longbow62

I use F2-0 always. Using F2-0 lets you sniff out masked deep silver better. The higher the Iron Bias the more good targets I'm going to miss.

I use both wired and bluetooth. I have never used the WM08. I use stock bluetooth headphones most of the time for the untethered experience. I have a pair of wired headphones that are much better quality than the stock Minelab bluetooth headphones. I use the wired headphones when I get real serious about iffy targets and hearing deep targets.

Hey not that this means anything, but not long ago a dealer was selling his CTX demo unit. I thought about buying, then I got to thinking why sell your demo unit? I started looking around and at the big seller's and they have practically no Etrac's or CTX's in stock. Might have been a bunch sold at Christmas and no new restock shipments yet, but maybe they won't be restocked.

Does EMI not enter from the coil itself? Seems like with the 6" coil on it's less affected. I tried EMI shielding tape on the head unit and got no EMI relief.

I think the Equinox 800 is a incredible detector, but being a gear nerd I'm hoping Minelab releases a new high end coin machine soon. I personally think the Etrac and CTX are probably still the top notch machines for strictly searching for and identifying silver coins. They are both getting long in the tooth, and are both kind of clunky in their form factor. My guess is their sales have decreased dramatically since the Equinox was released.       

All I know is the beauty of the Nox is the ability to switch modes to find the one that works the best. Plus the ability to tweak each mode to see if they can be improved further. I have used Park2 as my main mode for a long time, and for example the park with the clay soil it seems to be best for me. Had I not experimented with Park1 at the site with the sandy soil I'm positive I would have missed some finds. I found silver with Park2 there, but once I switched to Park1 I found more and deeper targets.

I wanted to try Park1 today with a higher Iron Bias setting at this park I find really deep dimes in. This is not the site the Walker came from where I have been finding most of my silver lately. That site is pure sand. This park is heavy clay. So in Park1 with iron bias low constant falsing on deep nails. Turn up the iron bias and no diggable deep signals I could find. Now this will have to be explored further at a later date when I have more time. Anyway being short on time I went back to Park2 re-GB'ed, iron bias F2-1, recovery 6. It seemed like immediately I started hitting a few deep Wheat cents. It took awhile but I did get over a deep silver dime signal. Before I dug this I should have tried it in Park1, but I didn't even think about it. It was not quite as deep as I normally dig them so it might not have been the best to compare Park1 and Park2 with.

Thanks I will up the iron bias number in F2 and see what happens. I still can't figure out why in the Park I was talking about Park2 works better or appears to work better than Park1 on the deep silver dimes. Today my only silver was this Walking Liberty half dollar. Park1, F2-1, Sens. 22, Recovery 5. GB 12. Very impressive depth.

I know two guys that have an Equinox other than myself. One guy is very easy on his detectors. He uses them a lot, but they all look brand new and he detects a lot. He is not rough on detectors. He broke ears on the stock coil fairly quickly. I'm not sure of the circumstances. I never had an issue with the stock coil ears breaking and I bet mine has more hours of use than most do. Weather starting out the morning freezing to temps in the 90's. Actually probably 100's if you count sitting in the back of a truck. The other Nox owner I know has all three size coils and has yet to break a coil ear with no protector on any of them. His Nox has seen a lot of use too.  I did put one of the protectors on mine last spring just in case. Other than an obvious lack of robustness I'm wondering what those folks breaking ears are doing that the folks not breaking coils are not?

I put an aftermarket carbon shaft on soon after I got mine. Which of course does not have the side to side flex the stock shaft has. I wonder if the stock shaft flex could have any bearing on ear breakage? 

On 1/3/2021 at 10:02 AM, Chase Goldman said:

4 is probably as low as I would personally go because I usually hunt with no disc to avoid disc clipped non-ferrous tones.  Much lower and sweep speed becomes an issue as you cannot slow it down enough to overcome ground feedback (even with a sat GB).  Probably a non-issue in "0" soil conditions such as at the beach, but then again, you don't really gain a raw depth advantage by lowering recovery speed, just a better ability to hear blip iffy tones associated with lower modulated micro or edge-on targets at depth.  I really mostly just stick with the recovery speed defaults for any given mode as a decent starting point, and find I rarely have to (or want to) tweak it in the field as most of my sites are heavily mineralized.  If I do, it's at most a one click tweak from the default.

On 1/3/2021 at 10:27 AM, Chase Goldman said:

Somewhat surprising - the machine setups matter and no clue on how this guy 's machines were set up, his proficiency, and ground coverage strategy or discipline.  If he switched around on all those detectors during a single visit, sounds like a classic skunk desperation death spiral move  (been there, done that).  When your confidence is shot, believe me, every detector you grab for is probably going to disappoint.  Not necessarily a reflection on the machines' capabilities in that case.  But if your buddies were indeed not picking up the signals on your targets before they were dug, that is saying something, again, as long as those detectors were properly set up.  I assume your buddies are experienced and know how to set up their machines properly, those machines are relatively complex, especially in regards to disc, and you can easily set them up in a manner that would degrade their performance if you are not proficient.  Barring that unlikely situation, silver depth in the absence of high junk and mineralization is not something you would expect an eTrac or CTX to struggle with, especially if the Equinox is doing just fine.

Nevertheless, great saves and congrats on the finds and the bragging rights over your buddies' misfortune. 

  Both guys find a lot of silver normally. One guy is a stock program guy. The other tweaks his machines a lot. He runs his Etrac hot. Both used stock as well as larger than stock coils on this site. They swung over many of my targets and a few of the silver. They either could not hear them or when they could it was not a tone or numbers to lead them to dig. They both are for the most part tone hunters. When they tried to dig most of the time they were digging iron nails. I found so many Wheat cents I quit digging them unless I was getting numbers bordering into the silver range. They on the other hand only found a few.

I run with Horseshoe button engaged all the time in 5 tones with bins set up to my liking. Soft sweet short beeps were the rule and the majority of my coins were over pinpointer deep. Some several inches deeper. My GB in Park1 was low teens to upper single digits. The site is large but most of the silver came from a pretty tight area of about 100'x100' and all three of us were back and forth across this area constantly. I found two quarters a SLQ and a Washington. Wheat pennies and dimes were the majority of the coins, but while running Park2 the first day I found 4 Jeffersons 1948 being the oldest and one Buffalo. Switching to Park1 lowered my nickel finds after that, but let me hear high conductors better I think.

We also hunt another site where they both thought they had cleaned out all the silver. When I got my Equinox 800 I started finding deep silver dimes there. All Mercs, Wheats, and nickels, never any quarters. The depths I find these coins they had never dug coins there that deep. Here Park2 works best for me. Park1 seems to give me more iron falsing issues where I am constantly having to check falsing iron high tones . Park2 GB's in the 30's-40's there. It's heavy clay soil, not sand. Neither buddy can pull another silver from there and I have found at least 12, and two Mercs just recently. There is a fine line to dig or not dig at this place. I have gotten pretty good at knowing when to. 

Should Park2 be better in hotter soils? Does Park1 actually hit silver better? Would turning iron bias up in Park1 alleviate some falsing on deep iron without crippling hearing deep silver? My Iron Bias in F2 is usually left between 0-2. Mostly 0.

One site was new. It has very sandy soil and most all silver found was probably lost in the early 1940's-50's. These coins have sank super deep. The first time I hunted it I was in Park2 until the very end of the hunt. I was finding deep coins, but I switched to Park1 and it lit up big time. The other site is a hammered park I have been finding deep Mercs for awhile, but since I lowered Recovery to 4 I have gotten 3 of the deepest Mercury dimes I have ever dug out of heavy clay soil. I run Park2 there because I get a lot of iron falsing in Park1. Park2 does not false on iron nearly as bad. Pics are from today the last Merc I dug. Heavy fairly mineralized clay.   

In the last week I have found 12 silver coins at some incredible depths with the Equinox 800. Dimes, quarters, and wheat cents at up to 12". Both Park1 and Park2 have been used depending on the soil. I think Park1 may be a little deeper than Park2. Regardless of which Park program I use I run Iron Bias in F2-0-1, Multi 5 tones, Recovery 4, Sensitivity 22-24 if EMI is low, but even at 20 I have achieved some incredible depths. I've had buddies swing over these with Etrac's and CTX's with large coils and they can't touch some of these deep coins. One buddy used his Etrac, Deus, and Anfibio and was skunked on the deep silver at this place.   

Thanks for the comments. I would like to see a chart from Minelab on what the GB numbers actually correlate to. I assume my ground is at least medium hot. 

I've been using the Equinox 800 for about two years now. It's by far my favorite detector. I have found that GB is pretty important in my ground for best results. In my ground in Park2 the GB number ranges from mid 40's to mid 60's. I would say mid 40's to mid 50's average. In Park2 in the test garden if you keep the machine on default GB 0 it will not hit deeply buried coins nearly as well as when properly GB'ed. Many times I have started detecting at a spot and forgotten to GB only to then remember after awhile, and once I do the Nox comes alive. I'm sure it matters how much your ground is mineralized, and how far from 0 your Nox GB's in your ground. I have seen arguments where people say don't GB and just leave it on 0 it's not needed, but I would argue otherwise. Also would those in the know consider ground that the average GB number is in 40's-50's to be medium or highly mineralized ground?