Chase Goldman

I generally scoop most of it anyway, regardless. Today I got fooled twice by quarters that sounded flutey. Thought I was scooping bottlecaps both times They were corroded. Set expectations low that way the surprises are generally good. Like the 2 non-bottlecap quarters, the wheatie and a silver turquoise earring I scooped up this morning.

I have also found that the tone "intensity" if you will varies with the mass or thickness of the metal target. Roundness or target symmetry produces a sweet tone with less distortion but how much metal is present also affects tone "intensity". I have found that very thin circular targets like foil freshness caps tend to have a non-distorted tone but also sound more hollow than thicker round coin targets or round jewelry where more metal is present. Same goes for some bottle caps. But crown caps also give the distortions and also the flutey tones based on the ridges on the crown, corrosion and whether or not they are bent in addition to the "hollow" tone which is a giveaway. .

I value my 1858 seated dime more than the any of the beach gold I have found. But my my most treasured finds are neither silver nor gold but brass and lead. Such as it is with relic hunting.

And perhaps some gold rings too!

It would matter to me if I had to slow down my swing but haven't had to with the APTXLL phones and the diffrence between APTXLL and WiMax (the 20 mS of the WM08 receiver) is not discernable to me APTX is borderline. Anything wireless with more lag than APTX (and even some supposed ATPX phones with excessive lag) does not work for me. Elf I realize now that you have been using your wired phones since day 1 with the 600 until you finally got the Arc Mage phones. So your ear may have gotten finely tuned to the Equinox NO LAG wired response. Would be interested in what you find once you get your 800 and the ML APTX phones AND the WM08 module to see what you thing. Another possiblity is that the lag on the third party APTX phones is on the high end of the spec, but the spec only ranges from 30 to 40 mS. What I do know is that once I got my wired WP phones for the Equinox (the first time I ever plugged wired phones into the Equinox) that it was not noticeable to me that the wired phones had no latency vs. the APTXLL phones I normally use.

Yep. 4 out of 5 dentists agree. Oh, wait...wrong study. Sorry.

Ok - Does it matter what mode you are in if you use single frequency since MultIQ is not being used?. What would you use single frequency for? Is that better? I also thought it worthwhile for folks to know there is more to MultIQ than just multifrequency and what they end up losing if they go to single so they can decide if the trade off is worth it. Sometimes you don't have a choice though, like the bad EMI situations. Interesting comment considering the Asimov quote. Based on that, I would expect that your brain would be least hurt by the post. I guess I am who Isaac was complaining about. Lol

Time to do some serious spring cleaning this weekend so I am unlikely to get out detecting much. For those shut ins like me here is a discussion point: We know that MultiIQ is the heart and soul of the Equinox. It is more than just multifrequency. It determines the "personality" and behavior of each mode. Enables Ground Balancing on both mineralized and salt dominated environments. Is essential to the Iron Bias feature (Iron Bias is disable when in single frequency), and you can't even operate in either Beach mode in single frequency. So that begs the question, when shifting to single frequency in Park or Field mode (leaving Gold mode out of this discussion because it is a different animal altogether with its VCO audio, dedicated threshold settings, and single freqs limited to 20 and 40) does it really matter what mode you are in at that point? Does the detector essentially become mode independent at that point because you have lost the MultiIQ personality other than the disc, tone breakpoint, and recovery settings you have specified? Interestingly, the manual states that you should noise cancel any time you change the frequency setting. That tells me that the noise cancel process is conducted using single frequency as well as multifrequency (consistent with the given mode) depending on whether you are in multi or single. Finally, the manual never explicitly says, but I also wonder whether GB is also conducted in single frequency if you GB while the detector is in single frequency. That would make more sense than the detector shifting back to multi when you GB but who knows. What I do know is that you would lose some of the abilities that MultiIQ provides in compensating for a less than ideal GB so it would be prudent to also do a GB if you switch to single. This is meant to encourage detector nerd like discussion and thoughts because some good information about how to better utilize the detector in single frequency may come of it. Since a lot of this is speculation, let's keep the emotions and "right vs. wrong" type discussions to a minimum. Unless you can cite a specific "truth" in the manual or the laws of physics, everyone should get the benefit of the doubt about their thoughts and opinions on the subject. Talk about how you might best utilize single frequency mode given its known limitations (e.g., we know about junk target interrogation, maximizing depth high conductors using 5 khz (provided noise does not become an issue) or sifting for shallow jewelry mid-conductors at 20/40khz, and as a last ditch effort to counter EMI if all else fails in MultiIQ). Have at it. HH (to those who ARE getting out)

Seems the "wobbly rod" issue is evolving...in a good way. A couple of users on TNET have reported that ML is now just asking for the middle rod vice the entire detector to be sent in for repair. The users report that the replacement rod appears to have a slightly larger diameter and the camlock has better engagement. Either a design change has been implemented or there are a few different compatible designs that ML was using and now they are centering on a design that works best. I base that supposition on the fact I and many others have had no issues to date and ML is not opting to do a general recall just a fix as you find them approach. Sounds less likely that is was a quality control issue unless it was a quality issue with a subtier supplier of rods. Hard to really tell looking from the outside in, but it does sound like ML is getting a "handle" on it. {Pun intended).

And that is why I do not obsess over TIDs. ..

The shallow double tone is the target registering on the coil edges as well as the center. The high coil and detector sensitivity cause this and you can make it go away by lifting your coil. One of the telltales of a shallow target since the Equinox lacks significant depth related modulation. Nickels and Tabs. Occupational hazard. Not much you can do about it especially if the tabs are intact and not bent. If the tabs are bent or damage, sometimes that can reveal itself in the tone. You may hear some edge distortion or hollowness in the tone vs. the nice sharp ping of a coin or ring. Otherwise, they are just an occupational hazard of the gig and the probabilities are directly proportional to the ratio of pull tabs to nickels at the site.

Not sure about Steve, but round objects be they coins, rings (closed), even pull tab rings have a nice sweet ping tone to them with solid abrupt leading edges, whereas irregular targets sound softer or have a more distorted sounding tone. Square pull tabs that are not bent are pretty close and very hard to tell from a coin or ring merely by the audio.

Not a geologist, but is it possible there are other minerals embedded in the quartz besides the gold?

The ML80s are overpriced, their clone equivalents (Miccus SR71s et al) can be had for less than half the cost of the ML offerings and there are other capable over the ear APTX LL phones that are available. But none are water, weather, or even sweat resistant. But you are right about the backphones style, no other APTX LL offerings out there like that. I wish the price was a little lower because otherwise they would be just the ticket as I have been looking for some at least sweat resistant if not weather resistant APTXLL phones. There are plenty of WP or sweatproof BT APTX earbuds, but no easily obtainable APTX LL buds. APTX is barely satisfactory as far as lag is concerned, so I really would prefer APTX LL. Furthermore, I prefer the backphones style to the earbuds style, so here's to hoping the price will come down on the 66 audio backphones. Thanks again for the info.

Nice. I see where they fit the bill for Sun hat's. I like that they are sweatproof ("IPX rated") but they don't provide the actual IPX rating and the price, ouch vs. other available APTX LL offerings.

There is a Field I hit with coke cinders from a steam tractor. They consistently ring up as 1 and have a distinctive hollow quality t o their tone. IOW you might be right. Take a scoop sample if you can and place it on some neutral, target-free ground to see if it rings up.

Sometimes the audio combined with deft use of pin point mode can help interrogate the target enough to give you a hunch it should be dug. VDI only paints a part of the picture. I think of the VDI as the outline of a drawing and the audio provides the color inside the lines.

Yep. If you play the odds vice digging it all then you always run the risk of losing. Sometimes you gotta just go with a hunch. Pretty good risk reduction method to grab a scoop to see if the targets separate. It paid off with a beauty find.

Especially if you have to prepay to get on the list. Nope.

Agree, the only person I need to convince regarding the Equinox is me. In fact, I don't really want to be seeing more of them at the beach.

Manual says to try sweeping vice pumping if you can't get a sat GB pumping. That situa tion seems like a good opportunity to use tracking. GL HH

I also have seen no obvious drawbacks to leaving GB in “Tracking” which is useful at large sites that have variations in Ground Phase across the site.

Leave it on auto?? (Don’t think that is possible because you have to keep the accept/reject switch depressed while in GB settings and can’t actually detect that way). Do you actually mean you use continuous tracking (different than Auto GB)? Or do you just always do a periodic auto GB vice periodic manual GB?

Fast and Easy Start in the manual actually includes a recommendation (side note) to GB if you are experiencing excessive ground noise that manifests as ferrous range falsing (bouncing -8, -7's) when you invoke the all metal pushbutton. Otherwise, Multi IQ is very forgiving to a less than optimal GB setting. Since Auto GB is relatively easy to accomplish, I routinely Auto GB at sites with any level of mineralization present. Otherwise I just use the default GB setting, especially at a white sand beaches (i.e., beach with non-existent black sand) where there is little for the Auto GB to grab on to, which could actually result in a worse GB setting because the auto circuit is just guessing without a solid mineralization or salt reference. In the surf, I use tracking which is recommended due to the constantly changing salinity levels. HTH

Very Nice.