New To The Equinox 800

[RayfromAK]

I am new to metal detecting with the Equinox 800 after using a Sovereign XS, and long ago a Teknetics detector.  The later I used by Northern NY and Vermont with excellent results.  The Battle of Champlain took place in these areas, so I gathered several Old Army buttons, musket ball, and so on.  Along these relics, with the help of the Teknetics, I also found some very old coins, and newer Canadian and US silver coins, some gold and silver rings, etc.

As mentioned above, I have been using a Sovereign XS in the interior of Alaska where I live, but since there aren’t too many old coins and relics to be easily found I seldom use it these days. One would have to do a lot of research and travel far to find old sites, and there aren’t any beaches nearby where I lot of people spend time at.  However, there are some places where one can do some gold nugget detecting, and for this activity I have traveled quite a few miles to the remote mining claims some of my friends had in the past, and found a couple of small nuggets years ago using a Minelab XT18000.  But let me tell you that looking for gold is not as easy as shown on “youtube,” so the XT has been in the closet for a while now.

Anyway, the reason for buying the Equinox 800 is so that I don’t have to carry two detectors, one for coin and relic hunting, and the other for gold detecting.  I just received the Equinox this week, and took it out for a spin to a lake beach not too far from my home.  I have found plenty of clad coins and some jewelry with the Sovereign at this lake, some very deep by the water’s edge.  So far I think that I like the different sounds the Equinox makes, probably because I enjoyed the numerous sounds the Teknetics made, specially on silver and other coins.  I decided not to mess around too much with the detecting modes and setting and to stick to the factory defaults for the time being, until I understand what the different sounds mean.

The Equinox is easy to pinpoint targets with without having to use the pinpoint button-at least for me-because I am already familiar with the pinpointing of targets using the center of the coil. I found just a couple of clad quarters and dimes, plus a few pennies.  Some of these coins were very deep, an indication that they have been missed by other detectorists, and well as by myself using the Sovereign.  And yes, I dug a few pull-tabs, but I believe that I noticed a slight difference in tone between coins and pull-tabs, something that I will have to explore further next summer.  What I would like to try next year (winter is just about to arrive to the interior of Alaska), other than the beach modes, are the field 1 and 2 modes, and also gold detecting at one of my friend’s claims.  For the time being I will be paying attention to what all of you have to say about coin and treasure hunting with the Equinox.

[Jackpine]

Welcome to the forum Ray,

Here's a link to Steve's forum post with nugget hunting tips and settings for the Equinox 800.

https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/7468-my-tips-on-nugget-detecting-with-the-minelab-equinox/?do=findComment&comment=75909

[Chase Goldman]

Welcome both to the forum and to the Equinox.  A great all around detector that despite being multi-purpose does a lot of things better than many high end detectors I have owned.  

Jack gave you a great link on gold nugget hunting with the Equinox.  You mentioned a lake beach, so I take it you were detecting a freshwater beach.  In that case, I would recommend either Park 1 if you are focusing on high conductor finds or Park 2 or Field 2 if looking for small/mid-conductive targets like gold jewelry, nickels, or brass relics (though each of the above modes will still detect non-ferrous targets over the entire conductivity range).  The Beach modes were designed to balance salt beach ground conductivity conditions while trading off a little sensitivity overall and in the case of Beach 2, scaling back transmit power under black sand conditions and is overall both beach modes are most sensitive to high conductors, but have detected plenty of gold targets in wet salt sand and surf.  The result is less depth than you would otherwise be capable of getting in the Park and Field modes.  So I recommend only using beach modes only in salt beach or brackish water conditions.  

If you are already clueing into the audio subtleties of the various targets then you are off to a great start.  I am a firm believer that audio is key to this machine and the generally stable visual TID's are a good confirmatory backup to what your ears are telling you, so continue to learn that audio and give 50 tones a spin  (default tone setting on the "2" modes which are what I use for relic hunting since most relics are mid-conductors).  Once you get used to the EQX at its defaults then start to learn how the various settings affect performance especially recovery speed. Tweak it a click or two from the default on some targets to see its affect.  Lower recovery speed can result in increased signal for deep targets but the tradeoff is less separation, slower sweep speed and a potential increase in ground feedback noise which practically limits depth, so I recommend staying near the defaults.  Iron bias is an interesting filter that uses Multi IQ signal processing to reducing ferrous falsing but I have also found it to sometimes undesirably mask non-ferrous targets.  Also, investigate threshold and alternative tone settings.  I like the default tone setups but do use threshold, though it only serves to alert you to discriminated out targets by "blanking" when passing over them.  Finally, the ideal placement of the horseshoe button which gives you instant access to "all metal" but cutting out all discrimination and notches set is a great tool for target interrogation or for general searching when you want to "hear it all".  I especially like all metal for salt and freshwater beach hunting, especially in dry sand.

Finally, gold mode is a different animal altogether with VCO pitch-like audio (vice ID tones),  true threshold settings and maximum overall sensitivity that enables tiny target acquisition.  This is a good mode to experiment with even outside of nugget hunting.

Enjoy the Equinox and HH up there in AK.

 

HTH

[RayfromAK]

Thank you, Jackpine for the link, and Chase Goldman for the instructions on how to set the Equinox.  And yes about a fresh water beach I am trying this detector before winter arrives, which by the way should be here any moment.  It has been around 35 degrees today, and the temperature maybe will reach 40 degrees next week-during the day. It drops around 30 degrees at night.

I have been using Park 1, and today I decided to increase the threshold volume to 1 just to see how it sounded, but brought it back to default shortly after because it was a little too high on the headphone. The Minelab headphone that came with the detector works quite well for me since I have become accustomed to using headphones when detecting.  What I specially like about the headphone is that I don't have to be tied-up to the detector via a cord, and this makes it quite easy when digging and the detector is a few feet away from me on the ground.

I have been laser-printing all the instructions on how to set-up the Equinox, and then putting it in a binder along the Equinox 600/800 manual that I have also printed. 

I have been watching some of the Equinox detecting videos at "youtube," but the only ones I have found useful are the ones showing detecting Roman coins in the UK, plus another where the person in the video wrote how to set-up the detector (step by step) for coin detecting in the specific fields he detects at. All the videos for ocean-beech detecting aren't of use to me ?

Thanks again.