Norm S

I feel the same way as you GB. I try to leave no trace if me when I been in a park unlike many of the plugs I see that are still visible a month later. I have actually recovered targets next to plugs I have dug and couldn't tell I had dug there until I tried to cut a plug for the new target and the old plug got disturbed and I blame that on the Equinox identifying both targets and I went for the strongest signal and missed the one 6" away. If I hit a deep can I will leave it if it will be a bigger mess removing it than if I leave it. I won't be seen with a shovel either because that freaks people out. I have to admit my grandson is wise beyond his years and a pure joy to spend time with whenever I can. We have the same bond today that we had when he was 5 yrs old.. I don't see him much with him in college and working, on top of living 650 miles away but every year we go on fishing trips for a cpl of weeks. He loves metal detecting too.

That's why I hunt mornings before most people are out and I am usually gone by 9:30 am. I have hunted a few evenings but was never comfortable doing that. I am always friendly to people when they ask and I usually tell them I found a few pennies and make a joke I shouldn't have quit my day job. The last time I was in a park in the middle of the day I was with my 18 yr old grandson and detecting a small park with a tot lot that usually gave up a cpl bucks in clad. Well we were minding our business when some guy come up and called me a creepy old man. I said what he said his daughter and her friend ran home and told him a creepy old man was in the park. The only girls we even seen were two girls riding a bike through the park and we never spoke to any of them, I said we're metal detecting and he said what ya gonna find a quarter. I maybe and sometimes rings. I said it's my hobby he said it's my perception you're here for other reasons. I said please leave us alone we are not bothering anyone. He said again it's perception. I looked at my grandson and said let's go and he said loudly yeah I think we should go grandpa there are to many creeps in this park.. We left and went to a soccer field..

I use the headphones for my 800 with the 600..

Sometimes it's best to wait and spend the extra money from the manufacturer. I learned many years ago to spend the extra for the real thing.. Saving money doesn't always mean you're ahead in the long run. I know I am a grumpy old man but l have learned a lot over the years.. At my age I won't wait and I won't take 2nd best no matter how good looking she is.

Well I can tell you one thing their hasn't been much customer loyalty with the Equinox.. I have spent over $7700 with dealers in the past 5 years. This year alone I have spent over $1700. I even ordered a CTX as a carrot to get moved up to the 1st shipment and I was told no so I canceled my order and found one on my own. Had one on my front door 5 days later.. There is one dealer selling E-800's for $800 but he did that to build a list.. He had like 70 people on his list when I talked to him and was only getting maybe 4 every two weeks.. When I want something I get it and refuse to wait.

It cost your small dealer $67 to give you that discount. Between Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops there are 41,000 employees. They are pretty much big box sporting goods dealers. Neither Bass Pro or Cabela's offer online military discounts but they do offer 5% discounts most of the year for in store purchases. My question to anyone is why does anyone deserve a discount for anything. I am retired and prior military but have never used that as an excuse not to buy from anyone. If I want it now I buy it. I can give you more than one instance of small dealers not being loyal to former customers since the Equinox came out..

No the screen protector was actually about ready to fall off so the was no stress on the button

I know there are a lot of relic hunters out there and they may not used pinpoint at all or rarely because of the size of their finds and even the beach hunters use it less because they just scoop. I am primarily a coin shooter and rarely beach hunt and when I do I never use pinpoint. Due to trashy parks with tabs and bottles caps often in the same hole or within inches of the target pinpoint really helps. I have experienced fading in the pinpoint mode and I sometimes suspect that it is as deep target or is picking up stuff nearby since the edge of the coil is so hot. When I do get fade I just click out of pinpoint and move away a few inches and pinpoint again. I experienced fading quite a bit at 1st and maybe I am better at pinpointing now or I pay no attention to it and start over but I only experienced fading once this week that I am aware of.

My experience with breaking down the Equinox is great. It takes less than two minutes and can be reassembled in the same amount of time. I suppose making a folding shaft would be great but because I have no reason to break it down I personally would never go to the trouble. 15 years ago I would have done that as a workshop project because I had enough tools and space to do it complete with a small lathe and a mini CNC. My wife used to say don't tell Norm your watch is broke because he will head to the shed and build you a new one..

Yes I had a screen protector other than that I have made no modifications. I guesstimated the amount of times I used the pinpoint mode. As of yesterday I topped over $200 in clad. I get probably 3 quarters to every dime and usually average 10 pennies per hunt. I am guessing I dug over 1600 targets and used pinpoint 800 times. If it is a real shallow coin I use the wiggles method or I just use my TRX to pinpoint it if I get a beep or vibrate. If not I use the pinpoint mode on the detector. About 50% of the time the coins are 4" or deeper so I go to pinpoint mode on the detector. 800 times in 42 days is a lot of pinpointing and 1600 times dropping to my knees to dig a plug is even more. I never use a shovel unless in an open field so my lesche trowel gets a lot of use. I have to sharpen it again because I been in some really dry and hard soil. Since I hunt everyday for at least 2 hours and some days I do 2 two hour hunts and have had great success in parks with lots of coins I probably use my pinpoint more in 6 weeks than most guys do in 2 years or more. Now a word about Minelab customer service. I wrote last night and I had a shipping label by 8:23 this morning. I also wrote a detailed letter to Minelab explaining how I hunt and how often I used pinpoint to help them understand what went wrong. I am in no way upset since this is a new product on the market. Actually as a gesture of good faith I am getting an Equinox T-shirt from Minelab. My experience with Metal Detector Manufacturers has been nothing but great. Hard to find companies that care about their customers as much and Metal Detector Manufacturers. I am not even frustrated this time because I have my 600 as backup. I am a bit upset because my E-800 does not get frequent flier miles from UPS.

My Minelab wireless headphones work fine with my 600 but this morning they would only work if I turned on my WM08 module and then they paired fine and I left the module in the truck and away I went

Thanks Steve, I already did both of those resets and while I was out in the garage trying them again I think I discovered the problem. It started screaming again and I think the pinpoint button is stuck because it won't move. I use it but not a lot because I usually do the wiggle method especially if the coin is shallow.

I was out detecting this morning and had a great 2 hours hunt. I found $7.10 in exactly 2 hours. On my 2nd to last target while I was digging the detector started sounding off like it was in pinpoint mode so I moved it thinking there maybe was a target under the coil. I found my quarter and picked the detector and it was bouncing all over the place and squealing off and on then I hit another 30 signal and retrieved it and noticed the detector needed charging so I quit. I come back home and charged it up and it does nothing but scream.. I don't know it lighting hit twice in the same place but this is the 2nd time for this to happen. Not sure how I could get two bad controllers. Was doing nothing unusual. I had 13 open and everything from 20 -40 open. Was using 50 tones and everything was great. I was having a great day until that happened. Can't imagine what I could be doing wrong.

Morris I had cancer 8 yrs ago and luckily I survived my surgery and after surgery i had radiation and that almost killed me. It took me a year to get over it and I am still suffering side effects but I am alive and kicking and I go metal detecting daily

I can speak for the Minelab customer service. From the time I called them until I had a 2nd day air prepaid shipping label was about 10 minutes. I shipped it on thursday they got it on Monday and they shipped it on Tuesday and I received it on Thursday. If it wasn't for the weekend it would have been a 5 day turn around.

I agree with SittingElf the essential info really helps and once you get your detector it is easy to go back and look at the experiences and helpful info other users have posted. Pay particular attention to what Steve H posts and some of the posts by Chase Goldman, and others.. I would say 30% of the posts are applicable to most of us and some of the posts are about accessories and modifications etc.

If you're looking for GI Joe contact Colonel Jerimy Duckworth. He is retired and living in the old soldiers home

Steve I am getting used to it but at 73 yrs old I don't always feel like dropping for a penny especially if I have already dropped 10 - 15 times for pennies. I will however always drop for a mixed signal. I know I may miss some stuff in the low 20's but that's the risk I take. I been digging a lot of brass in the 31 range and 34-35 range and it really excites me but it's been brass. I am hitting a carnival stop this morning. I doubt which I will find much because the surface drops will have been picked up by Carnies but I hope to find an elusive ring in the grass. Was there for about 10 minutes yesterday and found a rubber Duckie and $2.50 I have found a lot of cans at 12" and they ring hard. Most cans I can detect by raising my coil but some just fool me. I laid out a bunch of my wifes gold and she has it from 10k to 18k.. I got signals all over the place depend on the karat and size. So I guess gold is where you find it and how much your willing to dig for it.. If I was 30 yrs younger I would dig it all

Chase I am either going to give my Etrac to my grandson or buy him an E-800.. He is 19 and aside from everything else he is into he loves metal detecting.. He is one of these kids that will metal detect in the morning go kayaking in the afternoon and maybe go out to the back of their property and go bass fishing at night.. Plus you have to have some time for a girl in there as well.. I was dead set on a CTX and I was lucky I was able to cancel it. I am glad I did now even though I know that over all there is not a better detector but a guy I know has had one since they came out and he still struggles with it. The Equinox hype got to me and I had to have one and then bought the 600 as a backup. Once I noise cancel and adjust the sensitivity they are the quietest detectors I have ever had. In most cases they won't find anymore than other detectors but I find stuff deeper and the target separation when you hit multiple targets including nails and other junk is 2nd to none. I have dug many more targets with the Equinox that I would have passed with other detectors.

Steve I have dug quarters, dimes and pennies at 12" and I don't like digging deep but I can't resist a good signal.. I always ask myself if need a mining permit when I dig deep coins. I been mostly hitting newer parks but am going to start a new place this week that is over 50 years old so there should be silver there, I just love the thrill of the hunt and the more I use the Equinox the better I learn what it is telling me. I had some masked quarters today but I knew there was a quarter there even though the 29- 30 wasn't the dominant signal. It bounced from 22 -24 with an occasional 29 -30.. The edge of the coil is so hot it was picking up a penny 2" from the edge of it and the penny was shallow and the quarter was 8" plus. I never could center the quarter for a dominant signal but I knew it was there. I knew there was something at 8" from the center of my plug because my pinpointer went haywire when I laid it down.. I moved it and dug my plug and found the quarter then picked up the detector and hit the penny at 23- 24 about 8" away and 2 inches deep. The penny signal was so strong it almost masked out the quarter. That happened about 3 times today..

I have both the 800 and 600 and the 600 does equally well as the 800. I love them both. I actually canceled an order for a CTX back in FEB. I was going to buy a CTX if I could get in on the 1st shipment of the Equinox but the dealer said I had to wait my turn so I canceled and found one by contacting other dealers.. I guess I save myself over a $1000 bucks by canceling and buying a 600 after I found the 800. In park 1 and Park 2 I found no noticeable difference in the twp detectors. Maybe some of the more technical guys can but I don't care about the science of the detector I like the simplicity and results.. I may miss a few good finds because I don't know how to tweak it for every huntin situation but in the long haul I will find as much or more than anyone just not big silver to brag about.. I tried field 1 on Sat and actually liked it in the 2 tone.. I hunted with it wide open and even hunted hitting the horseshoe.. I am going back to that field in a day or two when I have more time.. Sat morning I had a backdoor emergency so I had to head home and shower.

I never thought about Amazon gift receipts.. I have an Amazon credit card and the points add of fast. I may get an Amazon Gift receipt next time

Out of all that clad, I didn't fine one silver coin

I cashed in my clad at coinstar this afternoon. I have had my 800 for 6 weeks and my 600 for about 3 weeks. I cashed in at coinstar for a total of $172.66.. I had quit counting what I had after I knew I had almost $100 but never dreamed I had as much as I had. I have to admit I hit a cpl awesome parks and even though they had been hunted recently I cleaned up. I actually believe there is more at the one park but in an area I gridded I only found about $3 in two hours. In an area the other guy missed I found $9 in clad in a 30' x 30' area bordered by a sidewalk. I also hunted 3 other areas that I had hit really hard with both my Etrac and V3i. One soccer field that I took over $100 out of the past cpl of years I must have really cleaned it out because I found 3 cents. Another area I had hit hard with the Etrac before i got the Equinox. That area I found 40 cents. The last area which was a park that is hunted all the time I found 70 cents in 3 hours. I hunted an old soccer field yesterday and everything was deep.I had been there with my Etrac and only found a cpl of dimes and a nickel. Everything I found was 8" or more with the exception of a cpl surface pennies. I pulled out $3.48 in about 2 hours.. I have a cpl more places on my radar as well. I like hunting parks that others have hunted because it makes me feel the Equinox is superior to other detectors but in reality I think it the person that was detecting didn't know his detector very well. I also have 2 silver rings and a silver pendent.

I can get them by Tuesday from Amazon, $62 but no waiting