Tiftaaft

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.

Haha, It's all good Marx :). I was sincere about my comments about the community here. Great site, great group, great information. :)

Granted, my sample size is fairly small compared to the hours others have put on their Equinox's. But a quick question....: Has anyone recovered a non-ferrous keeper with the depth meter pegged, and/or with an id that bounces up to 38-40? I, for one, have not. Even my 9"+ keepers (tax token, wheat) gave me 4 arrow depth readings and id's that bounced around the true target id. To my recollection, every target I have chased with the depth meter maxed, and/or the id bouncing up to 38-40 have been ferrous. Of course, it doesn't keep me from digging them... sometimes they sound too sweet :)

One of my favorite things about this forum is that I can be tactfully told my assumptions are wrong and baseless without feeling like I want to crawl in the hole I just dug chasing a bent nail in 5khz. thanks Bryan and TNSS.

+1 (+2)

Part of what draws me to any hobby is the history and legacy, as well as the future. I enjoy the 'study' of where it came from , and where we are, which helps me better grasp where we are going. I think Phrunt is correct, the newer generations are more "open" to the disposable technology mindset. Computers, Phones, Gaming Systems... are only as good as the moment you purchase them, and the next day there is something bigger, better, faster, more. I used to be an avid golfer (until a more important hobby took my non-family free time ;)) Golf is a great example of appreciating the history as well as the new tech. I can tell you that I enjoyed playing with the set of my grandfather's forged blades and persimmon woods, as much as I enjoyed playing with my brand new computer designed, custom fit for my swing, titanium oversized, performance enhancing clubs and balls. To me detecting is a lot like golf... As you can see from my current detector arsenal... I am anywhere from beep and dig to newest tech. <--------- I can make great finds with any of them, and have. Having said that, just like Nike, Callaway and Taylor Made have shown... updating technology and releasing new equipment on a frequent basis is maintaining relevance in the marketplace. To Steve's comment above, Nokta / Makro gets that... and I would most likely buy a new detector every year (or even more frequently) if I felt it was an advancement in the type of hunting I do. My two wheats. Tim.

Congrats Tom!!! How cool is it that you found the dime you dropped while playing ball all those years ago?!! How did it hit?... looks pretty deep from the plug... Nice finds!! Tim.

Thanks TD! I have to say I have been guilty of the "drunken sailor" method of detecting. Haha!! Your results just cemented my spending several more hours at this site... With all the wheats I have found there... there has to be at least one silver somewhere... I will probably painstakingly grid that area where most of the wheats were concentrated. In my first few hunts there, I also found several clad quarters from 2-4"... so that tells me it hasn't been detected recently... Might have been hit hard with an etrac when it first came out... and all (or most) of the silver was cherrypicked and the wheats were left behind... but it would have to have taken a pretty skilled cherrypicker to snag all the silver and leave copper in the ground. Anyway, I will keep hitting it as I get better acquainted with the Equinox... I think if any machine can find an oldie, the Equinox can. HH. Tim.

Welcome to the best detecting forum on the web FlySAR. Looking forward to you helping put the Equinox through the Northwest Ground paces next week. Tim.

Thanks GB! That '26 is a "D". Ah well... I will have to keep looking for that semi-key date wheat :).

You have that right Skate, smiling and shaking my head in amazement every time another greenie comes out of the ground, I agree with you, even though I talked about a few deep targets in my narrative... I believe the ability for this machine to unmask and id is much more of the reason I was able to dig so many missed targets, the few examples of depth are just icing on the cake! Hope the rain subsides long enough for you to get out and hunt this weekend. Tim.

I have mentioned this park before. I use it as my testing grounds. Mainly because it is one of the oldest parks in the town where I work, but also because it has been detected hard over the years, including by me during my lunchtime as often as I can get out there. Over the past 2 years, I have probably logged 60 or 70 hours at this park. Last summer, I thought I had eeked out the last wheatie by running my Vaquero in All Metal (after spending the prior year and a half hunting it with an AT Pro, ETrac, CTX, Explorer SE Pro, and even a few times with the ATX). Last fall, I hunted this location 3 or 4 times during lunch and came away with goose eggs. So of course, when I received my Equinox E600, I couldn't wait to see if the hype about Equinox and pounded locations was at all true. To all on this forum, my story will come to no surprise. And even thought I trust the members of this site implicitly, and the results your all were sharing since the release... I am still gobsmacked with my own results. I played a little with the different modes, but for the most part, I ran Park 1, Noise Cancel, Ground Balance (not tracking), Recovery 3 (max on the 600), Iron Bias 0, 50 tones (a bit in 2 tone), Multi-Frequency. Over the past 3 weeks, 30 minutes here, 45 minutes there, an odd 1 hour hunt... I have spent about 5.5 hours swing time. My 45 minute hunt today rewarded me with the oldest of all - 1917-S, and when I dropped the carrot into the hole to measure the depth, the top was below ground level... similar to the tax token I dug last week. In addition to these oldies, I also found 35 Lincoln memorials (most copper), 7 nickels (all Jeffersons), 5 clad dimes, and a clad quarter. All I can say about the Equinox is... wow. Tim

Will do Bryan, I am thinking of single frequency in the nastiest of iron conditions of course... I am consistently amazed with the performance of Park 1, Multi Freq, Recovery 6 in my local turf hunting... Tim.

A LOT of good information here! And it actually stirs my thinking process as to the reason why the Equinox offers Multi-IQ AND single frequency selection.... and not only to use as an identification method for bottle tops and screw caps. In an iron infested site (not unlike the pics above), where unmasking is the priority more than ID at depth (not to discount the amazing ability Multi-IQ has on recovery AND id at depth)... will the Equinox be even faster running I single freq 5khz (though understandably a bit less stable and less accurate at depth id)? If "fast is the new deep" because of the ability to recover and detect a conductive target next to a ferrous target, and Multi-IQ = Fast... is it correct to assume that Single Freq = a little faster and therefor... "deeper" due to the ability to unmask? I may be taking giant leaps here due to my inexperience with the technical workings, but I again fall back on... if there was no use for single frequency, why would it be an option to select? *mind blown*.... again. :) I will be testing this in the wild later today and this weekend... but if anyone has thoughts about this, please share. Tim.

Great show Steve! Enjoyed every minute of your interview.

It is threads like this that have me donning my headlamp for a night hunt... just to get my Equinox tone fix. Lol.

Nice Skate!! I'm going to cast my line tomorrow and see if I can pull in a lunker. :)

I took some time on Saturday to run my Equinox 600 through the paces again at the site above. Last week, as I mentioned in my note above, I focused around the areas I had previously found several wheats, and was able to squeak out two as I mentioned. Saturday, I decided to spend some time around the old footprint of the school and on the right sidewalk strip. I placed yellow boxes to show my areas that I spent most of the time. I wouldn't say I officially "gridded" the area, but I did make several passes back and forth. Along with the two wheats I found last week, I located two more on Saturday. I have shown the Equinox wheats as green dots on the pic. Another interesting thing is the area off the corner of the playground, to the left of the trees in the picture. On Saturday I recovered several coins, including two quarters, two dimes and 3 or 4 copper Lincoln memorials - kinda on the edges of the two yellow boxes... I will be spending some more time in that area around the trees on my next visit. But I found those coins by digging less than solid tones. These targets were between 3" and 5" max.. as I said the ground is gravel mixed with dirt, so the digging is tough.. but the tones and id gave me a peep, and enough consistency to stop me... but it wasn't a banging target. Along with tough digging, this is difficult soil to detect... lots of falsing, 3" coins giving iffy signals and id's. Even the quarters required small short passes to narrow down... The settings I used were: Park 1, Noise Cancel, Ground Balance (tracking off), 2 tone (break at 20), Max Recovery (3 on 600), Iron Bias 0. I also performed a test on my way back to the car on a clean patch of ground (which was difficult to find at this site). I pulled 2 nails out of my pouch and a clad dime. I placed them in the following orientation: I o I I started with about a 2 inch space between the nail and the dime on each side... and I only heard the null of the nail, no matter my sweep speed. I spread the nails out a bit more to about 3.5" on each side and was able to pick up the dime in the middle. I understand this isn't necessarily a scientific test, but I was expecting to be able to pick up the dime a little easier between two nails, especially after reading and watching some of the test results by others. Any thoughts would be very much appreciated. As I continue to learn the Equinox, I'm sure I will find ways to maximize it's abilities to help with this ground... because my Quest continues at this site. HH. Tim.

Great spot you have there Cal! Nice collection of oldies! Tim.

Awesome post Chase. I was just out in the rain earlier today and for a brief moment I asked myself... why am I standing out here in the rain digging clad. For starters... because I can :). But more importantly, because every penny or dime or nickel I dig, I have one more data point to add to the analysis which will make me a better Equinox user. Every target tells me something that I either didn't know before, or confirms what I have already learned. Win/Win. So your post is timely to a conversation I was just having with myself a few hours ago. :) Thanks for sharing Chase. Tim

Thanks! Yes, that helps a lot. I have been seeing a few Jeffersons drop down to 11 on occasion, depending on the soil. Haven't dug anything older yet (Buff or V or Shield), but was wondering if they might get down to 10... sounds like they could. Good info!

How did those nickels hit Tom? And at what depth? Pretty nice haul today.. nice hunt!! Tim.

Equinox E600 Update on "Quest for Silver" I have been excited to get back out to this school in an attempt to complete my Quest for Silver using the Equinox. So, two nights ago, I spent about an hour and a half covering some of the same areas I have had luck in my previous hunts with other machines. The ground is interesting, and changes from area to area. Where I found most of the wheats in the picture above... the ground is mostly dirt and somewhat hard at digging depths. The ground on the lower right of the playground pad is hard packed and mostly gravel. It takes work to get down even 3 or 4 inches using a digger - and all my machines, Equinox included, false something terrible in this area. On this hunt, I found two wheats on the left side (where most of the yellow dots are) and one wheat very close to the lone yellow dot on the lower right side. But no silver... yet. Aside from the wheats, I also found several clad coins, dimes and copper pennies mostly... and in the same area I have gridded with other machines more than once. I also found a thin silver ring, and a few pieces of junk jewelry. My next trip, I will focus on the areas around the old school foot print, as well as in the lower left area of the grounds, where there is an old backstop and lined by old houses on the other side of the chain link border fence. As I have said earlier in my post... I am convinced there is a silver coin hiding somewhere in that picture above, and I believe it is just a matter of time before I and my Equinox find it :). More to come. HH Tim.

Looking forward to more "reports from the field" Norm. Thanks for sharing. Tim.