Eqx 900 & Legend Separation

[HardPack]

On 12/27/2023 at 12:24 PM, Chase Goldman said:

With the 900, I would personally up recovery speed from 4 and set the iron bias to max and back off on sensitivity to 20 or less to minimize falsing as much as possible in thick iron and see if you could cherry pick at least some shallow non-ferrous out of the iron muck recognizing you are just going to lose depth on deep non-ferrous regardless.  I mean in thick iron, depth is pretty much out the window due to falsing, masking, and target ID down averaging, so one of the first things I do in a thick iron patch after upping recovery speed is lowering sensitivity, the filters never really do much.  I know your test garden is showing you some potentially “optimal” settings but your test garden can’t really replicate all the myriad of real world 3-Dimensional ferrous to non-ferrous target spatial orientations, soil moisture conditions, and old target halo effects that can result in masking and falsing at your tough mining site.

I planted a few more rows of coins (1,5,10,25 cents) in the garden at 4, 6, 7, & 8 inches to check the effect of setting changes on the EQX 900 detection depth. For the base test dropped sensitivity to 16, Recovery to 1 and Iron Bias to 0. TID stabilized at the lower sensitivity settings 18 and below, I was able to tell a penny from a dime using SMF in Park 1/2 & Field 1/2. The 900 detected all the coins at 7 inches but at 8 inches (due to size?) the dime and penny signals were growing real faint. Set up the “user profile” to switch to Recovery 6 & Iron Bias 9 in Field 2, will use a Sensitivity no higher than 18. Test of the user profile in the garden was good to 7 inches at a ground balance of 40 (granitic clay). However, all the coin rows were outside the ring of buried iron. It appears to me that increases in the Recovery setting has more of an effect on detection depth than increases of the Iron Bias setting. Increases in Sensitivity settings from 20 to 28 caused a corresponding increase in the TID spread with the penny & dime TIDs blending. 

I saw similar test results in lower depth detection with increases with the XP Deus (9”x35) Reactivity, Silencer & IAR settings (#6 Deep & #10 Goldfield). Increases in the Deus Sensitivity & Audio Response settings increased depth detection or audio respectively without the wide TID spread.

Big storm system blowing into the west coast, large waves impacting the coastline with some tidal flooding. 

 

 

[relicmeister]

I would assume the Nox 900 iron falsing to be less of a problem when using the 6” coil in dense iron - regardless of IB or recovery speed Bought a never used 900 return that saved me $250 ( been wanting a 900 for some time) which I’ll have in a couple days. I’m looking forward to hitting some iron laden sites using the 6” coil. Using the Deus 2 w/ 9” coil it’s like pulling teeth to find anything non ferrous. When I had my 800 and 6” coil I pulled my only ever half reales from the iron- wondering if the 900 will unmask my 2nd. Just had a surgery and with snow on the way it that will have to wait. 

[Zaj56]

3 hours ago, relicmeister said:

I would assume the Nox 900 iron falsing to be less of a problem when using the 6” coil in dense iron - regardless of IB or recovery speed Bought a never used 900 return that saved me $250 ( been wanting a 900 for some time) which I’ll have in a couple days. I’m looking forward to hitting some iron laden sites using the 6” coil. Using the Deus 2 w/ 9” coil it’s like pulling teeth to find anything non ferrous. When I had my 800 and 6” coil I pulled my only ever half reales from the iron- wondering if the 900 will unmask my 2nd. Just had a surgery and with snow on the way it that will have to wait. 

Good luck and keep us posted. What area of Pa. are  you at?   Here in SW Pa (Johnstown)we are expecting a bunch of snow today.

[relicmeister]

On 1/6/2024 at 8:25 AM, Zaj56 said:

Good luck and keep us posted. What area of Pa. are  you at?   Here in SW Pa (Johnstown)we are expecting a bunch of snow today.

Oh, I’m in the northeast of PA and we got 15” here ( corner of pocono mtns ) 

[HardPack]

On 1/6/2024 at 2:19 AM, relicmeister said:

I would assume the Nox 900 iron falsing to be less of a problem when using the 6” coil in dense iron - regardless of IB or recovery speed

The smaller diameter 6” coil dodges between the pieces of iron trash easier. Using both the 6” & 11” nox coils with a higher IB setting was able to tone down iron falsing over a 8” deep horseshoe and railroad spike. An 8” deep iron plate (8”x 8”) gives off a consistent non-ferrous TID regardless of IB setting. An 8” deep axehead gives off an iron falsing signal regardless of IB setting. 
 

On 1/6/2024 at 2:19 AM, relicmeister said:

I pulled my only ever half reales

French reales? A few Spanish Reales pulled out of the ground here in the west by others, I am still searching. During the gold rush coins were in short supply, the old prospectors cut the reales into eight pieces for trading and often traded their military belt buckles. 

Another round of cold & snow moving into the west coast on Tuesday the 9th. In the teens tonight. One side of the family started west in the late 1700’s from Lancaster county. The other side moved out of western North Carolina at about the same time. They all met up and began begetting in Texas before moving up into the Indian territories prior to the civil war.
Stay dry.

[relicmeister]

That’s some amazing history there!

900 arrived to the dismay of my wife. As stated earlier, I’m recovering from elective surgery and feeling momentarily decent put it together and threw it on charge. Build quality improvements are quite evident.   that’s All I have to report so far. 

[Tyler]

I run the 800 in field 1 most of the time with the 11in coil. If I’m in an iron patch like a colonial or pre civil war home or barn site I usually turn the sensitivity down to 18 sometimes less like 16. I haven’t been running to the updated iron 2 mode. Maybe I should. But I usually keep the iron bias at 2-3. 5 tones, recovery speed at 6-7. I leave the iron audio on so I can tell when I’m hitting heavy or lighter spots moving quieter ground. Or if I’m walk away from the main home site I can tell when I hit another structure or area of high activity. Typically I can pick through the iron pretty well. It takes some practice a learning the sounds but I can usually tell a False positive from a good signal most of the time. It takes a lot of digging and seeing what you have at first but I’ve noticed heavy flat iron pieces have a larger louder not so smooth tone with the ID jumping around. There’s a type of old tin can material that will fool you sometimes especially if it’s folded over. But it usually shows up at an ID at 16-15 or below and sound have a broader signal especially when shallow. With the sensitivity turned down the better signals that are in between and deeper have a more crisp sound and give a solid ID. I need to try some of the smaller coils soon. A lot of the times I’ll move to the outskirts and need the 11 because of its good all around abilities to get the deeper stuff. But you will start noticing tendencies like that. Different ways the machine reacts to a target. Deep square nails especially if bent when at the depth limit will give an iffy signal but so will a deep bullet. I used to run the Whites MXT and the flat iron, beer caps or larger iron would always have a rougher signal with a subtle iron grunt mixed in with the good signal. Those deep square nails at like a foot deep+  would give iffy signals but sometimes its a bullet. That machine faired better with the gain turned back in iron as well. Some people get in trouble running the gain to high in iron patches.  No machine is perfect but the more you dig and learn with it the better. Definitely take the time to learn the machines language. 

[relicmeister]

Thanks for the tips, Tyler which should apply also to the 900. I really enjoy using the 900 ( as I did the 800 and 600 I had) with the upgrades. I think the 11” and 6” coils are very good but I’m waiting for a Coiltek at old price because i can leave it on in most situations. 

[Tyler]

4 hours ago, relicmeister said:

Thanks for the tips, Tyler which should apply also to the 900. I really enjoy using the 900 ( as I did the 800 and 600 I had) with the upgrades. I think the 11” and 6” coils are very good but I’m waiting for a Coiltek at old price because i can leave it on in most situations. 

Which Coiltek are you speaking of?

[HardPack]

41 minutes ago, Tyler said:

Which Coiltek are you speaking of?

The Coiltek Nox 10x5 DD coil for both the EQX 800 & 900.

After using the EQX 900 & CT 10x5 for gold prospecting the trick is the Sensitivity setting. The CT 10x5 is very sensitivity to EMI, ground mineralization, hot rocks and small shallow metallic targets. I have found sensitivity settings between 10 to 14 on mineralized soil works. On highly mineralized ground loaded with hot rocks a VLF detector is probably not going achieve depth on small gold targets. The ground mineralization alone will mask and/or eliminate small gold with increasing depth. 

An advantage I have discovered regarding the EQX900 compared to the Legend when prospecting for gold is the EQX 900 TID range. The EQX 900 wider TID range from -19 to 0, 1 to 99 allows for a slightly wider detection range for small gold in mineralized ground and hot rocks within a lower range of 1 to 5.  Ground noise will normally be in the -19 to -16 TID range with hot rocks at TID 1. Highly mineralized soil will suppress the TID for small targets including gold, often between 1 & 5 with the EQX 900.

The Legend  TID range of 0 to 60 has a tighter lower range of 1 to 3 which allow hot rocks (TID 1), small ferrous targets, such as boot tacks, combined with the soil mineralization to mask small gold. The new Legend Beast Mode suppresses the volume level of hot rocks, such as ironstone & basalt, but the small ferrous and gold targets are still packed into the tighter lower TID range of 1 to 3. I have also experienced “coil knock” with the Legend Beast mode even at lower sensitivity settings.