Eqx 900 Vs Iron Trash

[HardPack]

Took the ML Equinox 900 to an old house site loaded with a variety of iron trash. The town site dates back to the 1850’s serving as ferry crossing to a stamp mill and gold mining sites (quartz & placer) across the river. However, I do not believe the house site dates beyond the 1920’s. The house was abandoned and demolished in the mid 1960’s. The original trail into the area passes by the house site. The site has round nails, tacks, small rusted can pieces, rusted flat metal sheet and old car parts plus nearby there is an overhead electrical transmission line. I am new to the EQX 900 and SMF. I typically detect by ear. This site is representative of old mining sites iron trash loads which makes for a good training area. I was attempting to get the ears tuned to the detector so I dug every target.

Within the house site I stayed with “Field 1” at the factory settings except with Accept/Reject -19 to 0; 1 to 99, Recovery 0, Iron Bias 0, Target Tone 5. (Eventually changing to Recovery 7;  Iron Bias 4, Target tones (At) All Tones.) Volume Adjust 22, Sensitivity 24. Coil 10x5 Coiltek. Ground balance 28.

Upon detecting the house site with the EMI bubbling in the background (All Metals -off) the detector started falsing on the buried iron (ferrous) trash. The falsing tone signals were intermediate, with a wide spread of jumpy TID’s from mid to high positive, the falsing tones spiked quickly followed by a quick dropped off. Switching to All Metals would confirm the negative TID’s filling the spaces between intermediate iron falsing signals. Adjusting Recovery upward (as high as 7) allow the detector to “tone in” on non-ferrous targets within all the gun fire of both the EMI and iron falsing. Once a non-ferrous target was isolated the tone signal was fuller without the quick drop off and had a narrower TID spread. I did notice the surrounding iron falsing tone signals appeared to sound muted compared to the non-ferrous tone signals. Switching from five (5) tone to All Tones provided more tonal information. Once or twice I would raise and swing the coil over a non-ferrous target but did not hear a shift from multiple to single hits (shallow/deep target). Apparently gone with the EQX 900 is the overload booming sound when swinging over large sheets of buried rusted iron. I was not attempting to block or filter the iron falsing signals with Iron Bias and only adjusted the setting (no higher than 4) to  see if I noticed any effect, which I did not.

Outside the house site I switched to “Field 2” with factory setting except Accept/Reject -19 to 0; 1 to 99, Recovery 0, Iron Bias 0, Target Tones (At) All Tone. (Made no changes or adjustments). Volume Adjust 22, Sensitivity 24. Coil 10x5 Coiltek. Ground balance 28.

Out of the iron trash and headed up the old trail I wondered amongst the cow pies detecting. After picking up my daily share the 22 brass and lead in both long and short rifle I dug up an old skillet. You know the older high sided lighter gauge skillets. I examined it long enough to ponder how much mercury and potatoes it had cooked off over the years before gifting it. Next I found an opened rusted steel beer can then headed cross country down towards the river where I detected the only coin of the day after several aluminum beer cans and pull tabs. Tones & TID’s were close enough on the non-ferrous target to dig and verify. Tones & TID’s on rusted cans were jumpy enough to identify iron with all metals.

In the photo none of the targets are magnetic, all but the 1998 river quarter TID 87-88 were detected on the house iron trash site: the melted lead TID 50-51, button? TID jumpy 70’s, half sphere? TID 38-39, small tab? TID 10-11.

Here a couple of questions for those more experienced EQX 900 users. 

In Target Tone: All Tones (Tone Volume: 4,25), have you noticed the surrounding ferrous falsing signals sounding muted compared to the non-ferrous tone signals?

When lifting and swinging the coil to estimate target depth have you notice if the detector shifts from multiple (3) signals for shallower targets to a single signal for deeper targets?