Cabin Fever

Adjustable pinpoint mode??? Not sure what was going on there but it looked interesting.. I ratchet my pinpoint a lot so it would be neat to do it with some control. Bryan

I ordered an 800 on September 16th at 3:40 AM Pacific Time.. My dealer texted me the Pending Equinox release at 3:37 AM Pacific Time. on September 16th.. I happen to be up and had watched the Drop at Detectaval on the net. Bryan

Incredible find no doubt! Congratulations!

I door knock occasionally when I go on a silver dry streak and I can muster the courage to do it.. It goes against my personality in every way. I don’t like people bugging me and I don’t want to bug people... It is surprising how many people give permission and do so happily though... old home yards are easy pickings for the most part although quite a few have been hit. You can usually tell within the first 5 or 10 minuets.. I look for the limiddle to lower class neighborhoods.. Most of the higher end neighborhoods with fancy looking homes usually have been re- landscaped or hit before. Yards are fun because you find lots more interesting things like old toys, tokens and other odd ball relics compared to parks that have been pretty much cleaned out.. Got my first silver dime trifecta working a very small front yard of an early 1900s home for less then an hour a couple years ago... Bryan

A pennyweight per yard is definitely enough to get me moving some earth..

Unlike most FBS users I started with the CTX and then later moved to the E-Track. I thought I would miss the target trace moving to the E-Trac I but can’t think of a single time I’ve missed it. If the target trace would give good indication of a target it also showed up in the audio. The problem was that the target trace also got fooled a lot with iron falsing. If the Equinox has good audio I’m not worried about not having a target screen. Because of its superior audio and better coil selection I feel I have done better with the E-Trac then I did with the CTX. I do miss the nice clear depth numbers of the CTX though. Bryan

I did some testing of the Mars Sniper on a T2 against the Teknetics 10x5 and NEL Sharpshooter coils... The Mars Sniper was lighter, deeper and separated better then both coils on the nail board test. The NEL was very close to the Mars in performance and both were noticeably better in every category against the Tek coil. My experience with a Mars Tiger Coil on an E-Trac was not so good. I end up sending it back. Very anemic... Inthink something was wrong with it or just didn’t mesh with FBS.. Bryan

Sounds like there is possibly some hope that the Equinox MIGHT reopen sites. I was hoping for more depth from the next Minelab but maybe it will be its ability to unmask that is its secret bullet. I should be able to tell pretty quickly if this is the case. I know most of the old parks I hunt very well and there are 3 in particular that I have completely stoped hunting... A 6 hour hunt might produce one old coin.. Sometimes none. These were parks that me and my friend pulled lots of very nice old coins, tokens and other goodies from. My soil is also very tough and almost all single frequency detectors turn coins to ferrous signals at roughly 6+ inches. The difference between my soil and Steve and Daniels is that the CTX and E-Trac ARE able to reach 9 and occasionally 10” with bigger coils where the others can’t. My Friends V3i with big coil can get down there too, but not with the ID accuracy of the Minelabs. We both will dig ANY non ferrous signal that is in the deep old coin zones... At this point I will actually just be happy if the Equinox is as good as FBS but in a faster, lighter package.. My tendons are messed up and the weight of the E-Trac is not helping.. Thanks for the peek into one of your Equinox hunts Steve.. Bryan

Sometimes I get a little thin skinned and defensive on forums for some reason and my response above was not one of my better moments... I apologize for that. We all detect in our own way. None really better then the other as long as we are enjoying what we do. Bryan

I probably should have kept my depth discrimination techniques to myself. I knew it would open a can of worms. I am fully aware of all these scenarios.. I too have found old coins at the surface level. I use my common sense wile hunting and do dig some shallow targets. The parks I use these methods at I have spent many, many hours hunting over a couple years time. I know them very well and know what areas within the park to dig the shallow coins. I am bit fortunate to have a friend that hunts with me that loves clad.. he digs everything and we keep close tabs on the depth of the coins we find. I would be alerted to any surprise shallow old coins in an area I wasn't expecting... The very few old coins I might miss because of my technique don't make up for the swing time I waste digging clad. When I was in a club last year I found more silver then any other club member by a long shot with my friend the closest competitor at just over half of what I found. He hunted many more hours then me too. I'm not trying to brag, just pointing out that my goal is old coins and I found a way that works for me to find the most I can in the time I have. He finds an enormous amount of clad and he also finds more jewelry then me. For some reason jewelry just doesn't get me excited.. I'm not in it for the money .. I like the old stuff.. My style is definitely not for everyone, especially if your not confident in your detector or you are after modern treasure.. Bryan

Your right GB. Very complicated subject... Depth of coins not only is different from region to region but within the city I do most of my hunting it varies dramatically... Some of the parks I hunt I am not able to discriminate by depth except for surface coins. I will definitely digging everything for awhile once I get my Equinox... Bryan

On the subject of depth... How accurate is the Equinox depth meter on dime size objects? The depth meter is very accurate on both the CTX and E-Trac and I take advantage of it. This is a risky tactic but I do have a few parks that have what I call the old coin layer. In these parks I use depth as indicator to dig or not dig. In one particular park I have never found an old coin less then roughly 6" I use common sense while doing this and will retrieve all quarter signals (aka silver ring) and also dig the shallow targets around tree roots and hard packed areas with slower sink rate. I'm after old coins and don't like wasting my time retrieving clad pennies and dimes. It takes too much swing time away that can be used for getting over an old coin. Some will say I need to clear out the clad to hear what's below but I have found this to be so extremely rare that I have concluded the math tells me it's not worth it. Bryan

That's an awesome find! Better then finding a common date undamaged Barber in my opinion.. This coin you can imagine some history behind it. Nice showpiece.. Bryan

I am too really hoping for aftermarket coils. One of the main reasons for me going from a CTX 3030 to the older E-Trac was because of coil availability.. I'm a huge fan of the NEL Gen 5 Tornado Coil. Super light and mounted on the E-Trac was deeper then my CTX/ 17" Coil combo. It will be the first coil I buy if and when it is released for the Equinox.. The Hunter is another of my favorite coils on the E-Trac.. It's a great yard coil. Perfect combination of depth, coverage and separation for a moderately junky site. I preferred this coil to my SunRay X-8.. I'm not the most patient guy so it's my small coil. I lose interest real fast running the tiny 6" coils. Funny, it doesn't bother me when nugget hunting for some reason.. Bryan

I knew more Equinox info was on the way after I received an early 6" of snow! New Minelab Equinox = long hard winter.. Thanks for posting the info Steve.. can't wait for this one. Bryan

Found this photo on another forum. The poster said they pulled it off a Facebook page so I don't know if it's legit.. if accurate it gives a little more info on the Equinox.. I feel a little uneasy posting this since it's not verified but here it is.. Just keep the lack of sources in mind. Bryan

Thanks for the tip GB! I did not know this. I always completely turned off the pinpointer, then turned it back on closer to the target to ratchet down. Did not realize it could be done with a quick push of the button. Bryan

Gbonus, your friend sounds just like my friend I hunt with. He covers an amazing amount of ground and finds an amazing amount of modern clad coins. I call him the Clad King. Brute force detecting works very well for him. He also finds a lot of junk jewelry and other wired stuff. I'm much more selective and leave a LOT of clad in the ground on purpose.. I use depth as a big factor to make my dig decisions. I find what I call the old layer in the park and dig most everything non ferrous for example 5" and deeper. I use common sense and don't hold hard to that rule. I will dig surface quarters (silver rings)and sometimes dime signals. I will also dig shallower coin signals around trees and compacted dirt areas. My friend probably digs five times or more holes then I do but last year I found roughly 3 time more old silver then he did. He is very good at what he does and enjoys the Large number of clad he finds. He also finds more neat trinkets and odd jewelry then me. I'm more of a quality over quantity kind of detectorist.. I know a lot of guys would knock my style telling me to clear out the surface clad to find what's underneath... That's true but I don't want to. I do very well with my own method and I enjoy the hunt.. I say pick a style of detecting you enjoy. Just keep that coil low to the ground and learn your detector and what it's telling you.. Bryan

One thing I can see right away that I like about this new Pro-Find is the separate sensitivity control. Using the power button on other pinpointers to work your way through a series of beeps to change sensitivity is so cumbersome that I just got used to using my Carrot on high full time. If I really want to power down I just power off and use the ratchet meathod by turning back on closer to the target. The separate control should make for quicker and easier target recovery.. Bryan

Matched with the right coil, the 705 is no joke when it comes to coin hunting too.. There is a great selection of aftermarket coils for the X-Terra series also. Bryan

You bet. Thanks for copying the content. Now we can all see Minelabs goofy Multi-IQ graph and try to figure out what it's showing. I like the quote: "Multi-IQ achieves a high level of target ID accuracy at depth much better than any single frequency detector can achieve, including switchable single frequency detectors that claim to be multi-frequency." cant wait to try it out.. Bryan

Here is a Minelab Treasure Talk on the Equinox Multi-IQ Technology.. http://www.minelab.com/anz/go-minelabbing/treasure-talk/equinox-technologies-part-1 EQUINOX Technologies (Part 1) October 19, 2017 03:23pm Minelab Electronics This is the first instalment in a blog series introducing and explaining the technologies inside our new EQUINOX detectors… Background When Minelab started developing our EQUINOX detector, we looked very closely at all of the current market offerings (including our own) to reassess what detectorists were really after in a new coin & treasure detector. A clear short list of desirable features quickly emerged – and no real surprises here – waterproof, lightweight, low-cost, wireless audio, and of course, improved performance from new technology. This came from not only our own observations, but also customers, field testers, dealers and the metal detecting forums that many detectorists contribute to. While we could have taken the approach of putting the X-TERRA (VFLEX technology) in a waterproof housing and adding a selectable frequency range, this would have been following the path of many of our competitors in just rehashing an older single frequency technology that had already reached its performance limits. Another option would have been to create a lower cost waterproof FBS detector, but that also had its challenges with FBS being ‘power hungry’, needing heavier batteries, heavier coils, etc., and relatively high cost compared to the more recent advances that our R&D team have been making with the latest electronics hardware and signal processing techniques. When Minelab develop a new detecting technology we aim to create a paradigm shift from existing products and provide a clear performance advantage for our customers. Our Technology History The multi-frequency broad band spectrum (BBS) technology that first appeared in Sovereign detectors in the early 1990’s provided an advantage over single frequency coin & treasure detectors. This evolved into FBS with Explorer, all the way through to the current CTX 3030 (FBS 2). The multi-period sensing (MPS) PI technology that first appeared in the SD 2000 detector in the mid 1990’s gave a significant advantage over single frequency gold detectors. This key technology exists in the current GPX Series detectors today. Zero Voltage Transmission (ZVT) is our latest gold detection technology implemented in the GPZ 7000 and is a recent example of Minelab’s continued innovation beyond ‘tried and true’ technologies to achieve improved performance. Further to our own consumer products, our R&D team also has significant experience working with the US and Australian military on multi-frequency technologies for metal detection. Introducing Multi-IQ Multi-IQ is Minelab’s next major innovation and can be considered as combining the performance advantages of both FBS and VFLEX in a new fusion of technologies. It isn’t just a rework of single frequency VLF, nor is it merely another name for an iteration of BBS/FBS. By developing a new technology, as well as a new detector ‘from scratch’, we will be providing both multi-frequency and selectable single frequencies in a lightweight platform, at a low cost, with a significantly faster recovery speed that is comparable to or better than competing products. We have come out with a very bold statement that has captured a lot of market attention: “EQUINOX obsoletes all single frequency VLF detectors” Multi-IQ achieves a high level of target ID accuracy at depth much better than any single frequency detector can achieve, including switchable single frequency detectors that claim to be multi-frequency. When Minelab use the term “multi-frequency” we mean “simultaneous” – i.e. more than one frequency is transmitted, received AND processed concurrently. This enables maximum target sensitivity across all target types and sizes, while minimising ground noise (especially in saltwater). There are presently only a handful of detectors from Minelab and other manufacturers that can be classed as true multi-frequency, all of which have their own advantages and disadvantages. How does Multi-IQ compare to BBS/FBS? Multi-IQ uses a different group of fundamental frequencies than BBS/FBS to generate a wide-band multi-frequency transmission signal that is more sensitive to high frequency targets and slightly less sensitive to low frequency targets. Multi-IQ uses the latest high-speed processors and advanced digital filtering techniques for a much faster recovery speed than BBS/FBS technologies. Multi-IQ copes with saltwater and beach conditions almost as well as BBS/FBS, however BBS/FBS still have an advantage for finding high conductive silver coins in all conditions. There’s much more information to share with you about Multi-IQ, as we put the finishing touches to EQUINOX and carry out final field testing around the world. Stay tuned for Part 2… * 20 kHz and 40 kHz are not available as single operating frequencies in EQUINOX 600. The Multi-IQ frequency range shown applies to both EQUINOX 600 and 800. This diagram is representative only. Actual sensitivity levels will depend upon target types and sizes, ground conditions and detector settings.

I guess I missed that. It's nice to see some new entries in the pinpointer market. Competition means better products for us.. Bryan

There is a Teknetics version too.. The Tek-Point.

I remember when I first got my Gold Monster. I took it outside to my coin garden just out of curiosity and was surprised to see it hit my 10" dime with the bigger coil on. My soil is not friendly and I have only had a few detectors ( all Minelab) hit that 10" dime. I thought at the time if a guy was on an old site with no modern trash it would make for a good beep and dig detector. Bryan