I Love My 800 :)

[Chase Goldman]

10 hours ago, Dan(NM) said:

 Thank you Chase.

I started with Field 2 in the beginning. I decided to do a test with a 50 or 60 cal. round musket ball that I had dug that morning.  I set Park, Field and beach modes, both 1 and 2 in all modes, exactly the same, identical, including the tone breaks. I buried the musket ball at exactly 9", I always carry a plastic 12" ruler to measure target depths.

  Th soil here is very sandy, basic desert dirt, I've checked with a magnet to see whether or not there is any black sand mixed in, none, very clean and benign sand. I figured Field 2 would bang on the ball, you know, higher frequency weighting and all that jazz. I got nothing???  I went though every mode one by one, I Gb'd and did a noise cancel every time I switched modes. The only mode that would hit the musket ball was Park 1 and it did it with a tone that I would recognize as a dig me signal, the kind of fringe signals I'm looking for and will dig. The numbers jumped into the upper 30's, pretty consistent.

  I was a bit shocked because Park 1 is supposed to hit better on high conductors and the field modes, low. It was the exact opposite of what I anticipated. I did the same test when I got home in soil that's nothing like where I did the first one. I buried an eagle cuff button at 7" and did the same test as before. Once again, the only mode, Park 1, was the only one that gave a, dig me signal.

 So, from that day on, I was use Park 1 and will mess with recovery speeds depending on how much noise i get from the particular area I hunt at the 1850's site. It's been a great spot the learn the quirks of the Nox.

First of all, it is great to start out by the book as a general guide, but if you are able to do some situational experimentation at the site,  like you did, that is the way to go because every situation and site is unique and the modes often don't behave as you would expect them to at every site due to numerous site condition and target type variables.  Often times, folks feel that they are pressed for time (or actually do only have a short window of opportunity at a site) or are excited and just want to get out there and dig that they don't take the time to do a little on site tuning of their detectors.  I am guilty of that, often.  You don't always have the luxury of being able to do that, but if you can, you should.  So it's great that you took the time to do that.

I am not too surprised that Park 1 hit hardest on that test lead.  The larger caliber and symmetric shape of the round ball make it look more like a high conductor than a mid conductor to the machine.  That is backed up by the TID you were getting.  Though lead is a mid conductor, that is not the only property that determines phase shift.  Target mass also comes into play.  Being so dense, lead tends to look to a detector like a mid conductor if the targets are small and irregular (camp lead) and a higher conductor if the targets are large and symmetrical.  This really becomes obvious when you are using a GPX for relic hunting.  The small irregular pieces of camp lead and really deformed fired minie balls give off high tones (low conductor) and low tones (high conductor) when you swing across a fully formed, dropped minie ball or round ball.

Just wanted to clarify something - based on what you wrote, "Park 1 is supposed to hit better on high conductors and the field modes, low."   Just to be clear, the "1" modes (Field 1 and Park 1) are tuned to hit harder on high conductors due to their frequency profile while the "2" modes (Park 2 and Field 2) will hit harder on smaller, mid-conductive targets but because of their higher frequency profile, will get less overall depth than the "1" modes...in general (key point).  Beach modes and gold modes are different animals, as you know.

Therefore, I would expect that the "2" modes (i.e., Park 2 and Field 2) might hit harder on that brass (especially the small brass like the p caps and small buttons), but Park 1 at the optimal recovery speed and without IB is probably the best all around mode and probably the deepest overall mode (other than perhaps 5 khz single frequency) and that is proven out by the variety of your recoveries.   I am surprised that Field 1 did not perform similar to Park 1 in your apples to apples field testing as it has it has a lower frequency profile favorable to high conductors similar to Park 1, like I said.   The beach modes are a different animal altogether, but it is good you tested them out anyway as anything goes and they have shown some promise in unusual land hunting situations.  Gold Mode could also be interesting, but you would have to have your eyes glued on the meter and I wouldn't advise it in an area littered with a lot of mid-conductive, non-ferrous junk.

Since you are having such great success at that site, I hesitate to give you any advice whatsoever (If it ain't broke...), other than take advantage of the fact that the Equinox basically gives you multiple detectors in one package so if your finds start to tail off, then hit that site with a different mode and perhaps even with some single frequencies.

Enjoy it until it plays out, which hopefully will take a long time.  Good luck and happy hunting.