Chase Goldman

Regarding depth in general - Park 1 without iron  bias should be deepest on high conductors - that is just physics (frequency vs. depth) but the small actual raw depth differences between modes and the variability of all parameters not uner the detectorists control (mineralization, moisture, corrosion, target profile)  makes it possible to show practically any mode to be deepest under the right condition.  It is pointless to esyablish which mode is deepest, frankly.  In fact, for raw depth on high conductors in ideal conditions, any mode using 5 khz single frequency should be able to perform best.

Interested to see your test results.  In the mean time actual finds don't lie.  The .69 rammed minie and Parrot shell fragment in the pic below were recovered at 8 to 11 inches using gold mode at mineralized site in Virginia. 

Beach mode is not really for freshwater beaches.  It trades power (depth) for stability in wet salt beach conditions.  Though beach mode will work, it is not optimal at freshwater beaches and you should use the mode suited to your main target of interest, just as if you were land hunting.  This is how I stack up the modes for various situations and targets:

Park 1 or Field 1 for high conductive coins/targets (e.g., silver jewelry).

Park 2 or Field 2 for gold jewelry, nickels, brass and small targets and for hunting relicscwhich tend to be mid-conductors (brass and lead).

I use gold mode when detecting in highly mineralized ground because it tends to penetrate mineralized ground better but is linited in depth overall becsuse it is high frequency weighted and high frequency signals penetrate into the ground less than low frequency weighted dignals due to attenuation 

For salt beach hunting I use Beach 1 on dry wet sand and beach 2 in the surf.

2 minutes ago, bethanyb1201 said:

I auto GB by pumping and then set to  auto tracking. I always refer to autoband tracking in the same breath which isnt a good idea with all the different detectors in the market. If i am on a fringe area I auto GB and leave tracking off or it will really throw the machine wacky. Thats only in a few spots. 

That's a sound approach.

7 hours ago, bethanyb1201 said:

I have the best  success doing an auto 

 

I have the best luck in auto. I turn auto off if I have to really go over a target. The ground changes so much that in my mind I can notice a difference even if i cant.

Do you mean tracking?  Auto is just manually pumping and letting the machine set the GB.  Tracking is the machine tracking mineralization and adjusting GB on the fly while you seing away.  If you are using GB tracking, that's good.  Just be sure to auto or manually set GB at the outset so tracking can start doing its thing with GB already "in the ballpark" otherwise GB will be way off unill it can catch up which can take awhile.

No one machine can work miracles.  I have a Deus and Equinox both and there are things that each one does better than the other and I have a PI for nasty hot soil.  Glad you are getting the soil analyzed. 

No need to hold back on your background here, we can only make guesses about your experience level here if you do.  Steve tends to keep the judging BS to a minimum. I think its perfectly sound for people to infer newbie when you only mention only the BH with no other context.  Would have helped me focus my response to you better, knowing what I know now about your background.

BTW Did you try Beach 2 like I suggested?  Lower transmit power tends to provide a cleaner return signal in high mineralization, like using TX1 on the Deus.without having to lower sensitivity too much, like you had to on beach 1, and Beach 2 my balance the salt effects like beach 1. 

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

3 hours ago, NSC said:

still no good in Gold mode ? ...then the OP needs a PI machine IMHO

Gold mode is unstable in wet salt and mineralized conditions.  OP is reporting beach 1 works best, so I suggested Beach 2 which is designed to handle salt and black sand.  But I suspect Gold mode will actually work fine because we are not talking wet salt conditions and suggested he try that as well.  The OP is coming ftom an entry level BH to an Equinox.  The BH did ok in his area so I don't understand why he is having such a hard time getting Equinox to perform and seriously doubt he needs or is willing to lay out the cash for a PI machine, but we will see how it goes if he ever responds back.

9 hours ago, NSC said:

Personally, if your soil is that hot I would be in Gold mode 1 or 2.

The answer is not that simple if salt is involved, also.  But it is definitely something that the OP should be experimenting with as I suggested.

Those P caps mirror my experience with the 15" coil on wet salt beach conditions.  Love the coverage and it has no problem with tiny targets.  Even the 11" coil has impressed me with a few button shank finds (see below).  I am sure the 15" would have pinged that button shank also based on the tiny stuff it hit on at the beach.  I have not had much success with it in highly mineralized ground, though.  I am heading out to the red, hot Virginia relic field dirt this week, and will break out the 15" coil at some point to see how it does there, perhaps even experiment with some test targets, but so far the 11" seem to deal with mineralized ground much better.  Great finds, Dan.  You are having quite a relic run of late.

12 hours ago, RayfromAK said:

The wireless headphones work quite well, but I don't want to have a wireless receiver so close to my head for extended periods of time.

I completely understand minimizing unnecessary, avoidable health risks, but if you are reacting to the latest media sensationalized news regarding airpods and other wireless headphones, take a look at this article for a less sensationalized perspective:

https://www.health.com/condition/cancer/bluetooth-wireless-headphones-cancer

Bottom line, there is just a lot of controversy, but not a lot of facts or concrete results from research and the total EMI field from RF radiation of all types basically overwhelms the energy a pair of bluetooth headset can pump into your brain, even from close range.  Furthermore, the health industry is itself conflicted.  Bluetooth or similar wireless technology hearing aids often widely prescribed and used, for example.

That being said, there is nothing wrong with a better safe than sorry approach, though it might be less convenient. 

First of all, the 800 included ML BT phones DO come with a hard wired connection and cable in the headphone case.  Have you tried that with your Equinox?  

Second, if you are concerned about having the BT transmitter/receiver next to your head, try using the WM08 wireless receiver.  Your ipod earbuds should be able to plug right and remain stable since you are not putting any strain on the connection unlike with the control head, and you can still remain untethered to your detector and you can place the receiver in a place not near your head.

If you are looking for wired earbud alternatives for warmer weather conditions, you might want to consider getting a modified pair of wired buds that also include the proper Equinox compatible screwed-in connector.  Here is an example off ebay. That way you eliminate the having to use the ML adapter cable which also only has a 1/4" jack which is great for enabling typical detecting type wired headphones to be used with your Equinox, but I do not know of many earbuds that have the 1/4" plug, necessitating another adapter be placed between your earbuds and the ML adapter.  The other advantage of the earbud with dedicated compatible plug connector is that they are waterproof which means you can use them in foul weather or even water hunting if desired.  My personal preference is to buy a set of over the ear waterproof phones, many of which are designed to give good sound even when not water hunting (dedicated water hunting submersible waterproof phones often have to compromise audio quality by using technology such as piezoelectric speakers to enable them to be audible submerged).

HTH

Allow me to think out loud here because there are alot of things going on with your post that are unusual, perhaps contradictory, yet very interesting.

First of all, the Ground Balance reading on the Equinox cannot tell you anything definitive about how "hot" or mineralized your soil is.  You need a separate reading of magnetite levels in your soil (usually called a mineralization or Fe3O4 meter) which only certain detectors (not Equinox) have built into their displays.  The GB number on Equinox is just a RELATIVE ground phase reading to the internal baseline reference and that reference can change depending on what mode you are using because it varies with frequency and how the detector processes target signal phase changes.  That is why you can get a ground phase reading in one mode (e.g., Park 1) that is completely different than the ground phase reading in another mode (e.g., Field 2) - on the SAME patch of ground and why you should always ground balance each mode you use, separately.

Second, I am not a soil expert, but it IS unusual to see significant salinity levels and high mineralization AWAY from salt beach areas.  Obviously, not impossible since much of the ancient US was covered by ocean (with the great lakes being a remnant of that inundation).  And that unusual soil combination you describe certainly can play into the high crop yield you describe. 

Third, your test garden results have me scratching my head.  If your soil content is relatively constant in the region you detect, including your home test garden, then there is no reason you should not be able to replicate your test garden depth results in the field.  The test garden results are actually what I WOULD expect when comparing Park 1 to Beach 1, but your depth detection capability is MUCH MORE than I would expect in super hot/mineralized soil.   Do you get a reliable Target ID at those depths, or just a repeatable signal that you discern as your penny because you know it is there?   I detect in regions where magnetite levels peg the mineralization meter, and your ability to punch to much more than 6 to 8 inches to get a repeatable signal  is really limited using a VLF machine.  In addition, getting a reliable TID beyond 4 inches is also iffy.  So basically, where I usually hunt for CW relics, you are lucky to get a signal at depth on a VLF,  and if you do, you typically have no idea what it is until you dig it.  You also might want to try to see how it does on a higher conductive silver coin vice a penny, since that seems to be your main target of interest as copper is slightly less conductive than silver.  But, like I said, if your test garden soil is the same as your hunt site, then depth should not be an issue, especially Park 1, which should be the go to silver slayer mode.

Fourth, you say you often get a repeatable signal, but you find nothing in the hole in the field.  That is typically something you also see on salt sand + mineralized sand beaches.  It can also be due to individual hot rocks.  If you are not even finding falsing ferrous junk, like flat iron or bent corroded nails, then something else must be at play.  BTW - does the repeatable signal typically come up with the same Target ID or does it vary across the range?  Is the repeatable signal choppy (indicating that it might be clipped by discrimination or recovery speed setting)?

Fifth, one aspect of your settings also has me scratching my head.  Specifically, you have recovery speed cranked to 8, which greatly limits depth but it also results in the least ground feedback noise primarily because of the sweep speed it forces you to use to acquire a target signal.  What happens when you lower recovery speed?  Are you hearing more ground noise, forcing you to lower sensitivity?  That combination of sensitivity 16 and high recovery speed means you are GREATLY limiting depth.  Why do you say those settings are giving you the best results?  Can you describe the targets you ARE recovering at with those settings and their depth?

All that being said, I will take you word for it that your soil is highly mineralized and has higher than usual amounts of salt content as you seem very knowledgeable about your soil makeup.  So based on the information you provided, primarily the unusual combination of salty black sand like soil,  I am going to make an unusual recommendation for inland hunting.

Specifically, the Equinox has a mode that is set up to "make the best" of the soil situation you describe.   You were almost there by trying Beach 1.  But as you noticed, you needed to run with lower sensitivity for stability.  If your have properly noise cancelled and ground balanced your machine and removed other sources of EMI (e.g., cell phones) then the issue can be the nasty combination of salt and mineralized soil.  The mode best set up to handle that is actually Beach 2.  See if you can run Beach 2 stable at a normal level of sensitivity (i.e., 18 to 22).  What Beach 2 brings to the table is stability under black sand + salinity conditions, but it is not magic and there is no free lunch.  The Beach modes are set up to handle the salinity using the multifrequency signal processing component of Multi IQ (that is why you cannot run beach mode in single frequency).  But unlike Beach 1, Beach 2 provides stability in salt + black sand conditions by sensing the mineralization level (even though it does not display it on a meter) and then dialing back TRANSMIT power accordingly.  The impact is somewhat of a depth hit but you gain a lot of stability which lowers the noise floor enough that the resulting weaker detect signals at least can be heard above the reduced level of chatter.  When the Equinox goes into this reduce transmit power mode, it flashes up a warning symbol on the screen.  Typically, when that warning does appear, it will not disappear unless you are completely away from the source of mineralization.  I wouldn't worry about it though.  Especially if you find it has a beneficial effect on your performance.  The other thing you should do if the mineralization level or Ground Phase reading is highly variable at your sites is to use TRACKING Ground Balance vice periodic manual or auto ground balancing.  This prevents you from having to constantly rebalance and can help smooth out ground phase variations.  So give that a shot in your test garden and on some of your hunts. and see what happens.

Another suggestion, is to use Gold Mode.  Gold Mode does not have tone ID but uses a variable pitch and threshold tone, the combination of which allows it to be very sensitive to small mid conductive targets (I know, not your target of interest), but it tends to punch through mineralization better than the lower frequency weighted modes.  You can use either Gold Mode, not much difference between them except for recovery speed.  I would suggest using Gold 1 with the higher recovery speed and then see if you need to adjust lower or higher to trade off depth for ground noise (MORE DEPTH with a LOWER recovery speed, but the resulting lower sweep speed results in MORE GROUND NOISE, resulting in diminishing returns.  Increase the recovery speed if ground noise is an issue and also try TRACKING ground balance with this mode (which is the default GB mode).

Finally, I would experiment with single frequency.  If EMI is NOT a problem, see what you can do with 5 or 10 khz in your test garden (use Park 1) and see how it compares to Park 1 multi.  Park 1 multi (preferred) or 5 or 10 khz are what you want to use if you are going after DEEP silver.  You can try to go to higher frequencies to punch through the mineralization (at the expense of raw depth on all targets) but frankly I don't think mineralization, per se is your problem, at least not in your test garden based on the depth you are seeing.  Try varying recovery speed too, to see how that affects your test garden signals.

Other less likely possibilities:

Are you sure EMI vice mineralization is NOT the issue or perhaps you might have a faulty Equinox coil/head unit?  Perhaps EMI is low near your test garden resulting in less noise chatter and false signals.  Do you get chatter with your coil in the air AFTER noise cancelling and with default sensitivity, especially in the field.  If so, then either you have an EMI problem or perhaps and equipment problem with the Equinox or Coil, especially if it is intermittent or only happens after you have the Equinox powered on for some time (indicating a possible internal component thermal issue which usually results from a bad component or solder connection).

Your sites are played out.  Silver is one of the easiest targets to cherry pick under ANY conditions and just about any detector,  like your capable, but entry level BH 3300 will find silver.  I suppose you were using the stock concentric coil on your 3300 also, which is also not a coil type that is know for having good depth under mineralized conditions (which along with your test garden results also makes me wonder if your soil is truly highly mineralized).  You recovered A LOT of silver for one year.  I do not believe any area can be truly ever be totally played out (either the targets are deeper than technology can reach today or they are shallow but hiding amongst iron or non-ferrous junk).  Are you still finding silvers with your BH 3300 but not with the Equinox at the same sites?  As I asked previously, what types of targets are you recovering with your Equinox.  You say you can find "anything" with the Equinox, yet you arrive at the settings that give you the  "best results" supposedly because you have manged to recover SOMETHING with the Equinox, plus I cannot explain your good test garden results and your poor field results.  So let us know what type of targets you are managing to recover and at what depth.

Anyway, hope I gave you some food for thought that you might be able to use to diagnose the issue or improve performance with your soil conditions.

It is something ML has been doing since CTX to enable the speaker cutout circuit to work.  Plenty of ML or third party adapters exist to enable standard wired metal detecting headphones to be used with the Equinox.  Not going back to wired though unless I have to work in the water or heavy rain.  The BT phones work well.  See my response to your other post for pinout information and links to other relevant posts.  HTH.

9 hours ago, andy g said:

hi phrunt 

 the trond headphones   are low latency as the plus sign shows up on the 600 screen  so if they were just bluetooth  you only get the bluetooth sign  and the tronds are  ll aptx  4.2 what  is says are ok   in the instructions  but  saying that i think  the minelab ones are 4.1  so maybe that is  the problem  can only use 4.1 LL phones  thanks for the info 

andy 

I have successfully paired APTX LL phones using BT 4.1, 4.2 and 5.0 with the Equinox and have not experienced any scratchy audio problems.

5 hours ago, Trailryder42 said:

I've been researching the Nox 800 in consideration to purchase and this is one of the negative aspects I've come across. Some of this info I'm seeing is years old so I have no idea how the current iteration of the 800 is supposed to function. I'd appreciate any updated info you may have.

The Equinox has only been out for a little over a year.  This forum was started a few months before the first production release of the Equinox so most of this information is current or applies to the Equinox universally..  ML uses a certain plug wiring scheme to enable the speaker to be cut out.  If you use a third party set of wired headphones they need to be wired up as shown here to ensure the speaker properly cuts out.  Since the headphone jack on the Equinox is recessed to enable the proprietary water tight plug to screw into the jack cavity, it is best to try to use wired phones that utilize the Equinox screw in type connector to ensure a secure fit.

There are a number of relevant headphone threads that are linked in this convenient compilation thread put together by Steve Herschbach, the site's founder.

HTH

Just a note, when you go to single frequency on the Equinox, you can basically throw the search mode designations out the window (except for Beach which cannot run in single and Gold which is a completely different animal altogether).  Park 1 = Park 2 = Field 1 = Field 2 as far as signal processing goes because MultiIQ is what gives each mode its unique "personality".  Other than the user adjustable settings (i.e., noise cancel channel selection, GB setting, tone and audio settings, recovery speed) there is nothing really to differentiate the modes in single.  Even iron bias is disabled in single frequency.  Doesn't explain the strange recurring signal problem. Just food for thought for those thinking of using single frequency from different modes.

Steve - Great you are able to take a break from putting together all those new rod system's.  Still loving mine.  Great finds.

I have only had latency issues, phones not pairing up as APTX low latency even though they claimed low latency.  Any headphone I have paired successfully as low latency has performed fine audibly.  I wonder if there is not an issue with your machine's bluetooth transmitter.  If you want to take a chance on another Amazon headphone purchase, look at the Miccus phones linked here - ML apparently uses a cloned version of the Miccus phones as the basis for the Equinox ML branded phones.  Even though I have an 800, I purchased the Miccus phones as backup early on, but just kept using them as my primary phones for the last year and have kept the ML phones pristine.  The Miccus phones have performed flawlessly and have held up to a year's worth of detecting abuse.  I even use them with my GPX that I have fitted with a Trond APTX LL BT transmitter so I can go wireless.  I have been trying out a new set of noise cancelling APTX LL phones here which sound great with the NC feature cancelling out ambient wind noise, but they are pricier and the jury is still out on durability.  These Sound Peat Engine buds work great for me also, better and less expensive than tge Soundoest Q12's.  HTH.

Mastering coil motion to acquire and to help interrogate a target, once acquired are key to this machine especially when dealing with ferrous target in the mix.  I also found this is something that takes time to develop a rhythm on each hunt to get in the zone.

I have also found that while I have had some level of success with all 3 coils, I seem to keep coming back to the 11" coil as the optimum, not surprisingly.  Can't deal with the 6" footprint coverage on wide open situations (beaches and plowed fields) because the micro coverage makes me want to tiptoe along (unless I am focused in on pounding a curb strip sized patch on those sites) and while I love the coverage vs. weight of the 15" coil and it's ability to lock onto miniscule targets making it my go-to, non-submerged beach coil, it is not much deeper than the 11 and subject to becoming overwhelmed in high target density and/or mineralized soil conditions.  So the 11" it is for me for 80% to 90% of my detecting situations, now.

I use my Deus on these things.  It's a social event (adult Easter egg hunt) more than anything else, but still fun and competitive.  The ones I attend are usually at beach venues but I have done turf hunts too.  For the Equinox use the 11" coil and Park 1 settings at the default and lower sensitivity to 15 or so to prevent EMI pickup from others.  Over the last year I have seen a lot of complaints about EMI FROM the Equinoxes to the point that at the last seeded hunt I attended, they required the Equinoxes to be in single frequency, lol.  I wouldn't be surprised if some hunts banned them altogether (most of these hunts ban PI detectors for similar reasons).  So if you are relegated to single, just pick 10 khz and swing away.  It should be great fun for you and your son.  The name of the game is efficient target recovery, so practice that skill most of all.  Like Cal said, do not waste your time going after anything deeper than 3 or 4 inches.  Most targets should be within detect range of your handheld pinpointer brushed against the ground, so beep, drop, pinpoint, pop the target and move on quickly.  

56 minutes ago, dewcon4414 said:

Not really.   Current makes coil control difficult....there would be lots more coil flip in the water.  But I like the coil.   Wet/dry sand if your on the sand those open areas would get filled...and a wet coil would be worse.

So you are saying you are not a fan of a solid elliptical coil for water hunting, correct (because the solid coil causes additional drag and possibly positive boyancy)?

The large coil is great for coverage at a relatively small weight penalty and will detect even small targets at depth but I have found in highly mineralized soils and especially in thick iron situations, it underperforms the stock coil.  I like the 15" at the beach, but the 11" in the water.  I own the 6" and the 15" and seem to keep coming back to that 11" coil for relic hunting as the 15" tends to get overloaded in thick target situations.  I really think 11" is the optimal coil of the offerings, though I long for smallish elliptical.  Just my experience with them so far FWIW.  All I am saying is temper expectations in thick iron with the 15" as my experience was a little different then Cal's but I also had the complicating factor of high mineralization.

Recovery speed 1, seriously?  How could anyone swing their coil that fast and why would you have to at recovery speed 1?  I don't get it.  But then again, I am not going to lose sleep over a demonstration of something I will probably never encounter.  LOL.  Not a fan of air tests even if it is a ML sponsored air test.  Thanks for sharing, though, David.

Dan - big congrats and what a haul.  Got my first Eagle Plate last year...with the Nox, no less, and some early silver, buttons, and a few minie balls on one of the best detecting days ever for me - so I can relate to the joy you are feeling.  Great saves.

12 hours ago, mn90403 said:

When I was reading the beginning of this thread the GPZ came to mind.  It has no TID screen.  How many tones does it have?  We consider it to be the best, most sensitive gold detector out there.  Could someone use it as their only detector?  Sure.  Would I be digging a lot of targets that would be a waste of time?  Sure.  As Steve says it is a judgment call and sometimes you only have a limited amount of time to hunt a site and you or it will be gone.  Sometimes you only have so many holes you want to dig for that session.  Minelab (and all manufacturers) has made many 'judgment calls' for us by the way they set up the machine from the factory and the controls they allow us to change.  Ground balancing is a 'judgment call' of sorts and 'Iron Bias' is another judgment setting, etc, etc.  All of that being said there are times (quickly walking a beach line) when going less than 50 tones to cover an area faster is a better option for me.  I believe on the beach I sometimes miss targets if the machine (and my brain) is trying to process everything too quickly.  I would compare this to the 'find patch' setting on the GPZ which lets it process differently.  The 50 tones are king after you find that patch.

Mitchel

100% agree that use of 50 tones is situational.  It is what I use most of the time, but I have no problem just switching Park 1 on and going with 5 tones and the other settings defaults for a casual coin shoot on a ball field or going with Field 1 on a dry beach and trying to cherry pick deep high conductors in 2-tones.  For the same reasons Mitchel points out above, the limitations of the site (manicured lawn - meaning more precise/selective digging) or time available at a site will determine your approach (e.g., grid it vs. cherry picking vs. canvassing it with more than one mode or detector).

Doubt anyone did try this Dennis.  They were really tongue in cheek responses to a tgread that was last alive 10 months ago.   

Anyhoo, welcome to the forum!

52 minutes ago, schoolofhardNox said:

Wow I go to work and all hell breaks loose LOL. Chase, I didn't mean anything by saying what I said about returning the item. I would of course return any item I could verify proper ownership. But there is really not enough info there to satisfy me. I did Google (actually Bing) it, but I think I remember reading search engines give priority to most popular and not most accurate word search these days. So if someone posted they lost it, that would probably be on page 1000. It did not turn up any results for me when I searched it, but I did not spend a lot of time going deep into the pages. I have returned 2 nice rings but both were known losses and I was able to find them for the owners.  As far as the booing part, I took it as a light hearted joke and not a serious jab at you. All is good I hope

Lol.  I'm back on my meds now.  Much better.  Anyway, sorry to lose focus on the main point of the thread, your great finds.  The old coins you constently find on your beach runs always amaze me.