maxxkatt

I have to admit you have a tiger by the tail. New to the Equinox and new to metal detecting. Where do I start. First of all stay in one of the standard modes. Way to early to be messing around with settings other than sensitivity. Why did you pick the 800 as your first detector as a total newbie? They have a long and steep learning curves for a newbie. The Vanquish 540 would have been a better choice. One of the main problems is the 800 is a hot, hot detector. Meaning it sees every little spec of metal in the ground and has a tendency of making small pieces sound big and big pieces of junk like a squashed tin can sound like a coin. What you are seeing with jumpy TID's is the Nox reporting a lot of stuff under each coil swing. The ground in most places if full of junk. Just turn on the horeshoe start sweeping. In a lot of places you here constant hits. Buy Clive Clylnick's three books on the Equinox and study there carefully and practice what he writes about. Probably the best written guides for the Equinox by any author. Literally you have way too much to learn to put in a post. I got my nox 800 in April 2018 and took me more than a year to learn and I have been metal detecting since 1987.

It does not happen often, but it does happen. I wrote a small booklet on the 1715 Spanish Treasure coast wreck including the GPS location of the wrecks and the corresponding on beach locations and places to park. But as you can see you have to wait for the right conditions to hunt the treasure coast. Great find!

No you don't. Think Simplex+ and Vanquish 540. I have had the Equinox 800 since March of 2018. If you are a newbie or never used a Minelab detector hold on to your hat, you are in for a wild learning curve ride. If you truly don't understand some of the 800 settings, then just pick some of the standard default modes and you will be fine. Just make sure you noise cancel and ground balance. I had the Simplex+ but sold it. Just did not like the tones and ID range. This is just a personal bias, it is a great machine for the $$. So is the Vanquish from what I have been reading. I have on order the Vanquish 540 with 12" and 8" coils. Looking forward to a fun coin machine.

Let's hope the Garrett announcement is a really good detector that sells really well. Why? To keep things competitive in our hobby. This competition is what gives us quality metal detectors at decent prices. I have used the Ace 250, The AT Pro, the Nox 800, Simplex+ and now waiting on my Vanquish 540. The CTX 3030 was always out of my price range (well my wife would not speak to me for a year had I bought a CTX). Having great detectors at a modest price help all of us. Even more reason to keep your favorite sites a top secret.

I have been on the forum since June 2018 but mostly reading other's posts. Lots of good people on this forum. I have learned it is a good place to learn because most on this forum know what they are talking about. Used an AT Pro for 3 years and bought a Nox 800 in March 2018. What a learning curve. I now have a Vanquish 540 with the 12" and 8" coil on order. I tried the Simplex+ but too different from the Nox 800 so sold it for only that reason. It is a good machine. The Vanquish will come with little or no learning curve for an Equinox user. The steep 800 learning curve was enough for me in one lifetime. My main interest is research and hunting for Civil War relics which are still available if you do your research around Atlanta and north of Atlanta up to Chattanooga.

I have a Simplex+ and am thinking seriously of thinking selling the Simplex and buying the Vanquish 440.I have nothing really negative to say about the Simplex. I have the Nox 800 and think that the TID on the Vanquish will be similar to the Nox 800 for the same targets? Am I right?With the Simplex and the Nox 800 I have two sets of numbers to remember. Don't need that.Plus I like the tones on the 800 better than the Simplex. How do the tones on the V 440 compare to the 800?Plus I like the Multi-frequency aspect of the Vanquish.Thanks for any help you can give me.

Miccus SR-71 5.0 bluetooth will not work on Equinox 800. Equinox is bluetooth 4.2. Trond TD-BH01 if it is bluetooth 4.2 will work on the Equinox 800. How do I know? I own both of the above headphones. Trond has better fidelity than the Minelab wireless headphones SL-80 for the Equinox. This is just my opinion.

Pick the mode closest to your type of hunting. Noise cancel and ground balance. Turn on the horseshoe (all metal) and find a piece of ground with absolutely no ferrous or non-ferrous targets and ground balance. you don't want to ground balance over metal targets. Quiet your machine down with reducing your sensitivity as necessary. Adjust other settings ONLY IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. Using other people's programs that are set for hunting sites completely unlike yours (eg mineralization, trash, etc) is a prescription for a unbalanced or un-tuned Equinox. Speaking from experience. When I first got my Equinox I was looking at programs other people used and found they really don't work for anyone else.

Funny think about the Treasure Coast of Fl. When you get the right conditions, beach combers have been known to snag gold and silver items as well as detectorists.

I wish I had listened to him. Instead I wasted time messing around with all the features and the results were on many hunts I had a de-tuned Eq 800 not working well for me. I have learned my lesson.

Clive hit on that pphenomena first by many questions from Equinox users sent to him. I just happened to stumble across it a couple of weeks ago when in frustration I did a factory reset and just hunted in field1 and started producing results in the same area.

Review of Clive Cylick third Equinox book – “Skill-Building with the Minelab Equinox Series Metal Detectors I think this is the best book in his Equinox series. It is written for a large group of new Equinox users. It is not written for very experienced users of other Minelab products or the Equinox experts and there are a few of those experts around. It is written for and I think most helpful for the newbie who bought the Equinox 600 or 800 and experienced detectorists coming from other non-Minelab machines. The total newbies to metal detecting should buy a good beginners metal detecting book and all three of Clive’s Equinox books. The book is packed with information that for me told me two major things: 1) why I was not getting the performance out of my Equinox that others were reporting and 2) how to make the Equinox do what I need it to do to perform at a level it was design to perform. I am not going into a lot of detail because that would be like quoting everything in the book. I will tell you I learned what my biggest problem was with me and my 800. By playing around with all of the features without not truly understanding the physics behind most of the settings I was operating with a detector that was often greatly de-tuned or not balanced. A balanced Equinox means selecting the proper modes for your type of hunting and small settings adjustments to make the 800 a little more balanced. The Equinox engineers made the different modes for park, field, beach and gold very balanced. In most cases just using the default mode best for your type of hunting will serve you will. Only until you truly understand the settings and how to effectively use them you should leave them alone. This is why just copying other detectorist’s settings will get you into trouble. Their settings are for their environment, not yours. Keeping in mind that sensitivity (gain), recovery speed, and iron bias all affect each other. So, you really need to make small adjustments of all in a manner that none or many of these adjustments cause an unbalanced detector. Sounds complicated? Yes it is. But it becomes a lot less complicated after reading Clive’s third Equinox book carefully. The book is packed full of information on the above topics. I was surprised to learn that even the detector’s volume level affects your ability to hear deep targets and not buy turning up the volume which is what most of us would think to do. I recommend all three of Clive’s books for the novice as well as a good metal detecting beginners book. For the more experienced detectorists who have never use a Minelab detector the third book will probably be enough to get you over the Equinox learning curve hump.

I used to hunt gold nuggets in the Georgia mountains with my two sons back in the late 80's. We had a firm rule, never go into any gold mines. I still obey that rule today. Not worth the risk especially since the majority of them are not hard rock tunnels but rather tunnels in the dirt or dirt and soft rock mixture.

I have located two gold mines that I have access to after much research. one mine about 4 ft tall in the side of a hill and has a nice pile of quartz rock tailings pile. rocks are about 12" wide. Should I remove all of the larger quartz rocks to get down to the smaller rocks before I hunt with my 800 using a six inch coil? the other is in the side of a creek bank about 2 feet high. No sign of tailings pile, so I guess just hunt the creek with my Equinox 800 and 6" coil in front of the mine and down stream and on both sides of the creek in case they had their washer equipment set up at that location. both sites are rather remote so should not be much trash in the area. thanks for any help.

Looking for anyone who has hunted Civil War locations in the 70’s, 80’ & 90’s in Dekalb county, Georgia that might wish to share locations and help me out. I am looking for Civil War camp sites, river or stream crossing or skirmishes that happened in Dekalb county in Metro Atlanta, Georgia. Or if you know someone who has hunted those areas in the past that would be helpful also if you could give me their contact information. Please send me a private message with any info.

do meteorites just land anywhere on the planet? or do they typically land in specific areas? For instance would Atlanta, Georgia USA have meteorites on the ground somewhere?

I posed this same question on another forum and got blasted for the question from a lot of Garrett AT Pro users. Apparently over there quite a few AT Pro users are very sensitive and defensive. Glad to see the topic discussed openly here with out name calling. I have used many detectors including 3 Garrett detectors with 3 years on the AT Pro before I bought my Nox 800 in march 2018. Heck yes the AT Pro was a great machine, but not keeping up with the new technology. I suspect the big dog engineers at Garrett are on the security side. Almost every major concert or outdoor events that I have attended in the last 3 years that has security detectors use Garrett. They should spin off the hobby part in new separate company with a few top young engineers. Then and only then I feel we would see something to give the Equinox and XP Deus a run for the money.

Hi Rob, I have owned my 800 since Mar 2018. "Gotta say the EQ600 I had earlier this year ran NOTHING like this unit. This thing is smooth and I can understand it." Just curious can you go into more detail about why you you think the 600 is nothing like the 800? Not trying to trash the 600 but never had one and I always wonder what the difference is from the 800. thanks john

One can only imagine the number of Garrett AT Pro metal detectors sold because of the videos by Aqua Chigger, Nugget Noggin and Relic Recoverists. I am sure that Brad of Green Mountain Metal Detecting has help Garrett quite a bit with his very good videos. But I really don't think Brad is part of the Garrett Gang.

Donut on another forum told me to only tighted the coil nut just where the coil swivels easy and not to crank down hard and get it super tight. This adds stress and then an accidental bump against a solid object can add just enough additional stress to break the ears. I guess that is what is happening. Now I am more careful since I was trying to get them very tight.

“Equinox presets however in my opinion are among the very best designed for any detector, and the farther you get from the preset adjustments the less happy you are likely to be.” I can vouch for that. When I got my 800 in March 2018 I tried to learn and use everything and probably wasted 3-6 months of hunting and basically got confused and frustrated with the 800.

Another non-metal detecting way to find recently lost jewelry. Take a good bright LED flashlight and at night walk the mowed areas and look for reflections. It has been known to work and faster than sweeping a metal detector.

put a trailer on your ATV and mount the coil on the back and drive slowly back an forth. Use a wireless or long headphones cable. I remember many years ago about a guy that did just that with 4 -5 detectors attached to a trailer on his jeep and ending up finding a monster nugget worth millions of dollars he sold to a casino in Las Vegas.

nice finds TN. the rains in the south have been off and on every week lately. ground is either wet or soaking wet. and the rain is cold to boot. Crimps my hunting time quite a bit.

I think the key marketing phrase is "Multi-Frequency Range" and showing under it all 5 frequencies. What they should say is you can choose 2 frequencies from this range of frequencies or two combinations of frequencies from this range of frequencies. This is why we need smart guys to get down into the weeds and parse out the truth.