Steve Herschbach

I don't think people bringing stuff up is saying you don't know about it - just people discussing and helping each other. Definitely not seeing any worms except digging holes in turf. Keeping stuff to oneself makes for a dull party so thanks for sharing!!

OK, I admit to being caught completely off guard on this one. I normally do not pay attention to how coins I find are oriented, except the obvious that the vast majority are parallel to the ground surface. Bottom line right this moment is I haven't a clue but I will pay more attention to that now that you brought it up. Thanks for the kind comment on the forum

I follow your posts for the same reason Danial - we struggle with similar issues. The Equinox like all VLF detectors will eventually report a non-ferrous target as ferrous at depth. The reason I have been so upbeat about the machine is that in my ground it does seem to get that "extra inch". I usually hunt wide open full tones, and these usually reveal as a ferrous "donut" with a non-ferrous high tone "squeak" in the middle. The borderline ones are interesting because you can almost feel the machine making the switch from non-ferrous to ferrous. They are the targets I like the most as you know they are the deep ones. I have no idea how this will all sort out around the world. All I can go by is what I observe here, and what I am observing here is good. No matter what, at least this detector does not break the bank to just buy and try. The thing is this is still a VLF and with so many people now using PI detectors for places like Culpepper I doubt there will be a rush to go back to VLFs there. You still can't beat a PI for sheer depth. Those who can't handle all the trash and / or can't afford a good PI will hopefully find the Equinox to be another useful tool in the toolbox.

This quote from the report below caught my eye: "Aside from its obvious use as a pinpointer that helps you retrieve coins, I really feel like the PRO-FIND 35 can be a great standalone tool for people searching crevices for gold, ESPECIALLY those that are searching bedrock nooks and crannies in rivers. The PRO-FIND’s slim, waterproof design combined with high sensitivity and Ferrous Tone ID makes it a perfect tool to detect hard to reach places with the confidence of recovering only non-ferrous targets." The Pro-Find as far as I know is the first standard handheld metal detector pinpointer to feature ferrous discrimination. Like all discrimination the depth of the ferrous discrimination is less than the all metal depth. Still, this could make the Pro-Find 35 an effective tool for crevicing bedrock. At least a good portion of the ferrous bits stuck in cracks and crevices could be eliminated, saving the crevice splitting for non-ferrous targets like lead fishing sinkers or bullets - and maybe gold! The waterproof design means a person could even use it under water when dredging to check crevices (less than 10 feet). From https://www.minelab.com/anz/go-minelabbing/treasure-talk/my-pro-find-35-review My PRO-FIND 35 Review by Brandon Neice By now you’ve probably read all about the Minelab PRO-FIND 35 handheld metal detecting pinpointer. You already know that it can distinguish ferrous metals from non-ferrous metals and that it’s fully submersible. And if you know that, then you most likely also know that the PRO-FIND 35 has built-in shielding so it won’t interfere with your metal detector (or your friends) and that it has built-in vibration for silent searching or for the hearing impaired. It also has a bright LED for searching in low light situations. But most of all, you know that this innovative handheld pinpointer is an amazing bargain when compared to other pinpointers on the market. But what you haven’t heard is that the PRO-FIND 35 is also great for prospecting! In this month’s video, I tested this pinpointer on some sub-gram gold nuggets. Actually… come to think of it… I’m not sure the gold that I tested could even be classified as a “nugget” because it was so incredibly small! Maybe it would be better classified as a “picker”? Either way, the new PRO-FIND was able to sniff out all the gold that I tested. Aside from its obvious use as a pinpointer that helps you retrieve coins, I really feel like the PRO-FIND 35 can be a great standalone tool for people searching crevices for gold, ESPECIALLY those that are searching bedrock nooks and crannies in rivers. The PRO-FIND’s slim, waterproof design combined with high sensitivity and Ferrous Tone ID makes it a perfect tool to detect hard to reach places with the confidence of recovering only non-ferrous targets. People often ask me, “What can I do to better my odds of making good finds?” For me, the answer is to search in hard to reach places that other people either can’t get to or are too lazy to try. This pinpointer will certainly open up some of those hard to reach places and those who are willing to put forth the effort are sure to be rewarded. Check out my video to see how well the PRO-FIND 35 performs on small gold.

From https://www.minelab.com/anz/go-minelabbing/treasure-talk/my-pro-find-35-review My PRO-FIND 35 Review by Brandon Neice By now you’ve probably read all about the Minelab PRO-FIND 35 handheld metal detecting pinpointer. You already know that it can distinguish ferrous metals from non-ferrous metals and that it’s fully submersible. And if you know that, then you most likely also know that the PRO-FIND 35 has built-in shielding so it won’t interfere with your metal detector (or your friends) and that it has built-in vibration for silent searching or for the hearing impaired. It also has a bright LED for searching in low light situations. But most of all, you know that this innovative handheld pinpointer is an amazing bargain when compared to other pinpointers on the market. But what you haven’t heard is that the PRO-FIND 35 is also great for prospecting! In this month’s video, I tested this pinpointer on some sub-gram gold nuggets. Actually… come to think of it… I’m not sure the gold that I tested could even be classified as a “nugget” because it was so incredibly small! Maybe it would be better classified as a “picker”? Either way, the new PRO-FIND was able to sniff out all the gold that I tested. Aside from its obvious use as a pinpointer that helps you retrieve coins, I really feel like the PRO-FIND 35 can be a great standalone tool for people searching crevices for gold, ESPECIALLY those that are searching bedrock nooks and crannies in rivers. The PRO-FIND’s slim, waterproof design combined with high sensitivity and Ferrous Tone ID makes it a perfect tool to detect hard to reach places with the confidence of recovering only non-ferrous targets. People often ask me, “What can I do to better my odds of making good finds?” For me, the answer is to search in hard to reach places that other people either can’t get to or are too lazy to try. This pinpointer will certainly open up some of those hard to reach places and those who are willing to put forth the effort are sure to be rewarded. Check out my video to see how well the PRO-FIND 35 performs on small gold.

I was curious how the Gold Monster might work on meteorites. Good job!

I am sorry to hear the coil is not working for you. Unfortunately you really don’t know if the coil worked for the previous owner or not, other than their word for it. Second hand coils are not covered under the NEL warranty. This is where buying product not made in the U.S. gets difficult as just postage to Ukraine and back is probably more that the coil is worth. From http://nel-coils.com/index.php/en/warranty 1. How long is the warranty for my NEL product? At NEL we provide a full 2 year (+1 year extended warranty upon registration) warranty on all of our manufactured coils. This warranty starts from the date of purchase by the customer. This is applicable worldwide. This warranty covers any manufacturing errors like cracks in plastics or performance issues like no response which are from manufacturing faults – usually these are noticeable within the first few hours of use. The warranty does not cover normal use or misuse of the product. For a coil to continue to perform well it must be treated with care and not be used in a way that will jar or incur any sudden impact. This sudden impact may result in developing a noisy product. NEL, at its sole discretion, will determine the nature of the returned item and decide whether it is a warranty issue. Each individual case will be reviewed on its own merits and the more information you can provide the easier it will be for us to make a quick decision. 2. Is the warranty transferable? No, the warranty is only applicable for the original owner. For out of warranty coils there is a service fee for more information please contact your nearest dealer. 3. What do I do to claim warranty? When wanting to claim warranty within Ukraine, you can either return it to your place of purchase or send it direct to NEL, Str. Klochkovskaya 192а, ap.327 Kharkov, Ukraine, 61145. It is essential you include your proof of purchase docket and a short note informing us of the problem which has occurred. Also include your return address and phone number as we may need to contact you regarding the product. If you have purchased a product outside of Ukraine you must return it with your proof of purchase to your local dealer who will handle the warranty claims. Ensure you include your return address and phone number whenever returning a product.

On how to do updates or how to fix the headphone issue? Link? The Nokta Impact Software Update page covers the "how to do update" part.

Yes indeed. That is why the audio is telling me “deep”.

Never heard if this was resolved or not. One person suggests that after the upgrade the headphones have to be "unpaired" and then reconnected but I am not clear on how on how that is done.

I can even guess it happened on the Fourth of July. There is no more important holiday in the Alaska mining camps, with mines often closing and miners getting together for miner's meetings and such. The Fortymile Mining District 4th of July event is still very big, with miners coming out of the woods from creeks all around to attend. So I am seeing this as a possible 4th of July competition. That's the fun of detecting. What is it? Who held it last? Why did it get lost? We enjoy a direct connection to history few others enjoy.

I can say right now that the aptX Bluetooth on Equinox is superb and all I require. If there is a lag it is so small I don't notice it at all. Regular Bluetooth is included just to extend compatibility to nearly all Bluetooth devices, though there will be lag that some will not like, especially in dense targets. Others who swing for long periods between targets probably won't care. The real standard setting is happening with Bluetooth and eventually a version will be fast enough and gain widespread acceptance. Then these proprietary fixes can go away.

Thanks Tyran, and welcome to the forum! I have been posting on forums on the internet since 1998 - twenty years now. That is a huge backhistory available to anyone that knows how Google works and who wants to research my history on posting about various brands and makes of detectors. In the last twenty years I have talked about and helped people with all the brands and in general I have just been going from one new model to the next as they appear over the years. However, in every case it has always been about adding another detector to the existing collection or swapping one out. I have never had a new model show up before that made me decide I did not need half the number of detectors I have normally had over the years. The big problem in going by my judgement or opinion is we each have our own needs and desires when it comes to detecting. And my goal in all this stuff is not to prove the Equinox is good by somehow taking a shot at other detectors people own. Is the Equinox "better" than a Deus? No. It is different than a Deus, that is all. Some people will continue to use and love the Deus and I am not trying to sway them otherwise. Or an MX Sport. Or an AT Max. Whatever. There are in every case however clear differences. The Equinox offers some feature the others completely lack. In the case of the Deus, the Equinox is fully submersible out of box and the Deus is not. That makes for a clear, simple reason why a person might want one over the other. In the case of the AT Max, the Equinox offers multifrequency and the AT Max does not, making the Equinox a better choice for saltwater. Etc. Etc. These are the kinds of things that clearly define detectors and make choices easy in my opinion. Those however who want ironclad proof that the Equinox detects deeper than "this machine" or has a faster recovery speed than "that machine" are probably not going to get much satisfaction from me. Trying to make those kinds of cases inevitably means trying to show one machine in a poor light as compared to another, and that in turn raises hell with everyone regarding tuning, soil types, techniques, or outright bias. There is not a single video on YouTube that I cannot protest in some way and argue about the results shown. I am going to leave it up to others to try and "prove" things. All I can do is tell people I have been detecting 45 years, like to do it all, and have used a ton of detectors over the years. I have twenty years published record to show my bias or lack thereof. The vast majority of my posts are just trying to help people get answers. There are many very good detectors on the market. The Equinox wins for me in basically combining the most desired features I have wanted into a single machine at a great price and better yet in a lightweight package. The performance is going to be excellent across the board for nearly all uses. Will it outperform many top machines at many things. Yes. Will it outperform everything everywhere under all circumstances? Unlikely. It is after all a metal detector, not a magic wand. At the end of the day I am burning up twenty years of accumulated reputation and going out on a limb on this one due to the absolute faith I have in the machine and the company behind it delivering a product that the vast majority of you will love. If I prove to be wrong my reputation will be toast and I will have mud all over my face and more. I will have proven the trolls right. These are things I take seriously and which I considered long and hard before deciding to get on board with this thing like I have. I am in fact being opportunistic in hitching my wagon up to what I see as a winning horse for a long and fun ride.

"Metal detector finds are on the rise, new Government figures show, as the popularity of TV programmes such as Time Team and Detectorists tempts more people to take up treasure hunting. Statistics released by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport show that the overall number of treasure discoveries rose to 1,121 in 2016, up from 1,005 in 2015. Experts say programmes such as Detectorists, a BBC sitcom starring Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones which began airing in 2014, have tempted more amateur searchers to try out the hobby." Full Story Here

That would require a transmitter box or dongle since the Gold Monster does not have built in wireless, and such a system should work with other detectors. I would not be surprised to see something based on the new WM08 module being developed for the Equinox. Minelab in my opinion needs to start over with wireless to a certain extent and come up with a system that is common to all their machines. Right now the CTX wireless, GPZ wireless, and Pro-Sonic wireless are all basically incompatible. Just start with the new system and phase out or retrofit the rest over time.

Heavens, no Chuck - you have made an interesting observation for sure. Like all data there are ups and downs that happen, but certainly longer terms trends are visible. The biggest trend though seem to be that more people are looking to Facebook and YouTube for information with forums taking more of a backseat these days.

Welcome to the forum billdean! Wow, you guys are awesome. I kind of dream of the day when there are enough knowledgeable people willing to make helpful posts that I just keep things running. This thread made my day in spades with all the great helpful answers. There is nothing I can add except to say that we all go 15 hours or more without gold on a regular basis even after decades of experience. Thank you everyone!

All gold nuggets are not the same. There is lots of low quality stuff that you are lucky if you get smelt price for it. Seeking out higher quality, rarer gold can mean less ounces but more cash in the end.

I considered that it might have been drilled out as part of a field repair needing a washer, but that makes no sense at Ganes Creek where steels washers exist by the ton. And it looks to me like one side shows clear signs of being a bullet exit point with peeled back edges. Maybe somebody tried to punch a hole in it. That again goes back to taking an extremely rare and hard to find piece of spendable currency (at that time in Alaska) and converting it to a cheap washer. Makes no sense given the location. I am going with drunken bets and the showing off of sharpshooter skills - true or not!

In my experience it is less about "sink rate" than "surface buildup" here in the west. A dime dropped on desert soil will still be at or near surface 100 years later. In areas where there is turf however I see two things. First, I will hit an old park and start finding 1980 coins as deep as I can detect. That does not mean they sank - it means new soil was brought in and seeded. More recently is the trend to returfing by just adding a carpet of turf rolls. And then there is old fashioned buildup of dead grass and leaves building up the surface. Lots of yards feature sidewalks that have turf creating walls on both side, often 6" or more in depth. The turf was once level with the sidewalk. Long story short here in Reno and in Anchorage I saw no real evidence of coins sinking, but lots of evidence that material accumulating at the surface is putting coins farther and farther out of reach.

Good question. I find the audio to be wonderfully revealing on the Equinox and have no problems most of the time telling you it is a deep coin just based on the sound. I have not paid a lot of attention to the depth meter yet as it is usually the last thing tuned. All they are is a signal strength indicator calibrated to a dime (normally) and so all the other parameters have to be in place before that final calibration takes place. Questions like this and many others can’t be answered in full until the code quits getting tweaked. All the code interacts and changing one thing often requires changing many other things.

Multiple frequency comparison gives the machine more information that helps get better target id numbers. What it can’t do is eliminate situations where two different items really do read the same. Target id mostly boils down to a combination of conductivity and mass. Only items that are the same every time, like a dime, can be assigned a place on the target id scale. Aluminum trash, lead fragments, and gold nuggets/jewelry come in every size and shape. For every gold signal, I can find an aluminum item and lead item that will overlap and read the same. Since these items tend to inhabit the lower 3/4 of the target id scale and U.S. coins the upper 1/4 there is little overlap with coins except nickels. Ferrous items are different because they have both conductive and magnetic properties. Many ferrous items are tossing off a complex mix of ferrous and non-ferrous signals. Many detectorists discriminate out the ferrous portion of the signal, leaving only the high non-ferrous spikes. The solution very often is to hunt with full tones and no targets rejected. This reveals the true audio profile of the target as being a mix of ferrous and non-ferrous tones. Some meters like the White’s SignaGraph and SpectraGraph plus the Minelab 2D display (especially as enhanced in the CTX with target tract) can reveal these same multiple target id “smearing” effects from ferrous targets. I will try and explain this better in a longer article when I have time. Illustrations are needed to make it clearer.

I don’t think that is quite as valid for this forum, especially with all the manufacturer forums being so new here. Findmall has a large stable of well established forums though, and the number of posts in each does seem to reflect a bit on where the action is. Brand discussions normally spike when a new model is introduced. What I have found interesting lately is not the machines that are getting heavy interest, but in how some new models are being almost totally ignored.

Thanks Carl, can’t wait to get mine! I assume you had a hand in this massive improvement in FT pinpointers

Separating coins from aluminum is not a serious issue in most cases. It is the overlap between gold that you want, and lead and aluminum that you don’t want, that people would love to fix. Won’t happen with current technology. If you go for gold, you had better be digging lead and aluminum also. If not, you are passing on gold.