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2 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

Great report.  Especially liked the discussion of target marking and comparison between the detectors.  Wonder how those marks might have sounded in various Equinox modes.  Just really illustrates the point that you need to hit a site with different detectors or at least different modes.  Diversity of tools is key.  Also, liked how you didn't give up and followed one last hunch and it paid off.

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 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 hour ago, Cabin Fever said:

The Stock 11” Coil feels remarkably small in high trash compared to any detector I have run with that size coil..  I can’t imagine what the 6” will be like.. I’m actually looking more forward to the bigger coil for ground coverage..  Hopefully it will knock the edge off some of the tiny targets that the Equinox is so sensitive to.. 

I’m with you Cal Cobra.. A closed elliptical coil would be fantastic..

Bryan

+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.

4 hours ago, FlySAR said:

Nice work!

When we meet next week try to save me a couple easy ones.

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.

11 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Another excellent report, Tim, and extra thanks for pub'bing your settings.  That will help me next time out.

You guys in the Pacific NW (Cabin Fever another example) get mostly mintmarked (and apparently majority -S) coins which is a huge +.  Trying to read the dates+MM's in your photo I'm drawn to that one in the middle -- a 1926.  Is that an -S?  If so that's a semi-key date+MM in the Lincoln series.  (1926-D nothing special, though.)

Only 5.5 hours and all that in previously hunted sites?  Your Eqx isn't the only thing with fast recovery speed!

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

19 hours ago, Skate said:

That is so cool! I can just see you smiling from ear to ear at all that still laid under the ground in that "hunted out" park. I wish folks could wrap their minds around this paradigm shift away from depth to unmasking. I would bet that 90% of the coins and jewelry we're after is 2-6 inches down especially out west and it is for that the Equinox will rule all others. I love your enthusiasm as it's infectious. We have 2-4 inches of rain the next two days so no hunting for me until Friday. 

Great job Tim

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.

31 minutes ago, Cabin Fever said:

Let us know if you figure out something interesting in your testing Tim..

I had grand illusions of using all of these single and multi frequencies on my hunts but have found myself staying in Park and Field 1 with modified tones.. I’m doing so well I just haven’t done the frequency shifting and testing I thought I would..  I really need to test  the Park and Field 2 especially..  

Bryan

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!  

21 minutes ago, Tometusns said:

Oh, I got two jefferson, a buffalo,"v", and shield nickel today. If only I could have squeaked a war nickel in there it would have been a clean sweep!

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