icurabeachguy

I'm sad to hear that. Felix has helped me repair my father and I's Cz20/21s over the years and has always been a valuable resource. I wish him well.

As others have mentioned, the AQ will take some time to learn in order to get the most out of it. In my one hunt with it so far, I see that it's a more effective PI machine than others I have used (Impulse, Sea Hunter, Dual Field, Mirage, Vallon VMH3CS). It has a stable threshold (lots of EMI where I hunt), an effective tone mode and is waterproof. For my first outing I chose a beach that I know well, that also happens to have tons of iron, pull tabs and jewelry. I used the factory recommendations for submerged use (11.5 delay, default everything else) and all metal mode for a few hours. Switched to tone mode in the heavy iron areas and back to all metal when I heard a high tone. The amount of feedback I get from the AQ allowed me to skip over certain types of iron targets that are scattered throughout this beach - other machines were not as easy to do this with. On the second battery during this hunt I just stuck to tone mode and dug high tones only - resulting in one nice 18k pendant. Sure, any other good waterproof machine would have found this pendant, but I don't feel like I'm being bogged down by iron and lack of discrimination for once. Also, I noticed I'm not digging any more microscopic pieces of aluminum like I did with the EQ, CZ21, CTX or Excalibur.

A short shaft for underwater work would be nice. As configured from Fisher, the stock shaft is longer than I like for my type of detecting.

When I was detecting full time, I would do 10 hour days underwater swinging a CZ21...your arms feel like jello afterwards. I would love to get one of these batteries for my AQ. So far that is my only gripe...changing batteries at the beach and making sure the seal isn't compromised (I hunt underwater).

Thanks for posting this as it gives a pretty distinctive tone for each of the different targets. I've been following the Aquamanta / Impulse AQ project since it was first talked about several years ago on fmall...even considered buying LE.JAGs prototype a few years ago but it's nice to see that it's finally in the hands of avid beach detectorists, albeit in limited quantities at the moment. Patiently waiting for my turn at a machine.

Hello Everyone, I have been a long time lurker since Steve started his forum and I've followed his posts on other forms. The Equinox is precisely what I have been asking for from Fisher, then First Texas, Minelab, Whites and anyone else who would listen. Give me a rugged lightweight, multi-frequency detector that is WATERPROOF and had magnetic charging ability so I don't have to expose the electronics of my detector everytime I need to charge it. My father and I have used CZ20 & 21, Excalibur and CTX for our snorkel detecting of salt water beaches for years. We almost always came back to the CZ because it ticked most of the above requirements (it's the most rugged and has the most up time - the Excal and CTX leaked or had problems that put it out of commission while the CZ kept chugging along). While the CTX found the deepest ring, a beautiful 18k white gold men's ring adorned with diamonds, and the Excal was very informative with the tones ( love that platinum wail) - they both did not hold up well to our hunting conditions and abuse from the environment which is hard for any detector. At the announced price point of the Equinox, I'd be willing to be a beta tester again after I swore it off when I bought the CTX at launch (those pesky seals gave me anxiety Everytime I hunted). If the performance matches the CTX I had, I'll be a happy camper just on weight and performance alone...snorkel detecting a salt water beach for 8 hours at a time gets tiring when you're swinging a boat anchor - I'm looking at you CTX and CZ!