scoopjohnb

Had a jewelry hunt myself yesterday at the beach. Nox 800 is seriously sensitive. Once the pinpointers have a hard time seeing the target, you can bet it’s pretty small 😁 The beach is a harsh environment, either you get sandblasted or everything get a light coating of salt. A waterproof detector is great after a day at the beach. Just give it a good rinsing down with tapwater and when dry wipe down with soft cloth coated with a little wax and shine. Use your favourite brand 😁

Vallon VMH4 has arrived, read the manual and headed out to the backyard. Totally different animal than the Nox. Sens has to be dialed back in order to hunt. And even then you have to really focus in order to single out a target. Silent search with a slow recovery VCO. With the VS30 coil easily hits ring size targets at depth. I’m digging big plugs, scanning with pinpointer, rescan the hole with the machine, digging little bit deeper, getting target signal with pinpointer, out pops the target. WOW! And it just hates your digger, really needs to be kept out of the way. Very, very solid and tactile build. Every adjustment you make reports back to the user with a positive feedback. An excavator!! Need some beach time!!

Total weight added is something like 475 gr. I guess this defeats the purpose of a lightweight detector. However you should understand I always hunt with a bungee. And have several different sizes of bungee in the toolbox. To keep my posture upright in stead of looking down at my feet the whole time. I like to use a sling/backpack in stead of a detecting belt. My favourite is the 5.11 Rush Moab 10.

Balance is non existent on a stock 800. Here's my quick fix. Short tube of an Excalibur. Sawed off the coil attachment. Fits into the stock Nox upper tube. Aplied a little ducktape for a nice snug fit. A short length of aluminium tubing "Dinsmore bankstick", filled with ballasting leadshot and the end plugged with the original Nox shaft plug. Balance is slightly coil heavy, floats with a few fingers and has a far better swing and arc. Fully reversible in just a few minutes.

When I’m all in,... I’m all in!! A few nice finds and quiet days on the beach add to the All In recipé. This Covid-19 has turned tourists into pleasant members of the public that keep their distance. Just the way I like it on my days off. So I decided to update my setup and give my trusty pall the CTX a rest, I’m not selling just yet. It will sniff out the good stuff for sure. Dry sand and wet sand hunting: Equinox 800 V3 VLF 11”, XP MI4 pinpointer Wet sand excavation: Vallon VMH4-VS30/VS20 PI due in somewhere round half november. This evening I’m readíng up on the manuals,... lets get down to the nitty gritty!!

Well that is some great news. Great to hear we can keep the machines in use with their coil on the ground. Just this morning got a great pic featuring the grandkids whilst exploring the beach. How do you beat that 😉

They really do a great job. Sent in a CZ-6 to calibrate towards a new 8” coil and have a standard headphone jack added. Best dry sand switch on and go coin grabber out there. Just disc out iron and bottlecaps are gone. Some really fun targets still come through. Can’t beat some fun with a Classic. Make it happen with the Bug!!

That is probably a good deal. The only number that the sales representative quoted me was something like 2400 USD. I’ll try and get his attention again and see where they are at.

I will indeed keep you guys informed. Haven’t the faintest idea what the Vallon could be. Never seen anyone on the beach with a PI over here. Excals, sovereigns and noxes RULE 🙂

Thx for the definitive explication! Back when the CTX came out people we’re complaining it was unstable in the wash. Minelab added the Seawater setting and you could instantly up your Sens. I found that a bit contrary. Make it numb and then try to get it sparky again. I found the small 1,8 gr gold chain with the Equinox 800 MKI at the high tide line during ebb. As we get tides of up to 5 meters in height salt influence has been mitigated somewhat. Add a little rain and neap tides into the mix and the high tide line becomes VLF territory. But people don’t like small foil. Most expensive foil I’ve ever dug 🙂 SDC in the wash is just the same as the CTX. It needs time to tune in and out as the seawater runs over the coil. But on the other hand I was digging an awfull lot of stainless fish hooks down below on the wet slope, rings and coins on edge too. Sold it because the coil is solid and tends to stick to the wet sand. A major pain. Held on to it far several years and then coiltek decides it want’s to make solid coils as well. Oh well time to move on. With all this talk about the IQ and the unavailability here in Europe I stumbled upon VALLON. Had a nice chat with their representative and they are testing 1 mm multi stranded stainless wire in a salty environment as per my inquiry. They have a nice selection of open coils. A 1 mm stainless wire and not a gold chain because I need to hit robotic mower wires 5 cm deep along the coastline. People want quiet mowers in summer during tourist season. But hey why not give it a go on the beach as well. Anyway, so there it is. Beach performance of detectors is physics. Just need to get one you can drive to the edge.

Been fishing for about 2 years and I must say the break from the detecting has done me a world of good. Dug up the CTX from the attick, gave it a dusting off. And while I was figuring out how to ride a bike again. All the mist was blown out of my head and we got down to the nitty gritty. Bought myself a new GPS unit to log waypoints. I’m not wandering around like a drunk anymore, this time around I’m gridding. As a beach hunter, tried the dirt and parcs. But my heart belongs to the beach, pretty obvious when you like fishing and fresh air. So the obvious choice for logging finds and hotspots is Navionics Boating App, weather and tides integrated. Several outings with the CTX and a scarred coil protector has opened my eyes and forced me out of my comfort zone. Last time around I tried to use the CTX like an Excalibur. This time I listened and let it talk to me. Learned the CTX language a bit. A few outings later I the happy owner of another ring and my most prised CTX targets: a stainless screw of 0,8 gr found on the wet slope that was just a slight blip in the landscape. And a piece of stainless wire 4 cm in length weighing in at 0,3 gr at the wash. People say the Equinox 800 can find gold chains, but surely if the CTX can detect such small stainless items. It has a chance at bringing home the goods. GB manual, Sens running borderline, All Metal and trying to wear out the coil cover. I’ve watched countless Equinox 800 vids, seems like no other detector is made anymore 🙂 But at the beach people aren’t finding gold chains by the dozen. Just the usual rings and coins. Are they not using it to it’s full potential?? Anyhow still happy with my CTX, but that gold chain I found with my Equinox 800 MKI is still bugging me to get another. Maybe the Equinox 800 V3 MKIII will be more to my liking. Or have I learned a valuable lesson,... LISTEN and DIG.

Been fishing for 2 years straight, new house and a bad shoulder. Kind off got excited about the Impluse AQ, you know the kind of excitement only gold will cure. Someone coming to collect my SDC this evening. But where to get an AQ in Europe. Oh Dear, Oh Dear. Ah well, Minelab being Minelab. They will hit hard on the rebound. So Fisher better get their act together. I'll get my gear out of storage!!

We had WW1 and WW2 over here. During WW1 they used shrapnel shells. There are fields in "Flanders Fields" where you can easily detect a half pound of lead shrapnel in a few hours detecting. The Law makers have just gone completely, utterly,... Bonkers. Or they are trying to keep the citizens safe,... because you don't have to go detecting an awfull lot to find an unexploded WW1 shrapnel or musterd gas shell. Anyways,... I certainly didn't dig large iron. And these days prefer the small signals.

Here in Belgium you are legally obliged to: 1) Get permission from the landowner. 2) If you find anything older than 75 years, declare it to the authorities. 3) Provide safe keeping for the entire finds pouch, including trash. Untill the authorities decide what to do with it. They keep it,... you keep it,... they launch a full on archeological dig. Oh,... and you have to register yourself as a Metal detector user. The law stops at the high tide line,... and that’s where I start ? I really don’t need the extra hassle during my hobby hours.

Aces and Deuces are allready taken. They couldn’t have called it a Third could they now. Simplex is in the works, so Duplex would seem like snarly rip off. Vanquish isn’t all that bad. I can just about imagine the dry sand beach lingo:”Use to swing an Ace 250 mate,... but then I got the Vanq 540 fully loaded and the targets just come flying out of the ground!” In stead of that classic Bell sound on the aces,... they should employ a customisable MP3 file. I’d have mine firing bullets left and right!!

They aimed at Deus and shot it with a heatseeking explosive warhead firebreathing arrow. I’ve seen lots of those single frequency Deus machines come up for sale. Personally know of a few guys who went Deus, CTX, Deus, Equinox and wouldn’t be caught dead swinging an XP nowadays. Now they are aiming for the Garetts. World domination one detector at a time ?

The reason why it doesn’t work,... is actually of no concern to me. Although it is great to have the understanding why! What really concerns me is that Minelab hasn’t figured out what most beach hunters really need. They have in the excal, but forget it in every model on up?? SAT allows us to keep our coil control in check. Coil control equates to more targets found on the same stretch of beach,... because it’s pretty obvious where the good targets are. Deep and signalled left and wright with a big red buoy determining the swimming area ? There are only a few rules in beach hunting. 1) Check out the most expensive parking lots. 2) Get the deepest detector for your intended target. 3) DIG

Indeed Gold mode screamed at me when I tried it in the wet sand. I’m always coming back to that great All-Metal pinpoint mode on the Excalibur. It allows you to feel the ground in the audio, keep your coil control in check and hit faint targets. I’ve been able to emulate it somewhat on my CTX.

Nope,... I had a howler also ? Can’t for the life of me understand why they don’t implement an All Metal with Sat on the Nox 800. Autumn I’m going to try a Nox again on the beach. Summer beach detecting isn’t for me. Too much people around!

Daniel Tn Just wait till it hits the shops. There are going to be guns blazing from all sides. People tend to forget it's just a Metal Detector.

Hey Ho, A new Minelab in the works. Before the Nox hit the shelves or pre-order lists. The X-terras had a price drop. Before the CTX came into view. The E-trac dropped in price. Just about when the GPZ hit town. They dropped the price on GPX units. So I’m looking out for price drops. People are still very happy with their Nox units,... for most users the CTX just is a tad too complicated and too slow compared to a Deus. And a little bit too expensive as well, compared to a Deus that is. From day 1 the Nox was a Deus Killer. And who doesn’t want a light fast multi-frequency machine that can even prospect. Price drops and when it appears it’s price point in the Minelab arsenal will indicate what it Vanquishes. As of now,... we can dream and speculate.

Oooh Drat! I finally got my CTX talking like an Excal and running like a Nox. I runs deep and hits steel cored coins of the salty beach. I’m picking out the leftover coins the Nox guys are hotrodding over. And they go and announce a Vanquish. Life just isn’t fair is it.

Same hearing problem, 50% hearing loss on right side. 2 people talking to me at the same time,... can only make out fragments of the conversation. My tinnitus gives me more trouble when my stress level is up there. Best isolating earphones I can get, best sounding detectors I can get. Nothing to do with volume. It needs to get that threshold tone/level and target tone just wright. Can’t stand a hearing aid,... no use in blasting every sound above the tinnitus with me. Just drives me nuts. Quiet rooms, quiet cars and no modern music. Modern music is designed to be audible in a noisy world. Haven’t turned the car radio on in 20 years.

As a very brand loyal dealer,... I can honestly say,... we’re brand loyal because we get the biggest discount when we buy from the same brands. One Brand we sell often communicates in their adverts:”The number One brand in the World” That may be,... but you’ve got to Earn It Every Day. And then the hard work begins ?

For me it’s about the evolution of my hearing. First detector your pretty happy when something Beeps at you. Second detector you want something that Beeps louder or fainter with regards to size and depth of the signal. Third detector you’d like something with audio ID. Umpteenth detector you want something that can paint you a picture of the target, listen to the ground as well and have an idea how the local EMI is doing. By then if they stick a Beep and Dig in your hand,... you will probably dig a hole,... bury it,... say a few words and Move On ? With detectors you can easily state that: Money talks and B#llS”it Walks. Within the same brand of detectors their most expensive machines,... and they can have some very simplistic audio. Will provide the most audio info and paint the best picture of what your coil is running over. The least expensive machines will even tough they can have complicated audio,... keep you guessing ?