Cabin Fever

Impressive hunt!  Nice batch of nuggets with lots of character.. I really like the little wing looking nugget to the right of the Mercury Dime. Not that I don’t like your 10+ grammer too!

Good job Lunk!

Bryan

I think about, and appreciate my wireless headphones every time I gear up for the hunt. It’s hard to imagine going back to wired headphones and loosing the freedom.  My Gold Monster is not wireless but I don’t use headphones with it like I do with other threshold based gold detectors.  My SunRay’s haven’t seen use since I bought my Equinox.

Next thing I’m hoping for is wireless  pinpointers that aren’t proprietary and can be used along with my Equinox.

Bryan

I’m not going to argue with you Jimmy M. I found my first nugget in the early 90s with a Whites Goldmaster and I’ve had a few different models of them since then.  It looks like Whites has done a nice job with the 24k. 

Bryan

Nice setup Darwoody!

Because these two detectors are so different in design, there are other things to consider besides performance.

Some might be willing to give up a possible very slight edge in performance of the 24k for the simplicity of the Monster.  The Monster is so unique in that regard that it has real value. 

The simplicity of the Monster 1000 is frankly addicting to me even though I have the experience and skills to run the more complex nugget detectors.  Maybe I’m just getting old.  I have an Equinox I can use if I want to play with settings and try to dial in peak performance if i want.

Im just saying your personality and type of hunting you do needs to be factored in for Detector choice too.

Bryan

I’m very happy with my Pro Pointer battery life and I run my pointer at full sensitivity at all times. 

5 hours ago, Tiftaaft said:

Dang Bryan!  I'm on the wrong side of the state!  Awesome finds!!  I can't wait to get my 15" this week!!  And I can vouch for your comments about the tough ground and the 6" limit.  If this 15" gives a little better response at the 6+" range... it is a game changer (on a machine that is already a game changer). ~Tim.

Just had my second hunt today with the 15” coil.  It is a game changer for me!  I have never had a coil improve my finds so dramatically as this coil has. If you have open areas to hunt with real deep coins, it’s a no-brainer.  It’s not that the new big coil is dramatically deeper but that it hits the 9 and 10” coins so easily that I am confident that it is finding the coins at depth that the stock coil has a harder time catching..

4 Indian Head Cents today.  I have never found 4 in one day. Also found 4 silvers today.  Extremely rare but I did both the same day.   My poor friend got crushed again today, this time with his trusty V3i and big coil. He found 2 old coins to my 12!  That’s 23 to 2 over a two day period.  That is not the norm. He is a very skilled hunter but just could not reach these coins. 

Bryan

First hunt with my new 15” coil and I am definitely impressed.. The weight is so light for a big coil that I didn’t give it a thought all day.  It pinpoints with ease but you will appreciate and miss the capabilities of the stock 11” coil once you find yourself in heavy trash.. This should be expected of course but I was still able to isolate a couple coins near iron on todays hunt with the big coil. It just took a little more effort.. The thing that was most noticeable was how hard it hit coins at  9-10 inch depths..  All coins found today were between 8 and 10 inches except the Shield Nickel hung up in some roots around 7”.  My friend who I consider a better hunter then I, did not find ONE old coin today with his MX Sport.  This is a very tough sight and everything is real deep. The guilt factor was getting so high by the end of the hunt I almost didn’t want to find another coin.  It’s much funner when everyone is doing well for sure.  

The IDs and depth gauge accuracy seem better then my 11” stock coil.  The Barber Dime was a full 10” with solid mid to high 20s all the way around.. No doubt it was a coin. In fact I told my friend I thought it was silver before I dug.  The ground is tough around here and very few Detectors can ID anything correctly past 6”.

To sum up my experience, the 15” Coil is a great addition to the Equinox coil lineup.. It’s a no-brainer if you have large open areas to hunt with moderate or less trash.. It will spend a great deal of time on my 800 for sure!

Bryan

Congratulations Steve. A dream hunt for sure! The age of the finds are truly mind blowing.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Bryan

Looks like they made a great effort to make the coil as light as possible.

My New 15” Equinox Coil mounted on one of steveg’s  beautiful Custom Rods from http://www.stevesdetectorrods.com/

Hope you all get yours soon!

29 minutes ago, Ringtail said:

Thanks Cabin Fever, that’s good advice. I haven’t tried Park 1 and Field 1 much. Is it just me or do Field 1 and 2 seem almost identical. When you look at the factory pre-sets in the owners manual all of the settings are the same except Field 1 is 2 tones and Field 2 is 50 tones. I’m guessing that the frequency weighting and signal processing is different.

El Nino - you’re absolutely right. Turning off all metal silences a lot of EMI. I usually hunt with it off unless I’m searching a new site and trying to find out where all of the iron is.

Thanks!

Joe

 

 

Jo each Mode has different weighted multi frequencies that can affect your hunt. I don’t pay attention to what the factory settings for each Mode are.  I go in to the Mode and customize it for my hunt. You can set up the exact same tones, Recovery Speeds and other settings for all the Modes but get different results because of the way the Mode Frequencies are weighted differently..  

Dont let the factory settings of one particular Mode stop you from trying it out. Make it yours.

Good luck,

Bryan

Try Park 1 and Field 1. The lower weighted frequencies might do better in your area.. Added discrimination helps quiet down EMI, sometimes dramatically in my experience, although I know you don’t want to use much for relic hunting. I’m a Park hunter so it’s easier to get away with heavy discrimination when needed.

I don’t  know how many points your ground balance is changing from area to area, but if it’s only a couple points it shouldn’t affect your depth.  At least it hasn’t in my experience.

Bryan

4 hours ago, Dig It said:

Mine has arrived, but so has the SNOW !!!!  ,...….

That figures!  It’s the New Toy weather curse. My big coil comes tomorrow along with 90% chance of rain for the next two days.  I’ll try not to complain though. At least my precipitation is still coming in a liquid form.. Hope your snow melts off so you can at least test it once before the deep freeze.

Bryan

Steve I too have noticed an even better ability for the Nox to lock on to coins trying to be masked by junk since the update, but have been afraid to mention it just in case it was a placebo affect or conformation bias.

My very last hunt, with new update, I pulled 10 old coins, a token and a couple pieces of junk jewelry out of a very small area that my friend and I have hunted with the CTX, E-Trac, V3i and my Equinox before the update..

We covered this little hill on multiple occasions over the last couple years.. If I had found one or two coins in this little spot I would have been happy.

These signals were all tricky but once the signal was isolated, I had high confidence that I was digging a coin.. Most of the signals were one way but solid. Nail falsing seems to be improved with the new update too.  A couple of the coins were not only deep but on edge. 

Once you isolate a one way signal, a coin will usually stay on a tight ID range, for example mid 20s. One way nail falsing will be all over the place bouncing from mid teens to mid 30s.  We all need to go back over these previously good locations from multiple angles to try and find these one way hits.. I use the pinpoint function quite heavily for isolation and shaping the targets.

Good to hear I’m not the only one have good success with the update.

Bryan

You found THE Key date V Nickel!!!   Nice find.

Bryan

Fantastic hunt!  

I don’t know about master but Your welcome any time.  We have some nice old parks in Spokane. They have been hit hard for many years but there are still a few oldies hiding amongst the can slaw and nails waiting to be saved.

Bryan

After missing pretty much the entire summer Detecting season do to buying and selling a home and the move that goes with it,  I have finally been able to get out on 3 hunts over the last couple weeks..  Armed with my trusty Equinox 800 and the new software update, I was able to muster a few old coins out of some heavily hunted city parks..

I like the update. My depth meter is working better and it seems like the audio modulation has improved.. ?? The high conductor numbers seem a little more squirrelly but I’m digging anything in that range anyway..  I am re-hunting areas that my friend and I have hit hard with the CTX, E-Trac, and V3i. The Equinox has not disappointed!  Most of the finds are tricky signals. Either real deep, co-located with other metal, or on edge..  I have never been more confident in a Detector.

I found some American and foreign silver with the highlight being the tiny silver 1886 5 cent Canada Fish Scale. Those are tough to find.. Check out how thin this one is compared to the Mercury Dime it’s sitting on. Other notables are the two key date Wheat Pennies.. 1913 and 14 S in decent condition.. 

Bryan

The Monster has a Fun factor that I have never really experienced in any other Detector.  It’s simplicity is a beautiful thing. 

Bryan

Got my tracking info for my 15x12 today so it looks like they are starting to trickle out..

Bryan

Congratulations on your Silver Quarter..They are getting hard to come by.

Many things can affect the IDs.  Depth, other near by targets, coins on edge, ground mineralization and the condition of the coin itself..  

Bryan

Pinpointer preference seems to be as personal as metal detectors themselves..

I wore a hole through my Carrot tip (still works) so I thought it was time to try something new. I end up buying a TRX and sold it right away.. Did not like it at all.. Then I bought an F-Pulse and Profind -35. After carrying 2 or sometimes all tree at a time for several hunts I kept on going back to my trusty Carrot.. It’s hard to put it to words why but it just works, and it works fast with no fuss. Profind -35 is a close second. I don’t like the shape of it and the fact I have to search for the power button every time but the performance is good.  F-pulse is just to fussy and sensitive..  

I leave my Carrot on full power all the time and just ratchet down when needed. I can grab it out of my pouch and instantly turn it on by feel. It’s noticeably faster and easier for me to use then the others which is very important to me.  

Bryan

I have dug quiet a few V and Buffalo Nickels and they all have come in 12 -13..  Even the deep ones.  My Equinox has been eerily solid on Nickels like no other detector I’ve owned..  any flash of anything other then 12-13 has been something besides a Nickel..

Bryan

1 hour ago, phrunt said:

I'm surprised you didn't like the small Coiltek 10 x 5, that coil is brilliant on the GPX 4500, very sensitive to small targets and still goes pretty deep.   

It very well could be a great coil on the GPX.. I just didn’t like them on the E-Trac and CTX. FBS is completely different technology then the GPX 4500.

Bryan