Norm S

Interesting posts. Most every person into detecting I know has secret honey holes they hunt and everyone of them lie about what they find. I lie as well. I have never told anyone about my best find or where I found it. I also find it interesting so many members don't list their location on the profiles. As far as finds never being recorded or shown on forums I do agree to an extent. I still enjoy the forums. I got my knowledge base from forums. I also learn how much I know by how little some know about their detectors. Almost every setting I use on the Equinox I got from this forum. Some I tried here I didn't like. I removed my firmware update because I didn't like it. I am not into joining a detecting club. I enjoy hunting with one or two people but I not into organized hunts. I don't lie about where I hunt and I enjoy talking about detecting to others and always willing to share info. I have no secret honey holes anymore because I hunted them hard enough I don't want to waste the time coming up with little or nothing. I did quit bragging about the Equinox and praise the AT Pro guys. I do remember about 5 yrs ago a guy had both the CTX 3030 and the E-Trac and he told me you don't want to waste your money on either of these. I now know why he wanted me to stick with my AT Pro I think the influx of people into detecting is starting to wane. The tv shows were probably responsible for 1000's getting into detecting and many I know that got into detecting was from a son or daughter wanting a detector to find riches. I never did like the TV shows about detecting because to me they had special permissions none of us would ever get. It was almost like watching a seeded hunt. There will always be those few that don't respect public or private lands to hunt on that give the rest of us a bad name. Many guys that use forums are long time users and have good info to share. The newbies come and go and so many try to promote U-Tube sites they have. Over the years I have read almost every post and reply by what I consider the most knowledgeable guys into detecting. They understand the science of the detectors and I learn so much from them.

I just read on another website about all the problems guys were having with the update. I tried if for the 1st time today and right now I have mixed feelings about it. I will give it a few more days before I decide

Good story. Lots of things I haven't found but by you sending a variety of different things he has now found them.. If nothing else you helped train his ear

I can't stop laughing Steve. I have had Garrett ATP and Ace 250, plus the Whites Spectra V3i and the E-Trac. I fell in love with the Equinox within days of owning it. I had a cpl problems with it and sent it back to Minelab but that didn't dampen my enthusiasm. I love it so much I bought a 600 as a backup. Sold the V3i and At Pro and gave the E-Trac to my grandson. I think the E-Trac is the 3rd detector I gave my grandson.. I have used other detectors friends have and although they were good they didn't flip my switch. I know a Deus owner that won't use anything else but he is a relic hunter. In parks I always find more and of course he calls it luck and even when I walked in his footsteps he said any detector could have found what i did and he said he missed it by not overlapping sweeps. The ATP is still selling like hot cakes and that's good because most guys will quit before they try another detector. I never find much at the beach but it pisses off the ATP guys when I step into the water and they get nothing but static and scratching. I usually tell everyone they have a good detector unless they tell me like the guy did yesterday I won't find anything because they hunted it with their ATP. It's cooler weather now and I will go out daily. The Equinox amazes me each time I go out. I learn so much from this forum and I learn little nuances every time I use the Equinox I quit being brand loyal a long time ago. Drove Chevy's for 30 years had recalls and other problems but because It was a chevy it was ok with me. I had a Ford company truck and put over 100k in miles without it being in the shop once. I have driven Fords for 17 years and have bought 5 over 17 years without one recall or having to take it in for repair. I have 150k on my present truck and the only thing I have done is change the oil and filters, new tires and brakes The Equinox is the best thing since power steering on cars

I know in my area the tides go out farther for the next few months then in the summer. I hunt the heck out of them but I have never found much. I see guys go out in the water in the summer and do well but it seems if I hunt the same area at low tide I get not much more than exercise. LOL

I won't dig 100 holes in a tab or bottle cap infested park or beach. Lazy has nothing to do with it. To me it's hobby and I am 74 yrs old. If I dig 100 targets I will be digging them on known good VDI numbers. I am likely to pull out $10 - $12 in clad and maybe a ring or trinket. I can more often than not identify tabs or caps in an infested park or beach. I am lucky and the soil I dig in is sandy and easy to dig where as others may have to dig in gravels or hard clay. Heck no one wants to dig 100 tabs to find nothing worth keeping. On occasion one may get lucky and pull out a gold ring or something valuable but each person has to assess what effort is worth the reward. I use 50 tones because there is usually a distinction in sound on every type of tab or bottle cap. Some bottle caps will ring up as 29 or 30 but don't have the hollow sound of a quarter and that's my que to know it's not a quarter. Do I dig them yes but I know before I drop to the ground I will come up with a rusty bottle cap. Tabs are a bit more tricky especially in the nickel range but every time I dig a nickel I know it's a nickel but if I haven't dug a nickel in awhile I get suckered in on a tab or two. Like I said I am an old man and try to keep things simple. If I was 30 yrs younger I may think different but if I want to dig almost every signal I go relic hunting. Actually we all do what works for us or gives us the greatest reward and satisfaction. My suggestion to people new to detecting is dig everything until your ear and brain know what signals to focus on. Every detector I have owned is like starting new again and by the time I have 100 hours or more on the detector I start getting confidence in my hunts

I haven't had much time to detect in the past couple of months due to honey do's and other things getting in the way. I did try for some gold in New Mexico and got a bit of color and one tiny nugget about 1/16". I had a lot of hits but I didn't have a plastic scoop so that made things really hard and the closest place to buy one was at least 35 miles away. It was late afternoon andI had about a 2 hour drive to my next motel so I gave up. I did consider it mission accomplished because all I wanted to do is find gold with my 800. I tried a cpl of tailing piles and got a cpl signals but couldn't find what it was. Yesterday morning i went to a park I hit hard in the spring knowing there had been a lot of activity there recently. In less than an hour I found $2.60 in clad and one 1962 silver quarter. The funny thing was I had to dig for everything and most of the coins were very tarnished. I thought for sure I would find a lot of surface drops and didn't find one. Most of the coins were 2" to 4" deep. I kinda a guessed my success of not knowing my equinox very well when I 1st hunted the park back in March and April. That park was my learning curve. Yesterday morning I hit most of the coins in holes with tabs or nails so I think I may have passed them up back in March. I used both park 1 and park 2 in 50 tones. My ear may be even better now than then. Going out again in the morning for at least 2 hours and that will tell me how much I really missed back in March and April. I pulled over $200 out of that park and was pretty satisfied I found most of what was there. Like the old saying goes you never find all of it. I did have one ghost signal yesterday and never could find it. I dug in about 4 places where it pinpointed and when I got down to 4" or so the signal disappeared and nothing beeped with my pinpointer.After digging the 4 holes the detector went silent like nothing was ever there. When I was walking back to my truck an ATP user said you didn't find anything did you and I said not much about $2.60, He said no way I hunted that park and only found about 75 cents in almost 3 hours. I said you need an Equinox and he said they are all hype and I said yeah maybe so but $2.60 vs 75 cents is all the hype I need. I said buy a 600 at about the same cost as your ATP and you can hunt salt water too and you can't with the ATP. I said the ATP is a good detector but the Equinox is better. He said maybe so but Garrett has good service and I said so does Minelab. I said all mfr's have great service. I said after about 100 hours of use your AtP will collect dust and will be used as a backup. I said out of the box it is easier than the ATP. I said buy one you won't be sorry, He said I will think about it and have a nice day I opted not to buy the 6" coil because although I know there are places it will shine I rarely go to places like that.where it will benefit me I still need to update my 800 and tonight I just may do that. I had to get back on here to catch up on the latest info available and to see if anyone had a magic setting that will only produce good targets....LOL

I had my 800 go haywired twice the 1st month I owned it. I was unhappy but the minelab service was excellent. It's micro electronics and as much as they are reliable they can also go haywire. As you get used to your detector and get over having had to send in for repairs you will love it. The best detector on the market for the price. Also the easist to use

I bought the Equinox 600 as a backup not only in case something went wrong on my 800 while detecting but as an extra for a friend. The side benefit of buying it was my wife got interested in detecting. When I started planning my trip west for this fall my wife immediately asked if I had a detector for her. She has always enjoyed seeing what I found detecting but never took and interest or wanted to go out with me. When I showed her how simple the 600 was she said heck I can do that and although I can't say she loves it but if she finds a few decent relics or coins she will jump in with both feet. I am thinking I no longer have a back up. The 600 is quickly becoming hers.

I haven't actively looked for a 6" coil yet but I think I better get my butt in gear because I am preparing for my trip West next month. It appears everyone has them on backorder. I have had so much going on in the past 4 - 6 weeks I haven't had time to look

I personally think the Equinox caught many of the Detector Manufacturers by surprise. Not so much because of the multi IQ but the demand it created. Every manufacturer is looking for that magic bullet. Garrett has pretty much run out of upgrades for the AT Pro and for a time it seemed if you didn't have an AT Pro you would be left in the dust. I think they are all seeking a similar build to the Equinox but more than that a marketing campaign that will create a frenzy like the Equinox has. I think Minelab was caught by surprise when they announced the Equinox and even more so by the amount of back orders there were at the time of the release date. The same goes for the 6" double D coil. Just the simplicity of the Equinox gave it an advantage out of the box. There are many other detectors on the market that can and will find as much as the Equinox but none as easy to use and learn. Two things the manufacturers I am sure are looking at with a new or upgraded model and a new model would catch the eye of detector enthusiasts. They need simplicity and one heck of a marketing campaign. It was pretty bold of Minelab to state the Equinox would make all other detectors obsolete. The worst that can happen is new model to flop so I think the other manufacturers are being very careful not to rush to market a new detector that won't live up to the hype. That's just my take on what I think is happening.

I have not had any problems with pinpointers and my Equinox 800 or 600. I have used the Garrett Carrot, Whites TRX and currently my Xpointer. I think your dealer does not know. There have been articles published saying you may have to move the detector to avoid interference but I have had no issues with my pointers interfering with Equinox 800 or 600

I wasn't actually hunting with the At Pro guys but there was an air show at Biloxi beach this weekend and today being Monday brought out every guy that owns a detector or visitors with detectors to hunt the beach. There were 4 guys with AT Pro's and two with Ace 250's. The advantage I really had was no tabs and no cans. I hunted in Beach 1 and Beach 2. I hunted using the factory preset and it worked great. My detector was quiet as a mouse until I hit a target. The AT Pro guys were digging the cans and tabs constantly and I never dug a one. All in all no one found much of anything other than a few pennies. I did find a 10k gold band that rang up at 13 and I thought it was a gold tab but dug it because it rang clear. The only comment I got was one guy said you won't find much with that detector. I said maybe not but I like it. He said if you don't own an AT Pro you won't find much. He told me where he had found over $30 in clad with it and I said great when did you hunt there and he said in Jan. I said I knew someone had been there when I went in April. He said you didn't find much did you. I said no I only averaged about $4- $5 in clad a day for a month. I said all in all I pulled over $200 in clad from there and 3 rings. He said with that thing and I said yea it's an Equinox and it's the best detector on the market for the money. He then said what did you find here. I said one gold band and maybe 40 cents in clad. He said well mine is waterproof and I said yes but not in salt water. I said the AT Pro don't like salt water or salt beaches.. I said the Equinox has a beach mode and it's waterproof and you get no scratchy sounds like you do with the AT Pro. I said I am not knocking your detector I had one but I happen to like the Equinox better. I said it's all in how well you know your detector. I said the guy with the ACE 250 found as much as me but he dug a boat load of trash and I never dug a tab. In the past two weeks I have met at least 5 guys with new AT Pro's and that's pretty good evidence that the AT Pro is still selling like hot cakes. No doubt they are great detectors because I had one but after I got to be really good with it I wanted a new challenge so I moved up. Up isn't always good if you don't fall in love with the detector. I would venture to say that using 50 tones with the Equinox if you master the tones that no detector will out hunt the Equinox. As far as 50 tones go I would say I am novice at best so I have a steep hill to climb.

What I can add to this is rings. A ring will disguise itself as a gold tab. You won't find many but I dug what I was certain to be a gold tab this morning and it was a gold band.. Other than that I haven't dug a tab in weeks.

I may try the gold mode on the beach just to get used to the audio. Not sure if it will help but I will try. I will most likely let her use the 800 anyway but knowing her she will think the 600 is hers and want to use it.. I kinda let her think the 600 would be hers when I bought it so she wouldn't question my purchase...lol She knows I really bought it for me but she went along with me. We have plenty of time to practice even after we get there and the beauty of it all is being able to ask on the forum We have no time limit to spend in any one place. Most often we go until we are ready to head back home which is usually about 3 weeks. Heck we have fun just exploring old mine sites and sifting through the tailings. A few years ago I found a bucket full of tailings with gold in them.. Kept them for a few years because I thought maybe my grandkids wanted it but they didn't so I threw them in my son's creek at his back property.