maxxkatt
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Congratulations on your Purchase of the Equalnox 899 metal detector.
Metal detecting is a fascinating and rewarding activity enjoyed by people all over the world. We have developed the 899 with the sensitivity needed to allow the user to politically correct discriminate between the noble and base metals misplaced by their former owners lost and buried in the ground.
The Equalnox 899 has many fascinating features not found on other detectors. It will make all other VLF detectors obsolete that don’t have these features. It also might cause the owner become totally bonkers before mastering the 899.
This guide is written for the novice metal detectorist.
How a metal Detector works:
The metal detector sends an electronic shock down into the ground and excites the ferrous and non-ferrous metals. The shock to the base metals iron and steel upsets those metals the most and they give out a low groaning or grunting sound if you have the horses’ shoe button pressed. These base metals really get upset when you shock them, and you should not dig them and just leave them in the ground.
The noble metals like gold and silver give more pleasant sounds when you shock them, more like a high giggle. But don’t ever mistake this for a sign that they wish to come out of the ground. No, they are very elusive metals and will use every trick in the book to stay hidden from your efforts.
On the flip side, the base metals with iron often like to trick you into digging them by giving off a high pitched giggle sound to fake you out. This is because they don’t like to stay buried and be shocked by another detectorist looking for the noble metals. Base metals like rusted iron will go to great lengths to confuse you. Don’t be fooled by the sweet angelic halos that rusted iron can project. Learn that rusted iron is the devil not the angel it pretends to be.
Coils:
There are the double DD’s which most real detectorists prefer. We have the concentric coil which presents a smaller search pattern and it is well acknowledged that the big DD’s are better than the small concentric coils.
There is the 6” coil that is useful for those who don’t like to walk a lot or dig deep holes. Then comes the mother of all Equalnox coils the 15” incher. This is for those who like to walk a lot and dig really deep holes and liked to be seen swinging a big coil. It is especially impressive when you are beach hunting.
Gound Balancing your Detector:
It is important to ground balance your detector or else your arms and wrist will get tired. You do this by placing the detector flat on the ground with the Equalnox 899 handle perpendicular to the earth’s surface. Let it stand on its own for about 30 seconds. You must ground balance each time you walk on uneven ground like small hills or depressions. When you are detecting on the beach that slopes down towards the ocean, you need to put it in auto ground balance mode.
Sensitivity:
This is the one of the most important settings on you Equalnox 899. It determines how much you wish to shock the metal objects. If you are getting upset with finding lots of square pull tabs, ring pulls and can slaw you might wish to turn the sensitivity down to keep you from getting so upset.
Noise Cancel:
This setting is very helpful when you are getting tired of your hunting partner bragging about all of his great finds. Simply turn the volume setting up to 25, (be sure to disconnect your headphones) and walk over to your braggadocious partner and press noise cancel 3-4 times. Do not do this if your hunting partner is your wife or girlfriend.
Horse Shoe Button:
If you are ready to subject yourself to some abuse turn your volume up to 25 and press this button and try hunting for about 10 minutes. We find that 10 minutes is a sufficient length of time, but for some others they might require 20 minutes of this particular form of abuse. It is a regional setting, those in CA and NY and NJ may require more than 20 minutes. We find those in the gentle southern regions of the US can only tolerate 8 minutes.
Threshold level:
By turning the volume up to the 25 mark and gradually increasing the threshold level will determine what level of abuse you are capable of enduring. Using your headphones will help you find this level quicker.
Depth Indicator:
This is how we design in some humor to the Equalnox 899. We found that by letting it indicate 2 bars for surface targets is a great joke to play on the user of the 899.
Notch Discrimination setting:
This is used when you really get mad at certain metals. We find that most users will eventually get mad at square pop tops, ring pulls, lead weights, can slaw, modern pennies, crumpled pieces of foil and really mad at rusted iron nails. But be careful with rusted iron nails and rusted bottle caps, they can also pretend to be silver coins. The same is true of aluminum screw caps, they are the best at pretending to be silver coins.
TID or visual display:
We designed this display with a very compress range of numbers to allow you to develop real good hearing skills since you will need them. We also designed TID range so the numbers jump around a lot to help develop your eyes.
Battery Indicator:
The battery indicator usually indicates 70% to 100% when you are finding the less desired targets. However, it tends to drop down to less than 5% or your detector powers off when you are starting to find some decent finds.
Detecting Modes:
The 899 offers you eight different preset detecting modes. This was done this out of pity for the 899 users who are newbies so they don’t have to be bothered about learning how to use the 899’s advance features. For those who like to be punished we encourage you to try and learn all of the 899’s advance settings. Note: We even offer the Equalnox 699 for the same reason at a lower price because we don’t offer that level of abuse on the 699. These detect modes are further explained below:
Detect Modes:
Here are our some of our best features for the Equalnox 899. We give them simple labels for the different modes. You only wish to find coins, then select park 1. Fine Jewelry then park 2. Coins and rare artifacts go for field 1. Even better coins and rare artifacts jump to field 2. Beach is a killer. If you are afraid of the water, select beach 1. Don’t mind getting wet then go for beach 2. The gold modes are a hoot. Normal ground (you will never use this) select gold1. Difficult ground (the only kind) is your default setting.
These modes were designed to at least give the novice a little hope in their ability to use this detector and actually find some rings or coins. Of course the rings are likely to not be gold or silver and the same for the coins.
User Button:
This is kind of an emergency calming button. When you get totally confused with all of the 899’s features you can select one of the six detecting modes and dumb it down even more and store it in the user button. So when you have reached your breaking point out in the field in the 95 degree heat, insects, rock hard ground and your search area full of less noble metals you can quickly press this User button to calm your nerves and the 899 will calm down and not sound like it is a room full of cats getting their tails stepped on. Another emergency calming button is to press the power button and turn off the 899.
Target Tone:
This depends on how you feel that day. Feeling like you really understand metal detecting in general and the 899 in particular then set it for 50. If that freaks you out, then dial it back to 5 or even 2 or 1 for beep and dig mode.
Target Pitch:
If you are excited about your hunt today then increase the target pitch. If you are not feeling so great, then decrease your pitch.
Tone Breaks:
This is closely related to other abuse settings. If you want more punishment on a particular hunt, then trying setting up some tone breaks.
Recovery Speed:
When you first start out hunting increase this speed. As you get tired, reduce this speed for a while and then you may be able to increase it in about 15 minutes. This is an age adjusted feature, if you are older or your knees are weak you may want to start your hunt with a lower recovery speed.
Iron Bias:
This is one of the most politically correct feature on the Equalnox 899. Set the iron bias on a high level if you don’t like the base metal iron. But this will piss off the noble metal silver and cause silver object go to great lengths to hide from you. We suggest a setting of about 4 to not upset the silver objects so much and give you a better chance of sneaking up on them.
Tracking:
Turn this on when you are not finding any of the noble metals. It will automatically follow those elusive objects as they seem to move away from under your coil. Our designers are not sure how these noble metals actually move under the ground and away from your coil, but I swear the do. Our designers think the noble metals can sense the electric shocks from about 2 feet away and move away from your coil. Actual user statistics back this theory up since most detectorists recover about 99% junk targets compared to less than 1% noble targets like silver and gold rings and coins.
If for some reason you are fatigued at digging gold and silver coins and rings, turn off tracking to give yourself a break.
PinPointing:
This is where the fun begins. Pinpointing with a metal detector is more of an art than a science. Remember noble metals like to move around and some even disappear outright. But we gave you a pinpointing button to make metal detecting more fun. It is much like the pedestrian cross walk button. People are fooled into thinking that it actually stops the flow of traffic just for one person.
In the pinpoint mode it gives you a pleasant screeching sound like stepping on a cat’s tail. The louder the screech, supposedly you are getting closer to the actual target. You will be surprised that after you dig a 9” hole in hard dirt, rocks and roots that the target has either disappeared or move to the left or the right. Sometimes they even magically change into rusted iron nails. More often than not, they are under rocks and thick roots. Noble metals are good at hiding as well as moving.
But pinpoints makes the game fun for the user. It give you an illusion of being able to accurately locate in the ground where to dig.
Frequency:
This option is used for how fast you wish to allow your detector to work. If you feel really kind today, put it on 5kh. If you really wish to drive the heck out of your detector put it on 40Kh. If you wish to allow your detector decide by itself how fast it feels like working put it on multi.
Disclaimer:
This is only a parody. The writer of this parody (me) owns an Equinox 800 and loves it. Me thinks it is one of the best detectors on the market for the price.
Metal detecting is a fascinating and rewarding activity enjoyed by people all over the world. We have developed the 899 with the sensitivity needed to allow the user to politically correct discriminate between the noble and base metals misplaced by their former owners lost and buried in the ground.
The Equalnox 899 has many fascinating features not found on other detectors. It will make all other VLF detectors obsolete that don’t have these features. It also might cause the owner become totally bonkers before mastering the 899.
This guide is written for the novice metal detectorist.
How a metal Detector works:
The metal detector sends an electronic shock down into the ground and excites the ferrous and non-ferrous metals. The shock to the base metals iron and steel upsets those metals the most and they give out a low groaning or grunting sound if you have the horses’ shoe button pressed. These base metals really get upset when you shock them, and you should not dig them and just leave them in the ground.
The noble metals like gold and silver give more pleasant sounds when you shock them, more like a high giggle. But don’t ever mistake this for a sign that they wish to come out of the ground. No, they are very elusive metals and will use every trick in the book to stay hidden from your efforts.
On the flip side, the base metals with iron often like to trick you into digging them by giving off a high pitched giggle sound to fake you out. This is because they don’t like to stay buried and be shocked by another detectorist looking for the noble metals. Base metals like rusted iron will go to great lengths to confuse you. Don’t be fooled by the sweet angelic halos that rusted iron can project. Learn that rusted iron is the devil not the angel it pretends to be.
Coils:
There are the double DD’s which most real detectorists prefer. We have the concentric coil which presents a smaller search pattern and it is well acknowledged that the big DD’s are better than the small concentric coils.
There is the 6” coil that is useful for those who don’t like to walk a lot or dig deep holes. Then comes the mother of all Equalnox coils the 15” incher. This is for those who like to walk a lot and dig really deep holes and liked to be seen swinging a big coil. It is especially impressive when you are beach hunting.
Gound Balancing your Detector:
It is important to ground balance your detector or else your arms and wrist will get tired. You do this by placing the detector flat on the ground with the Equalnox 899 handle perpendicular to the earth’s surface. Let it stand on its own for about 30 seconds. You must ground balance each time you walk on uneven ground like small hills or depressions. When you are detecting on the beach that slopes down towards the ocean, you need to put it in auto ground balance mode.
Sensitivity:
This is the one of the most important settings on you Equalnox 899. It determines how much you wish to shock the metal objects. If you are getting upset with finding lots of square pull tabs, ring pulls and can slaw you might wish to turn the sensitivity down to keep you from getting so upset.
Noise Cancel:
This setting is very helpful when you are getting tired of your hunting partner bragging about all of his great finds. Simply turn the volume setting up to 25, (be sure to disconnect your headphones) and walk over to your braggadocious partner and press noise cancel 3-4 times. Do not do this if your hunting partner is your wife or girlfriend.
Horse Shoe Button:
If you are ready to subject yourself to some abuse turn your volume up to 25 and press this button and try hunting for about 10 minutes. We find that 10 minutes is a sufficient length of time, but for some others they might require 20 minutes of this particular form of abuse. It is a regional setting, those in CA and NY and NJ may require more than 20 minutes. We find those in the gentle southern regions of the US can only tolerate 8 minutes.
Threshold level:
By turning the volume up to the 25 mark and gradually increasing the threshold level will determine what level of abuse you are capable of enduring. Using your headphones will help you find this level quicker.
Depth Indicator:
This is how we design in some humor to the Equalnox 899. We found that by letting it indicate 2 bars for surface targets is a great joke to play on the user of the 899.
Notch Discrimination setting:
This is used when you really get mad at certain metals. We find that most users will eventually get mad at square pop tops, ring pulls, lead weights, can slaw, modern pennies, crumpled pieces of foil and really mad at rusted iron nails. But be careful with rusted iron nails and rusted bottle caps, they can also pretend to be silver coins. The same is true of aluminum screw caps, they are the best at pretending to be silver coins.
TID or visual display:
We designed this display with a very compress range of numbers to allow you to develop real good hearing skills since you will need them. We also designed TID range so the numbers jump around a lot to help develop your eyes.
Battery Indicator:
The battery indicator usually indicates 70% to 100% when you are finding the less desired targets. However, it tends to drop down to less than 5% or your detector powers off when you are starting to find some decent finds.
Detecting Modes:
The 899 offers you eight different preset detecting modes. This was done this out of pity for the 899 users who are newbies so they don’t have to be bothered about learning how to use the 899’s advance features. For those who like to be punished we encourage you to try and learn all of the 899’s advance settings. Note: We even offer the Equalnox 699 for the same reason at a lower price because we don’t offer that level of abuse on the 699. These detect modes are further explained below:
Detect Modes:
Here are our some of our best features for the Equalnox 899. We give them simple labels for the different modes. You only wish to find coins, then select park 1. Fine Jewelry then park 2. Coins and rare artifacts go for field 1. Even better coins and rare artifacts jump to field 2. Beach is a killer. If you are afraid of the water, select beach 1. Don’t mind getting wet then go for beach 2. The gold modes are a hoot. Normal ground (you will never use this) select gold1. Difficult ground (the only kind) is your default setting.
These modes were designed to at least give the novice a little hope in their ability to use this detector and actually find some rings or coins. Of course the rings are likely to not be gold or silver and the same for the coins.
User Button:
This is kind of an emergency calming button. When you get totally confused with all of the 899’s features you can select one of the six detecting modes and dumb it down even more and store it in the user button. So when you have reached your breaking point out in the field in the 95 degree heat, insects, rock hard ground and your search area full of less noble metals you can quickly press this User button to calm your nerves and the 899 will calm down and not sound like it is a room full of cats getting their tails stepped on. Another emergency calming button is to press the power button and turn off the 899.
Target Tone:
This depends on how you feel that day. Feeling like you really understand metal detecting in general and the 899 in particular then set it for 50. If that freaks you out, then dial it back to 5 or even 2 or 1 for beep and dig mode.
Target Pitch:
If you are excited about your hunt today then increase the target pitch. If you are not feeling so great, then decrease your pitch.
Tone Breaks:
This is closely related to other abuse settings. If you want more punishment on a particular hunt, then trying setting up some tone breaks.
Recovery Speed:
When you first start out hunting increase this speed. As you get tired, reduce this speed for a while and then you may be able to increase it in about 15 minutes. This is an age adjusted feature, if you are older or your knees are weak you may want to start your hunt with a lower recovery speed.
Iron Bias:
This is one of the most politically correct feature on the Equalnox 899. Set the iron bias on a high level if you don’t like the base metal iron. But this will piss off the noble metal silver and cause silver object go to great lengths to hide from you. We suggest a setting of about 4 to not upset the silver objects so much and give you a better chance of sneaking up on them.
Tracking:
Turn this on when you are not finding any of the noble metals. It will automatically follow those elusive objects as they seem to move away from under your coil. Our designers are not sure how these noble metals actually move under the ground and away from your coil, but I swear the do. Our designers think the noble metals can sense the electric shocks from about 2 feet away and move away from your coil. Actual user statistics back this theory up since most detectorists recover about 99% junk targets compared to less than 1% noble targets like silver and gold rings and coins.
If for some reason you are fatigued at digging gold and silver coins and rings, turn off tracking to give yourself a break.
PinPointing:
This is where the fun begins. Pinpointing with a metal detector is more of an art than a science. Remember noble metals like to move around and some even disappear outright. But we gave you a pinpointing button to make metal detecting more fun. It is much like the pedestrian cross walk button. People are fooled into thinking that it actually stops the flow of traffic just for one person.
In the pinpoint mode it gives you a pleasant screeching sound like stepping on a cat’s tail. The louder the screech, supposedly you are getting closer to the actual target. You will be surprised that after you dig a 9” hole in hard dirt, rocks and roots that the target has either disappeared or move to the left or the right. Sometimes they even magically change into rusted iron nails. More often than not, they are under rocks and thick roots. Noble metals are good at hiding as well as moving.
But pinpoints makes the game fun for the user. It give you an illusion of being able to accurately locate in the ground where to dig.
Frequency:
This option is used for how fast you wish to allow your detector to work. If you feel really kind today, put it on 5kh. If you really wish to drive the heck out of your detector put it on 40Kh. If you wish to allow your detector decide by itself how fast it feels like working put it on multi.
Disclaimer:
This is only a parody. The writer of this parody (me) owns an Equinox 800 and loves it. Me thinks it is one of the best detectors on the market for the price.
Last edited:
anyone got a link for the equalnox? 
any one got a spare equinox for sale ? 
Have you been taking lessons from Mud Pup? Very good.
