My Soil Sucks Please Help With Equinox 800

[bethanyb1201]

Hello all, I am new to the forum but I have been reading for a couple years. I live in the heart of central Illinois in some of the HOTTEST soils on earth... We have that glacial till high mineral black sandy,salty,clay,rock,coal,coke stuff that makes corn and beans grow to yields not seen anyplace else. I have over 120 hours on the nox 800 and I understand what the settings do ect. My ground balance numbers are in the 74-90 range with an occasional 50ish. I cant find anything. I had an old BH3300 and I found 182 silvers last year in just my small town. I have maprika so you can overlay a map from whenever over current maps and know where things were. I have made all my finds by research. I never knew my soil was hot. I got about 6 inches on the 3300 and come to find out thats about as deep as anything ends up due to rock ans clayish layer 6-8 inch down. If someone knows anything about my soil I need some recommendations. I am not going to say where I live but one other area in central Il has the exact same dirt. Paxton Illinois in ford county Illinois. The best results I get is in beach 1 recovery 8 iron bias 2 and sens 16. If I use anything else I get perfect repeatable tones on something that makes me dig and dig and its never there. I shook a china mans hand one day i dug so deep!! Whats wierd about the soil is I can make a test garden and hit a penny at 14 inches in park 1 and 10 inches in beach 1...

[Chase Goldman]

Allow me to think out loud here because there are alot of things going on with your post that are unusual, perhaps contradictory, yet very interesting.

First of all, the Ground Balance reading on the Equinox cannot tell you anything definitive about how "hot" or mineralized your soil is.  You need a separate reading of magnetite levels in your soil (usually called a mineralization or Fe3O4 meter) which only certain detectors (not Equinox) have built into their displays.  The GB number on Equinox is just a RELATIVE ground phase reading to the internal baseline reference and that reference can change depending on what mode you are using because it varies with frequency and how the detector processes target signal phase changes.  That is why you can get a ground phase reading in one mode (e.g., Park 1) that is completely different than the ground phase reading in another mode (e.g., Field 2) - on the SAME patch of ground and why you should always ground balance each mode you use, separately.

Second, I am not a soil expert, but it IS unusual to see significant salinity levels and high mineralization AWAY from salt beach areas.  Obviously, not impossible since much of the ancient US was covered by ocean (with the great lakes being a remnant of that inundation).  And that unusual soil combination you describe certainly can play into the high crop yield you describe. 

Third, your test garden results have me scratching my head.  If your soil content is relatively constant in the region you detect, including your home test garden, then there is no reason you should not be able to replicate your test garden depth results in the field.  The test garden results are actually what I WOULD expect when comparing Park 1 to Beach 1, but your depth detection capability is MUCH MORE than I would expect in super hot/mineralized soil.   Do you get a reliable Target ID at those depths, or just a repeatable signal that you discern as your penny because you know it is there?   I detect in regions where magnetite levels peg the mineralization meter, and your ability to punch to much more than 6 to 8 inches to get a repeatable signal  is really limited using a VLF machine.  In addition, getting a reliable TID beyond 4 inches is also iffy.  So basically, where I usually hunt for CW relics, you are lucky to get a signal at depth on a VLF,  and if you do, you typically have no idea what it is until you dig it.  You also might want to try to see how it does on a higher conductive silver coin vice a penny, since that seems to be your main target of interest as copper is slightly less conductive than silver.  But, like I said, if your test garden soil is the same as your hunt site, then depth should not be an issue, especially Park 1, which should be the go to silver slayer mode.

Fourth, you say you often get a repeatable signal, but you find nothing in the hole in the field.  That is typically something you also see on salt sand + mineralized sand beaches.  It can also be due to individual hot rocks.  If you are not even finding falsing ferrous junk, like flat iron or bent corroded nails, then something else must be at play.  BTW - does the repeatable signal typically come up with the same Target ID or does it vary across the range?  Is the repeatable signal choppy (indicating that it might be clipped by discrimination or recovery speed setting)?

Fifth, one aspect of your settings also has me scratching my head.  Specifically, you have recovery speed cranked to 8, which greatly limits depth but it also results in the least ground feedback noise primarily because of the sweep speed it forces you to use to acquire a target signal.  What happens when you lower recovery speed?  Are you hearing more ground noise, forcing you to lower sensitivity?  That combination of sensitivity 16 and high recovery speed means you are GREATLY limiting depth.  Why do you say those settings are giving you the best results?  Can you describe the targets you ARE recovering at with those settings and their depth?

All that being said, I will take you word for it that your soil is highly mineralized and has higher than usual amounts of salt content as you seem very knowledgeable about your soil makeup.  So based on the information you provided, primarily the unusual combination of salty black sand like soil,  I am going to make an unusual recommendation for inland hunting.

Specifically, the Equinox has a mode that is set up to "make the best" of the soil situation you describe.   You were almost there by trying Beach 1.  But as you noticed, you needed to run with lower sensitivity for stability.  If your have properly noise cancelled and ground balanced your machine and removed other sources of EMI (e.g., cell phones) then the issue can be the nasty combination of salt and mineralized soil.  The mode best set up to handle that is actually Beach 2.  See if you can run Beach 2 stable at a normal level of sensitivity (i.e., 18 to 22).  What Beach 2 brings to the table is stability under black sand + salinity conditions, but it is not magic and there is no free lunch.  The Beach modes are set up to handle the salinity using the multifrequency signal processing component of Multi IQ (that is why you cannot run beach mode in single frequency).  But unlike Beach 1, Beach 2 provides stability in salt + black sand conditions by sensing the mineralization level (even though it does not display it on a meter) and then dialing back TRANSMIT power accordingly.  The impact is somewhat of a depth hit but you gain a lot of stability which lowers the noise floor enough that the resulting weaker detect signals at least can be heard above the reduced level of chatter.  When the Equinox goes into this reduce transmit power mode, it flashes up a warning symbol on the screen.  Typically, when that warning does appear, it will not disappear unless you are completely away from the source of mineralization.  I wouldn't worry about it though.  Especially if you find it has a beneficial effect on your performance.  The other thing you should do if the mineralization level or Ground Phase reading is highly variable at your sites is to use TRACKING Ground Balance vice periodic manual or auto ground balancing.  This prevents you from having to constantly rebalance and can help smooth out ground phase variations.  So give that a shot in your test garden and on some of your hunts. and see what happens.

Another suggestion, is to use Gold Mode.  Gold Mode does not have tone ID but uses a variable pitch and threshold tone, the combination of which allows it to be very sensitive to small mid conductive targets (I know, not your target of interest), but it tends to punch through mineralization better than the lower frequency weighted modes.  You can use either Gold Mode, not much difference between them except for recovery speed.  I would suggest using Gold 1 with the higher recovery speed and then see if you need to adjust lower or higher to trade off depth for ground noise (MORE DEPTH with a LOWER recovery speed, but the resulting lower sweep speed results in MORE GROUND NOISE, resulting in diminishing returns.  Increase the recovery speed if ground noise is an issue and also try TRACKING ground balance with this mode (which is the default GB mode).

Finally, I would experiment with single frequency.  If EMI is NOT a problem, see what you can do with 5 or 10 khz in your test garden (use Park 1) and see how it compares to Park 1 multi.  Park 1 multi (preferred) or 5 or 10 khz are what you want to use if you are going after DEEP silver.  You can try to go to higher frequencies to punch through the mineralization (at the expense of raw depth on all targets) but frankly I don't think mineralization, per se is your problem, at least not in your test garden based on the depth you are seeing.  Try varying recovery speed too, to see how that affects your test garden signals.

Other less likely possibilities:

Are you sure EMI vice mineralization is NOT the issue or perhaps you might have a faulty Equinox coil/head unit?  Perhaps EMI is low near your test garden resulting in less noise chatter and false signals.  Do you get chatter with your coil in the air AFTER noise cancelling and with default sensitivity, especially in the field.  If so, then either you have an EMI problem or perhaps and equipment problem with the Equinox or Coil, especially if it is intermittent or only happens after you have the Equinox powered on for some time (indicating a possible internal component thermal issue which usually results from a bad component or solder connection).

Your sites are played out.  Silver is one of the easiest targets to cherry pick under ANY conditions and just about any detector,  like your capable, but entry level BH 3300 will find silver.  I suppose you were using the stock concentric coil on your 3300 also, which is also not a coil type that is know for having good depth under mineralized conditions (which along with your test garden results also makes me wonder if your soil is truly highly mineralized).  You recovered A LOT of silver for one year.  I do not believe any area can be truly ever be totally played out (either the targets are deeper than technology can reach today or they are shallow but hiding amongst iron or non-ferrous junk).  Are you still finding silvers with your BH 3300 but not with the Equinox at the same sites?  As I asked previously, what types of targets are you recovering with your Equinox.  You say you can find "anything" with the Equinox, yet you arrive at the settings that give you the  "best results" supposedly because you have manged to recover SOMETHING with the Equinox, plus I cannot explain your good test garden results and your poor field results.  So let us know what type of targets you are managing to recover and at what depth.

Anyway, hope I gave you some food for thought that you might be able to use to diagnose the issue or improve performance with your soil conditions.

 

[steveg]

Bethany,

There is not a lot I can offer, that Chase has not already said.

Two things that confuse me are, 1.  you say you are getting very good depth with a coin buried in your test garden, and 2.  you say you had good luck digging many silver coins with a Bounty Hunter 3300, but not with your Equinox.

These two things seem confusing.  While you may have "hot soil," and you sound pretty certain that you do, if you were digging silver coins in large numbers at 6" deep with your BH 3300, you should be easily able to equal that, at least, with your Equinox.  YES, it's a more sensitive detector, and thus can be more "noisy," but you should be able to run your sensitivity down to a lower level (mid teens), and still equal or exceed the depth capability of your 3300 -- while at the same time, reducing falsing/noise that you are receiving.  I would think that these "solid high tones" you are getting are chunks of iron -- and iron will, of course, often report as high tone several inches away (off to the side) from the actual location of the target.  I suspect that you are hearing nails, etc., that are probably 3-4 inches offset from where you are digging your holes, and that's my guess as to why you are "digging to China" and not finding the target -- it's off to the SIDE of the hole, not deeper down into the hole.  

I would suggest this -- take a silver coin (or your penny) along with you, to one of those sites where you are struggling with high tones that seem to be "ghost" or "phantom" tones.  Then, dig a hole IN THAT DIRT, and bury the coin about 8" deep.  I suspect you will be able to detect this coin.  If so, perhaps this will give you some confidence that even in these sites where you are getting high tones that you can't seem to locate when digging, you will still be able to hear a coin, if there's one there.

Also, I'm curious what you mean, when you say "repeatable" tones.  Do you mean "repeatable" when you swing left-to-right over a target?  OR, do you mean "repeatable" as you rotate your body 360 degrees around the target, sweeping the coil over the target from ALL angles, and listening to how the target reports/changes as you rotate around it?  One big "telltale" sign of iron, is a target that may "sound good" with left and right sweeps from ONE angle, but then the target's tone begins to sound degraded/poor (and often changes in location) when you turn your body 90 degrees and sweep over it.  If you are rotating all the way around the target, while sweeping the coil over it, and you are STILL getting solid, consistent high tones, then there may be something else going on.  But, I suspect that the soil issues you are mentioning are at least somewhat of a "red herring," right now, and that what you are mainly dealing with is ferrous trash, that is "falsing" -- giving you a high tone -- especially when running fairly high sensitivity...

Not sure if this helps any, but that's what I suspect you are dealing with.  If you are getting good depth in your test garden, and had no trouble digging silver with your Bounty Hunter, there is NO REASON that you can't accomplish the same with your Equinox (unless there is something wrong with the unit itself -- which I tend to doubt given the good results from your test garden).

Steve

 

 

[TedinVT]

Great writeups Chase and Steve!  Nice details and nice job.

[NSC]

Personally, if your soil is that hot I would be in Gold mode 1 or 2.

[Chase Goldman]

9 hours ago, NSC said:

Personally, if your soil is that hot I would be in Gold mode 1 or 2.

The answer is not that simple if salt is involved, also.  But it is definitely something that the OP should be experimenting with as I suggested.

[Fskafish]

Wow chase and steve, that was some good reading fellas, doesnt really pertain to me but great info nontheless...and shows what good guysu all are to take the time to go so in depth. Thanks for that

[NSC]

On 3/26/2019 at 11:46 AM, Chase Goldman said:

The answer is not that simple if salt is involved, also.  But it is definitely something that the OP should be experimenting with as I suggested.

still no good in Gold mode ? ...then the OP needs a PI machine IMHO

[Chase Goldman]

3 hours ago, NSC said:

still no good in Gold mode ? ...then the OP needs a PI machine IMHO

Gold mode is unstable in wet salt and mineralized conditions.  OP is reporting beach 1 works best, so I suggested Beach 2 which is designed to handle salt and black sand.  But I suspect Gold mode will actually work fine because we are not talking wet salt conditions and suggested he try that as well.  The OP is coming ftom an entry level BH to an Equinox.  The BH did ok in his area so I don't understand why he is having such a hard time getting Equinox to perform and seriously doubt he needs or is willing to lay out the cash for a PI machine, but we will see how it goes if he ever responds back.

[Noah (FL)]

This is an all too common topic accross all forums not relating to any specific brand.  First time poster that made unprecedented number of silver finds with a beginner model moves to a more in-depth settings model and can’t quite mesh with the machine.  Either the poster figured out how to jive with the machine or it hits the back of the closet until it turns up on eBay in 10 years when they move and have a garage sale.   LOL