Cabin Fever

Carl (Geotech) addressed the slow fire up on Dankowskie’s site yesterday with directions on how to re-calibrate your F-Pulse.. Holefully both Carl and Steve don’t mind me reposting it here.. I did see improvement on my F-Pulse after the re-calibration.. It’s a little tricky to do.. You need to be quick with the start of the 6 button presses.. It took me several attempts.. Bryan “ncwayne Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Tom, being one who insists on incorporating every efficiency, I'm curious as to your thoughts on the > 2 to 3 second delay between pressing the button to turn on the F-Pulse - and it turning on? > My thinking is that this is due to the LED brightness adjustment program starting with the F-Pulse off. geotech quote> If you quick-press the button to turn on, the LED code is bypassed, has no effect. What happens on power-up is some internal calibration stuff. It is critical during power-up that the PP is held away from metal, if you're waving it around and it sees metal (and it can see large metal from a fair distance) then this will extend the cal time. The cal is supposed to be accelerated by a factory calibration that saves a very close starting point in memory. If you are still seeing a long power-up delay, you can re-cal your F-Tek and it should speed up. Here are the steps: As you turn the PP on, you can continue holding the button to toggle the state of the LED. That is, if the LED is normally on and you want it off, continue holding the button on power-up and after about 1 second the LED will turn off. At the instant the LED turns off (or on), release the button and then immediately press the button 6 times in a row. The PP should beep on every button press. After the 6th press stop pressing the button and just hold the PP still, it is now doing a cal routine. This can take up to 10 seconds to complete so be patient. When it's done the PP will beep 2-3 times and the LED will start doing a weird dance. Turn it off, then turn it back on and see if it's faster to boot up. Two things to keep in mind... 1. Keep the PP away from any metal during the cal procedure. 2. The cal procedure also executes a factory reset on all settings.“

I have adjusted to the Equinox and it gets a little easier to gauge depth each time out.. It was just a bit of a disappointment to see the Equinox take a step backwards with this feature.. Those of us who have a lot of hours on the E-Trac and CTX have been spoiled.. For those who relic hunt or dig almost all non ferrous, the depth gauge and accurate modulation are not important.. If your hunting deep old coins in a nice park or yard this gets to be a more useful tool.. I don’t want Minelab to change the depth modulation if it will affect its depth in a negative way.. Depth is more important.. I think just adjusting the calibration to a penny instead of quarter might be enough to tame down most of the complaints.. Bryan

Vez I too do some discrimination by depth.. The meter is calbrated to a US quarter instead of a penny or dime size target like many other detectors.. I have been using the pinpoint audio to judge depth.. It’s a little better modulation then the target tones.. Centering up on the target also helps the depth gauge a bit.. I was hoping if Minelab ever did a software update that they could improve this feature more then any.. They know how to to depth gage well.. The CTX and E-Trac are spot on with penny size targets.. Bryan

I wasn’t going to post this video because it was my first, and I really wasn’t prepared.. I was carrying around a new GoPro that I hadn’t found a mount for yet when I found my gold coin.. It’s not real polished and I was acting half goofy after the find, but here it is.. Finding your first Gold Coin definitely affects your thinking and actions.. Wish I would have thought to do a live dig.. I now have a new respect for those who do YouTube Videos.. It’s harder then I imagined..

Ya this the type of information that gets you to next level Detecting.. Greatly appreciated!

Great hunt Randy.. I really like seeing the UK finds.. Hope to make it across the pond one of these days to find the REAL old coins.. Thanks for posting! Bryan

Very nice.. I’ll do some experimenting with some your techniques.. I have pretty much just used the steel wool but you are getting some good results with what your doing.. Your V Nickel story reminds me of a 1937 Buffalo I found in an old park, just under the grass roots but sitting on top of a large tree roots.. Because It wasn’t in the soil I just had to rinse it off with water. Looks like it had been lost that week.. Here it is..

That 3 leg is a beauty Oneguy.. How are you cleaning your Nickels?

It’s all soil and trash dependent but lower recovery speed can mean more depth.. Simple air tests prove this but when the ground and trash comes in to play everything changes.. You have to test on your sites to see what’s best.. Bryan

I first started running my Equinox on 0 Iron Bias but have lately been floating in the 2-3 range.. A couple of the parks I have hunted had some tiny, almost wire size nails in them that were falsing and giving some pretty good dig signals.. That slight bump in Iron Bias has seem to clean those up without affecting my unmasking abilities around the bigger nails.. Recovery Speed does affect depth.. The higher speeds are still deep though.. I float between 4-7 depending on site and trash conditions.. I’m really starting to get a feel for the Detector and I can sense when It’s getting sluggish and adjust accordingly.. You need to run full tones including iron for this though.. Most of my time is spent in 5-6 but I drop to 4 in cleaner areas where I know the deep coins reside and ramp up to as high as 7 in parking strips or around picnic tables for example.. still very early in the learning curve so this could all change, but that’s where I am at this time and doing well.. Bryan

I believe that pinpointer preference is very personal, a lot like metal detectors.. I have been running the Carrot pretty much since it came out.. I have literally wore through the tip because of the amount of hours put on it.. Still going strong! Last summer I bought a TRX to try out.. Some people love that pinpointer.. I couldn’t get rid of it fast enough.. I recently purchased the F-Pulse.. Probably the best built pointer on the market.. Vary powerful. Air tests a mile.. When I took it out coin hunting I didn’t like it.. It was very slow to find a coin while scanning the hole.. It was constantly chattering. I had to keep de-tuning it so much it that it was barely any deeper then my Carrot.. It was extremely frustrating and slow to locate.. Next I bought a Minelab Pro-35.. I have only had it out one hunt, but I like it already.. I’m not a fan of the ergonomics but I do like the separate + - gain buttons.. The iron ID works awesome! It’s a little more chatty then the quiet Carrot but not nearly as noisy as the F-Pulse.. Neither the Carrot or Minelab are as powerful as the F-Pulse, but the extra power has been of no help.. This might be soil, detector or user dependent.. I’m all about speed once I open a plug.. The F-Pulse slows me down for reasons that are hard to explain in words.. It seems very directional even though it has side sensitivity.. Some people like that feature, I don’t. I will keep the F-Pulse around to see how it does nugget hunting this summer.. As for coin hunting I will now be using the Pro-35 with the Carrot as backup.. If the Pro-Find 35 did not have Iron discrimination, I would prefer the Carrot by a small margin.. My Carrot has been extremely stable, fast and trouble free.. I think those who like the TRX will love the F-Pulse.. It has a TRX kind of feel to it even with its expanded side sensitivity.. The point of my mini review here is not to tell you what is the best pinpointer out there.. It’s to kind of point out that it’s very personal.. We all have different ground and styles of use.. One mans most hated feature is another’s favorite.. Its great to know we have different, but great choices to fit our preferences.. Bryan

This topic got me digging through my Nickels which I usually don’t give much thought too.. My two 1917 S Nickels might have a little more value then I first thought.. My rough grading puts them at EF-40 and F-12 which equates to a Red book value of $200 and $75.. The real question is what are they REALLY worth after they come out of the ground and I clean them.. I’m guessing 25-50% at best.. I don’t sell my coins but might eBay a Nickel some day out of curiosity.. Clean coins at your own risk, but for those of you who want to try and bring some life back to a crusty old red Nickel just for enjoyment, try Steel wool.. I use SOS pads and rub the Nickels while under a slow dribble of water in the sink.. just do a little at a time and try to just put a shine on the high points.. Leaving some red in the background helps give the coin character and makes the details stand out.. Nickels that are smooth don’t benefit much from the cleaning.. More detail the better.. Don’t try this with copper and silver of course..

Nice! Better take a very close look at that date Vez.. There is a rare Doubled Die version of that coin running around that start in the 4 figure range..

My Nickel digging is definitely site and mood dependent.. If I’m hunting an aluminum infested parking strip, I’m not wasting my time on Nickels.. Key date Nickels are hard to come by in my area compared to the Wheats and silvers.. I got a 16 D Buff this year and a couple 17 S last year.. Lucky if their worth $20.00 in dug condition.. Probably closer to the $5-$10 range.. Some Nickels with meat left on them clean up nice with steel wool and look pretty cool if not cleaned to far.. I usually only chase the deeper nickel signals to keep the tab count down.. The only gold rings that I have found were all Nickel signals since I’m not a jewelry hunter.. Im already working on my Equinox Nickel skills trying to find a strategy to cut down on the the trash.. I do this knowing I could be missing some good stuff.. I’m trying to find a balance of time, quality of finds and fun.. In Park 1 I have yet to dig a Nickel that has either bounced down to 11 or up to 14.. Not saying this can’t happen but it hasn’t yet.. If I get even one flash of 11 over several sweeps it has always been a rolled up or broken Beaver Tail, or in one of yesterday’s digs, an old junk kids ring.. I’m thinking a Silver War Nickel could bounce higher, but I haven’t found one yet with the Nox and they really don’t excite me much either.. This all being said. In a park that I know well, and where old stuff is real deep. I will dig almost all non ferrous signals that lay beneath the aluminum zone.. That’s how you get the cool pins, buttons, tokens and such.. Bryan

Well explained Tim and good point on the moving targets.. If you have to struggle to find the repeatable tone, and it seems to change positions as you circle the target, it’s iron.. Repeatable solid tones will keep you out trouble most of the time.. Bryan

Thank you everyone! It was definitely a surreal experience, from goosebumps to an almost high.. A gold coin was the furthest thing from my mind as I dug that hole.. It’s a good thing I found it at the end of my hunt, because I couldn’t think straight after that.. Whenever I read about others finding a gold coin, I almost think of it as them hitting the lottery, and that it would never happen to me.. Still doesn’t feel right even talking about it.. I hope you all get the chance to find one... Thanks again! Bryan

I haven’t had too much trouble with EMI, but on one occasion it got pretty bad.. Lowering my sensitivity helped but switching to 10 kHz turned the Nox quiet.. Another trick I accidentally discovered when switching to my User Mode.. I had set that mode up to cherry pick high conductors out of Curb Strips. I had everything 17 and below set to Tone 1 and a lower volume.. Most of the EMI just came across as a bunch of low tone puttering.. Bryan

Great finds Tim.. 4 Silver days are rare on public land these days.. Way to stick with it.. There have been some good points made by you and others about the iffy signals with the Equinox.. Besides a few deep coins really tight to iron that I have found. I just don’t remember any of the the others being questionable.. Its easy to start questioning yourself after a lull in good signals.. Before you know it, your digging stuff you knew in the back of your mind was probably crap.. Coins just plain sound good, both shallow and deep.. Thanks for sharing your story.. Bryan

Ya Strick, I’ll be digging zincs the rest of my life now.. I usually only chase the deeper zinc signals unless I’m on a compacted ground or tree roots.. Thanks!

My first Gold Coin! I was working my way back to the truck today while hunting an early 1900s city park when the unimaginable happened.. I had about 5 minuets left to hunt and got a nice solid, deeper sounding 18-19.. I had pulled Indian Head cents out of this area of the park before, and I’ve had a couple on the Equinox bounce down and touch this VDI region in the past, so I thought I might be on to either an Indian or very early Wheat cent.. Little did I know my Indian would turn out to be a 1910 Indian Half Eagle Gold Coin! When I first opened the plug I went down about 5” and found a small piece of junk.. Its an old snap cover or something unrecognizable.. I put the plug back together and and gave it another sweep figuring the target I pulled didn’t really match the signal.. Back came the solid 18-19 signal, only better. I reopened the plug and started scooping out the dirt when a nice chunk of round gold appears in the hole! It looked good, but without my readers on, and being fooled a million times in the past by gold foil and such, I wasn’t sure.. It looked good enough to get my heart racing.. I don’t normally talk out loud to myself, but I blurt out to who I don’t know.. “You Better Not Be F***ing With Me!!” I put on my glasses, picked it up and instantly felt the weight.. I then knew it was gold! To say I was shell shocked is an understatement.. I don’t consider this area to have great potential for a gold coin, so I never really thought I would find one.. Thankfully, I thought wrong.. Equinox 800 - Park 1 - 50 Tones - Recovery 4 - Iron Bias 3 Approximate depth 7”.. Bryan

I haven’t done a lot of testing to see how much modulation can be improved.. If it gets better with either volume or sensitivity, it’s not by much. I would say the sensitivity has more affect on the modulation then the Volume.. It does get easier each time out as you get more familiar with the Equinox. There is some modulation but I rely on pinpoint for for depth gauge more so on the Nox then I did on the E-Trac.. Very deep coins definitely have a nice, distant sound.. It’s just that first 4 or 5 inches were it’s harder to judge.. Surface is actually very easy.. Double beeps and screaming pinpoint.. Great for passing on the surface zincs if that’s your thing.. Bryan

That works great for relic hunting, but in a nice city park with lots of nails and surface trash, the pinpoint function is a fantastic tool to shape, size and judge depth of deep old coins, or nails that sound like coins.. You cant just tare the place up digging everything.. Bryan

You should be able to hear the size difference in the signal audio.. Because of the poor depth modulation, I rely on the pinpoint function on the Equinox more then other Detectors I have used.. Between the wide audio signal and pinpoint audio, you should be able to cut down on the can digs considerably.. Bryan

Here are my very unscientific observations of the V3i vs Equinox.. My friend that I hunt with is very proficient with his V3i.. We have been cross checking some of our signals between the V3i and Equinox.. Today I had him check a signal near iron to get his opinion on what kind of coin it might be..He couldn’t hear anything but iron.. Not a single peep of non ferrous.. He walked off and told me to let him know if I find a coin... I told him I already knew there was a coin there.. Just didn’t know if it would be a penny or dime.. Dug a Memorial copper at only 5”.. His detector could not see it.. I have been able to easily detect all of his coins that he has found.. Some of the coins he finds and has me check appear to be somewhat iffy to him.. He will be doubtful before he digs and I reassure him that he’s on to a coin with little doubt.. His V3i does seem to suffer less with nail falsing then the Equinox.. Some of this might be because I tend to run a little hot.. Bryan

Both fantastic coins! The dime is exceptional..