Another Equinox First Beach Hunt Experience

goodmore

Forum Supporter
Joined
Jun 10, 2009
Messages
3,245
Location
PA
A buddy and I went to Atlantic City for a day of beach hunting. Well it turned into about 5 hrs of hunting. We hunted right in front of two large Casinos where it can be a challenge because of Iron.

The Bad about the Nox 600

I hunted mostly in the wash between wet sand and rolling water. The Equinox requires two different settings to do this. Beach 1 and 2. Or I suppose you could just turn down the Sensitivity in Beach 1 and stay there. But in the wet sand I want Deep! While hunting with any BBS unit you don't normally have to make any adjustments between the two.

In the dry sand the Equinox is worthless. Just too many bottle caps and too much trash. My buddy only hunts the dry sand with his Sovereign. We would get together for communication every so often. He has a Sovereign and skips the caps with ease. I was there for 20 min and dug 7.

The good.......
In the wet sand the Equinox was just awesome. Target ID was flawless. I was there for a limited time and did pass up penny signals at the end. Probably about twenty of them are there waiting. This detector is deep for using an 11 inch coil. I ran Sensitivity at 20. I am new to the Nox and I just wanted stability. As long as I stayed in the water or on the wet sand stability was not an issue. Only transitioning between the two. When that VDI number comes in low and locks on from two directions you know it is something unique and needs to be dug.

The Nox hit a chain in the lower right of the pic. I think it is low K gold, but it is broken and any stamp is gone. But the chain was found just like it looks now. Not curled up. No bigger link. The 600 hit it about 5 inches.

A small 14 k ring down at the bottom is beside a dime for comparison of size. The Nox hit this ring at least 8 inches deep. It is a very thin band and it is stamped. I thought it was junk until I saw a name engraved in it.

Junk bling, a bunch of clad, and an official dog tag from one of our young men serving.

1 22 casing which I swear was deep as heck. I was quite impressed with that so I left it in the pic.


Over all Nox opinion......I think the 600 is a very nice detector for the price. I am new to it, but I am very experienced at sand hunting which is why I bought it. It is a pleasure to swing and just a pleasure to use compared to strapping on a chest mounted Sovereign or using an Excal. I naturally compared my experience mentally with using my BBS units. It does a few things better like hitting that chain. I think the BBS units would have missed it. Also the recovery between the iron. I hunted in all metal and could here the iron. In the wet sand I saw nothing a CTX can do that an Equinox 600 can not do. Back and forth in the surf and dry sand a different story.

I want to love it and go to a new updated arsenal and get rid of the clunky equipment, but the Nox just isn't there yet. It needs a good update to deal with bottle caps. Yes you do get a little scratch with them, but not enough to be sure. Especially on a beach.

One shout out to Tony Eisenhower and his MSA waterproof headphones. I had the volume up all the way on the the Nox. I had the threshold up. These headphones worked fine on those settings, and this beach was loud including music from a guy with a homemade entertainment system on wheels.

I had fun on the beach. My buddy had fun in the Casino. Can't wait to do it again.
 

Attachments

  • 1534610016901.jpg
    1534610016901.jpg
    37.8 KB · Views: 399
Last edited:
Good hunting...congrats.

I think that calling the Equinox "worthless" in the dry sand is a bit exaggerated.

Matt.

Sent from my LG-H870 using Tapatalk
 
Compared to other multi frequency beach detectors the Nox is very bad at identifying bottle caps. A person that just wants to detect dry sand would be better off using quite a few single frequency detectors before the Nox. It is all about time and effort. Digging bottle caps is a tremendous waste of both.
 
:dingding: Congrats on the yellow! I've been out quite a few times with my 'Nox and I'm still figuring out its language.

...I was there for a limited time and did pass up penny signals at the end. Probably about twenty of them are there waiting....
 

Attachments

  • Funny-omg-cat-h3.jpg
    Funny-omg-cat-h3.jpg
    56.3 KB · Views: 345
I agree bottle caps can be a pain...... but im a beach hunter. Im in and out of the water so i need a multi freq machine to do it right. Its not the best choice for the dry sand..... but its a good choice over all. Ive had enough time on the machine now i can pretty well tell a shallow bottle cap..... but its odd how you go .... darn bottle cap everytime you go over one..... where as with the CTX you just look and keep walking. You do in fact notice every little piece of trash.... that with other machines you mentally dismiss. Its a hard machine to put down.... and i have to admit in a way it improves your hunting expecially in the water and wet sand because you really focus. Part of that is ..... its chatty so you check more targets with a second swing. So .... its a bit of a time waster...... or is it?

Good hunt....... nice digs.
 
Great finds and for the honest first impression report! This rig is gonna take some getting used to...and you are an experienced 'Labber Hunter...I am encouraged with your results and also with your thoughts regarding the function...Thanks for the post Goody!...
 
I agree bottle caps can be a pain...... but im a beach hunter. Im in and out of the water so i need a multi freq machine to do it right. Its not the best choice for the dry sand..... but its a good choice over all. Ive had enough time on the machine now i can pretty well tell a shallow bottle cap..... but its odd how you go .... darn bottle cap everytime you go over one..... where as with the CTX you just look and keep walking. You do in fact notice every little piece of trash.... that with other machines you mentally dismiss. Its a hard machine to put down.... and i have to admit in a way it improves your hunting expecially in the water and wet sand because you really focus. Part of that is ..... its chatty so you check more targets with a second swing. So .... its a bit of a time waster...... or is it?

Good hunt....... nice digs.


I do like it. I don't want to leave it at home. I'm hoping with more experience and tips from this Forum it becomes great to use. I clearly admitt I need to spend more time with it. I have a night hunt coming up. Until then maybe some dirt digging. And one thing I forgot to mention is the scoop I was using. For some reason of stupidity I took the dry sand basket scoop on this trip. A 5 inch basket that you can push with your foot. A very bad choice for the splash zone. I did give up on a few nice signals. And one man from India, turbin and all watched me dig a few targets from the wet including the ring. He called gold before I even saw it myself. It just made me laugh. The man knows yellow.
 
I was down there for the air show. Beaches were jammed, surf very rough. All I kept thinking was I should have brought my nox down with me and hit the beach after the show. I'm sure it was full of trash after that crowd but who knows what that surf would have given up. Still haven't been able to get out with my new nox. Maybe in a few weeks..
 
I noticed the same thing with bottle caps(steel), rusty can read 13 14 and new 15 to 20? I think.
Anyway I love my 800 and am digging everything at the beach.
Hope to get a gold chain at 1 or 2 someday.
 
I noticed the same thing with bottle caps(steel), rusty can read 13 14 and new 15 to 20? I think.
Anyway I love my 800 and am digging everything at the beach.
Hope to get a gold chain at 1 or 2 someday.
Hell yeah[emoji16]

Sent from my LG-H870 using Tapatalk
 
Back
Top Bottom