Cal_Cobra

Got an Amazon link to these, I get nothing when putting in Audio 66 APTX LL BT Pro back headphones ?

I ordered the set shown below. It uses the K1 connector that Kenwood, Baofeng and others use. It's a common connector, but Moto radios use the M1 connector which is slightly different, so check your FRS/GMRS HT radio specs to be sure (I believe they also make them for M1 connectors). BTW the Baofengs are great, because the set I have is a SDR, Software Defined Radio. I have a USB cable from the radio to my PC, and software that can essentially program these radios to use any licensed or non-licensed public band I want. Pretty cool feature IMO. The Plantronics knock-off earpiece will stay put in the box, but the K1 Bt transceiver attaches to compatible 2-way radios of your choice ( Kenwood / Baofeng / TYT / Wouxan, any HT with K1 type Mic/PTT 3.5/2.5mm jacks) . After a bit of trial and error, I was able to pair the K1 compatible Bt transceiver with the Minelab ML80 headphones and my Baofeng. They also include the little PTT button shown at the top right in the photo below, it has a Velcro strap to attach to whatever you want. This is cool, because I can strap it to my EQ800 pistol grip handle right where Minelab should've located the PP button, and simply push the button while detecting to talk. It requires zero additional intervention, no stopping to fiddle with buttons, no wires, and no stopping to get your cell phone out to text, call, etc. At the end of the day, this means I can dig more targets, and more targets dug = more keepers to go into my finds pouch! And for those areas without cell reception, presto you have instant communications. Although I have everything paired up, I've yet to try it in the field. I was using the Baofeng wired ear piece/mic that came with the radios, but they use wires about the diameter of human hair, and a modest snag on a bush, or catch on your shovel handle and it breaks. Even the backups I ordered had the same fate, so I wrote them off. This was the same issue(s) I was encountering with my wired headphones in the past. Although much beefier then the Chinese 2-way radio headsets, I cannot tell you how many times my Sunray Golds, Killer B's, etc., have failed in the field due to the wiring failures, a faulty plug, or whatever. And yes they had lifetime warranty's that the repair guy was great to fix, but I cannot tell you how much it sucks to have your headphones break in the field or at that great demo hunt where everyone's digging seateds and your left trying to dig listening to your detector speaker and lots of ambient noise. Perhaps I'm harder on my headphones than others (although I don't think so), but I think hunting in brush with constant snags simply takes its toll on wires. I love being wireless now, and don't ever see myself going back to wired headphones, ever. My Multi Kruzer and EQ800 are both wireless, and I love it. It just works, no more tangles, no more field failures, they just work when I need them to. Funny side story - I had my Racer 2 at a really good park scrape a few years ago. I had my Sunray Golds, and a backup set of Killer B's with me. The Sunray Golds weren't working so I switched to the Killer B's and wasn't having much better luck. When I got home, I drug out two more sets of wired headphones and tried them, and darned if they weren't working either, so I (incorrectly) concluded that it was the detector that was broken, after all what are the odds that FOUR sets of wired headphones were broken. I then tried all four sets of headphones on my F75, yep, you guessed it, same results, so I guess I won the lottery on headphone failures. It was then and there that I ordered my first set of wireless headphones for my Racer 2, and I've never looked back since ? https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Earpiece-Listed-Walkie-Talkie/dp/B07939RPVK/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1541516700&sr=8-3&keywords=walkie+talkie+bluetooth+earpiece+with+mic&dpID=41kDZcKd1oL&preST=_SX300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

Thanks Gerry! We've barely scratched the surface of this site, it should keep us busy for a few years ?

Thanks Steve, appreciate the insight. I think I'll pick one of these up, I like that it's light and even though a lot of the sites we enjoy hunting would benefit from a 6x10" closed elliptical, we have a few other sites that would benefit from a bit of extra depth and ground coverage.

I'm reading that it's necessary to adjust the recovery speed on the EQ800 when using the 15" coil, else targets are not coming in as clear as they do with the 11" coil. What's the rule of thumb on adjusting the recovery speed?

Welcome to the forum, what a entrance! Congrats, that's the kind of stuff we all hope to find, amazing history and relics!

Looks like a cool feature, but has a ton of limitations. For example, must be on a cellular network (perhaps WiFi networks too), and everyone has to have an iWatch: https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-watchs-walkie-talkie-is-practically-useless/ For me and my friend, when we're in remote areas with no cell reception it wouldn't work, and more importantly he's an android user, and it only works from iWatch to iWatch. I ordered that walkie talkie Bluetooth adapter under the premise that it will work with my Minelab BT headphones (vendor is saying it will pair with any BT device). Should be an interesting test, and I love being wireless. Once you go wireless, you don't want to go back to cables!

Equinox ground balance, what's that?

I like the walkie talkie Apple watch feature! I assume that one has to have cellular service for this feature to function? Reason I ask, is that we're finding the walkie talkies to be much easier to use then cell phones when were out in BFE detecting. Texting and cell phone calls waste to much time. You can chat on the walkies while detecting, and no issues. What I wish existed (perhaps it does?) was a bluetooth wireless connector to plug into the walkie talkies (that standard dual 3.5mm plug) and you could simply pair that to your walkie and use VOX, that would be ideal. BTW I too like the ML headphones that came with the EQ800, they just work. They audio is good, and the headphones are comfortable. I also like that they are bluetooth so you can pair them with your phone or computer or whatnot. They actually work pretty well if you need to take a call. EDIT: Well lookie what I found - lol https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Earpiece-Listed-Walkie-Talkie/dp/B07939RPVK/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1541516700&sr=8-3&keywords=walkie+talkie+bluetooth+earpiece+with+mic&dpID=41kDZcKd1oL&preST=_SX300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch I wonder if I could simply use that walkie talkie transmitter/receiver to pair to the Minelab headphones?

Wow that's a lot of IHPs !!! Nice token. Is the square aluminum looking piece also a token?

Hi Jim, Thanks, I appreciate the kind words. I like your Chinese cache coins, the one on the right is particularly unusual. I was able to ID some of these finds since I posted them thanks to Keith Southern, here's what he said: The thing your calling a hunting point is whats left of a trigger guard..it broke at the screw hole. Big brass piece with spring inside is back casing to pad lock. Cut coin looks like the ones we find in camp's where they were starting to make a replacement rowel for spur..can be found in varying degrees of completion..even seen spurs with coin rowels installed. Button seems to be 1820 period US Infantry Militia Uniform Button.Nice!!! I see you have an earring in first pic...Like the bird on it...Cool one!! The first site we checked that day was kind of a bust compared to it's sister camp that we detected a few weeks prior, that turned out to be really good. This new camp site was supposed to be larger, so I had disillusions of grandeur that it was going to have twice the finds, and that was not to be. Still we detected some old camps in the area we'd previously had success at, and were able to dig some history. I agree with you that while each hunt doesn't produce a rare coin or rare artifact, that each piece you dig tells a story, and in the process you get to touch some amazing history. What I enjoy, is after detecting these sites for many years, you're able to put together a display that tells a unique story. Few people appreciate that (such as my wife ), but the ones that do will generally really enjoy the finds and the history they portray. GL&HH, Cal

Tom and I were able to get out yesterday for some detecting at the same site we posted a few weeks ago. This time I wanted to test another camp site that wasn't far away from the one we got the eagle tongue and groove buckles at. It was supposed to be a larger camp, but it pretty much turned out to be a bust. You could hear iron here and there, and we did get some period conductors, and period iron relics, but nothing to write home about. We did a fairly good job covering it, it just wasn't a productive site, perhaps someone else detected it before we did. I wondered back to the camp we detected a few weeks ago to see if I could locate the other half of my eagle buckle that fell out of my finds pouch, and while that didn't pan out, I did find an old eagle button of some sort. It's a domed one piece cast button, if anyone can ID it, I'd greatly appreciate it. Found another part of an eagle buckle, but no more complete ones on this trip. The only coin dug (old coin, we did manage to dig some pesky clad on this hunt :? ) was a Chinese cache coin, and possibly a toasted copper coin, but not sure about that. Rim fires, musket balls, lead, and hand forged iron and bronze nails/spikes: One piece eagle button, any ideas on the ID? No clue what this is, it may have been made from a copper coin? Old lock? It's cast bronze whatever it is, has a part on the top with a spring lever under it. Couple of iron relics, part of an eagle buckle, love that old copper hand forged hinge: Every one of these copper bits sounded sweet, all sound like coins and some were super deep! No idea what this was??? Almost want to say some kind of hunting point, but it has no edge. [/url] These are frequently found at old sites in California! No clue what this was used for? Bezel is silver, appears to be a finished stone, but cannot see where it attached to anything :S Thanks for looking! Cal

Thanks Steve, and true, but for that ancient gold you sure do! Enjoyed reading about your England adventures, I get excited digging the oldest stuff we can find in California and Nevada, and you're blowing us out by a couple thousand years LOL

Nice digs, that ornate handle is cool.

ha ha - that's tempting, my hunt partner only eats and usually eats my food and doesn't bring anything of his own

I really enjoyed reading about your adventures! One of these days I plan to get over there, hopefully it's not hunted out by then BTW I saw Chicago Ron on a dental commercial - lol I had to do a double take when I saw it on TV, but it was him :) Thanks for the shout out Steve, hope there's gold in the cards for us this weekend

Thanks, hope to get back to that site one of these days.

Apologies if this is a repeat for some, but it occurred to me that posting this on the Equinox forum wasn't really the best place for a relic hunt ? Tom and I were able to get out and check out a remote site that we researched in the spring. Research indicated that it predated the gold rush by at least 20 years, but apparently it was a gold rush era camp, as everything that we dug was pure 1850's. There weren't a ton of targets there, but everything you dug was old, not a single pull-tab, no clad, interestingly no bullets or shell casings either (hip hip hooray for that!!!), nothing dug by either of us was newer than the 1850's. The first bucket lister was a cast tongue and grove eagle buckle! I dug the male part, and five feet away I dug the female part. Somehow, I lost the female part ? The female buckle shown above it in the group shot is smaller, and was broken in two parts, and dug in two digs, but they fit together perfectly so they must go together. Also dug a broken tongue, so must be another eagle to match it out there, and below that is a thin female buckle part that's all mangled up. Hopefully I can find the buckle half that I lost, should be on the surface. My second bucket lister was a decorative powder flask (one side only), also shown is a pewter spoon (pretty rare to find these in California): This early Eagle on an Anchor Navy button was all crudded up, but I could see a glint of gold gilt left, so I used lemon juice to clean it, and am very happy with the results! This a sword hilt!! Cleaned up nicely with lemon juice (tu) Little sash buckle kind of decorative item: Found this token, it's a large size, thought it was a large cent when first dug, but it turns out to be considered the first token issued in California! http://tokencatalog.com/token_record_forms.php?action=DisplayTokenRecord&td_id=8515&inventory_id=8752&td_image_id=33494&attribution_id=8321&record_offset=2 Some misc finds. There were a ton of tools dug at this site, axe heads, chisels, and other misc tools. I dug a bunch of lead and other small scrap/junk conductors not shown. That big square nail is bronze. Planning to return to the site this weekend, and I believe there are other camps there, and larger than this one, so hopefully we have as good of luck with them as this one. GL&HH, Cal

Steve thanks for sharing the adventure with us, feel like you took us with you, and congrats on that awesome ancient gold, whatever it may turn out to be. Looks like the Equinox is now the "in" thing in the U.K. for hunting plowed fields eh? Hoping to get out with Tom this weekend to a new (to us) area I researched in the spring. Our first initial trip to these remote camp sites a few weekends ago brought us many gold rush era relics, including three eagle tongue and groove wreath buckles!! Hoping to find a little gold there myself this weekend if the other camp sites pan out we shall see.

Goes without saying that it should be a smaller/lightweight form factor along the lines of the Equinox ?

Now that our daughter is five months old, I'm inching back into some detecting time after effectively taking late spring and the summer off. I need to refresh my Equinox knowledge, maybe one of the other search modes will false less on iron tools. Good thing for me to test out on the next hunt, hopefully this weekend.

That 9" concentric (?) looks almost identical to the old 8" Fisher concentric that came with the CZ's, C$, etc. back in the day.

An updated V3i would set the detecting world on fire IMO. I'm not sure they have the talent left though. Apparently the four engineers that developed it are no longer working there, Carl is no longer working there, and the V3i was a pretty complex product, from both an engineering perspective as well as a user perspective. IMO it was way ahead of it's time, a modernized, lighter weight, waterproof, updated version would be a sight to behold! A buddy of mine mastered that machine and was always showing me the graphs to tell aluminum pull-tabs and other trash from coins and rings. It was as deep as the Etrac with more advanced capabilities, but also with a much steeper learning curve. Let's see what they come up with!

I'm hunting in field2. I think I'll set it back to factory defaults before detecting again and see if that helps, but those axe heads sound so nice, solid TID, etc - lol What's odd is I could totally understand if they were coming in the high 30's as it would be iron wrap-around, but coming in a pull-tab range is very odd IMO. My Nok/Mak machines also seem to love iron tools, but they usually bang in the penny/dime TID range. I'm definitely not looking for iron tools, their interesting, but just not what I need to be lugging home. Wonder if field1 would be any different? What search mode are you using at your logging camp?

Wonder why their ringing in at that TID range? I don't recall that phenomena before the firmware upgrade?