Cal_Cobra

Agreed, my fingers are normal sized, and that on/off button should've been larger or some better design.

I dug a 9" deep civil war era Navy cuff button at one of my worked out sites, it has both mineralization and mild EMI, but the button was a dig me all day long signal. Can't wait to try it at a real relic site, this was more of a picnic grounds type site.

I saw Brandon (aka Dr Tones) post that he was (in a roundabout way) testing the EQ's 6" coil. I figured if Brandon was, Steve might be as well? I bet the 6" coil is going to be amazing at trash sifting

Definitely nice IMO to have a paper booklet copy, you can make notes on it, and it’s great to have in the field. What I’ve found to be useful is to copy the PDF file to my iPhone. I have several stored and can instantly pull them up from my iBooks library as I always have my phone with me. Handy for killing time at the airport, while waiting for detecting buddies, or other times when waiting for whatever, but more importantly when your out in the field and forget how to make whatever settings and don’t have an Internet connection.

Welcome, great finds! With the history there, do you find many hammered medieval and older coins?

Something sounds wrong, my ML80's have been great! No discernable lag, and the pinpointing has been world class. Also over the weekend I tried pairing the headphones to my iPhone and the Equinox at the same time. I knew if paired to both you could hear if a call was coming in on your smartphone, but little did I know that the headphones have a mic and you can take the call right from the ML80 headphones, and the audio quality was clear for me and the person on the call. Anyone know how to answer the call from the headphones and not have to take out your phone?

Nice chunky ring, congrats!!

Earth sweeper really sorry for your loss, my condolences. I had an AT Pro a few years ago, and while it was a decent iron sifter (better I felt then the F75) I felt that with the stock coil it was, at least in NorCal dirt, below average in depth. Also tried it in the Nevada ghost towns, and pretty much had the same opinion there. I have about 7 hunts on my EQ800 now, for a total of about 30 odd hours on it. Nowhere near an expert, but I can say for my NoCal soil it's blowing away anything the AT Pro could bring to the table, in both depth (by far) and unmasking, ergonomics, build quality, BIG numbers on the display (not those tiny, hard for me to see numbers on the ATP display), and it's just been a pleasure to hunt with. It's been a really fun machine, and I suspect part of the reason is because it's finding stuff at my pounded to death sites that most of my other machines have petered out on a long time ago. The 6" coil will be my next EQ accessory.....if it ever comes out

Awesome first hunt, like the cache coin and who can argue with a gold ring Looks like you have a good relic site! Nails....yeah, if I chase the really iffy stuff, I seem to dig some nails. I don't think it's any different then chasing those really wonky iffy signals with my other machines, and after a while you kind of stop doing it For relic hunting I've been mainly using Field2. I did try Field1, switched it to 50 tone, and it was OK too, but I felt that Field2 was hotter. Next time I have ample time to do some extra testing, I'll start testing how the reactivity speed and iron bias work, as I've left everything (aside from tones) on the stock settings up to this point, and the EQ800 has hunted pretty well.

That was my plan, except the buttons all feel about the same when the phones are still on my head, shame the POWER button doesn't have a tit or something tactile so it stands out when your sausage fingers are probing around trying to discern when button is which Yes those tiny lights are useless, especially in the sun.

WOW WOW WOW!!!! Awesome find, it looks like the two reale I found in California in January this year, except gold Stunning find!! Looks like these Equinox detectors are going to pay for themselves relatively quickly

Last weekend I was hunting a spot that apparently a few years ago has some kind of electrical underground device installed, as many years ago I could hunt that spot, and then any detector I took there would loose it's mind due to EMI. Last weekend I took the EQ800 there in hopes that it might do OK, did a few noise cancels, and it didn't start to stabilize until I dropped the sensitivity way, way down. I didn't detect it as I figured that the reduced sensitivity wouldn't be enough to get the coins that I know are going to be 8" + deep there. Maybe I will try it again my next time there.

Stock settings aside from the sensitivity, 50 tones, auto GB, noise cancel, seems to run well without further adjustments. i do need to start doing more scientific testing trying various settings to see how they work, and where they can be leveraged to maximize performance, unmasking and return a higher amount of keepers versus trash. I’m implementing the crawl/walk/run learning methodology, and would still consider myself in the crawl phase. Thanks, Brian

Thanks! My screenname is from my old days of video games.

Thanks! I like both, F2 seems to be great for relicky environments, and I can’t complain about P2, seems pretty deep for sure and loves coins ? In retrospect, when I was hunting those deep coins, I should’ve tried different modes to see how they reacted, BUT I was having so much fun detecting I didn’t want to turn it into a science project. Notice that I didn’t do any video, nor did I post to one of my usual forums as it’s turned into a circus every time the Equinox is mentioned.

For deep turf hunting the two things I see that need improvement are: Shallow target identification - some surface targets will give the double blip, but not all and if their coins at the surface or just under, IMO they don't generally give a great indication that their shallow. Been fooled many times. The depth meter - Over the holiday weekend I took the EQ800 to a site that I've been working for 10-12 years. Anything left there is either masked, deep, or both. I noticed at this site the depth meter was crucial, and at this particular site it seemed, for the most part to work OK. This hasn't been my experience at other sites, but I keep learning the machine so perhaps I'm gaining on the learning curve. At any rate, at the site I was working on over the weekend, anything that reported as 4-5 was in fact 8" - 10" deep. The audio wasn't awesome on most of these targets, but by doing the ML wiggle over them I would get a bouncy mid 20's to low 30's TID and pegged depth meter. This site has been tough for any detector I've taken there. For the most part the top 6" have already been cleaned out and any surface targets tend to be recent (last year or less) drops, so I wouldn't say it mimics deep turf cherry picking in a trashy park. I don't know how it would do at such a place, I feel I'd be overwhelmed by junk shallow targets.

Nice find! Those colonial coppers are considered ubobtainium on the left coast

That must be what happened, I'll have to keep an eye on them. I'm surprised they don't have an energy saver mode and automatically shut off if they loose pairing after a preset amount of time.

A little background on this particular "test" site that I take every machine to that I've owned over the past 12 years since I got my first detector. The site has both mineralized soil, and mild EMI, which some machines handle a LOT better than others. First I tried a Fisher C$ and Minelab Sovereign, and maybe got one wheat penny (C$ was shut down from the EMI). I figured there had to be more there, but it wasn’t until I got the CZ70 that it opened up. Someone had cleaned out the top 6” of targets, so anything left there was either deep, masked or both. First trip with the CZ was like Christmas! After 5-6 trips the CZ played out. Then every new machine I got I’d take there, and see what it could find. The first few trips there with the F75 did well, took my Etrac there and only got one wheat and a maverick bakery token. Then for about three years it petered out, it would take everything I had busting my butt to eek out one IHP or wheat, but silver dried up for about three years. I still figured there had to be more. When I got my Red Racer, I did a shoot-out between it and my (at that time) beloved F75. I first detected it with my F75 LTD2, and got nothing, only iron grunts, zero conductors. Then I switched to the Red Racer and pulled two silvers, an IHP and wheatie. It was an eye opener, first silver in three years, and not one, but two AND it was on basically my first hunt with the Red Racer. Then each subsequent trip with the Racers the site was back on, and not all the old coins were deep, several were masked with iron that prevented other detectors from getting them, but thanks to Makro's world class unmasking capabilities my site was back on. Matter of fact I had my best day there with my Racer2, something like 12 period coins in one hunt including four silvers, it was simply unbelievable to me that my pounded site, that I'd practically gave up on, produced this many coins in a 3 hour hunt. As you all know these sites don’t exactly replenish themselves with period coins, so for the Equinox to do what it did this weekend is beyond impressive, eight DEEP period coins in a three hour hunt is fantastic! For this site I used Park2, and ran it hot with the gain between 22-24, even was able to run it at 25, but found it started to like deep nails at 25. By the way, this site is loaded with old square nails. The original building that was there burned down in the mid 1800's, and I suspect that they razed the burned remnants around this site, and dumped fill dirt over the razed burnt remains when the built the replacement building went up, as once you get down to around 10" - 12" you seem to hit a sea of square nails. Never have found a seated at this site, it's certainly old enough to have them, but I suspect they are beneath this sea of nails. This was a deep mid conductor signal tangled in heavy tree roots. Little did I know how deep this would turn out to be! Between my Lesche shovel and digger, and a lot of patience (and a few curse words thrown in for good measure!) I finally pulled brought this sucker back to life, it was a dateless buffalo nickel! This is what was in that monstrous 10" deep hole! Total take for this hunt (3 hours) was five teens wheaties, a dateless buffalo nickel, 1902-S Barber dime (yeah!!!), 1936-S Mercury dime, some kind of silver button (that sucker was DEEEEEP), a poppers wedding ring, DEEP civil ware era (?) two piece Navy cuff button (this thing is going to LOVE buttons), and two suspender buckles/clips. Now I will say that the non-modulated audio on shallow stiff is a major PITA for deep turf hunting, so I did dig some zincolns, and shallow clad This was my second hunt, which I did in Field2. It's a little fresh water beach area that I've pounded over the years. Haven't found a ton there, few wheats, mercs, some rings in the water, and some 1800's relics, but I love the history of the site, and figure detecting it will eventually pay off with something really good (that hasn't happened yet, but I know something really good has to be hiding out there, probably in the water though!). I've never dug this many wheaties there in one hunt, and I love the wheatie with the iron fused to it! Also got a nice antique looking sterling silver ring and a 43' silver war nickle: As I was heading back to the car, I ran into another guy detecting there with a White's MX Sport. Was a pretty friendly guy, and we started chatting. He knew about the EQ800 and said that would be his next machine. He was hunting in the turf, not the beach. I told him I was hunting the beach and he told me that I wouldn't find anything there because he'd already cleaned it out Now truth be told, I was a bit impressed with his MX Sport as he'd just dug a 9" deep merc when I came up on him. He said he's mainly a prospector and had done a lot of dredging in California but when they shut it down, he moved to Alaska. Interesting guy to chat with for sure. HH, Cal PS - I did encounter an odd issue. About an hour or so after one hunt, I powered down my detector and headphones to take a health break. When I went to power everything back up, the headphones refused to power up. I'd charged them up the previous day, so unless when I did a quick hunt little hunt the evening before, the headphones didn't get powered off and drained down, then I can't quite understand what happened. I'd get no response at all from the headphones when trying to power it back up. I plugged them in to my charger (iPad charger) for a while and they came back to life. Odd

Sounds like a normal hunt on my F75

WOW Steve when you said you replied to my inquiry you weren’t kidding ? I'm visiting family for Easter weekend and only brought my iPhone so I’ll read this again when I get home so I can read all the links and videos, great stuff! i know in the Minelab Equinox Treasure blogs they talked about Multi IQ transmitting AND receiving simultaneous multiple frequencies as to do real-time ground sampling and analysis. Pretty sophisticated stuff going on under the hood. Thanks again for taking the time to post the detailed reply, I’ll give it the read it deserves when I return home.

I tried the SoundPEATS Q9A+, they work fine, and have an IP rating (waterproof/resistant rating), there's no lag, but I just didn't care for the earbud fit while detecting and much prefer the factory Minelab headphones. For my head/hearing, the ML headphones are comfortable, fit well, zero detectable lag, and sound great. I started off with wireless headphones on my Racer2, Impact and Multi Kruzer, and now the EQ800, and love being wireless (really sucks getting snagged/tangled up when your detecting in the brush). I'll never go back to wired headphones again, YMMV.

Hi Steve, Yep saw Carl's reply. To be honest, the inline probes from Sunray were really only good on the Minelabs. I had a few on Fisher's (C$ and F75) and to be honest they just weren't that great on a machine like the F75. For one thing their a motion detect device (because as you pointed out their basically another coil) , unless you're in PP mode, but on the F75 you had to hold the PP trigger, while digging, while trying to operate the probe, which was a bust. I finally sold of my F75 Sunray probe after I had an encounter digging a barber dime out of a mess of tree roots. In the roots you didn't have any room to move the probe enough to work in disc mode, so it became useless. Now on a machine like the Equinox, where you can press on/off the PP mode, it wouldn't be a problem at all, and you'd get those great flutey tones when going after deep silver, with iron tones on the nails, so in my mind it could work well, especially if made wireless. I wonder if in the case of the Equinox for example, that already has a well integrated Bluetooth system, if they couldn't effectively make a wireless probe that worked the same as the Dues coils, and simply relay the signals back to the EQ for processing? I think XP attempted to do something on that order with their Dues wireless probe, but at the end of the day it was kind of a fail as it wasn't really a wireless inline probe. Just spit ballin'

Is that for android os? I just checked the apple app store and it's $9.99....for $3.49 I'd d/l it in a heartbeat, but for ten bucks I'd like to try it first.....hmm.

Perhaps it's only Waze that eats up my battery. I noticed that when my iPhone is plugged in, it actually discharges faster than it charges when I'm using Waze.