Cal_Cobra

Nice job Chuck 👍 I'd probably have played hooky and hoovered all the targets up until the high tide hit 😁

Nice hunt, can't argue with a trime and the seated looks like it was dropped petty early on in its life. That little girl will probably remember the detecting for the rest of her life, maybe even get into the hobby 👍

Totally understand. Psychologically it's tough running the 6" coil on the EQX, feels like you're painting a 747 with a Q-tip, yet it works well for the right application. At one of our old stage stop sites there's a sea of nails area that's been the most productive area, and as such, also the most heavily hit. It was to the point where I'd stuck out on old coins for a couple of hunts, and I decided to try the 15" x 12" coil on the EQX800 and ended up digging three seated silver dimes in one hunt right in the sea of nails. There were square nails in every hole I dug. Counter intuitive to say the least.

Pretty much the same story here in the U.S. Maybe some field hunters on the east coast and beach hunters use giant coils, but even the Hoover Boys field hunting are using the stock coils on their machines (11" coils).

Not sure I'd want to swing a 17x13" or I even could at most of the sites I hunt, but good point on the coils. That would definitely factor into them controlling the coils.

Different soils definitely play a big part in what works for some and not others. TomCA has tested the CTX vs the Exp2 and didn't see any difference in depth and the CTX looses the silver tinkle sound the Explorer/Etrac guys love. At a particular remote site that TomCA and I hunt, he's hit it hard with his Exp2, and I've dug some deep silvers in areas I know he's covered with the Exp2, and when we've compared signals the Exp2 has never been deeper. Maybe FBS3 will be a thing. Minelab could always software throttle the next MIQ if they needed too to keep it underneath the next gen CTX.

Hmmm...that's interesting. How does it balance with the second handle? I've seen a foam disc slipped in under the control pod too that seemed to work okay.

I don't know if it makes sense to continue with two product lines with the way the Manticore closed the perceived gap between the Equinox and the CTX. It reminds me of the days when auto manufacturers made similar cars under different brands, like Ford & Mercury. That model was only sustainable for so long before it blew up. We shall see.

Minelab never stated 50% more depth, people are jumping to conclusions. That logic would be synonymous with saying that by adding 50% more horsepower to you cars engine, it would double your top speed 🙄

That's pretty much where I am with the Equinox. I don't find the balance to be an issue, but the pod resting on my hand gets old. Seems to be a common straight shaft issue. This was a big issue on the Nokta Impact too, and some people came up with DIY remedies, but realistically we should not have to do hacks to remedy basic ergonomic issues like that.

The chamfered hole makes me wonder if it wasn't a work check token.

Wow!! Great hunting! Love the old ring with the nice sized blue stone, is it a Sapphire?

Congrats Andy, two gold coins and no silver, wow!! There has to be more 👍

I stand corrected, you're right they do, but I'd say they're more the exception then the norm. I know they're hard core hunters, I used to hunt with Mark when we lived in the east bay. Most folks I hunt with or run into relic hunting the desert sites and other early relic sites (admittedly not GR sites) are Equinox, Deus, Nokta/Makro of some sort, even the occasional White's whatever, but rarely a CTX 🙂 There's still holdouts on the Explorer's too, you know who you are @TomCA 🙂

You don't see any serious relic hunters out west using a CTX in heavy iron either. The EQX800 was far superior in iron vs the CTX. The 2D disc on the Manticore is a game changer for relic hunters, going to be fun testing it out and see what it sniffs out. 🤠🐍🌵

All I can say is that for relic hunting at our western frontier sites, the EQX800 has been a deep silver magnet. If the Manticore is an even better silver slayer, bring it on 🤠 I know there's some deeper targets hiding at some of these sites, another layer of history awaits 🍽️

By all means, the various types of metals you described are exactly what we're fighting in these western frontier type sites. They differ based on age for the most part. The sheet metal you describe tends to be more limited to later period mining camp type sites including some mining ghost towns. Pre 1850 sites are more tin cans, and large iron like tools, spikes, I've found hand hammered chains of all sorts (sadly I often leave them, although some of them are cool), all sorts of hoes, and other interesting iron tools. Not really what I'm looking for, although they're interesting in their own right. I've hunted all kinds of sea of nail sites. Once you plug into them, they're actually not too bad to hunt. I even did well using the Equinox 800 w/the 15" coil at a sea of nail site pulling three seateds from a hammered site that I've been skunked at multiple times. I would not be surprised to see a small gold coin found next to a square nail or small arms shell at this site. It would be well earned.

Thanks Steve, that really is a game changer for the Equinox lineage isn't it. I used an Etrace a decade ago for deep silver turn hunting, but never used it for relic hunting. What's your opinion on how the 2D ability could help at 1800's sites infested with that rusty tin that comes in as conductive on every detector I've ever used at these sites, but I've never had a FBS/FBS2 detector there. Tom_CA uses his Explorer2 there, and I believe he's had as many challenges with that stuff as I have with machines like the F75 LTD, Racers, Impact, MMK, EQX800, etc.

Although I don't speak Polish, there was a fair bit of information one could glean from that video. I like what I see so far, everything appears to be better compared to it's predecessor, even the audio sounds a bit more refined. When the user switches from the Manticore to the EQX800 @ 12:17 in the video he detects a wedge(?) and it TIDs right around 13, that's exactly been my experience in the field with the EQX800 on similar iron tools (wedges, pick heads, ax heads, etc). Interestingly the first time he ran the Manticore over those large bits of iron it was silent, and I didn't see an onscreen TID. The second time he went over the iron targets with the Manticore after the EQX800 it did detect them with audio and TID. I guess I missed what he changed between tests. I was hoping he'd put that hammered silver on the wedge and retest 🙄

If Minelab made a pinpointer that could pair with the detector and run inline similar to the old Sunray's, it would be a home run in my book. I understand the challenges, but it's not unreasonable to think they couldn't do it, especially if they ditched Bluetooth leveraging their proprietary low-latency wireless as it appears. Might even convert the few remaining holdouts that wouldn't go to the Equinox because they couldn't live without their Sunray inline probe (you know who you are @Tom_in_CA 😁

A breath of fresh air, thank you Carl 👍 Any speculation on this statement from Mark Lawrie when he said "the MultiEQ+ frequencies were expanded" ?

Exactly, thank you, I'm glad I'm not the only that felt that and some folks just kept piling on to the discussion, so yes it kept going on without any substance and pure speculation that wasn't necessary. So yes, anyway 🙂 In one of the videos the Minelab engineer said, and I quote "the MultiEQ+ frequencies were expanded". I initially took that to mean that they added more frequencies, like perhaps the prospecting mode now included 80kHz in the mix, but now that they released specs, that doesn't appear to be the case as both specs are identical as per Minelab (their inconsistent formatting, not mine): Manticore Operating Frequencies: Multi-IQ+, 5 kHz, 10 kHz, 15 kHz, 20 kHz, 40 kHz Equinox Operating Frequencies (kHz) Multi, 5, 10, 15, 20, 40 So just what does Minelabs' chief engineers statement mean? What's expanded? Longer sampling time, more frequencies used per sample, what?

So about 500€ above the MC then. Even if they were the same price, I'd still rather have the MC then lugging around a boat anchor like the CTX. Sounds like a good time to go to Europe from the U.S. Every time I've been there in the past the dollar was weak and Euros were costing $1.30+.

I picked up a small roll on fleabay, probably a yard long by 12" wide. That's probably enough to last the rest of your life. I like the red LCD display, like I think it was the Fisher F19 that had that. It's easy on the eyes and with the dimmest settings, interestingly a dim red glow isn't noticeable from a distance, yet a white glow is.

I actually thought about that as well. I don't know about making that claim as a cover to keep the coils proprietary, I have more faith in Tom then that, but I agree it does seem sensationalized. Perhaps the increased amperage could simply damage the internal coil circuitry? It will certainly be interesting to see a MC dissected as we've seen with other detectors in the past. Spiked Kool Aid conjures up bad memories of college parties gone amok 🤮