longbow62: said:
I am 100% all in on the Equinox. I like it so much I have 2 800's.
My biggest gripe is how susceptible it is to EMI. Some of my best spots have EMI so bad I have to turn the Nox down to like 15. I used to run a Nokta Impact in 14kHz as my main detector before I got the Nox and it had EMI issues also, but I don't remember it being quite as bad.
How many other people with the Equinox notice EMI is worse on it more than other detectors they use?
I'm with you when it comes to liking some models enough to own more than one. Currently I have two Silver Sabre
microMAX, two Bandido II
microMAX and three Apex devices. I've owned 2-or-more of some individual models most of the time over the past 30+ years. On occasion it was simply to have a good 'back-up' on-hand. Most of the time it was to keep a different search coil mounted on matching detectors so I simply grabbed what I wanted to use when I reached a hunt site.
As for EMI, in over five decades of detecting I have experienced more EMI issues in the more recent years, like maybe the past twenty. We have more detectors that operate with a higher gain and run more "on-the-edge" of stability, and we also have a lot more electronic equipment we carry or electrical devices in use, and many of those also seem to be generating more transmission power. All of this can cause issues with some detectors.
Location plays a big role due to outside EMI sources. Then the particular detector and / or search coil can cause an issue. Over time, I've noticed that often, not always but often, a larger-size coil can have more EMI issues and a simple coil swap at the time reduces or eliminates the problem. Frequencies used can cause or be more susceptible to EMI than a different frequency.
Then there are the surprises we have. I always tote 2 or more detectors with me, most often keeping 4 or 5 detectors in my vehicle full-time. I was hunting some major sidewalk renovation in the heart of downtown Portland Oregon on a busy weekday about 9 years ago. I grabbed my 6.
59 kHz White's XLT w/6½" Concentric coil and hunted two sides of the large structure's sidewalk finding Indian Head Pennies, two 'V' Nickels and an 1800's Seated Liberty Dime. I was having a good day, but a lot of the churned-up sidewalk area had a lot of rocks, and big dirt clumps.
I didn't have the slightest issue with my XLT & 6½" coil operating at almost full Sensitivity in the middle of a weekday with a lot of electrical activity going on all around me.
I took a break to check my blood sugars and ease my back pain at my vehicle and'Ofigured I might want to work my modified 6.
59 kHz White's IDX Pro also with a 6½" Concentric coil to take advantage of the slow-motion sweep and quick-response / fast-recovery design. I got almost across the street and turned on the IDX Pro and it was a terrible noisy racket in my headphones!
I got to the torn-up sidewalk where I had been recovering old coins and the detector was absolutely unworkable. I had a comparable Discrimination rejection point as I used on my XLT, but even reducing the Sensitivity to minimum did not eliminate the noisy EMI behavior.
Did some power-causing thing get started up to bring me such annoyance? Should I just go home and return on a quiet weekend?
I returned to my vehicle and swapped back for the XLT again, anticipating some new source of interference. None! I resumed hunting the sidewalk area and finding more coins from the 1885 to 1906 era.. Same brand. Same operating frequency. Same search coil. Different case of interference.
It's another reason I also keep two or three different brands in my outfit because there can be a difference. A year ago I bought a Minelab Equinox 800 w/6" DD coil. I wanted to see what I thought of it and it okay, but performance wise it didn't do anything to replace a few proven performers in my detector group. One I had at the time was a Minelab Vanquish 540 Pro Pack, giving me both a 5X8 DD and 9X12 DD.
Both operating in their Multi-IQ function, and using the 6" and 11" round DD coils to compare with the V-540 and it's two coils, I selected a local city area and hunted around the picnic bowery close to some power poles. Naturally for a fair comparison I wanted to use comparable settings between the two and, as always, I ran the Vanquish 540 at full Sensitivity with only the first two Disc. segments rejected. It is Multi-IQ only and worked smoothly, providing good clean signals and very acceptable coin depth.
The Equinox 800 was set-up with comparable settings, and I checked out both search coils, and I also used it in Multi-IQ for comparison. Most places it worked fine, but comparing the two at the park I noted the '800' was a little EMI noisy. I had to reduce the Sensitivity quite a bit to get to a point of stability and, when I did, with comparable settings, the V-540 was a wee bit better when it came to coin depth and accurate or stable Target ID.
This great sport can get interesting, too. because I am now moving to a new town in a new state and I am totally unfamiliar with any of the 'local' and unknown sources of potential EMI. So far, however, I've been lucky. I always run at full Sensitivity with any detector and only reduce it if there is a noise challenge, and then just to the point of gaining stability. So far, even though it's only been about two weeks, I haven't had a single EMI issue regardless of where I have hunted around town, or in neighboring Abilene.
So, while I do not currently own n Equinox, I will say that when I did, I found it to behave reasonably well except for perhaps three locations, and that's not really too different from assessing the behavior of any detector. Circuitry design and shielding, coil choice, settings used, operating frequency, search coil size and type. They all play a factor, and we can't ignore 'site selection' either.
Monte
