Skate

If I get it on a day with a minus tide I'm going to the beach.

If I get it  in the afternoon I'm going to my ranch permission

If it comes UPS it'll be here after 5:30pm and if so I'll go to my favorite 120 year old park and bring my headlamp because it'll be dark before I decide to quit for the night. 

Until then I will detect my wife's purse for clad after hours and use my deus and excal everywhere else. 

detector porn

1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Most of my rings come out of the surf break zone of a beach. Dry land I target sports fields and any open space where a softball, football, or frisbee might get tossed. And the ever popular tot lots.

Ok, tot lots have always baffled me. Even though i've been detecting for years I have only detected a tot lot once and it was more because I was detecting with someone not because I chose to. My question is how big a ring (and how valuable) come out of tot lots? I'm envisioning 2-5 year olds running around and they don't seem to be the type who carry bling with them. What am I missing?

I've been through the books. I guess what i was hoping to hear was places that folks here have had success in terms of volumes of rings. I've been told the perimeter of the basketball courts (grass area), at the top of penalty area on soccer fields etc. I'm trying to treat my ring detecting as if it was a math problem of probabilities. If I do x and y the probability for success is z. I know it's not as simple as that but I'm trying to make my gold detecting time more successful if you get my drift. It's like when someone asks how to find more silver the first thing we tell them is you have to hunt older properties, etc., etc. 

It seems that most detectorists stumble onto rings and gold rather than actually hunt for it so I'm hoping to develop a plan to change that. 

I've primarily been a beach hunter and a coinshooter in the dirt but I'm looking to add parks and fields to hunt for rings. I'm curious where everyone finds the majority of their rings especially in park/sports field type settings. Over the years I've heard several things about where most rings are to be found in parks but never tried to prove them true. Since this is a forum dedicated to learning I'm hoping some of you ringmasters might share the best places to look.

Thanks

Skate

Thanks Tim. 2018 is my year to dig the gold or at least I had hoped it would be once my EQ gets here. It is amazing how many different pop tops there are out there in the ground. I'm hoping to have a ratio of around 75/1 pop tops to rings. I have no idea if this is possible or not as I've never really hunted exclusively for rings. 

1 hour ago, JoeRivers said:

Minelab equinox first shipment 

so this is the reason dealers are only getting one to start. 

2 hours ago, phrunt said:

Well, the place I was considering buying one from has updated their website to say their preorder delivery date is approx April.

https://www.jacobsdigital.co.nz/collections/metal-detectors/products/minelab-equinox-800-metal-detector

 

That would make sense if you hadn't already pre-ordered one and if you were just jumping onto the EQ train now. That's a lot of $$ compared to what we're paying in the US but I haven't a clue what the exchange rate is. 

Best of luck whatever you decide. 

I just sold my Surf PI and I'm down to my excal II and my xp deus. If the Equinox works out for me as I hope I will sell one of the two and purchase a second equinox as a back up machine. I envision a day when I can have an equinox in both automobiles so I can be ready to detect whenever the opportunity arises. 

Because I can. Or at least that's what I tell myself when my wife isn't in the room. 

I like the kind of videos that simply give clear instructions how to change settings or how to hunt for particular targets and how to set up your tone bins. I want my silver to scream and my gold to give off a mellow tone mid tone. I could care less how a certain detector stacks up against another one.

Detecting is about attitude as well. The last thing I want to do is be shown that all the money I just spent is beaten by the XYZ 5000 under 'X" conditions etc. I want to see how I can use my detector to better my hunts and those that I can help along the way. 

I went out the past two days. Day one was a beach in oxnard shores. I was looking for a lost ring for a client. I had waited for a good minus tide (1.8) and there had been some recent erosion. I barely got a target and I think in 2 hours I dug 6-7 pieces of aluminum and a couple wire clippings. Sand had returned to the area since our last storm in the low tide zone. I didn't even need to drag my scoop to see where my tracks were. 

Yesterday I hit a beach in Ventura that has produced for me in the past. Again sand had returned and this time I dug over 30 aluminum balls. I scored 1 quarter and one dime and two zincs. I was feeling so down the quarter inspired me to keep swinging for the gold. Alas, nothing turned up. It's 80 degrees at the beach but the water is still 57 so most deposits will in the dry. 

If you're going to hunt for gold rings keep in mind they ring in around the nickel as do a ton of pull tabs and pop tops so if you set your nickels to sound off as a high tone similar to a merc you're going to be digging a ton of trash now along with your targets. 

Just a thought. 

8 hours ago, Zoomie97 said:

I am new to this sport, and waiting for my Equinox 800 to arrive.  Anyone in SoCal care to show a newbie the in’s and out’?  Looking forward to meeting new friends, and learning about the equipment. 

Located in Ventura CA   

I'm in Ventura county. PM me when you get your machine and I'll help you get started with anything you need. 

printed mine today. I then spent 3 hours on the beach with my excal wishing I had a detector with discrimination so I could reliably hunt the dry sand since all I got in the wet sand was aluminum balls and 2 zinc pennies. Truly depressing. 

I'm sure it will. They said the end of January and at the end of January they said they're here and ready to be shipped. They also mentioned the issue of allocation per dealer in their memo so by this time tomorrow I suspect we will all know "when" and not "if."

1 hour ago, Vez said:

I am too, I bet a lot of people pull it out of the box start futzing with settings and get frustrated.  I did that with my CTX trying to set it up just like my Etrac.  Got so mad LOL.  Then I set it back to stock coin started learning it THEN I modified it and have been using the same program for almost 4 years now, just changing separation depending on the place I am hunting!  I bet people that play with it in stock settings and modes for a while will get along with it better!!

I have a long history of trying to be smarter than the directions. As a former detector of the week user I tweaked and tweaked settings on every hunt, during the hunt and while I got good with my etrac, CTX, V3i, I never committed to it. Finally with my Deus I went to Andy's bootcamp, put in his settings and I haven't looked back. I just turn it on and go and my finds have never been better. The Equinox will be the same. Listen, learn and leave alone. 

59 minutes ago, walkerrj said:

My Dealer says they are in Chicago and he will receive his shipment in two days.  Hoping to get mine a few days after that.

outstanding! 

15 hours ago, Vez said:

I have had both the Etrac and the 3030 and they are both great machines, but the 5 tone mode where you have 4 tones for conductivity and 1 tone for high Fe content has mad a huge difference in how I find coins and relics in parks.  I hunt with a wide open screen on the 3030 and I had to discriminate with the Etrac.  There is a huge cost difference in them, but in the last 4 years of 3030 ownership I have seen the value.  I like being able to go snorkeling with it and the ability to map your hunts and mark where you found a keeper has been valuable to me too.

As for the different sized coils they allow you to go deeper on smaller targets with a bigger coil, or get better desperation of targets with a smaller coil.  The minelabs use a DD coil that basically send out a D shaped blade of RF into the ground and when you change the size of the coil you change the size of the "blade" being broadcast from your coil.  If you are in a trashy area, too many targets can get under the big coil and it will be like driving at night in the fog with your high beams on, so you can go with a smaller coil to avoid this.  The smaller comes at the cost of depth and ground cover.  Ground cover is important because you need to overlap your swings so you dont miss targets.  I am guilty of getting sloppy and not overlapping well and my son or hunting buddy will find something I missed.  It wasnt the machines fault, because I go and swing over it and the machine rings out.

Good luck with your new machine and happy hunting!!!!

4 years of tracking targets at a local farm, all relics, buttons, or coins:

 

That's a picture suitable for framing.

No site is ever hunted out. 

It'll be great when the NDA's that Steve and other testers had to sign expire so they can begin to share more specific things related to the detector. Great times ahead. 

Minelab is going to publish a product notice on Friday according to the memo. After reading it again it simply states they are ready to ship so that means to me they're off the boat. The emailer (from Minelab) states that as soon as the allocation numbers are confirmed, and tracking info(meaning shipped to dealer #'s) she will be directly contacting each dealer with their allocation number(how many they're getting). It also says as new shipments arrive they will be contacting the dealers about how many they're getting.

So, the wait is really over and we now know that within a reasonable time if you're high enough on your dealers list you're going to have an equinox. Now that we know this, the next thing to complain about is how many your dealer got in the first allocation and if he/she got 3 and you're number 4 then there will be that to deal with. 

Even though I want mine ASAP i'm excited now because the learning of the Equinox is going to start, even if it doesn't start with me.  

My dealer just sent me the notice from Minelab. I’m at school so I can’t post the letter but the wait is just about over. 

Tomorrow is payday!

Sorry but I need that first and then I can worry about the Equinox. That being said I sure hope someone gets an equinox tomorrow because that will mean mine is coming soon. I hope it's one of you all. 

Geez I'm away for 8 hours at school (our school server blocks this site smh) and I read Steve is taking a step back! I completely get it and I've got to say you are one of the most patient and smart detecting/detector expert I've had the pleasure to come across. You're always polite, quick to provide help or where to go get it and on top of that you're the king of the Equinox!

It's on us to make sure this place doesn't become the trash heap that so many other MD forums are or becoming. It's so easy with forums for people to misconstrue what you say or is said because unlike normal conversation people can't hear you speak as you type so sometimes meaning gets misplaced. 

Steve you've really got a great thing going here and I really appreciate being able to come here everyday and learn something new. Thanks again for all you do.

Skate 

That's a nice haul and 3 rings out of 7 trips puts you on a nice pace for the year.