schoolofhardNox

Welcome Ken from western MA. Good luck detecting this season

Is that a mono coil or DD? Indestructible little devil isn't it?

Continued this same beach but used both the GPX and Equinox. Most silver found with the GPX. No gold this time either. 8 silvers, a buffalo, hand full of wheats, and possibly a tiny silver earring. A little bit of clad to round off the hunt. Fun hunt, all while getting some good, head clearing exercise. Beats work any day

Congrats on the ring return! Nice to have some help on the cost of a new battery. For the type of hunting you do, a spare battery is great piece of mind! I'm not sure on the batteries being equal. I think the new rating on the battery shows it's actually a bit stronger than the earlier version if you use the numbers listed on each battery. I found this formula on line and applied it to the new battery and it came out a little bit ahead of the old battery. Is it possible that modern lithium batteries are a bit more refined than the older ones were? Maybe someone else can run the numbers and see. Here's the formula that I found and used. W is a measure of power, therefore it's likely that it's rated in Wh (Watt-hour, energy). Since Ah represent a charge (current * time) you can multiply it by the voltage to get Wh; conversely, divide the Wh by the voltage to get the Ah rating.

I'm using the 12.5" Detech DD coil

Most gold rings of any substance, I find will ring very well on the Equinox, giving a wide solid signal. Scraps of aluminum read a bit different and aren't as consistent as solid rings are. Pull tabs are another story, as they ring well. Some of you may be able to tell the tonal qualities between the two, but for me I find it quicker to just dig those targets. The area that I run into that is harder to tell, is the fine small gold jewelry (or pieces of). It's the thin, stamped gold pieces and odd shaped pieces that will not sound as big as a ring and may sound similar to aluminum, beach can slaw. So I just dig it all. In a park my dig it all process is suspended. I would cherry pick and concentrate more on the nuances of the tones. I guess my advice is to always try and guess what you are digging and have a reason why you believe you have guessed what it is, and then just see if you are correct. Repetition will eventually give you the confidence to be as accurate as possible, with just a few mistakes.

Finally had a chance to get out to one of my better silver beaches. With the extreme cold about a week ago, and along with the high winds, I missed some of the record low tides in my area. Wednesday was the first time out and I was hoping the now normal tides didn't wash too much sand back on the beach. Lucky the sand was not frozen, so I was good to go. I had the GPX set up the best I could with all the train interference, and took breaks when the EMI was just too much to handle. Managed these goodies. No gold, but enough of silver to make the trip worth while. 2 quarters, (SLQ and Washington), 9 dimes, (Mercury and Roosevelt), 19 Wheats and 6 copper Memorials, and a '29 Buffalo. The layer I was able to get into was around the early 50's to 60's. I was itching to get out and hunt, so I really didn't care what I found. I did dig a lot of other targets as well, including 3 silver plated spoons (a common beach find) that were 18+ inches deep. They were a reminder that I have to get back to my other duties, as I had just picked up 2 full pickup loads of spoons, forks, and knives for my small recycling business and I needed to work on them. Weather was great, and coin size targets were at reasonable depths of 8-12". Finally nice to see the waves and breathe that (cold) shore air

Beauties. There is history everywhere, if you look hard enough. I would love to find some of those fractional gold coins or fur trade tokens... I wouldn't throw away Mormon Gold either :)

No, any place out doors will do. I have a section of a lower roof that is flatter than the rest of the house. I leave it there so it won't get lost again. lol Actually you can leave it on your window sill if you want it at home. But the easiest way is to just use anything Sulphur based. That way the toning is controlled by you.

You can rub it with Sulphur and petroleum jelly and it will tarnish nicely. there are other ways to tarnish it but that one is the easiest way. Or just leave it out on your roof and flip it over every once in a while and let nature take it's course.

It never hurts to try another set of headphones and power cord as suggested already. I have lost signal threshold because of both of those. But if your issue is depth related then a call to Minelab may be in order. Let us know how you make out. I often worry since My GPX has put up with rain, cold, and just the other day a taller than usual wave that found the control box . So far so good. The other thing that comes to mind is that you bought the unit used. Did you verify that it is a genuine Minelab unit??

Not that I would ever get that call , but I would pass. I bet it requires a lot of time and I would be very disappointed if I found an area that needed improvement and they just ignored the suggestion. Plus the extra time needed to do the social media would kill me. I'm not patient enough to respond to the flood of inquiries that come your way. Everyone wants to know everything about the new machine and you can only tell them vague, watered down information.

Use the CTX/Equinox first on an area that is not too polluted with iron, then use the 5000. I have great success with the GPX 5000/ Equinox combination. The Equinox finds most targets decently up to 10" on my types of beaches and the 5000 cleans up the lower depths well. When the wind or waves remove more sand, I do that same combination over again. So far, I have not seen a better combination out there. Maybe there is one, but they are not talking about it

The engineers were smart enough to include single frequencies for those rare situations that may occur. They also may have considered the fact that there are detectorists that will want single frequency control as an option, for better or worse. I don't know if you posted your question in humor or not and I'm wondering if you have an Equinox? I am one of those seasoned detectorists that is happy to dive into the machines I use and appreciate the ability to control my own destiny with a new machine. I think Minelab got the electronics correct, but not so much on the cosmetics (stand, cuff, shaft locks) As far as marketing goes, it has been discussed here before and most detectorists decide for themselves how good a machine is, with no thought given to the marketing hype.

Thanks Steve for the insight on the gold modes. I may try that on the beach and see if that system works there. I really want to try gold 2 and get it stable on the beach.