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Thanks Brian, Yes, hear you. I feel like I'm still in the "laying on my back crying" phase.. haha. Tim.

Congratulations SE! I think you will be VERY happy with the 600! Be sure to post about your hunts and findings! Tim.

Just curious Cal, what were your recovery and iron bias settings? And were you in 50 tone with stock disc? I have been doing more "in the field" testing with park 2, and I find it definitely hits on smaller targets than park 1, which is good and bad, depending on the site. I was just wondering how you weaved your way around the iron falsing running sensitivity that high. In my ground, the sweet spot is around 20-22... but that may have more to do with my other settings than what the ground can handle with proper settings and a higher sens. Thanks for the awesome and inspiring report!! Tim.

Can't say enough good things about this forum. It is what a forum should be. Tim

I agree with you Steve, on both accounts. The few things I am looking forward to in the 800 are the increased recovery speed (I believe I will run in 7 most of the time rather than the 6 equivalent max on the 600), and being able to adjust the id/tone segments other than segment 1. But, other than that, I can see no difference in my hunt settings. Tim

I am on the waiting list with my dealer for the 6", 15" and any elliptical coil released for the Equinox. I will most likely have the stock coil on my 800 (when it finally arrives) and use my 600 for the other coils in rotation based on location.

Thanks Steve. I did reach out to Minelab, awaiting reply. To clarify my predicament, the rubber lanyard is still attached securely to the coil port, but the plug slipped out of the lanyard. I appreciate everyone's suggestions, one or several, or all, are bound to work:)

Welcome to the forum SittingElf and to the club of 600 owners waiting for their spot to be called for the 800. I made the decision to swing an an Equinox 600 while waiting about a month ago, and I am so happy I did. As I commented in one of my previous posts, the E600 is no slouch, and in the programs and settings that are shared between the two machines, they are identical. Even when I get my E800, I will always have a soft spot for my E600... the machine I cut my Equinox teeth on :). HEH (Happy Equinox Hunting). Tim

Thanks, I will check that out as well.

That is a good point that I didn't think of Chase... When In get my 800 I will do just that.

Thanks Steve.

thanks Skate!

One of the things I am excited about with the Equinox is to do some swimming hole hunting as soon as the weather warms up. Because I have been using the supplied wired headphones for the land hunting, the screw cap for the headphones jack was left dangling. Evidently, the rubber strap holding it didn't have a good enough grip. The cap came loose and is MIA. I don't want to submerge the head unit with the jack port exposed... does anyone know how I could go about getting a replacement? Unfortunately (as we all know) the accessories page on the minelab website is not currently active. Tim.

Not sure if this is the reason Norm, but the Equinox doesn't ID in pinpoint mode. So it basically just "freezes" the last ID that registered on the screen when you pop it into pinpoint. I usually get an odd number like that when I am in pinpoint because I pull the coil to the side, then hit pinpoint, then sweep back across the target I want to pinpoint. If there is another target/id off to the side, that is the ID that remains on the screen while I'm doing my pinpointing. Hope that helps,Tim

Great discussion... this is one of the black boxes for me and my 600... I usually run in IB-0, and hear a lot of iron falsing, but I am fearful of running IB any higher and missing targets due to the IB masking them. Ran across this video last night. As with all test videos, there is some liberty taken with the testing parameters, but from a masking standpoint, it demonstrates much that is being said in this thread. The part that I was most interested in (and not really addressed in the video) was the effect the iron had on high conductive targets when positioned close. I saw a quarter hitting solid in the mid to high teens on a few of his swings. This definitely has made me stop and think about what those mid conductive ID's could actually mean in the field.

All three of mine were 13-14, or solid 14.

I have had this same argument with myself several times Steve :). But for me, I dig nickel tones at a new site for the information they provide me. Yes, they are also in the range of a few selections of gold rings, but I look at it on a larger scale. If I have a site that I am pulling multiple nickels from, that tells me it hasn't been detected much for gold jewelry at all... so I start paying more attention to the TID's just below and above the nickel id. Especially if there are few high tone coins, but several nickels. At least that is my approach, it isn't the nickel ID itself, but what it represents for that area. Having said that, I have pulled three War Nickels since I got my Equinox E600, and I am pretty stoked about that too. Not a lot of value, but cool finds :). And Cabin Fever's post reminded me why I dig zinc pennies too. :) Tim.

It definitely makes me more energized about hunting in the northwest! (as if I wasn't already). I have goosebumps just seeing the pictures (I keep coming back to the thread to look at them... )... can't even imagine how you are feeling Bryan. I am so thrilled for you! Tim

I enjoyed your post Norm. That is amazing that you were able to count so many plugs... and also that you are still pulling coins out of some of them. $38 in clad? That is some coinage!! I should qualify what I mean by "iffy" signals... or better stated, what I don't consider "iffy". If I can get a repeatable tone in both directions, that seems to be hitting in same spot on the ground... that, of course, isn't iffy. Even if the ID is jumping around. I dug a few wheats this past weekend that were bouncing from 24 to 30 with every sweep of the coil... but the tone was repeatable, and didn't move around... including when I pinpointed. "Iffy" to me is a non-repeatable tone... maybe it hits only in one direction, or every 2 or 3 out of 5 passes. It may stay in one place, or move a little with each pass, and the wiggle location is different than the pinpoint. And also, when the ID jumps up and touches 37 or 38 on occasion... Those are in most cases iron for me. Sometimes there is enough "high 20" ID's along with the tone for me to narrow my sweep and try to clean up the target... and I do have a tendency to try to make targets sound good (that is a common ailment for us all I think haha). That being said, I have been fooled a few times by solid signals. Good ID, repeatable tone with hard edges, at 3 or 4 arrows on the depth meter... only to recover a piece of iron. Some of that may be my running in IB 0... but when I have an "iffy" in the ground... and try to make something good out of it... I don't think I have dug anything but iron... As I said... that won't keep me from digging them... I just know there is a treasure hidden behind one of those "iffy's" :) TIm.

Holy smokes Bryan!!! That is awesome!! What a beautiful piece of gold! Congratulations!! Tim

Ramble on Dean :) Thank you! Great reminders..

That is a good comment Chase (as always). I keep saying I am swinging several machines in one housing.. I should have done some intra-Equinox comparisons to prove it. I will do that next time.

That is some work Cal! a few finds like that badge makes all that work worthwhile. Nice hunt! Tim.

I was invited to a permission by my hunting partner and friend Flysar yesterday... a turn of the century Rodeo Grounds and Picnic area. He has hunted this location a few times previously, and has found a Barber Quarter, a Barber Dime and a Buffalo, but warned me that the targets are sparse and the ground is loaded with iron. We were both very curious about what the Equinox could do in this environment. There were three of us hunting, I had the E600, he had his Deus and the third was swinging an AT Max. We started by marking a few targets.. I set out in Park 1, 50 tone, Recovery 3 and Iron Bias 0. I marked 6 targets and he marked about the same with his deus. As I mentioned in another thread, the Equinox was deadly on deep rusty iron. In a few cases, it was even giving me id's in the high 20's-low 30's and never bouncing up to high 30's. The Deus on the other hand, marked 6 or 7 old rusty bottle caps (a few of which the Equinox showed in the zinc range... 18-21). I will say, when comparing the marked targets between the three machines... we usually ended up with 1 "I would dig it" (and usually from the machine that marked the target), and 2 "I wouldn't dig it" by the other two machines. So, with the testing results ending inconclusive, we decided to break off and hunt. Over all we spent a solid 3 hours around the entrance and stadium of the rodeo grounds and other than Flysar finding a wheat, no old coins were found, only a few pennies, a clad dime and a clad quarter between the three of us. We decided to call it a day... mostly discouraged. As my friends drove away, I decided to take one more pass on the outside edge of the grounds, near the horse trailer entrance next to a large pasture. My first target was the penny with a cross stamped out in the middle. I thought to myself... "well that is a good sign". Within 30 minutes, in an area about 20 yards square... the other 5 targets in the picture along with the cross penny were in my pocket. I had spent all morning chasing iffy and sometimes repeatable high tones, digging all manner of iron bits (one square nail, which I was happy to find), working hard to try and make good targets out of the clicks and wheezes... and boom! these targets came in with roundness of tone and clarity. No doubt they were diggable. The three silver dimes all presented at 26-28, the war nickel was 13-14, the wheat was 24-26 and was the deepest at about 5". The other targets were 3-4". Interestingly enough, the ground in this area was dense and hard packed, but not dry... it had plenty of moisture, but it nearly took a digger to break the plug. All three dimes hid inside the plug from my Carrot on '3' with not response. I had to break open the plugs to find them with the pinpointer, and only after standing up to re-sweep the hole and plug with the 600 to find out where the target had gone. My takeaway is to never give up on a site, especially that has old ground. The targets are out there. Thanks to Flysar for inviting me along and giving me my best silver day to date. Tim.

I have been using the 600 with supplied/wired headphones for about a month... I definitely noticed a tonal difference... more muffled, less crisp... when I tried Flysar's 800 with the wireless headphones yesterday. I will test the difference a little more when I get my 800.