Chase Goldman

No news. In fact, Nokta is not really teasing much of anything but accessories these days (scoops, shovels, Simplex coils). The PI talk has all but dried up and they are being very vague on even a simultaneous multi frequency machine. No timelines on that multi whatsoever and are only saying it will likely come out in the Simplex housing form factor. I would not hold your breath on the PI. We don't even know whether it would be a targeted-use PI like the Fisher Impulse or general purpose, waterproof or not, etc. Plus, this would be Nokta's first PI, so it will likely need further refinements.

Like that blue!

Sounds like electrical interference. Are you inside or outdoors?. Try turning the sensitivity down until the chatter goes away.

Nice saves.. .So how was the depth for it's size compared to the 6", Gerry? Were there any quirks (coil bump sensitivity, excessive falsing on small iron, etc.)

Look at the rod, shaft, and counterweight system offered by:

Yep. Plenty of threads in the First Texas forum and an entry in Steve's detector database. Purely a salt beach/water machine, though. I don't want to disrupt/disrespect the Nokta forum further by posting explicit links here, so use the site search function if you are interested in more information.

How about they just get the Pulse Induction part right. With the imminent release of the GPX 6000 which is like Minelab's umpteenth generation of PI and Multi IQ which is their 4th generation of simultaneous multifrequency, no one is even in the same league as ML at the moment. One step at a time. The Minelab GPX 5000 and forthcoming Fisher Impulse AQ both incorporate very effective implementations of ferrous discrimination/rejection, BTW. Nokta is one of the few detector companies innovating right now, but it really surprised me (and perhaps Nokta themselves) that Garrett beat them to being the first besides ML of late to release a new simultaneous frequency machine with the Ace Apex. Hopefully, that is motivating Nokta to eclipse the Garrett offering with something really compelling as a counter to Equinox.

Good point, Chuck. Theoretically either, but since the update that introduced F2, I have no use for the FE filter, the answer is F2=0. To clarify, I haven't been knowingly fooled by a pure iron signal being iron + a non-ferrous target with IB engaged. The point of engaging IB is to mitigate falsing in the first place. It is not foolproof, but when it works, it is dramatic. I encountered a deep, large ferrous target last week that rang out with a nice pure high tone and 30ish target ID at 4 khz, 5 khz, 10 khz and 15 khz single frequency (the quality of the signal degraded at higher frequencies). When switching to Field 2 Multi with IB engaged, the target rang up as pure ferrous. It is the iffy mixed ferrous/variable TID signals you gotta dig if IB is engaged. It could be falsing ferrous that still got through the "filter" but it could also be mixed ferrous and non-ferrous targets in the hole or a mixed metal target. Gotta check it out in that case. HTH

It simply means that even if the target is indicating fully ferrous with IB applied, if I have the time to dig it all, I’m going to dig it. When I do do that, I have not encountered a completely masked non-ferrous target in the hole ever. Yes, I have not dug every pure ferrous target signal I’ve encountered, but all my “surprise” situations where I’ve pulled both ferrous and non-ferrous out of a hole have been iffy mixed ferrous/non-ferrous target signals with IB applied. Setting IB=0 is a complete waste of my time in thick iron. Guaranteed to be chasing numerous false signals which I am then willing to quiet down with IB and confidently play the odds that it will be highly unlikely that I will walk over a completely masked target.

By standard do you mean the x35 coil? Just checking because the legacy LF coils can’t be operated above 18 kHz. Anyway, good luck and dig some keepers!

Dew - My comments were directed at one individual who may or may not realize this is indeed a small time operation with 4 employees. It is a niche machine whether you want to admit it or not, and while anyone can spend their money as they see fit, was trying to provide advice to someone who I believe (and could be mistaken) doesn’t beach hunt every day and who doesn’t relic hunt frequently in hot dirt, like I do (the two types of niche users). This is totally consistent with what the Tarsacci faithful have been saying all along. Admitting that the Tarsacci does nothing for you on land in sandy soil or other similar sites. In that case, it may not be the best investment for particular folks who have all their bases covered with more mainstream and versatile machines. I was trying to provide pragmatic perspective. It had nothing to do with disrespecting the Tarsacci brand or whatever else you are thinking. While I detect at beaches when I have the chance, I am not hard core in the water hunter and have no inclination to do so, just as I don’t expect to see you in Culpeper anytime soon. As a satisfied Tarsacci owner I also don’t need to be lectured and told to get wet by another forum member. Getting reactions from the Tarsacci fanclub crowd if they smell a whiff of criticism of the machine is the biggest turnoff about my Tarsacci experience so far, unfortunately.

Jeff I know you know this, but for the benefit of others, that last phrase (I.e., “no Iron Bias is necessary”) could be misinterpreted by folks to imply single frequency and use of I/Q ratio to ID targets is a superior ferrous target identifier, but actually the opposite is true. It gets fooled frequently by wraparound and other single frequency limitations such that falsing is a significant issue in SF. IMO if you are never using IB while operating in Multi (i.e., always leaving it at 0) you are leaving a significant, available tool on the sidelines. The ability to dial in F2 bias as necessary is a great feature.

What coil are you running? Picking the right frequency is probably the most important thing. If you understand what the settings do and how they affect performance, you really don’t need a custom program. Start with Deus fast, adjust recovery speed to 2 or 2.5, unless super trashy and thick iron then crank to 3, use the default disc or increase it as high as 10 (disc at this level DOES NOT affect depth despite internet rumors to the contrary and helps with preventing TID downaveraging and gives more accurate ferrous/non-ferrous indication on the horseshoe display), and your favorite tone setup (I like pitch tones with some iron volume for relic hunting, full tones for coin shooting in can slaw and pull tabs). Use 25-28 kHz as a good button, brass, lead, and gold mid-conductor relic frequency. Lower it if you need more depth on higher conductors like silver. HTH.

I believe you can post links of your videos from video hosting sites such as YouTube. I would need more information on your particular setup, but I have really not seen the masking with F2 be as severe as it was with FE. I have seen video tests that demonstrate that. See this discussion and video by Steve Herschbach that goes into depth on the subject. To me, use of iron bias is not an either/or, all or nothing setting. It is site and situation dependent. I like to start with the recommended default setting (2 for 600, 6 for 800) and adjust from there. I find that I am more likely to dig a falsing ferrous target without it than be surprised by a masked target with it engaged, in my experience. I still generally dig the iron even with iron bias, when I have sufficient time on site to grid and take my time. But when I am limited in time on site, like a one and done situation, I would rather play the odds with a rare masking situation than waste my time digging falsing nails and big iron the whole time at an iron infested site. Appropriate coil control and use of wiggle to zero in on adjacent targets is essential, as well as compensating by using the appropriate recovery speed to counter any severe masking effects. Again, without seeing your video I have no idea what your setup was. One drawback to the 600 is that the maximum selectable recovery speed is 3 which equates to an 800 recovery of 6. I sometimes run recovery speed up to 7, if necessary. Also, I recommend running your tests in other modes and at IB 1 as well. IB does a great job on falsing crown caps at the beach BTW (but there are other “tells” on those too). HTH

Yes, the lack of Iron Bias in single frequency is described in the manual (p. 52) and has been discussed previously on the forum. Iron Bias is implemented as part of Multi IQ signal processing and requires a multi frequency signal to get the required real-time, frequency dependent response information from the target for Iron Bias to do its thing. Therefore, it is disabled in single frequency.

Don't know if it will work, probably not. I DO know the GM coil is not compatible with the Equinox. In fact, experienced gold hunters who own both rigs tend to give the nod to the Equinox over the GM and feel the GM stock coil would be the ideal vlf setup if it was compatible. That's why, if you are itching to use the 15" coil for gold, just use the 15" on the Equinox in Gold mode and it will be superior to what you are proposing. However, in general, when you are hunting with a vlf for natural gold, you generally want to go in the opposite direction (i.e., use a smaller coil) to ensure sensitivity for micro targets. If I was hunting for gold with the Equinox I would go with the 11" (which is basically the optimal coil for the Equinox) or the 6" at this point. That is despite the fact that the Nox 15" coil does pretty well hitting on small targets for a coil of its size. The soon-to-be released 10x5 coil from Coiltek appears to be your best bet if you want sensitivity, ground coverage, and the ability to also swing in constrained areas such as around scrub and large rocks. HTH GM coil on Equinox discussed here and here. GM vs. Equinox on Gold here and here and here. Thread on the new Coiltek coils here and here

You definitely don't want to be putting a cover on an overfilled epoxy base. Just adds an unnecessary additional layer of "air gap" and signal loss. Now I understand what Aaron was talking about but he neglected to point out the epoxy overfill aspect and focused primarily on the "strength" of the epoxy which is somewhat beside the point unless you are overfilling the base as an alternative to a cover and that is what Dimitar chose to do. I need to pull the cover off the stock for comparison. Thanks for those pics!

Basstrackerman - can you show us what the bottom of the coil looks like? Thx.

You are correct. It probably does this to account somewhat for self generated EMI and different input signal processing/filtering associated with each mode.

Good glad we did simultaneously post it as it saves people from having to plow through my entire verbose post to find the identical link. You can see it made an impact since I still recalled it.

Funny the manual is being quoted to me for a change when I am usually the one doing the quoting. Lol. I like it when people do their homework. So that is refreshing. But that is a given, because I know you really know your way around the Equinox and have provided great insights and tips on this forum as well as the field success to prove it. So my statement is not meant as a knock but as an acknowledgment of your detecting and, especially Equinox, expertise. In other words, respect. Anyway, I am familiar with what the manual says and believe the Equinox noise cancel algorithm is indeed picking the channel it thinks has the least interference at that time. But when the site is quiet, like I said, many channels may indeed vie for the "least" interference channel crown. But it is not that the channels are "identically" or "equivalently" least noisy. In fact, it is unlikely that is ever really the case. The reason being twofold. First, when noise levels are low, it only takes small field perturbations to cause channels to pop out of the muck and be considered noisy (this depends on the sensitivity of the EMI signal detection circuit (basically a radio receiver) the Equinox uses - I have no idea how they have implemented that.) Second, since these perturbations vary with both TIME and FREQUENCY (think Equinox "channel") and since the Equinox is not scanning all the channels simultaneously, it stands to reason that on the first pass, Channel X will win the "least interference" crown and on the second pass, Channel Y will win the "least interference" crown, etc. Run it 20 times under quiet conditions and you may get most of the available channels to pop up as the selected "least" channel simply due to the randomness not of the Equinox, but of the low level EMI noise signal present. If it is truly a random selection from a "normal" distriubtion of noise frequencies, then you might see specific channels repeatedly picking up over others. But in the end, when the EMI is low, it probably really doesn't matter what channel is chosen. As a matter of fact, you can probably be lazy and not even do a noise cancel with minimal chance of affecting your detecting session. GB Amateur did a series of tests with noise cancel and documented them in his EMI Frustration thread here to try to determine the likely channel outcome distribution here. I think he may have been picking up on the phenomenon I describe above, where any of several channels can be chosen as the quietest channel but the only a few consistently show up as the quietest channel upon repeated scans. However, under heavy EMI conditions, especially if the EMI is broadband (i.e., affecting multiple Equinox channels) or is coming from multiple sources (think of multiple of WiFi routers), then the number of possible quiet channels may be significantly reduced. But if you are moving around under those conditions the quiet channel solution CAN change drastically as you move nearer or further from the source or if the source signal changes in intensity or frequency or with time, or as is frequently the case, there are multiple significant EMI sources. Hence, frequent noise cancelling during the hunt is called for. This is especially true when two Equinoxes are in close proximity because they tend to pick up each other (and why some clubs are banning Equinox's from being run in Multi during croweded contest hunts because they zap everyone else around them with broadband noise. )

I see that. To your other question. No rings, just random brass pieces. No, definitely just brass.

I think what Sinclair may be saying is that you can sit in one spot and run Auto noise cancel several times in a row and it may select several different numbers perhaps only 2 or up to 5 or more. The reason being that more often than not, EMI is sufficiently low enough such that the Equinox will have a choice of several different quiet channels. As EMI levels increase, fewer channels will be able to meet the minimum noise threshold. Could be wrong, but that's how I read it.

Yes, that why I suggested switchable salt cancelation/compensation. As it is now, it is always present which is one of the reasons the AQ is a poor terrestrial detector (or put more correctly, only targeted to the niche hard core saltwater jewelry detectorist that desires ferrous disc and PI depth).

Open Letter to Alexandre and Fisher - That statement, as a relic hunter who frequents hot dirt sites, makes me salivate at the prospect of what you could do with the Impulse design for terrestrial artifact hunting (mostly mid-conductors) and gold prospecting. A huge and fiercely dedicated contingent in the US, perhaps several times more detectorists than the super-hard-core water/beach gold jewelry detectorists in Europe and the US that the Impulse AQ is presently targeted for. You will see several hundred detectorists in the fields at a single event applying their relic hunting skills at the several annual group hunt events. 90 percent are swinging GPX and lesser PI detectors because VLF induction balance detectors are practically worthless in those conditions. Same goes for terrestrial gold detectorists. If you remove the salt cancel constraint (or simply make it a switchable feature) and submersion constraint (to lower unit cost) and focus solely on mineralization and existing Impulse analog precision disc/target reject breakpoints scheme, using the Impulse form factor with light weatherproofing, you and Fisher could make a killing, especially amongst the relic detectorists with aging, unreliable GPX's (just had to send mine into the shop for an expensive repair) who were basically abandoned by ML with the forthcoming release of the GPX 6000 which is devoid of any ferrous rejection feature and steep cost (not a knock, just truth likely resulting from a conscious business decision while maintaining the objective of simplified use in 3rd world gold fields, I don't like it but I get it). The gold prospectors, however, are ecstatic at the new lightweight and user friendly package with the promise of high mineral and EMI environment performance. Relic detectorists presently put up with the GPX cost, lack of weather proof integrity, battery cable claptrap, and weight because they have to, not because they want to, as it is the only detector that checks all the boxes, especially in regard to an excellent ferrous rejection scheme. Now that ML has shown its hand with the 6000, please don't squander the brief window of opportunity you will have to fill this void with an Impulse variant that doesn't need to be waterproof at depth in salt water, but simply needs to work without a harness in the pouring rain and in the high magnetite fields of history across the US. Relic detectorists, of modest means, have already demonstrated their willingness to pay the same GPX-level prices for a capable, ferrous-rejecting terrestrial Impulse that have been rightfully or wrongfully attributed to the AQ in this thread. Even if you could somehow simply modify the AQ enable switching off salt compensation to accommodate relic hunting in magnetite soils that woukd be something. Hoepwever, if the terrestrial prospecting or relic Impulse takes another 2 years to rear it's head, ML will probably figure out a way to add iron rejection to the GPX 6000 via firmware update or release a relic friendly variant in that time frame and that will be the end of that opportunity for you and Fisher. Think about it...