Lunk

Excellent article, Steve; very informative and easy to understand...you’ve covered all the bases for nugget hunting with the Equinox.

Nice haul Peg, way to work that patch!

Kiwi, I was running in Gold Mode 2.

It was a beautiful weekend in the forested hills of the Idaho goldfields, with temps in the low 70’s and plenty of sunshine and cool breezes. I took full advantage of the 3-day Labor Day weekend to continue working some old spots with the Minelab Equinox 800 in Gold Mode with the 6-inch coil. Saturday and Sunday saw a combined total of 24 bits with the Nox; I’m more amazed with the performance of this machine each time I use it. I switched gears on Monday however, and decided to swing the Gold Monster instead of the Equinox. It’s taken a back seat this summer, as I’ve been swinging the Nox almost exclusively. So much so that I’d nearly forgotten how good the GM 1000 is; even running the sensitivity at 10, it was much quieter than the Nox in hot ground. Between that and the Monsters simplicity of operation, along with its amazing sensitivity, I found myself falling in love with the machine all over again.? Definitely going to start using it more often, and not just because it found an additional 12 bits of yellow. So all up, 36 pieces for the extended holiday weekend, with a combined weight of 3.1 grams.

Great photo and nice bits!

FTLOG stop Gerry, before those gorgeous quartz crystals crumble into powder!?

Awesome chunk, WTG!

Detecting 100 nuggets is a milestone indeed...congrats!

Sounds like a job for a GPX with the 5X10 Commander DD coil with Iron Reject on. I’ve had pretty good luck with that setup in heavy trash areas.

Good to see you find a gold nugget with the Nox, Mitchel...many more to come.

I don’t envy you that task Steve, but if anyone can do it, you certainly can. I for one am really looking forward to reading that Treasure Talk blog, so thank you in advance. As far as I know, there’s not a book on the market dedicated solely to gold nugget detecting with the EQX; such a publication, authored by you, would be a welcome boon to those of us using the Nox in that capacity. I’m just suggesting that you think about it, that’s all.?

Nice bits, WTG!

Kiwi, I can run the Zed pretty much wide open here too in most spots; it’s a mystery.

Indeed I have, Simon; that piece should have been a sitting duck for the Zed. I was totally flabbergasted when that nugget came out of the hole.

Yep, same general area gs4k. You been doing any good lately?

Exactly my strategy today, Steve. Nice nuggets, btw.

I headed for the hills today to try out a recovery speed of 4 on the Equinox Gold mode, with the 6” coil, and I must say I was gobsmacked at the performance gain. I was also running the Iron Bias at zero and the sensitivity at max. I chose to grid an old spot that I’ve gridded with every machine I’ve ever owned. I hit the first flake right away, and the fun didn’t stop until quitting time. The last dig of the day was a whopper...0.7 of a gram at 5”...I was absolutely incredulous that A) the EQX hit so strong on it, and B) none of my other machines ever hit it; a real head scratcher!

Was just looking at the same page in my users manual, and it shows all settings - even the recovery speed - are exactly the same between Gold 1 & Gold 2; perhaps it’s been updated since I downloaded it?

Nice work Peg!

Ace!

Awesome speci Gerry, you’re killing it!

Yes, good point Simon; no wonder I wasn’t noticing a difference between the two.?

JW, I do have Gold 2 on my user button with, the same settings as Gold 1, so that I can toggle back and forth for comparisons on targets. Perhaps it’s just the ground I’m hunting in, but I haven’t noticed much difference between the two modes so far.

Mitchel, I haven’t strayed too far from the stock settings of Gold 1. I hunt in the all-metal “horseshoe “ mode unless the hot rocks get too plentiful, in which case I changed the discrimination pattern to reject only -7, -8 and -9, while accepting everything else. I’ve also set both Iron Bias and Threshold Level to zero. Hopefully you’ll break your dry spell soon.

Sage advice as always, Steve.