Equinox 900 Coin Hunt High Mineralization

[Jeff McClendon]

I hunted a park that I have hunted many times in the past for a couple of cold, windy hours today. I wanted to try out Depth Tones VCO on the Nox 900 in an area that I have gridded with the Equinox 800, Deus 1, Deus 2 and some other detectors. There is tons of ferrous and non-ferrous trash at every depth along with some older coins. Iron mineralization is 7 to 10 bars on Deus 2 at this park.

I deliberately setup my Nox 900, 11" coil, with a Field 1 Multi, trashy park pattern that accepted -7 to 0 for some iron audio, 24 to 27 for US nickels, 55 to 62 for US Indian head, early wheat and zinc pennies, and 70 to 99 for anything else in the high conductor US coin range. The nickel target IDs worked out well for US nickels and also snared a few broken pull tabs and beaver tails with no ring pull attached. I did not hit any Indians or early wheats but I did get some deeper zinc pennies. The high conductor IDs accepted range did great with only two very rusty nails recovered that were standing almost straight up in their holes with the nail head facing up. They were 8" deep and were giving mid to high 90s target IDs along with constant iron grunts as I circled the targets. I was fairly certain they were nails before I dug them but digging them was the only way to know for sure. All of the coins in the photo were in the 6" to 8" range and were very close to iron or aluminum targets and had somewhat iffy target IDs but they were accurate enough to get my attention.

I did some back and forth between Park 1 Multi, 5 tones, no notches, -7 to 99 accepted and Field 1 Multi DP tones as described above. The DP tones definitely gave stronger VCO audio responses on the deeper coins than the non VCO 5 tones. I could hear the responses using both types of audio but DP was more obvious. Personally, I have not gotten very used to the audio quality of DP tones through the ML 85s. It just sounds weird to me, but it works very well, seems to separate a bit better and is another tool in the tool box.

Another 1919 mercury dime, along with some other silver era coins: 1951, 1959 and 1960 US pennies, 1960 US nickel, and some clad dimes and quarters from the 1970s and 1980s.

 

[CPT_GhostLight]

Thanks for the report, Jeff! Good hunt with a sweet Merc to boot, well done!

[Jeff McClendon]

33 minutes ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

Thanks for the report, Jeff! Good hunt with a sweet Merc to boot, well done!

Thanks.

These new detectors that I am enjoying: Nox 900, Deus 2 and Legend are amazing.

[Steve Herschbach]

Gun to head right now, you can only keep one of the three, which is it? 

[Dinçer]

Box 800 / 900 ?

to search for natural gold in streams thanks 

[Jeff McClendon]

2 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Gun to head right now, you can only keep one of the three, which is it? 

Legend!

 I know the Legend is waterproof and I know it can easily hit small sub gram gold when I need a VLF for that. Built solidly and I personally, subjectively like the Legend’s audio the best of the three. 

[Steve Herschbach]

Well with my lack of enthusiasm for wireless coils and grumpiness over Minelabs antics, the Legend may very well be the solution to what ails me. Thanks for the very direct feedback on that Jeff. 👍🏼

[Jeff McClendon]

16 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Well with my lack of enthusiasm for wireless coils and grumpiness over Minelabs antics, the Legend may very well be the solution to what ails me. Thanks for the very direct feedback on that Jeff. 👍🏼

In the "it can do it all really well" segment of SMF detectors, the Legend is the only one that has proven (at least to me) to be capable of that phrase.

Deus 2 at the moment is just OK for sub gram gold targets, a pain in the ass to setup for even just coil submersion, no small coil availability and it has a couple of other weird characteristics that only the long awaited software update can possibly fix.

After the 600/800 water and coil ear issues, I won't trust the Equinox 900 to be waterproof and sturdy until it has gone through one full North American spring, summer, and early fall of water hunting. I also am just getting to know the Nox 900. So far it is different enough from the 800 that I have to learn what I can expect from it.

The Legend took me one hunt to realize that I would have no problem transitioning to it from the 800 since it was very similar but better. The user interface is tedious for me but those 16 custom program slots are awesome.

[Dinçer]

i have shifter gold bug pro in my hand thank you for the answer in coil contact sound

 

[Jeff McClendon]

5 hours ago, Dinçer said:

Box 800 / 900 ?

to search for natural gold in streams thanks 

Equinox 800 or 900 for gold prospecting in streams......I would pick the 900 with the 6" coil or the Coiltek 10x5" coil and hope that it won't leak.

Legend is also a very good alternative for gold prospecting in streams with its 6" or 10x5" coils.