Equinox 800 Missing Silver?

[Tony Downs]

 

I am new to detecting but have about 400 hours of YouTube detecting experience 😁. I got my equinox 800 about 3 weeks ago and have dug at 3 places old school (war nickel and wheat penny),  60’s abandoned house (clad dime and memorial copper penny} and an old farm house/boarding house built in 1890’s ( GOLD ring, Mercury dime, 4 Buffalo nickels, 1 war nickel, 8 1945-48 nickels, 35 wheat pennies and 5 memorial pennies. I am very very happy with my less than 1 month of digging but somehow I feel I’m missing silver at the old farm house. With that many coins from to 30’s and 40’s and only one Mercury dime and 1 silver nickel I’m not sure but wanted opinions as to what I am missing or is it just coincidental that no silver is popping up. I’m running park 1, all defaults with noise cancel and ground balanced out except yesterday I slowed recovery to 4 and decreased FE to 4. Thanks for the add and looking forward to suggestions. Tony

[Chase Goldman]

Tony - welcome to the hobby and to the forum.  

I wouldn't say your lack of silver finds is coincidental - more like expected.  You did manage a merc and copper and all the other targets (which are much harder to detect) suggest your machine is working fine.  Silver does not just pop out of the ground at old home sites, especially nowadays.  You see posters here with their 100+ silvers for the year etc.  Usually, they are prolific hunters with probably 25 to 50 sites (schools, house sites, old ball fields, parks, etc.) and a lot of swing hours and they are the exception rather than the rule.  So do not use that as a benchmark for whether your one site is productive or your detecting methods are sound. 

The thing is, most new detectorists do not stumble upon a site like your 1890's boarding house as a first-time visitor.  That site has more than likely been hit by multiple detectorists over the years and silver, copper, and clad is the first thing that comes out of the ground as it is typically the easiest thing to hit with any vlf induction balance detector because it 1) has high conductivity and can be easily detected at depth and 2) it has relatively few junk targets that have ID's that fall in that range to compete with (even falsing iron).  The fact that you dug a lot of older copper is promising - but it may be just a matter of those that got there before you cherry picked the certain silver signals.  Gold and nickels on the other hand, compete with aluminum junk.  Many folks give up on those targets after they have dug a couple pouchfuls of pull tabs and aluminum can slaw.  You did really well to recover all those nickels.  Coil coverage is also key.  You need to be disciplined about covering every inch of ground you can with the center line of that coil.  Just as in golf, a put will never make it into the hole if you don't give it enough momentum to move past the hole ("never up, never in"), you will never detect a buried target that you don't get the coil over.

You are also still learning your machine, you will start to understand the nuances of iffy signals and how to coax a more definitive signal through coil control, interpretation of the audio as well as visual ID, use of different modes to interrogate the target etc.  That will increase you keeper to trash ratio.  If you are digging selectively right now, then you are doing a pretty good job especially with those nickels and the ring.  Even if you are digging every repeatable signal, I would say you are doing great.  At extreme depths, the Equinox will still hit on targets but soil mineralization and other effects may result in a ferrous ID.  The only way you can see those targets is to hunt with no disc and dig all ferrous signals.  You will also eventually learn how to exploit junky areas with the superior separation of the Equinox.  That is where many keepers lie masked for years because detectorists did not have the detectors that could separate the keepers nor the patience or ability to clear out the junk.

Regarding your detector setup - I would avoid straying too far from the defaults.  The trade off on lowering recovery speed is more ground noise, but that is not noticeable when using normal discrimination settings.  You really are not gaining so much in depth as being able to hear perhaps those edge on targets better that might otherwise give short clipped tones at higher recovery speeds.   I prefer using F2 - it is very effective at the default of 6 keeping ferrous falsing in check and seems to have minimal adverse impact on separation and masking compared to FE based on testing Steve H. and others have done comparing F2 to FE.  One trick up your sleeve if you want to go for sheer raw depth, is to try single frequency at 4 khz or 5 khz, especially if you encounter an iffy target.  With the 800 you have the ability to store a "custom profile" that can be accessed with a single push of the user profile button.  I like to store my target interrogation mode of choice in that slot.  For example, you could store a single frequency (4 or 5 khz) Park 1 setup in the user profile slot while searching in Park 1 default multi.  When you encounter an iffy signal, hit it with the custom single frequency program to see how the target responds.  Single frequency can pull deep silver, especially on-edge silver, out of the muck.  The drawback to single frequency is it tends to be subject to EMI (so be sure to do a noise cancel and ground balance on whatever custom mode profile you store in the user profile slot before you first use it at a new site) and is less forgiving of a non-optimized ground balance.  Also, in single frequency, you lose the iron bias feature.  It is for all these reasons that I tend to shy away from using single frequency as a primary search mode unless absolutely forced to do so.

The key to more silver is really simply getting access to as many potential silver bearing sites as possible and spending a lot of time carefully gridding the site to ensure you covered every inch of ground or hit junky ground (iron infested sites and aluminum infested sites) that may be hiding shallow non-ferrous keepers.  You have the tool in your hands to do it because their are few other detectors that can separate as well as Equinox.

So - get more sites (location, location, location), continue to learn the language of your detector and what the settings do (but avoid the tendency to over tweak the settings - in other words you should have a good reason to stray from the defaults not tweaking for the sake of getting a different result), get as many swing hours as you can, be persistent, dig as many target hits as you can, and most of all, be patient.

HTH

[Tony Downs]

Chase, thank you for the response and break down, being new and trying to learn i read watch videos and try to decipher what I see.  I think this could get addicting. I love the equinox and I think as you said a few more hours swinging it I will get better. That ring was hitting a solid 14 and when it popped out I almost fell out.  Once again thank you for the response and great information. I have lined up a Couple more old mansion style 1800’s homes to hit after if finish with the one I’ve been to a couple of times. I went yesterday and it gave up more wheats and a couple of old buttons and a rifle slug or 2 so I need to hit there  again I feel. Maybe a lot more goodies as I actually concentrate and cover the ground and not go Willie Nilly across it. 

[delnorter]

Really a great post Chase Goldman. You write with a clarity that is easy to  follow and understand.

Mike

[Chase Goldman]

28 minutes ago, Tony Downs said:

being new and trying to learn i read watch videos and try to decipher what I see

One word of additional caution regarding videos - editing makes any hunt look like the targets are just repeatedly popping out of the ground.  None of these you tubers are going to keep the clips of digging junk and pull tabs.  Videos seldom reflect the reality of typical detecting session - hours of nothing but dug junk, punctuated by a few seconds of pure elation.  However, just digging the finds is not the end all and be all of detecting IMO.  Meeting new people with a common interest in history and the stories behind the strange things we do pull out of the ground (trash and treasure) and enjoying the sights and fresh air or simply the feeling the history of the place you are detecting are all part of the adventure.  Regarding test and comparison videos - always be skeptical of the motives of those posting the videos (lack of knowledge of the settings/nuances for the detectors being tested, personal bias, or having a vested financial interest in the detector(s) being tested).  You tube is great place to learn techniques and to learn about equipment but I would not look to it as a realistic depiction of detecting in general or if you are really seeking the truth about any particular detector.  That takes first hand experience and testing.

[Phillips_R]

Very well said Chase. 

[mn90403]

3 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

continue to learn the language of your detector

Tony,

Your finds are quite remarkable.  Some of that may be the result of your YouTube training but there is only so much you can learn from watching a video.

Chase gave you a very good reply.

The language (audio and screen) of Nox is pretty 'pure.'  There isn't much slang or accent but it does require a bit of concentration.  Use patience and listen to the full sound and then interrogate the target with short swings, fast swings and slow swings.  Listen as the different parts of the coil go over it.  Look at the screen numbers and maybe make an adjustment or go to your User ID that uses more discrimination than your 'find a target' settings.

We all get iffy targets but after many hours of use they are less and less iffy and more and more 'I think I know what that is!'

Mitchel

[Jeff McClendon]

7 hours ago, Tony Downs said:

 

 

I am new to detecting but have about 400 hours of YouTube detecting experience 😁. I got my equinox 800 about 3 weeks ago and have dug at 3 places old school (war nickel and wheat penny),  60’s abandoned house (clad dime and memorial copper penny} and an old farm house/boarding house built in 1890’s ( GOLD ring, Mercury dime, 4 Buffalo nickels, 1 war nickel, 8 1945-48 nickels, 35 wheat pennies and 5 memorial pennies. I am very very happy with my less than 1 month of digging but somehow I feel I’m missing silver at the old farm house. With that many coins from to 30’s and 40’s and only one Mercury dime and 1 silver nickel I’m not sure but wanted opinions as to what I am missing or is it just coincidental that no silver is popping up. I’m running park 1, all defaults with noise cancel and ground balanced out except yesterday I slowed recovery to 4 and decreased FE to 4. Thanks for the add and looking forward to suggestions. Tony

Hi Tony and welcome to this forum.

I believe I already gave you a long reply on another forum. I see you are asking the same question here. You will get similar answers. Your Nox is fine. Since you are finding some wheat pennies, the older silver will eventually happen. For me, where I detect, finding a mercury dime is a big deal since this area has not been inhabited by people with coins for very long. So, my wheat penny to mid 1900s silver nickel, dime, quarter ratio is at least 10 to 1. Make that 50 to 1 for wheats to early 1900s/late 1800s silver coins, indian heads and V nickels for last year.

Chase is a field trainer for the Equinox and he hunts near your area. Read what he says very carefully and try to follow his suggestions.

[rvpopeye]

Welcome aboard 

Those finds sound good from here.

Go back and keep looking .

May the force be with you.

 

[Raphis]

Hello Tony! Welcome to the forum.  I’m new to this forum too, but I’ve been detecting for decades, and have made hundreds of finds/instructional posts across several other popular online detecting forums for 13 years now.  I’ve been using Minelab detectors since 2007, and just last year, I bought an Equinox 800.  You’ve already received great advise from very knowledgeable hunters here.  I’d like to give you a different perspective of someone else’s finds (my own) from a different area of the US (So California).  I’d consider myself a hardcore hunter...well, I used to hunt 4-5 times a week for the past 10+ years, but last year, I managed 2-3 hunts a week.  I detect mostly parks, old schoolyards (if I can get in), and beaches.  I have hundreds of parks/schools where I’ve dug silver coins, wheat pennies, older sterling jewelry, and a small sprinkling of gold. My parks where I hunt are so littered with aluminum trash that I tend not to dig a high number of lower conductors, such as nickels.  For instance, last year I dug over 300 silver coins, 1700 wheat pennies, and 40 or so pieces of sterling jewelry. I have a 13 year avg of 4-6 wheat pennies for every 1 silver coin I find.  These wheat/silver ratios have been the norm here for me for years, yet in other areas of the country, those ratios are far from realistic. I surmise your ratios will not be the same as mine, but you need to hunt at least a year at various sites around you to compute a more accurate silver/wheat dig ratio.   

Now, here’s something of interest:  Out of all those old coins I found this year, I have maybe 10 Buffalo nickels and a few V nickels.  So, in one month’s time, you nearly dug more old nickels than I did all year.  You would go batty digging nickel signals in my area. 🤢 

You certainly picked the right machine for what you’re interested in finding.  As I stated above, I  chose the Nox 800 last year after swinging a ML Explorer SE for the past 13 years.  I was averaging 500+ silver and 3000 wheats a year with my SE for over a decade.  The Equinox has been a joy to use so far, and has performed beyond my expectations.

Best of Luck, 👍🏼

Dan