was stopped in my tracks. It was really tight not a lot of wiggle room. It was about 6"-7" inches deep, but I could circle it getting dime numbers a the way around despite there being trash pretty close by. I have also noticed I have no problem calling silver dimes and quarters for the most part. Silver just on average I.D.'s higher than clad in my dirt. I always thought silver rung up higher on the Equinox did too, but to me the Manticore seems to do it more often. It makes it a bit more easy to tell. For instance silver dimes seem to hit 83-84 for me. Silver quarters 90-92. Half dollars 94+. Anyway the more I use the Manticore the more impressed I am with it.

I know you're busy, XP, and we all love the MI-6 pinpointer (well many of us anyway), but it's never too early to think about features we'd like to see on the next gen pinpointer. Personally, I'd like to see a good ferrous/non-ferrous discrimination capability on the next pinpointer. We know you excel at that capability on the Deus and Deus II, so now maybe it's time to port that ability over to the next generation XP pinpointer. And while we're making a wish-list, how about adding the switchable vibration mode to the pinpointer as well while paired to the remote. These are just some thoughts that could take the MI-6 to the next level. You're welcome! 😏

60% chance of rain.....I got 100% of rain, hail, strong winds, lightning and thunder. I came prepared, brought a raincoat. I was out in the rain for a little over 3 hours. My boots were full of water from the raincoat runoff. Too funny! Half the trip was spent mossing and washing roots and half the trip was digging gravel. I did get some of that vitamin "G" too. Drop riffles sluices work great for mossing and washing roots. The roots just flow over the drop riffles and don't get caught like they used to on my inverted mesh.

After getting the 6000 I rarely use a VLF for gold anymore, unless it's really trashy and even then it's debatable as to whether it's even worth it. But I'm with Jeff. Using the 800, 900 or Manticore in default gold modes in Nevada or Arizona is an audio nightmare. ON the 800 I would usually drop my iron bias to zero, recovery to 4 and reject target ID's -9 thru -6 then it was doable. But even then a nugget smaller than a 10th of a gram practically has to be sitting on top of the ground to hear it. Even half grammers are hard to hear at a few inches.

New member here...I have just switched from the 600 to the 900 and am just starting to get used to the expanded vdi and the jumpy numbers. Ironically, the settings I have been using are identical to the settings Jeff mentioned with the exception of the sensitivity which the soil here in SW Pa. allows me to run a bit higher at 23. I really like the dp tones for relic hunting and use the vibration with it. The more I use the 900 the more I'm liking it!

The video maker made a point to test these detectors in their default prospecting modes and ruled out using the Equinox and Manticore with the horseshoe button ON and all target IDs accepted. Using the Equinox 800 in default Gold 1 means iron bias is on 6, recovery speed is also on 6 and ground balance tracking is ON. With the horseshoe button pressed, all targets accepted and iron bias on 6.........that is an unholy iron audio mess even here where I use the Equinox 800 for gold prospecting. Reducing iron bias to zero really helps here. So does slightly lowering recovery speed, turning tracking ground balance OFF and setting up Gold 1 or Gold 2 Multi with target ID -9 and +40 rejected. I can always hit the horseshoe button when I want to hear everything. If I just hunted with the default discrimination pattern that rejects the iron target IDs, every smaller sub gram non ferrous target would have broken up audio if they were deeper than 2 or 3 inches. I assume roughly the same is true for the Manticore. I hope people don't complain about the big coils. That is all that is available for the Manticore right now. GPX 6000 really does make these VLFs almost obsolete for most smaller gold prospecting. However, if you only have $800 to $1000 US or a bit less, the Equinox 800 and 900 are really good. They aren't 4 times worse than the $4400 US GPX 6000 at least in Jenko's testing.

I read an opinion article in NYTimes about challenges in higher education (college specifically) that I think has relevence here, at least to some. [Here's a link to the article, included mostly for ethical reasons, but also in case anyone wants to see the entire thing. Author's name is Jonathan Malesic and he's a college instructor (professor?).] Now I quote: (A) big obstacle to the willingness to learn is the urge to present yourself as always already informed. The philosopher Jonathan Lear calls this attitude knowingness. He regards it as a sickness that stands in the way of gaining genuine knowledge. It is “as though there is too much anxiety involved in simply asking a question and waiting for the world to answer,” he writes. (And Later:) Every semester during my years teaching (subject), students would tell me on the first day of class that they knew they would get an A, because they’d already had 12 years of (classes in that subject). But often enough, they’d get a C. Their assumptions about the subject matter kept them from learning the more critical approach to the subject I was trying to teach. Knowingness is a danger especially for talented students who have been rewarded for always having the right answer. First off, metal detecting isn't a college class. Some people use it as a temporary escape from whatever (job, family commitments, etc.) and for the most part I see nothing wrong with that. Others (myself included) need more. I enjoy the "thrill of the find" as well as the broader "thrill of the chase". But those don't come on every hunt and even on the best hunts only once or if real lucky, twice per hour. My brain wants other challenges and trying to figure out what's going on -- why those noises and VDI's? -- is also valuable for me in both the short term and long term. So the above excerpt is relevant to me and hopefully some of you. I'm the first to admit I get in a rut, often. As an example, yesterday I was able to get in my first hunt in since 2nd of December. I had three goals: 1) choose a site with a slope I could work since we've had a lot of precipitation recently and the ground is mostly saturated, 2) choose a site that might help decide if my upcoming Manticore purchase potentially leads to finds the Eqx 800 either couldn't get or (more likely) couldn't recognize as targets in my desirable range, 3) choose a site that had potential of still a few good finds, even though I've searched it recently. I also hoped it would have some ferrous trash because that always seems to be a contributor in making a site/detector difficult. Lastly, I wanted to detect an area which I previously hunted in one direction, now planning on hitting it from more/less 90 degrees different direction with the thought I might be able to find desirable targets I previously missed. I decided to try a bit outside-the-box on my settings. I stayed with Park 1, 5 tones (all VDI's accepted), gain = 22 but instead of my standard Recovery Speed (RS) = 4 I went with 5. (Oh, I'm such an adventurer! 😆) I also tried Iron Bias F2=6 (instead of my usual F2 = 0). In addition I made it a point to listen as carefully as possible to the audio signals, both in search mode but aslo in pinpoint mode. Well, did I stick to my plan? I lasted all of maybe 10 minutes in RS = 5 before reverting to my comfort level of 4. And I stayed with the non-zero Iron Bias level for even a shorter time! My rationalization was that for this site (not overly trashy) those settings work fine, as previous hunts had proven. But was I right? 🤷‍♂️ Or was I closing my mind? I did spend mental effort listening carefully to the sounds, and although I have much to learn there, felt I made some progress. I've seen an evolution in thought processes even in the short time (7+ years now) I've been on this site. I've read some books written a couple or more decades ago with advice, sometimes almost dogmatically stated, about how to set up detectors as well as how to approach a particular hunt. Many of those have been questioned if not completely refuted by some (I'll say as many as a dozen) posters here. That takes both an open mind but also courage. I hope to emulate that when I get my Manticore -- keep an open mind and don't be afraid of stepping outside my own box as well as the box of conventional wisdom. (BTW, in case you were wondering, I found a 6"-7" deep 1946 -- common date -- Wheatie that I had missed previously. Successful 3 hour hunt even not counting the new knowledge. 😁)

Any legislation like this looks kind of ridiculous if it doesn't at least propose getting rid of the one cent coin completely. Even with that, though, consider that according to the video even the USA 5 cent coin costs about $0.06 each over face value to produce. Assuming 1.5 billion minted per year that's around $90 million per year. "Save taxpayers money?" The USA federal budget is ~$1 trillion annually, so they are talking about saving 0.01% (a part in 10,000) of it to get the cost down to break-even on that coin's production. Sounds like window-dressing / vote generating legislation to me. And this doesn't even address the fact that 'paper' (plastic?, digital??) transactions are taking over the commerce of the world. Even USA metal detectorists would be thrilled if they'd stop producing Zincolns altogether. I'd rather find a beaver tail than a Zincoln -- I'm not exaggerating.

That key date 1886V is in fantastic condition. That definitely made the trip worthwhile. Not something you often see!

That was a good hunt for sure, I have hunting a lot more in Park 2, with my Nox 900, but I still prefer my Deus 1 as my primary unit.

Congrats on the coins. Iffy signals demand concentration and slow sweeps.

...I save that appointment. Open mind is the first option that should appear in the configuration menu of any detector! When I started in this there were no screens, no VDI... and small findings came out even so. There were no forums either and nobody taught you anything...Rare was the day in which he coincided with some other detectorist. But all that changed. Now we are "a few" on the same beach. Each one with a better team and always the same ones in the same places... Typical expression: There is nothing, no Gold... Get out of your comfort zone!!! Try new beaches, new programs, another settings. If you always do the same, you will get similar results. I detect on the beach, I do it at night and I do it alone (less diving)... It is the only way to continue learning. If you are changing equipment every six months, if you only want to copy the configuration that they just told you, you are finished. Next summer you won't be on the beach anymore. If the wind bothers you, and the water is very cold... then I will arrive and the jewelry will be mine. That's Silver has come out of the new X-Terra Pro in about 70 hours. There is no tourism yet, why do you go out in winter, some colleagues ask me... Open Mind.

mine is the original. I have no idea if there would be any difference between the various ones. I claim to be shocked and surprised. One big caveat. I haven't tried it in the dirt. One other thing, I live in a tightly built development, there are dozens of wifi routers around, they make most coils nuts with noise. The Bigfoot is deaf to all that, quiet as a mouse

I guess I’m one of the lucky ones. I keep my pointer on my shovel handle and drag it with my left hand and detect right handed. It is only after I drop down and set my Deus to the side do I retrieve and turn on the pointer. Connects every time. I luv my Mi 6

Great job Kevin, Steve and Ralph. Always great to watch some good footage when we can't get out and swing ourselves. God Bless good times, good gold and good friends! 🙂 Rob

Hello, my name is Mark. I'm from Pittsburgh, Pa. I started md'ing with an AT Pro in 2015. Moved to an Etrac then an Equinox 800 when they came out in Feb. of 2018. I currently use a 900 that I purchased in mid-December of 22. My main interests are coinshooting, jewelry, tokens and small relics in yards and parks. I have followed the forum for a while now and enjoy its content and the discussions that go on here. I look forward to participating in some of them. Thanks for having me aboard. Mark

Relative battery drain/run time differences fo the various modes and configurations is spelled out in the user manual on ~page 37 (see this link for the latest online edition of the manual). See the excerpt below: These appear to be conservative estimates as I've seen higher battery drain with Deep HC, but not necessarily 1/3 less coil run time (i.e., 8 hours vs. 12 hours as stated) but it is noticeable. I also believe I have gotten more than 8 hours of run time out of a single coil charge running exclusively Deep HC. As always, on these types of things, there are lots of real life variables so, YMMV. HTH

Thanks guys. The forum is well past 10 years old now. The major building effort is behind me, and I now am just tuning it to be for the core participating membership. I'm not trying to be the biggest forum or anything like that. The current membership levels are fine, and the kind of members I am interested in won't care a bit about the new restrictions. If people really care and want to genuinely participate with a group of really good people, then 10 posts and 30 days is nothing. Guys like the last one that wanted to grab a file and be gone are just takers, and nobody here will ever miss them. I'm not sure what the future of forums is and I have no grand plans for this one. At this point I'm content to try and keep it humming along with as little oversight as possible on my part. I have zero online presence anywhere but here at this point and honestly am just barely checking in here these days. So if anyone sees things that seem not right please let me know. The key thing is drama. This website is for people that hate drama and if anyone is causing drama please let me know via PM or a report so I can either get them in line, or get rid of them. My thanks to those who have been assisting me in this manner.

Out with the Geo Highbanker today. I hit a pay-streak.....got all this gold in only three hours. My riffles were bleeding with gold today!

Yea, it's a fair bit different here, someone can only have a VLF and still do quite well. It may not look it from the hole in the photo but the nugget was down just over the depth of the Carrot. I was using the Nox in this spot with the 11" coil to cover ground well and using it to block out hot rocks as the GPX 4500 I also had at the time was really struggling with them, or I should say I was really struggling to use the GPX because of all the hot rocks 🙂 I did quite well this day and got a few, the previous couple of visits to the spot with the 4500 I was skunked and spent my days digging hot rocks. In hindsight I should have tried a DD coil on it rather than the 14x9" EVO I was using. I haven't even had my GPZ there, nor my 24k or Manticore obviously. Might have to go again soon before too much snow hits. 1.2 grams.

True, zincolns are the government's curse on detectorists, but if they stopped producing them imagine how collectible a zincoln would be in a few years because most of them would'nt survive in the ground. 😉

Those are some nice finds in very good condition too. Glad you were able to get on a good site.

Nice bunch of coins and relics Jeff!

The Equinox 900 did very well at that site. I could have bumped up recovery speed a bit more. Depth tones gave me excellent VCO ferrous/non ferrous audio. Thanks for adding that feature Minelab. I will be taking my Deus 2 into that area next time. I wish it had a smaller coil than the 9" however.

Very nice finds again for you and I can tell that you are happy with the outcome. Good luck on your next outing and stay safe.

The Tesoro Gator, or Gatoro? Nice! Is Gatoro a word?!👍 Could have been another model for fresh water!! They missed out!😁 I think the Tiger Shark was a fresh water unit! I have a Sand Shark for the salt, but oddly it has a decal from each on it!!🍀👍👍

Stick to Toyota parts if you can.

Great Finds Gold Catcher. The NF 12x7 and Coiltek 10x5 on the GPX 6000 are deadly. I'm using the NF 12x7 right now and doing well on small gold, mostly bedrock hunting as it's getting warmer out West now. Keep up the great nugget hunting. God Bless, Rob

Hey Reese, Great to see you are back home, away from this Arizona heat .... LOL A few guys purchased GPX 6000 and were hoping to see you in Gold Basin, but I told them I thought you bailed out for the season. Believe it or not, you got me fired up a few months back to get back out with the GPX 6000, so I did. I rounded up 197 nuggets in 5 trips, will post some pictures, but wanted to make sure I cleaned the spot up first 🙂 Wishing you much success in Montana this season. God Bless, Rob

I'm up to 26 silver coins for the year. All dimes except for 3 quarters and one half dollar. All with the Manticore. I got mine Jan. 10th. I only really get to hunt weekends. I don't live in a part of the country with endless rows of houses that are of the age to produce silver. All of my silver is from previously hunted places or public spots I know have been hit pretty hard before due to there just being deep silver dimes left. The silver I do find at these places being either in pretty heavy trash or close to edge of detection deep. There is a less of a fine line between my digs and no digs compared to the equinox. I don't know yet if the Manticore is giving me more positive dig info than the Equinox did. As of right now I expect it is because it seems I have more confidence on the ones I do decide to dig. I do have to scrutinize more falsing iron with the Manticore. I have a lot more great sounding one way targets with the Manticore. Only to turn and it go either straight to an iron tone or jumping up into the ferrous line underlined in red. I still feel I have a lot to learn about this detector.

That looks like the old iron bar that I have seen before in grandfathers garage. I bet it is close to 9 in long, 1 1/2 in wide and about 3/4 in thick. Should that be the case it is from the early 1800's and would be stock items that blacksmiths would make a lot of items from. The x's on it was the grade of the iron as x would be the highest grade. Grandfather told me this years ago and I was fascinated about what he told me about a lot of his relics that he had. Good luck on finding out more about it.

I ordered an Equinox 900 from Gerry a couple of weeks ago and took it out for the first time today. Although I’ve never done it before, I decided to try my hand at nugget hunting. This will be a bit of a travelogue of the trip. I live in NE Nevada close to some old gold mines. I headed to Osceola this morning. Gold was found there in 1872. There is a great story of a laborer working in one of the washes one night who found 20+ lb. Nugget. He initially wanted to steal it, and rode some 30 miles that night to Ward, NV and had it melted down. He had a change of heart and confessed to the mine owners what had done and returned the gold to them, and they forgave him. The cemetery gives you a good idea of how picturesque the view is of the valley below. Most of the gold in Osceola was placer, and the banks of the creeks were really hit hard, as well as the underlying gravel beds. There were, however, several holes dug. Since this was my first time out with 900, my expectations were low, and I met those expectations. I didn’t find anything, but was up and down hills and creek beds, and swung the Nox for some four hours. I’m quite sore, but loved every minute of the outing. As you can see, this corner of Nevada is very pretty.

With larger coils the footprint is trying to punch through a larger area of ground conditions. This is why it seems to be more erratic and less stable. It really has nothing to do with the shielding or electronics of the coil. It is kind if like driving through fog with your high beams on. If they are on, all you see is a glaring white wall in front if you. If turn your high beams off you are able to see more detail through the fog even though it is dimmer.

From my experience, if there is a iron presence in the ground you will have better luck leaving discrimination at 6.8 and notching from 7-40. This has worked very well for me. For some reason the D2 seems to be more sensitive to co-mingled targets this way. Try it in a spot that you have already covered. You will uncover non-ferrous in very close proximity to iron that you passed over with discrimination set to 40. If you have good soft digging conditions I would investigate any solid vdi number under 08 that gives you a crisp and clear high tone as well. This is coming from a relic Hunter and not a coin shooter. You will dig a little more iron this way but more than make up for it with good finds. If you give this a try on ground that you've already searched with your discrimination set high I would be interested in your feedback and thoughts.

Yes, it's already paid. The vibration function is remarkable in the water (and you can cancel ferrous only). Keypad backlight! ...whoever has a Legend knows what I'm talking about. And pinpointer mode finally works. The wedding band rang out in a clear and solid 22-23. From the beginning I knew it was there. The audio is really good and now you got All Tones (At) and Deep (dP), what more could you want ?!?!... I reserve the test on the beach with the 15' Coiltek coil for a little later. I think it will be awesome! The €1 coin over 12 inches. Perhaps the new X-Terra Pro will be the next game changer...

This was posted on one of the UK forums - a post from Facebook where a user received a reply from ML confirming a new software update is on the way: "Okay, so here it goes...my first impressions are that I am having problems deciphering the language of the Manticore in heavy iron so far. My main issue is that the Manticore will constantly produce, stable sounding (with stable VDIs), 2-way repeatable signals, with no Iron grunts or red VDIs. However, adjusting the orientation of my swing on said targets by merely a few degrees will then produce iron grunts, red VDIs irregular target-trace shapes, etc. Sometimes, the iron targets will even sound good through nearly a 90 degree rotation. What this means is that every single target that sounds good, I am having to more so thoroughly interrogate, much more so than I ever had to on the Equinox. I am not having noise issues and I am running my detector at 20 sensitivity or below. I have even bumped the sensitivity down as low as 10 to determine if that impacts anything - and it doesn't. I am coming from an Equinox 800. I will admit that the area I'm detecting is extremely challenging but I never experienced this behaviour with my Equinox. What are everyone's thoughts or experiences? I've only been out a few times so far so obviously no final judgment has been made but I wanted to post my impressions so far and reach out for any feedback. Thanks in advance!" "Excessive Falsing in Iron - Minelab Official Response. I contacted Minelab and was happy to receive a very thorough reply: ***The MANTICORE is a very different detector to the EQUINOX, despite some similarities. It was specifically designed with heavily hunted-out sites in mind, which are now much more common for most detectorists, and where finds are becoming increasingly sparse. It is intentionally much more aggressive than the EQUINOX 800, and is designed to stop users on iffy detections more often, but also to provide the user with more information on which to decide whether to dig. We would expect an experienced MANTICORE user to dig iron more often than with an EQUINOX 800, but over time should also find some targets that an EQUINOX 800 might overlook. The consequence is that the MANTICORE can be a more challenging user experience, and we find that most experienced EQUINOX 800 users need to go through a period of adaption to get the most out of a MANTICORE. Heavy iron sites like you describe are very common and a lot of users see this, even more so at European sites where habitation extends back thousands of years in some cases. Some users (more so in North America than Europe it seems) are having particular difficulty with iron. Certain types of iron, combined with low soil mineralisation like what you describe (and is quite common in North America) seem to make this the most difficult. (Interestingly, users in higher soil mineralisation seem to have much less difficulty.) Iron targets often exhibit non-ferrous falsing when the coil is off to the side of the target, particularly when mixed with some ground noise (for example from weakly mineralised ground). With the MANTICORE, the signals are stronger, and so what sounded like a choppy audio response on the 800, can be a stronger, clearer 2 way response on the MANTICORE. However, we find that in almost every case, when the coil is over the center of the target, the response is ferrous. You might say that the EQUINOX 800 choppy audio response is better in the case of iron falsing, and perhaps this is so for iron falsing. But iron falsing is very difficult to distinguish from co-mingled targets, and the EQUINOX 800 will also give you a choppy response on many co-mingled targets, and in many cases won’t be enough to stop you. We can suggest a couple of things that may help. In the short term, on sites like this, I recommend using Pinpoint Mode to locate the centre of a target and quickly checking it again in detection mode with the coil centered on the target. A consistent ferrous response on the center of the target which turns to non-ferrous off to the side is a giveaway that you have iron falsing. A couple of seconds in Pinpoint mode is one of the best ways to distinguish between 2 targets, and one piece of falsing iron. Many experienced users don’t think they need to use Pinpoint, but it can give you more than just target location information. You can also expect a software update in the near future that will provide a setting that helps you distinguish audio signals that have a good chance of being iron falsing. I believe you will find this update will significantly help you in the scenario you describe, and make detecting much easier.***"

Agreed

Mineralization in Golden forest -... mineralization indicator for XP ORX detector /14.4khz/ is Full... This challenging test of 6 buried targets consists of 4 targets placed at a depth of 6 inches / 15cm / and plus two extra very deep targets .... 1 gram of gold at 8 inches / 20cm / and 1 23mm -4.6 gram silver coin placed at 9 inches / 23cm ... ...4 targets placed at a depth of 6 "/ 15cm / .. proved with the correct setting of the detector..detect all 7 detectors ... they were detectors / Fisher F19-13" ultimate, .... XP ORX 14.4 khz -9 " hf coil, ... XP ORX 14.4 khz 9.5 HF ellipse coil, .... Minelab Equinox 800 11 "coil, Whites MXT PRO 13" Ultimate coil, Garrett ATX 12x10 "DD coil ..... The problem started with the detection of the 2 deepest targets at 8 "and 9" inches ... These 2 deep targets were able to detect Only 3 detectors ... MXT Pro on a 13 "ultimate coil,... Garrett ATX ..,, and also Equinox800b..ut only on the Gold1 program /recovery speed7/iron bias F2 =0 ..best-setings... because other Equinox programs either had no range, or were already unstable on such mineralized terrain .. Test ATX... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Test MXT PRO -Bogene settings..treshold .. to a minimum..

All true, but immaterial to the final product, if it ever appears. If Fisher can produce a AQ that’s built right, and is on the market for a year without suffering massive failures, then I may very well get one. They can’t be updated or serviced without returning to the factory, and my faith in First Texas was shaken to the core by my experience with them in the last year. I simply do not trust them now, and it will take a lot of people getting them, and reporting no issues, before I’ll take that dip again. Still, they might pull it off, and I hope they do. I get where you are coming from Tony. In rough water, the TDIBH is a lunchbox full of air.

I suppose Garrett could make the TDI Beachhunter again, but with the ATX I doubt it will happen. The various TDI models are probably history now, fodder for the modification market for years to come. Anyone interested in what might have happened if TDI development continued should follow the Fisher Impulse AQ development, as the AQ is basically a highly tuned and refined TDI.