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Have had the equinox 600. Liked the screen and it performed pretty good. Now getting the itch for another unit. Still have my xp deus. I am familiar with the equinox 600 but never had an 800. That being said and for those who have used both the 800 and the legend now, which would you pick? I have had several nokta makro units from the fors core, racer, racer 2, anfibio and the Kruzer......they were all very well built and had a great layout. That being said, since the legend is a totally different machine than their previous line up, I am kind of curious and they are on my radar. Any and all feedback is welcome. Thanks Tim

Gold Nugget Detecting with the Minelab Equinox Metal detecting for gold nuggets is one of the most difficult detecting tasks, and learning to run a VLF detector in highly mineralized ground will challenge even the best detectorists. There is more to this subject then can be covered in a brief article but I will try and offer some tips to get people started with the Minelab EQUINOX for gold nugget detecting. Minelab Equinox with 6" coil at work gold nugget detecting Tiny nugget in scoop - the Equinox can find very small gold nuggets! The EQUINOX 800 has two modes that are not available on the EQUINOX 600 – Gold Mode 1 and Gold Mode 2. The two Gold Modes as far as I h e been able to determine are identical except for the default settings. Gold Mode 1 is set up with a default Recovery Speed of 6 and Gold Mode 2 is set up with a default Recovery Speed of 4. These modes employ a boosted audio that increases both in volume and pitch as a target is detected. This in turn accentuates the signal on tiny gold nuggets. The threshold is also different than the “reference threshold” employed in the other modes and is more responsive to ground changes, providing important audio feedback about changing ground conditions. The Gold Modes are similar to the threshold based all metal modes available on most VLF nugget detectors with a major difference. A target id number is displayed for strong targets and each target id number can be independently set to accept or reject. In this regard the Gold Modes are a hybrid mode with more discrimination capability than is available in normal threshold based all metal modes. Normal VLF nugget detecting relies on the operator having their ear very tuned into the threshold sound of the detector. Slight variations in the threshold tone can indicate potential targets. The threshold tone is also very sensitive to changes in the ground mineralization. This includes the so-called “hot rocks” which have mineralization different than the ground they reside in which makes the detector react to them as targets. The challenge is to get the detector to operate with a relatively smooth threshold as the coil is swept over the ground so that desired targets will stand out. If hot rocks are signaling with every sweep of the coil, then progress will be extremely slow if not impossible. Tuning a VLF detector to hunt nuggets starts with the theoretical most powerful settings, and then reduces those settings until the detector becomes stable. Every setting is a trade off, because making a detector more sensitive to gold also makes the detector more sensitive to mineralized ground and hot rocks. The key settings for the EQUINOX 800 in Gold Mode are: Frequency. Multi frequency is the default and the most powerful frequency setting, with 40 kHz and 20 kHz single frequency options. Multi is the most sensitive to gold, but also reacts the most to bad ground and hot rocks. The goal is to get the EQUINOX to run well in Multi but if bad ground or hot rocks make that impossible, going first to 40 kHz and then to 20 kHz will make the EQUINOX progressively less reactive to the ground and the hot rocks. Ground Balance. The default is ground tracking on. Tracking attempts to keep up with and smooth out the variations in the ground. In doing so it has a filtering effect and can possibly tune out the slight audio variations that come not just from the ground but from very small or very deep gold. Tracking off is therefore the most sensitive setting, with adjustments made via the Auto (pump) method or manually. Sensitivity. The range is 1 – 25 with a default of 20. Increasing sensitivity increases the audio response from all targets, plus the responses from things like electrical interference. Most importantly, too much sensitivity makes the ground itself into one giant target, and so if the detector refuses to ground balance properly then reducing sensitivity until a proper ground balance can be obtained is critical. The default of 20 can easily be too high for the worst ground, and settings in the mid to low teens may be necessary. Recovery Speed. The range on the EQUINOX 800 is from 1 – 8. The defaults are 6 for Gold Mode 1 and 4 for Gold Mode 2. Recovery speed as regards nugget detecting can be viewed as a smoothing filter. Higher settings act to smooth out audio responses from the ground and hot rocks. Lower settings enhance audio responses from weak gold signals, but also make hot rocks and bad ground stand out more. False signals from the coil bumping a rock also increase at lower settings. In general the EQUINOX will be easier to handle at higher Recovery Speed settings, with more careful coil control required at lower settings. Iron Bias. The range is 0 – 9 with a default of 6 in both Gold Modes. Lower settings reduce the chance of gold being identified as ferrous, while higher settings reduce the chance of ferrous items being misidentified as gold. Accept/Reject. The default is -9 through 0 rejected, 1 through 40 accepted. The discrimination range on the EQUINOX runs all the way into the ground signal, with ground signals in highly mineralized ground normally coming in at -9, -8, and possibly -7 though it depends strictly on the ground itself. Hot rocks can read almost anywhere, even in the positive number range in the mid-teens or elsewhere. Electrical interference is also likely to exhibit in the low negative number range. Any offending numbers including trash targets can be blocked directly, but the more numbers that are blocked or rejected come at a cost of slightly less signal strength on desired targets. Threshold. The range is 1 – 25 with a default of 12. This is normally set to be just loud enough to hear, but no more. Just a barely discernible tone. However, the threshold can also act as a backend filter. Once all other tuning has been completed, the threshold can be set lower until it is silent, or set higher than normal. Running silent can suppress small variations in the ground signal but also the weakest gold signals. Running the threshold higher than normal can smooth out weak variations, again with a subsequent loss on the faintest gold signals. My starting point (initial settings) for either Gold Mode are: Frequency: Multi Ground Balance: Auto (pump method) with manual tweaking Sensitivity: 20 Recovery Speed: 6 Iron Bias: 0 Accept/Reject: -9 through 40 accepted (either through the settings or by hitting the “Horseshoe button”) The main thing I am going to try and do is operate the EQUINOX in Gold Mode without blocking out or rejecting any target id numbers. The goal is to find settings that reduce and smooth out ground responses while reducing the signal from gold as little as possible. These two things fight each other and there are no perfect settings, but simply the best compromise possible. For some people that will mean making the machine very stable, while others may prefer hotter settings that require more audio interpretation from the operator. The first step is to find an area clear of trash, and walk a bit waving the coil over the ground. Chances are you will get lots of ground noise. Go into the settings and adjust the ground balance. This normally means pumping the coil over the ground while holding the accept/reject button (see the manual) until the ground response evens out. If the ground is highly variable with mixed hot rocks, waving the coil from side to side may work better than pumping the coil. With any luck the machine will settle right down. However, in bad ground it will not, and the solution normally will be to lower the sensitivity setting. Basically this just takes some experimentation, lowering the sensitivity and adjusting the ground balance until the detector reacts very little or not at all to being waved over the ground. If you can get the EQUINOX set to where no target id numbers are popping up at all as the coil passes over the ground but where you can still hear faint variations in the ground, you are there. Then it is simply a matter of going detecting, and digging every target that stands out above the faint ground variations present in the threshold tone. Gold can read anywhere from negative numbers all the way up into the 30’s so typical nugget detecting involves digging everything. However, most nuggets weighing under 1/10th gram will give a target id number of 1 or 2, nuggets under a gram in the single digits, and several gram nuggets reading in the teens and higher. The smallest or the deepest large nuggets will produce no target id number at all, just a variation in the threshold. In real bad ground you may have to not only reduce the sensitivity setting, but possibly even increase the recovery speed setting to 7 or 8. In ground that refuses to behave, switching to first 40 kHz and then 20 kHz will progressively detune the EQUINOX , making it easier to get a stable ground balance. Engaging ground tracking may also help smooth out the worst ground – you have to experiment. In severe ground all this may not work, with ground signals still coming in around the low negative numbers and possibly higher. Some hot rocks may read as positive numbers. This is where the EQUINOX can go to the next level. Go into the settings and reject or “notch out” the worst offending target id numbers. This will usually be -9, -8, and -7 but may include even higher numbers, including positive numbers. Block as few numbers as you can. Simply rejecting the bottom three negative numbers will usually settle the machine down a lot, especially if there is any residual electrical interference being encountered. Rejecting target id numbers does come at a cost in reduced signal strength on desired targets, but you may find now that the sensitivity level can be increased from one to several points, reclaiming that lost sensitivity. In theory if you can get the EQUINOX running stable with no target id numbers rejected you have the ideal situation. However, EQUINOX allowing some offending signals to be rejected with an attendant increase in the sensitivity setting may be the better way to go. It just depends on the situation. So far we have been trying to deal with bad ground by using various detuning methods. In low mineral ground you can go the other direction. If the detector ground balances immediately with a sensitivity setting of 20, then try higher settings. You can also try reducing the recovery speed setting from 6 to 5 or 4 or even lower. Each reduction of the recovery speed setting is fairly dramatic and you will find it suddenly very hard to get and hold a decent ground balance if you go too low with the setting. In mild ground however it can add substantially to the signal strength of the weakest targets. Finally, for the worst ground and for EQUINOX 600 owners we have other alternatives. There is no reason at all why the other modes cannot be used to nugget hunt. Park 2 and Field 2 are both very hot on small targets and offer the ability to use tones while nugget hunting. Prospectors who encounter salt lakes/salt flat situations would do well to remember the Beach modes as possible last ditch settings. Either Park 2 or Field 2 can make for very good nugget hunting modes. I prefer to use Park 2 as a base because by default Field 2 blocks out or rejects the key target id numbers 1 and 2. Small gold nuggets read there, so using Park 2 makes sure somebody will not accidentally reject nuggets in that range. You can use Field 2, but beware those blocked numbers and adjust accordingly. For Park Mode 2: Frequency: Multi Ground Balance: Auto (Ground pump method with manual tweaking) Sensitivity: 16 – 25 Recovery Speed 800: 4 - 6 (default is 6) Recovery Speed 600: 2 - 3 (default is 3) Iron Bias: 0 Accept/Reject: Everything accepted, rely on tones (alternative reject -9, -8, and -7 if too much ground feedback) I have suggested accepting everything, and then using the two tone mode to hunt by ear. If trash is minimal then set the tone break lower than normal, so that 0 and several negative numbers read as non-ferrous. This way you can have ground signals reading as low tones (and possibly at a lower volume) and signals from gold as higher tones. Again, this works well with both EQUINOX models. To sum up, I suggest trying to use the EQUINOX 800 in the Gold Modes with no target id numbers rejected. Tune up just like any normal nugget hunting detector, and dig all decent audio signals. Some nuggets may deliver a negative number response or no number at all. A secondary method for more difficult ground is to reject or block out offending ground and hot rock signals. And a third method for both EQUINOX 800 and 600 owners involves using the Park 2 mode as a nugget hunting mode. That should give people plenty to experiment with. Nugget detecting can be very challenging, but learning to do so means you will learn how to wring every bit of performance possible out of your EQUINOX , and that can benefit you in other areas of detecting as well. Good luck! Steve Herschbach DetectorProspector.com Earlier post on same subject Gold found in Alaska by Steve with Minelab Equinox Gold found in California and Nevada with Minelab Equinox

Hi People, I have serious doubts regarding equinox. In wet sand I don't find a single gold object. I dig everything above VDI 0. Do you mine gold below 0? Settings: Beach 1 or 2 recovery 6 Sensitivity 20-22 FE F2: 0 My beach attached, and my path line horizontal and vertical...(I found a lot of plumbs) Best regards,

The Equinox w/6" coil in Beach 1 mode, will not hit this small piece of foil but will hit the 10k gold piece. In my fresh water beaches I would not hunt in Beach 1 mode. On land, Beach mode could be good for jewelry hunting and getting some small jewelry while eliminating the small foil. I don't know how well Beach 1 mode is on gold earring studs. Still thought it was interesting. I haven't tried it on land. Sensitivity 22, 2 tone, Tone break 0, F2 0 and recovery 4.

Minelab currently have a competition with 10 prize packs available. Sometimes in these competitions their prize packs are pretty good, other times they're a hanky ? It's only open to Aussies but here's the link if anyone wants to have a go, you just show them your favourite Nox find https://www.minelab.com/anzea/your-favourite-equinox-find

Part one: A tale of three objects. Goal to identify deep non-ferrous targets and compare signals before digging. Myself, on the Equinox and my friend on the Deus and VERY experienced Deus 1 user. Modes Beach 2 Equinox, Beach and Beach sensitive both tested on Deus The Ring: I located what I was sure to be a deep nonferrous beyond TID range. Called my friend over and he could hear it as well and the Deus 2 would not tid lock either. He said it sounds bad to him, I said it sounded clean to me. We now both know it was a ring. The Charm: I had a solid lock at 16 but I knew it was at the end of my tid range, as about one in every three swings would throw me another number. The Deus would not lock consistent and only gave a number one in about 6-8 swings. The Coin: A staple here to find. I buried it in the wet sand at the edge of my hearing it [about 15"] But not too deep where I would not dig it. The Deus would not number lock, either but was real scratchy on signal. Not sure I would have dug it, my friend said he would of not dug it. Today, more searching for deep nonferrous and testing buried gold.

Last night on a better tide I went back to a little patch I had found in the morning. In the morning I had found a few coins but no jewelry but I had a feeling with more beach I could do better. At night the parking lots near this beach are closed so I had to walk in about a mile but it proved to be worth it. Soon after arrival I found coins on the steep beach sides and just kept digging for over an hour. There was much more black sand than the beaches I normally hunt so I decided to change some settings. My first setting change was to move down from 23 on the sensitivity in Beach 1. That helped but then I decided I would try some F2 which is normally at 0 for me. Well, I'm here to tell you it worked like a charm. The 'noise' went away and I could hear the targets stand out. Soon after these changes I got a good clear 9 and was hopeful. It wasn't the 18-21s I had been getting or the 30s for quarters. Out popped a ring and in the light of my flashlight it looked to be golden but a little light. Bag it. Next target 2 feet away was a second ring. It looked like silver but maybe better so I bagged it. (The first ring had no markings and we think it is stainless. The second ring is marked P4SR. It is not a pure precious metal!) The 3rd little ring came along a bit later and it is not precious either. So I didn't have much, right? Well, not exactly. If you look closer at the picture there is a wirery looking chain. I knew it was silver but just thought it to be cheap. I didn't have my light on when I scratched it with my scoop. I was just using the half moon light at the time and just bagged it with the other stuff. I had loosened it a bit but thought it quite corroded. When I got it home and put some fresh water on it it was much more flexible. Then it was time clean it with the aluminum foil/vinegar/baking soda/salt. It blackened quickly and bubbled and then I was able to rub it with just baking soda. I could now see DY. I know that to be David Yurman from previous finds. It is a good feeling .925 chain that weighs in at 22 grams with a 26 inch length. That is when I was able to find the pattern and identify it as the Open Station Box Chain. It reminded me of my previous find so I looked it up here: The tag in the center was found several miles away but on July 22. That was 3 years ago. This new chain supports that pendant quite nicely. It makes for a nice combo.

I spoke with Martha at Minelab this morning. The reason I called is, my machine is out of warranty and has been replaced three times since I bought it. I wanted to know how much it was going to cost to replace the pod and if the replacement was going to have a warranty. She told me it would cost $350 for a new replacement, or $225 for a refurbished unit. What she meant by refurbished, if someone returned a whole detector because of a faulty coil, shaft etc, they would send out that control pod if there are any available. I am still waiting to hear back from her on the amount of warranty that will come with the replacement pod. She wanted to double check on the amount of time before she gave me an answer. I have her permission to share this information on the internet forums.

Heya everyone; So I have a quick question about my Nox 800 with factory coil. When I bump the coil she falses, consistently at that. When I have it right on the ground I have to be careful not to tap any rocks or bump the coil on the ground otherwise she falses. Is this normal or could I have an issue with my coil? And for the Rattlesnakes, this big ol brute just about slithered over my feet tonight when I was loading the Nox back into the Jeep! Thanks everyone :)

I was wondering if anyone has used the different frequencies to give a better idea as to whether to dig or not. Using a.0.5gm gold as a target, the nox 800 identified a target in gold multi. I then switched to field 1 in 40khz and it detected the target. I then switched to 4khz and no noise. I have then tried this on an old nail, a tin lid, a lead sinker, a drink tab and all were identified as a target whereas the gold wasn't. Has anyone tried this or a variation using other combinations and had success. This is using the principle of the lower the frequency the less likely it will detect gold as an aid to finding it. . Cheers

I finally had a chance to do wild target comparison testing in a Denver Colorado area public park using Deus 2 9" coil, Legend 11" coil and Equinox 800 11" coil. Absolutely nothing is implied by doing these tests. I don't work for these detector companies and I gain nothing from doing this testing except for the knowledge it gives me. I am sharing this experience here on this forum. I am not trying to prove anything whatsoever. I liked all three detectors before the test and I still like all three detectors very much. They have many similarities and just a few basic differences at least when it concerns this test, on this day, in these ground/target conditions. So, the ground was damp, temperature was 82 F with light breeze and partly cloudy. Deus 2's mineralization graph consistently displayed 10 out of 12 bars, so highly iron mineralized ground. I chose a 30 foot by 7 foot area and flagged six targets. Actually I only had six flags but there were seven targets. Target number 2 was actually two adjacent targets. I used Deus 2 to first locate and choose these targets. Target depths below include 1" of grass/ground clearance. I chose these targets to flag because: ---they were fairly obvious deeper targets, ---there seemed to be iron, low conductor, mid conductor and high conductor non-ferrous targets included in the target selection ---all of these targets had consistent enough target IDs and tones for me to make an educated guess about what they were before digging --- all of these targets were probably coin sized and at least 6" deep which was determined by audio response, displayed depth readings and they were all out of range of my Teknetics Tek Point pinpointer set to Max which usually means 4.5". You can stop reading right here if you want. All three detectors had very similar results on these seven targets and the information they gave was remarkably consistent and accurate considering the depth of these targets and the high iron mineralization. However, before digging the flagged targets I ran all three detectors over the grid area and counted the number of targets that I determined were solid 2 way response targets. They could be ferrous, mixed ferrous or non-ferrous but they had to have repeatable 2 way responses. Size was not considered. Most were shallower than the flagged targets by their audio responses and depth readings. After the test I recovered 15 of these targets that were in the surface to 4" depth range before stopping since the grid area was starting to look really bad from my recovering 22 targets including the flagged targets. I used the Legend to recover those 15 targets. Deus 2 detected 31 targets that matched that description in the 30' by 7' area. The Legend detected 43 and the Equinox detected 54. Those were detected 2 way repeatable targets. There were many more that weren't 2 way repeatable by the way. So, this was a small area with lots of targets that could cause masking, etc.!!!!!! Settings: Deus 2, 9" coil, Detech over the ear headphones with WS6 Puck installed.......Modified Program 2 Sensitive, 5 tones, disc. 10, sens. 95, Freq. shift 3, Iron Vol. 3, Reactivity 2, Audio response 4, Bottle cap reject 1, Notch OFF, Silencer 1, Ground Balance 86 (I chose the Sensitive program because it ground balances the best in the iron mineralization present here of all the higher weighted programs with very few spurious ground responses in the Coke 23 to 25 range) Legend, 11" coil, stock Bluetooth over the ear headphones.......Park Multi 1, 6 tones, disc. 0 to 3 rejected, sens. 26, freq. shift 10, recovery speed 5, iron filter (fixed) 8, iron volume 4, no notches, ground balance 9. The Legend ground balanced easily with no issues with spurious ground responses. Equinox 800, 11" coil, Avantree Studio Pro over the ear BT headphones, Park 1 Multi, 5 tones, disc -9 to -5 rejected, sens. 22, freq. shift 8, iron volume 4, recovery speed 5, F2 iron bias 2, no notches, ground balance 2. The Equinox ground balanced easily with no issues with spurious ground responses. Target 1 6.5" deep small aluminum ring pull with just the ring....no beaver tail All three detectors detected this target correctly. Deus 2 TID 62 Legend TID 25 Equinox 800 TID 12-13 Target 2A US Jefferson Nickel 2004 Lewis and Clark "Keel Boat" and Target 2B unidentified mixed aluminum/iron target Both targets were 7" deep and they were 3" apart. All three detectors detected both targets separately and correctly. Deus 2 target 2A TID 62, target 2B TID 83-85 with iron audio responses Legend target 2A TID 26, target 2B TID 40-41 with iron audio responses (targets were too deep for Ferro Check reliability) Equinox 800 target 2A TID 12-13, target 2B TID 22-23 with iron audio responses Target 3 7" deep 1977 Lincoln Memorial copper penny All three detectors detected this target correctly and easily. Deus 2 TID 89-90 Legend TID 47-48 Equinox 800 TID 27-28 Target 4 7"deep 1959 Lincoln Memorial copper penny All three detectors detected this target correctly even though there were iron targets/responses all around it which made the exact location of this penny tough to pinpoint. Deus 2 TID 89-99, Legend TID 48-60 Equinox 800 28 to 39 Target 5 9" deep 1965 Lincoln Memorial copper penny This target was detected correctly by all three detectors even though there were iron targets/responses all around it. By far the toughest target of the test. Deus 2 TID 91-99 Legend TID 50-60 Equinox 800 TID 30-39 Target 6 8" deep 3" long late 1800s to early 1900s square nail All three detectors detected this target with mid conductor falsing and with iron responses. I guessed a very corroded zinc penny, mangled aluminum screw cap or nail before digging. Deus 2 TID 81-88 with plenty of iron responses, Legend TID 38-44 with plenty of iron responses (too deep for Ferro Check reliability) Equinox 800 TID 21-25 with plenty of iron responses. This test did teach me one really important fact. Not on a soapbox here just stating the obvious. There were many people including me that doubted the ability of Nokta Makro and XP to come up with effective simultaneous multi frequency operation that could compete with the Equinox platform. We all experienced the release of Deus 2 and the Legend and all of the turmoil and vitriol that went with those releases and with the hype both positive and negative afterwards. I will just say that in particular.......the Legend is an outstanding metal detector. Its precursor, the Simplex (I detected this park with one) simply would not have hit these flagged targets in this dirt very well if at all and certainly with very poor target ID/tone accuracy. The same goes for the original Deus 1 (also detected this park with one). So both companies have released great SMF detectors no matter what anyone says to the contrary.

Hi I am fairly new to metal detecting I took the hobby up from my grandad so I went out and bought the equinox 800 metal detector in January this year and ever since I have tried to get used to it but just can't seem to get the hang of it as there is to many settings to figure out and I am just wanting a detector I can just switch on and go. I have been told the Xp Orx metal detector is a great machine for beginners I have been offered to swap my equinox 800 for the Xp Orx is it worth it as what I just said don't want to have to muck about with settings on a detector just want to beable to switch it on and go.

$1600 dollar detector with these for $400 each…. Versus $1000 detector with these for $180 - $290 each…..

I have always heard on the forums Park1 is better for silver than Park2. I have also heard Park2 is better for nickels. For the longest I only used Park2 for practically every hunting situation. It just seemed to be the best all around for me. Basically though starting about a year ago I started using Park1 a lot more. In using Park1 more often it seems my old nickel finds have really fallen off. I just don't find as many. Strangely my silver finds have crept up at the same time. I don't know if it's some kind of conformation bias I'm experiencing or if it's real? I've found plenty of small silver dimes with Park2, but now I'm having my best quarter year ever using Park1 all the time. I really don't know what to think. Maybe I'm over thinking this stuff. On what I consider deeper silver dimes 7"-9" I have checked in the wild and found Park1 hit does stronger than Park2. The reason I always used Park2 mostly was because it didn't seem to false on deep iron or bent rusty nails as bad. Like when I turned on the iron it was more likely to give a iron grunt in Park2 which kept me from digging so much. As of today I'm sitting on 34 silver coins for the year which is to be honest is more like my yearly total most years. Old nickels are way down, and IHP's are down a little. Is it possible the differences in Park1 and Park2 can account for this? Every time I go out now I am faced with the dilemma of which one to use.

Hello! Like an idiot I went and bought The Garret AT Max! I had to the pro some time ago but an accident happened and I had to sell it! At the time Garret AT (pro gold and Max) were some the best I could afford The Deus was out of my price range and still is! But after watching all the new videos on the new technology multi frequency Im planning on getting a new one! It seems the Nokta legend is almost as good or better(build quality from what I hear any ways)) So what one would you suggest and why? I thank you all for your advice and help! I plan on hitting it hard this summer at some ghost towns and other areas!

Here is one of dozens of Deus 2/Nox comparisons done by this YouTube content creator. As he says it is a very interesting test. I am absolutely not trying to stir up trouble here. These videos are out there for anyone to see and you interpret them anyway you want. As an often daily modern aluminum trash/steel alloy coin and jewelry hunter AND a gold prospector using both the Equinox, Deus 1 and ORX (so no bias here) I see this test from a very different angle than the conclusions drawn by the video maker. I am a subscriber to this person's channel so I am not taking a shot at anyone here. This is just a good example of a well (I think) intentioned test that can be looked at more than one way. I see it like this: 1. I don't think I have ever used Field 2 on purpose for a coin and jewelry hunt in a modern aluminum/steel trashed park. I have used Park 2 but that is only after using Park 1 extensively at the same site beforehand. 2. This video shows very clearly why Field 2 would be (and is even on the Equinox 600) an excellent small gold prospecting mode. 3. It appears that Deus 2 Fast would not be such a good gold prospecting mode. 4. Deus 2 in Fast hits that dime really well and should do very well in modern aluminum/steel trashed areas if the trash is really small........ 5. Equinox in Field 2 multi (ignore what the video maker says and look carefully at all of the target IDs not just the ones he points out) is actually hitting ALL of the targets (at least 4 different ones including the dime). 6. Park 1 and Field 1 multi have a very different result in this test…….….by the way. Just my take on this very short video. You may see it very differently

I have almost 100 hours using the Legend mostly on coin and jewelry turf sites. All I can say is I am very impressed with the Legend as far as its ability to detect at a high level, its outstanding features, its SMF technology and its ergonomics/build quality. That doesn't mean my experience has been all positive and blissful. Definitely not. I have been using my Equinox 800 for the past three days since my Legend control unit is over the Atlantic Ocean right about now headed to Istanbul and a replacement is on its way to me. More on that in the future. So, I have not used my Equinox 800 since I got the Legend except for two hunts where I ran them side by side. All I can say is: the Equinox 800 is an amazing detector. Putting the Legend in the same sentence as the Equinox 800 is paying both of them a big compliment. I bought a Legend because I was a bit "detector bored", it was my birthday, I was helping my mother recover from surgery and I thought I might get a couple of hours of testing/hunting in dirt that is not nearly as nasty as where I often detect. The main reason however was that I wanted a freshwater detector that could run at high enough frequencies to gold prospect in streams, that I could trust for submerged coin/jewelry/relic detecting, that wouldn't need an antenna (I would be using it in fast moving boulder strewn water), it has a vibration feature that eliminates the need for headphones when submerged or near noisy water, no need for extra elaborate waterproofing of components and it very likely wouldn't leak and since both of my Equinox 800s were out of warranty. For my budget ($600) that meant a choice between the Legend and the Equinox 600. The choice on paper and from the Equinox leak history and lack of a vibration feature for target alerting was obvious. So after almost 100 hours, I believe I made the right choice between the Legend and the Equinox 600.

So, my beach season hunting has officially started. I was going to shoot for two days hunting but a wash out on Thursday made me change some plans. I had reserved Thursday for the GPX 6000 and the 14” DD coil, but had to settle for trying the 6000, 5000 and Equinox on Friday. I changed beach locations too and ended up at the less EMI beach for the day. Started out using the GPX 5000 for clearing out some of the recently deposited junk in an area that has produced silver before. I thought the storms that ripped through the previous day would remove some sand, but it was just the opposite…. sand deposited along 3/4 of the beach (top to bottom). Also, high tide reach to the highest point of the beach, so I could only hunt where the waves did not constantly reach up top. The 5000 did well considering the beach was really sanded in and gave me my first silver of the season – a 1955 Washington quarter. The rest was clad, but for 2 copper pennies. Some junk jewelry, and maybe some iron shot or just a ball bearing, - it measured .75 caliber. The big spoon was found at 20” and I thought I was going to get a beer can or some big iron, so that was a nice surprise. Hunted with the 5000 for 6 hours and decided I cleared enough to try the 6000 in that spot. The EMI was a bit more than usual but not really bad. I’m still not sold on that 14” coil. I tried both ground settings, as well as both Salt mode and EMI mode. I tried auto, auto +, manual (full) and manual (setting 1) and some in between. I just could not get the 6000 to not false on the sand. It was partially damp, as high tide receded a while ago, but with a sensitivity of 1, I would have expected a smooth clean machine. IDK maybe the coil is not good. I did not bring the 11” mono as I really wanted to see if the salt mode would work on the 14” DD. Being a bit disappointed, and after trying all combinations of settings, I called it after around 10 minutes. So, the tide was getting as low as it was going to be, so I hunted for 3 hours with the Equinox and traded my spade for my scoop. I didn’t use the Nox much last season as the 5000 was killing the silver, so the Nox sat idle. But I wanted to see if the heavy waves dropped anything on the beach along with all that sand. There weren’t many targets, so I dug everything to get a feel for all the numbers. The hairpins and tiny wire all read a steady -2, -3. The Nox did well for the short time I used it and if I wasn’t beat from the hunt, I would have stayed in the area that was producing some coins. It was the best machine for the day to give me a chance at some gold. It felt really, really good to get out and just walk the beach. Next week all 3 machines will be at the crazy EMI beach. I will have the mono coin and the DD to see if this beach (dry sand) will be ok for the 14” coil. Can’t wait!!!

It's been a slow year, partly due to the weather, partly due to checking out detector+coil combos in trashy (multiply hunted) test sites, and partly due to lack of available promising old sites. So far in 2022 I've researched three possible new sites. From the first of these I've shown some results (silver Roosie dime, Buffalo nickel, Wartime nickel) but it's getting tougher there. That muni park site suffers from my most annoying nemesis -- reworking/backfilling 'improvements' which bury most of the goodies previous detectorists failed to get. I'm sure there are a few Wheaties and other coins from the first 65 years of the 20th Century (e.g. silver) but with good weather here I expect it to get a lot more visitors, particularly around the sports fields which are most of my remaining, promising ground. Last weekend I discovered what looked to be a very good and possibly unsearched homestead (now public property) for which early 20th Century USGS topos showed a couple buildings that disappeared in the 1950's. I headed out there Tuesday, grabbed my detecting gear, and on the (walking) way noticed a sign at the pedestrian entrance so checked it out. There in plain letters were the dreaded "no metal detectors." In their defense the site is exclusively wooded trails with one meadow so I understand they don't want digging to disturb the flora. I was close to another site I've hunted quite a bit (with only moderate results, mostly Wheaties and one silver Warnick) so off I go. In 3 hours of detecting, not surprisingly I found no old coins but instead about a dozen copper strips (sounding good in the quarter - half dollar VDI region) that had been used as flashing from a slate roof of a large residential building torn down in the mid-60's. A few modern coin crumbs but no oldies. Wednesday I had a two part plan -- go to my 2021 best site (what I called the "Wheatfield" due to the number of Wheat cents I've found there), figuring if the grass had been mown I could mop up on one rather lightly frequented (nowadays), quite shaded, sloped area that previous partial coverage had produced a couple Wheaties. If unmown I had another park (plan 2) not terribly far away I wanted to re-search with a small coil to get between the pulltabs around picnic tables. Interestingly the plan 1 section A was the only part of this plan 1 park which hadn't been mowed. Hmmm. I've seen this before -- areas that are lightly used are returned "to nature" never to be mowed again. I figured this might be my last chance so even with some scattered thick grass I went to work. Right off the bat the EMI was bad and after fiddling with different multifrequency modes and settings I settled into (ML Equinox 800 settings of) recovery speed = 4, 10 kHz in Park 2, which was the quietest I could find, allowing me to run gain in the 20-22 range. I had 3 hours to hunt and spent the first 1:45 here, with a couple small successes -- 1944 Wheat cent plus a thin brass trade token that had a large '1 centsign' in the middle and a merchant's name around the rim. (Below I post photos of these and other relevent finds.) The token hit in the aluminum screwcap zone (21-23 on the Equinox). Both of these finds were in the 5" depth range and less than 2 meters (6 1/2 feet) apart. I eventually moved on to section B which was an open, flatter area but also unmown. EMI was quiet now so back to my standard park 1, MultiFrequency, gain = 22-23, Iron Bias F2 = 0, keeping recovery speed at 4. In the first 10 minutes in the 4"-5" depth range I found two fired lead bullets, both white (oxidation with age?) and both measuring 0.30-0.31 inch diameter (caliber), only about a meter apart. My typical assumption when I find bullets and/or casings in parks is that these were dropped or fired by hunters prior to the land becoming a park. I think that is likely here - so first half of 20th Century or earlier. After 45 minutes I wasn't finding any more goodies so with 30 minutes remaining I headed towards section C which was on my way back to the vehicle. This section fortunately was mown but unfortunately it's close to a picnic shelter meaning I had to get ready for trash, especially pulltabs which can masquerade as USA 5 cent 'nickels'. I have developed a standard technique when hunting parks and schools in my area. If the Equinox's signal strength meter (misnamed 'depth meter') shows 4 or more bars (more bars is deeper) and the VDI is anywhere close to a nickel (12-13 being the sweetspot) then I'm digging it. If signal strength is less than 3 bars I have an investigation method using Field 2, recovery speed = 6 that identifies most beavertail only (ring missing) pulltabs. The modern racetrack tabs, when shallow, typically flash some 14 in Park 1. However, 4 bar or weaker signal strength nickels will flash some 11 and 14 in Park 1, and my investigation method using Field 2 fails with deeper targets. (BTW, if 3 bar signal strength I use my judgement on the dig/ no dig decision, deepending upon what's been showing up and/or how fatigued I am.) Approximately 15 minutes into my last 30 minutes I get a mostly 12-13 signal with some 11 and 14 thrown in, and it's varying between 3 and 4 bars. Diggable. At about 5 inches out comes a Jeffie (won't read the date until I get home), which is promising. Finally, with 5 minutes before I turn into a pumpkin I get what appears to be a deep Zincoln: 19, 20, 21 VDI but a 4 bar signal strength. Maybe it's a deep Zincoln -- those do occur especially if the ground has been reworked, but since these annoying junk coins have been around for 40 years now, if they haven't self-destructed from galvanic action they can be naturally deep. I figured about 80% I had a Zincoln and 2% an Indian Head (I had found one last year about 20 meters away) with the remaining 18% 'other' and likely trash. After digging a ~6" diameter plug I got a Garrett Carrot signal in the hole sidewall and at about 4-5 inch depth out came a plug of dirt with a silver ring apparent. Based on the VDI I hoped for a delicate sterling ring -- it was about the size of a woman's pinkie. When I tried to push the dirt out of the ring's center it didn't give but rather showed the reverse side pole of Mercury dime! WTF? (I guess this fits the 18% 'other'. ) The VDI should have read 26-27. Putting the handheld back in the hole, very close to where I had just pulled the dime I got another strong signal and recovered a very rustly 16d nail. I estimate the tip of the nail was 1 to 1.5 inches away from the dime when undisturbed. Apparently being that close pulled the dime's VDI down to the Zincoln range, and fortunately not lower or I wouldn't have dug it. OK, here's what you've been waiting for, the finds described above (copper items now with a coating of olive oil) along with the Merc's next door neighbor rusted nail. Merc is a 1941 plain; Wheatie is 1944 plain; nickel is 1954-D -- all three quite common date+mm. Although the edge of the token is partly missing I don't think that happened while in the ground since most of the remainder of the rim shows no sign of similar deterioration, but that's just my speculation. The nickel doesn't look like it's spent a lot of its lifetime in circulation but that doesn't necessarily tell when it was dropped since it could have just as easily sat in a drawer for 2 or 3 decades before being lost. Oh, Thursday was rainy so I did some more research and found an accessible (and not too distant) public site that dates back to 1915! That site is the search plan for early next week. ?

Took a trip to Nevada last week and met up with Steve and Steve. While I waited for them to show up at our meeting place I got out a few VLF metal detectors to try on some gold nuggets. Nothing conclusive here just though people would like to see how they perform. One difference between the Nevada soil and what I'm used to hunting is all the salt. All the detectors were subject to coil knock and really took some fine tuning to get them to run stable. Steve F later found that on the Deus 2 sensitive would probably be the best mode to run as it eliminates coil knock issues and is still pretty sensitive to small targets.

Has anyone seen or heard how well the Legend does on gold nuggets as compared to the 800 or the ORX. I've been looking around the net but haven't really found anything yet. Thanks, Jim

I just happened to notice that both Equinox models went up another $50, from $949 to $999 for the 800. That makes a $100 price increase since it was launched at $899. I saw the first price hike as possibly a little opportunism, taking advantage of the popularity of the model, and lack of competition. This one I assume is related to the price increase and super high demand for chips. Garrett also raised their prices. Still, this would seem an inopportune time to raise prices. The Legend at $635 so far seems to be running neck and neck with the Equinox 800 performance wise, but with a higher build integrity. There are an awful lot of people talking about selling the Equinox they already have to buy a Legend. Prospective buyers now also have to consider a $364 price difference on top of it. The Equinox 600 now sits at $699, still $64 more than a Legend with less features and the same build quality concerns. Gas prices are up, inflation is soaring, and the competition has caught up. Seems like it would’ve been a better decision to give up a little profit margin, not raise prices, particularly where the volume of future sales is now in doubt. Garrett’s decision is also puzzling in light of the Simplex. They have to be feeling it right in the AT. It would seem that if the Simplex wasn’t the final nail in that series, the Legend might be. The Equinox now also has competition from XP with the Deus II. Contact the right dealer and you could have a Deus II for as low as $1450-$1500. Buy an Equinox 800 at $1000 and you may have to invest another couple hundred to address build issues. The actual difference between the two may be less than it first appears, for a machine with 6 times the underwater depth rating, also so far running neck and neck performance wise, and at times with a notable advantage. That’s my take anyway. It just seems like bad business to make a key product less attractive by raising the price with no change or improvement to known issues.

I've been lucky the past couple years with January and February weather nice enough to detect. Not this year, though. We didn't have much snow those months, but as soon as the rain stopped the ground refroze. March has been much nicer and I've gotten out half a dozen times. The first several hunts were either for trying different detectors or just cleaning up my "Wheatfield" site (muni park) that produced well last year. My standard New Year's resolution is to find new potentially producing sites so finally this week I got to one of those. It didn't disappoint. This is another public park and (as always) I assumed it had been hit hard, like most of the other parks I've detected. First thing out of the box I noticed that I was picking up ground noise. Typically around here I ground balance the ML Equinox (11" coil, Park 1) around 30 plus or minus 5. After hearing the ground noise I ran an auto GB sequence and it settled at ~7! No problem, though, nice and quiet. I settled in on a gain of 23 and left my other favorite settings (5 custom tones, Recovery Speed = 4, Iron Bias F2 = 0) alone. I had viewed HistoricAerials' photos and had a decent idea of what the park looked like back in the 50's and 60's (oldest photo there was from 1955). That helped me decide what ground may have been minimally reworked since those last days of dropping silver coins. I did my usual first hunt surveying -- not trying to mow every inch but wandering around looking for sweetspots. After a few modern coins, about 30 minutes in I got my first oldie -- a Wheat cent. Already I knew I'd found a good detecting site. Within another 30 minutes I get Wheatie #2, and within the next hour a Buffalo nickel. These early finds were in an area about 10 m by 40 m. I recalled from the aerial photos that a current sports field was present at least back to 1962 and by comparing the old photos to newer ones it appeared things hadn't changed much in that part of the park so I wandered over there. Bonus: one building obviously had a concession stand. The ground around it had been covered with crushed stone so people wouldn't be walking in mud after rains. I immediately got a copper Memorial cent about 2 inches deep. Again surveying, maybe 10 meters away I received a good but strong (i.e. likely shallow) 5 cent dTID of 12-13 and an inch or so down, out popped a silver Warnick! Here's a photo of the loot: I'll explain the bottom row in a bit (only the central Buffie was found in this hunt). The two Wheaties were dated 1941 and 1937 (no mintmarks). The Warnick is the most common date+mm -- 1943-P. What surprised me about it, besides how shallow it was, is that its color is consistent with circulated (but never spending time in the ground) examples of which I have at least 150 in my collection. It has a not particularly attractive gray cast which made them easier to spot and remove from circulation back in the late 60's and early 70's when silver started going up in value. All others I've pulled from the ground have been 'cleaned' by some ground chemical (acid, possibly) and look much whiter, similar in color to 90% silver coins. Its depth is reflective of the material of the ground -- crushed stone. In my area most overburden is from decayed vegetation (especially grass clippings). As long as they don't put down thick layers of fresh stone the targets aren't going to be very deep in that area around the sports fields. Finally, the last row. The central coin (view enhanced by coating with olive oil) is the dateless one I found in this hunt. On the left is a 1916-D I found late last year, also with an olive oil coating that is now evaporated somewhat. The coin on the right is dateless and not from the ground. Note the relative wear to the buffalo's back and head as well as the wear to the 'United States of America' across the top and 'E PLURIBUS UNUM'. The two on the left show similar wear, and in some ways (but not all), more wear than the undug example. But here's the big difference. Look at the lower slice, below the buffalo's hooves. The two outside coins have a recessed 'field' where the words 'FIVE CENTS' as well as the mintmark ('D' for Denver in both cases -- difficult to see in this photo) are protected from excessive wear. The first coins minted in 1913 didn't have that recessed area but rather the 'FIVE CENTS' and mintmarks stood out, away from much of the coin's detail. It was quickly realized that typical wear from circulation would obliterate these letters so the design was changed and the second type (exhitibed by the two outside coins here) was introduced late April 1913 and continued through the entire series, ending in 1938. Thus even though the nickel I found in this hunt no longer has a date, I know it's an early 1913. (I don't know which mint, though.) About 30 million of each type were minted in Philadelphia that year making that version very common. Both Denver mint (5.3 million with 'raised ground' & 4.2 million without) and San Francisco mint (2.1 million and 1.2 million respectively) are scarce and carry a premium value in decent condition (definitely not like mine!) with both type 2 issues from these branch mints carrying considerable numismatic value, especially the 'S' mintmarked Type 2. Even if I knew the mintmark on mine were an 'S', it would be worthless in this terrible condition. But it's fun to dream. ? I also found $3.90 face value of modern coins in this 3.5 hour hunt. Bottom line is that this park hasn't been hit that hard by detectors and there are more goodies awaiting!

just returned from AZon 21st March. I had my Euinox 800 and SDC2300 with me but decided to use my Nox 800 the most as i have many hours of experience on the machine. So the following setting worked very well (for me): Gold 2, Recovery speed at 6, Iron Bias 1+2 set to 0, ground tracking on (I was amazed that in different areas the ground balance would stay in the range between 1-3) blocking the number -10, -9 , -8 and + 11 + 12 +13 +14 as hotrocks were so plentiful. I was able to run the sensitivity at 22 all the time using the 6" coil. Many targets showed a wide range of ID numbers. When a single digit positive number +1 or +2 or so showed up once or twice checking the target I switched to all metal mode to reconfirm the positive number and dug it. This way I found a bunch of BBs and small lead screddings and 2 pieces VERY small pieces of gold specimen. Both together were reading at 0,03 grams. Both rang up with an ID of 1 loud and clear being so small. I just can’t believe it. If other machines will pick up gold smaller than that I would have to bring a microscope all the time.

Here is my completed EQ800 on a carbon fiber shaft project finally done. Now all I have left to do is finish my waterproof connector.