Any Tips On The Equinox 800

[equinoxonetrick]

This probably has been done a hundred of times but I have recently bought my Equinox 800 and been having a lot of fun. Throughout my use I have received signals that become very jumpy in some areas. Is this a grounding issue? I have tried noise cancelling and grounding. Reducing the sensitivity may have helped, but wouldn't this reduce depth? What are the negatives if I reduce sensitivity?

What other tips can guys share?

I also plan on doing water metal detecting (saltwater) on the beach some tips would also be appreciative.

[Tiftaaft]

Hey One Trick,

Lots of information on this forum about the Equinox... There is a sub forum to this main Minelab forum that is all about the Equinox if you haven't already found it. 

A few of my own thoughts (and there are many others with a lot more hours and experience on the machine than I that have and most likely will respond as well)...

If your machine is chatty after noise cancelling and ground balancing... you are right sensitivity is most likely the other culprit.  The Equinox is very powerful at less than max sensitivity settings.  I usually run between 18 and 22, and in my ground, I am hitting targets that are over 10" on occasion.  My personal feeling is that higher sensitivity does amplify the signal, but it also amplifies everything above anything deeper you are trying to detect... including any ground mineralization, or iron and other trash that may be nearby.  So are you really gaining depth, or just bringing in more noise above that depth?  I maybe giving up one or two targets in a hunt by running 18, but I'll take a solid and quiet running machine over something that is chirping at me with every swing.  Again, just my preference.  The other key thing there is "ground mineralization"... not sure what your ground is... but I have hunted some pretty difficult ground, so tuning the machine to your ground is also important (ground balancing AND sens).  

Others will have better suggestions for salt water setup than I, but I'll be a student there as well, as I plan to do more of that later this year as well.

Welcome to the forum and be sure to check out all the great posts by everyone here... the search menu is your friend to find pretty much anything you may need related to detecting here on the site 🙂

 

Tim.

[rvpopeye]

What ^ he said. Plus check out Steve's  Guides  

 

[Steve Herschbach]

I'd recommend you spend quite a bit of time here....