Equinox 800 first day of hunting and thoughts so far. UPDATE 2nd hunt

Detector said:

Good review detectorben, and could reflect my observations, so far, pretty close with a few exceptions.

The site: Of course I took the Equinox to the city park where all my live tests begin. 130+ year old park that was once a camping site on the Santa Fe Trail pre 1870's. Its use goes back to 1541 when Coronado crossed and camped at the site and records show it as an ancient trail crossing used even pre-Coronado by the local Indians. A well known stopping/Camping site used since, and by, William Becknell, thought of as the" Father of the Santa Fe Trail" when he was led to cross this ancient crossing in 1821. Sitting along side the Arkansas River it was also the site of one of only two documented authentic bull fights in North America. In fact the Park, Wright Park, was established to hold this world famous buff fight in 1883. Having see floods roughly every 30-40 years which deposited 3"-6" of soil on whatever lay on the ground, the coins are very deep in spots. Some an easy 24" deep just sine the 1930's.

As already has been said the Equinox is a dream to swing. I would say it rivals the Deus, but the Deus has the better feel. Now this is where our experiences start to drift. Perhaps just the difference in soil? I ran in both Park 1 & 2. I have roughly 7 years on the E-Trac and 2 on the CTX. I still remain undecided on a depth comparison, but it was plain to see, unfortunately, the coins weren't going to just jump out for the Equinox. So the hopes of the new Multi-IQ making old site spring to life is less likely at this point. As I said, I still remain undecided because I did feel the potential was there and maybe I just didn't have it dialed in yet,

I did feel the Target ID was better than the E-Trac and more inline with the CTX. For example on the nickles. When my NOX hit 13 and stayed there it was a nickle. All my pull tabs, square and round were a solid 15-16. It made not digging pull tabs a breeze in my experience. Lots of tones from locations that were silent with the E-Trac/CTX. Time will tell if that is good or bad. I didn't have a lot of time. Two hernias repaired on Thursday and I was out swinging on Saturday.

Love the headphone! Of course the Deus spoiled me on Wireless and the NOX phones were right there. Hit a few tot lots and it didn't take long to see It fit my needs for a tot lot detector. This could be the one to thin my heard but I need more time.

All in all very happy with the results.

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jerr-man said:

Good post Ben, Thank You. Keep us in the loop on your observations.

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detectorben said:

Ok guys I got out today for my 2nd hunt with the Equinox so I wanted to do an update. Nothing earth shattering yet. I did find 3 wheat pennies and a silver earing. I don't believe they were anything I would not have found with my Etrac if I got the coil over them. I did focus on high trash and high traffic areas of the park. The Nox does have very good target separation with the stock coil. I still have not seen anything that my Etrac couldn't do with the 6 inch coiltek coil on it though. That being said it is nice to have that kind of separation and depth with the stock coil. With the Etrac I would have had to switch coils to hit that area and find those coins most likely.

I did dig far less trash this time out including only 4 bottle caps that still fooled me with nice tone and VDI. I still observed very jumpy VDI on any coins deeper than about 2 inches. The wheat pennies were bouncing between 22-30 on VDI numbers no matter what settings I tried. I was running recovery speed of 6 or 7 most of the time and sensitivity around 21-23 adjusting as I went. I tried every detecting mode and I tried all 8 recovery speeds and adjusting sensitivity on many targets and VDI was always bouncing around at least 3 or 4 numbers and often more like 8 or 10. It did seem that any clean sounding signal above 22 VDI turned out to be a good target. I checked all good sounding targets in all metal mode as well to check for iron and VDI changes. That helped me avoid bottle caps.

I have not dug a lot of very deep targets yet but so far it seems the Nox performs very similar to my Etrac without the solid target ID. It has some advantages obviously over my Etrac due to the fact that it is cheaper, has wireless phones, waterproof, and super light and easy to swing. My thoughts have not changed much since the first hunt but I wanted to do a quick recap for everyone.

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tnsharpshooter said:

Nice report.
Next time put your small coil on Etrac and see if you can hit the coins.
You might be surprised on some of them.
Won't go into details why, here.

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detectorben said:

I would but I just shipped it out coils and all to its new owner today. I have its big brother CTX on the way![emoji16]

I plan on taking the CTX out with the Nox next trip to do some comparisons. I really like the Nox but I am pretty sure the CTX will be my coin shooting machine like the Etrac was.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

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detectorben said:

I would but I just shipped it out coils and all to its new owner today. I have its big brother CTX on the way![emoji16]

I plan on taking the CTX out with the Nox next trip to do some comparisons. I really like the Nox but I am pretty sure the CTX will be my coin shooting machine like the Etrac was.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

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tnsharpshooter said:

I think I Saw where you traded.
I got myself another Etrac.
Traded one of my deus for.
For hunting a little and doing some testing.

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Coin Operated said:

The more info I get about the Nox the more I am cooling off about it.

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