Extreme Satisfaction

[Mark Gillespie]

Extreme enjoyment. 

This might not seem like much but this small school (built in the late 30’s) has been hunted for over 10 years.  With machines like the:

Tesoro Tejon

Garrett AT Pro

White’s DFX, V3i

Fisher F75 and LTD

Minelab Etrac, and CTX 3030

And now the Equinox 800

Countless hours hunting from three guys including myself.  Now I will say we’ve found some nice stuff from this site over the past 10 years and we all thought it was cleaned out but surprise, it’s not, yea I know they never are.  But I was not expecting this many nickels and some over 6” deep.  Then the silver nickel at maybe 5” and tilted to maybe a 45 degree angle.  

I will say this machine has a very good audio response but one has to listen and learn.  I did the usual noise cancel and started off with park 1.  I wasn’t really happy so I tried each of the park/field programs and ended back with park 1 with one change, I set the iron bias to 0.  It didn’t take long and I knew this was the settings for the day.  Numerous times I tried park 2 and the two field programs but it seemed like park 1 was the very best at both a good audio and stable ID on located buried targets.  After a while I started wondering why these targets had been missed.  Taking my time, I stared rotating around each target and I was quite amazed at how stable the audio/ID was.  These were absolutely dig, dig signals, no doubts about it, with the exception of the silver nickel.  If the silver had not given a double beep I might have walked away but I’m glad I didn’t.  Well, toward the end of the hunt I purposely moved to the trashy area of the school and wow this machine, even with the 11” coil separates very well.  I might add, the old Minelab wiggle I used with the Etac and explorer works with the Equinox too.  Found a somewhat nice signal that I thought might be a nickel.  Did the wiggle and marked the spot.  Called my buddy over to check the spot.  He gave no indication it could be a good target but at 5” comes another nickel (gave a solid ID of 13) and surrounded by heavy trash.   Well, we had to leave and to be honest I felt sorry for him because he had not dug anything but trash.  Now I’m beginning to wonder if I should buy the 6” coil and hit the trash again.

Extremely satisfied  user

 

 

 

 

[Tometusns]

Good job Mark!

  From what I've found so far is the 6" coil will probably pic out some more targets but the 11" coil doesn't miss much.. lol. But for certain the 6" is one to have. It's super easy to find targets with it. My son and I were hunting a really trashy yard. He found a target that he really had to work for with his Etrac (8"sun ray coil) and had me come over and see if I could hit it. The Equinox saw it right off. First time over the target and bam there it was. We both removed or head phones and he showed me how he had to really work the target to find it. I swung over it several times with the Equinox and when he saw how easy it was to find he said I'm getting one of those. Lol.

When you wiggle do you wiggle off the target? I call it hunting off the front of the coil. I rarely use pin point unless it's deep... no need to using that method. Sounds like the Equinox is treating you right. HH! Tom

[Mark Gillespie]

The wiggle is defined by:

 I find the target and kind of hover the coil over the center of where I think it is.  You don't have to move the coil much, maybe 3-4" left and right, not real slow but fairly quick.  I use the front of the coil many times on targets that are not super deep.  Real neat how that works.  I had never really given the wiggle technic much a chance until yesterday.

 

 

 

[Happa54]

Good post Mark

I find Park 1 to be the best mode for me too. Learned the FBS waggle from A Sabich Safari handbook and use it on all targets. I use to use a 6" coil on my FBS and it is excellent in the trash. But, the 11" stock coil is awesome too and I stay with it on all my hunts. The one thing I like about the waggle is that those initial faint squeaks become magnified after a couple of seconds of waggling through the target. I've pulled many deep faint squeakers from the dirt this way. 

[steveg]

Mark --

 

Very good post.  I agree with you and Happa -- I like Park 1, and YES -- the Minelab wiggle WORKS with the Equinox.  It's so ingrained in me from all those years using FBS machines, that I just naturally did the same, with the Equinox.  Absolutely a HUGE tool, with this machine, as it is with FBS...

 

Steve

[groundscanner]

Great finds!

[kac]

Nice finds, maybe the new machine and new sounds got you looking a little closer than before. Bigger coil does increase your chase as your more likely to overlap your swings.

I constantly find stuff in the local park, some too deep to dig without getting kicked out. I noticed when using larger coils, just like you mentioned the shorter swipes over help the machine to focus on the smaller area. 

[Guest Tnsharpshooter]

Nice finds.

There is a good chance some of those nickels were heard when the CTX and Etrac were in there.  One problem.  The ID given in error.  Nox ID on nickel -  Takes more iron to make  it hiccup and give bogus ID.

[Mark Gillespie]

That is a valid point and yes it is very likely most of the machines detected the same targets.  The ground in this area is littered with burnt coal waste and tends to skews the received signal.  But one thing I can say about the Equinox, it has the most accurate ID of any machine I've ever had.  It is amazing how good this machine actually is. 

[NCtoad]

On 4/8/2019 at 12:35 PM, Happa54 said:

Good post Mark

I find Park 1 to be the best mode for me too. Learned the FBS waggle from A Sabich Safari handbook and use it on all targets. I use to use a 6" coil on my FBS and it is excellent in the trash. But, the 11" stock coil is awesome too and I stay with it on all my hunts. The one thing I like about the waggle is that those initial faint squeaks become magnified after a couple of seconds of waggling through the target. I've pulled many deep faint squeakers from the dirt this way. 

This.  The nox just seems to home in with the wiggle if you catch that good tone on your regular swing.  I don't how many times I hear just a bit of a high tone and then go back to investigate while wiggling the coil and after a few seconds that signal gets clearer and clearer and I just know to dig.