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Emwonk said:
I was very happy with my new Equinox 800 on the first hunt. A silver quarter showed up nice and clear at 33 or so.
But the second hunt at a civil-war-era home was very disappointing. The chatter was non stop in park 1 and a bit better in park 2. But the chatter is unworkable. I thought it might be the power lines surrounding the property, but it's just as bad at home. So I guess it's back to the shop and weeks without the detector.
Has this happened to anyone else?
It's a bummer when a new detector fails. Especially when the weather is perfect for hunting.
There have been times, and at a few urban locations, when I have hunted with little or no noisy chatter or EMI issues, and then I returned to the very same locations on a different day or at a different time, and using the very same detector and coil the site was almost unworkable without a drastic reduction in Sensitivity. That was especially true if using a standard to larger-size search coil, but often even if I opted for a smallest-size available coil.
I had to pick-and-choose the right time of day or day of the week when whatever the offending EMI source was off or not in operation. At times it called for only weekend hunting, or other times only late in the evening or during the night.
There are other times when I have hunted a few sites with friends who used a different make or model than I was and they had more EMI issues and unstable performance than I did. In those cases they sometimes would reduce the Sensitivity a lot to get them workable, or they had a smaller-size search coil that was less prone to picking up the interference and that allowed them to hunt. On a few occasions I would let them borrow one of the other detectors I had along that also performed without an issue.
Sometimes things can be interesting because we might have EMI issues but can't figure out a source, especially if we are not in the heart of a big city and are in the outlying areas. Not really rural or remote, just in a fringe area that wouldn't seem to be a problem. By the way, I always have my cell phone with me and turned on, yet hardly ever experience a problem from it. If I have some EMI issues I can turn the phone off but that has never eliminated the problem.
I will say that most of the time I am using a smaller-than standard search coil, usually about 5" or 6" diameter, or a mid-size 7" round or 5X9½ elliptical size, so I'm not relying on an over-size 11" diameter round coil to tackle my sites which helps eliminate
some EMI issues to some degree.
I was hunting with a fellow a while back using the EQ-800 and we were doing some side-by-side test comparisons on some located targets and sample targets. I noted that in a relatively quiet area of a smaller-size town
(under 2000 population) he couldn't increase his unit's Sensitivity more than a setting of about 75% while I used four models of mine at or near full-Sensitivity. He even switched to his 6" DD coil but it got chattery when the Sensitivity was increased much.
But let me also clarify a couple of other things with regard to my detector and coil choices. I currently have one model in my Regular-Use or Specialty-Use Detector groups that is 'chattier' than others. There are things I like about it, so I tolerate having it around for occasional use in selected locations.
However, through the many years I have been enjoying this great sport I have owned a lot of different makes and models that were noisier, especially in an urban environment and closer to power lines and other EMI sources. Some I really enjoyed using, too, like a Teknetics Omega 8000 or T2 series models. Some as well from White's and Minelab and Fisher and s few others. I enjoyed them, they worked well for many applications, and I just had to adjust the Sensitivity or others functions a little to get them under control and calmed down. It happens.
There were notable changes as we progressed from the analog circuitry to the digital circuitry, and especially with more models today operating at a higher receive gain as well as transmit sensitivity, along with less lower-end Discrimination than many detectors used to operate. That can make things operate more "on-the-edge" so selection is important. For me, where I live and where I most often hunt, I have taken the time to evaluate a lot of detectors and settle on those that provide me the performance I want and need, yet are also less apt to be sputtery, chattery or annoyingly noisy.
In your case, however, readers don't know the actual location you're hunting, the EMI sources, the ground mineral make-up you deal with and other things, such as settings, etc., so it makes it difficult to have a good answer for the issues you've described. That said, the only thoughts I had from your initial post were:
• Have you tried a different search coil?
• Have you double checked and adjusted some of the settings?
• Do you own one or more other detectors to use and compare performance at the same locations where the EQ-800 is so unstable to confirm the issue being specific to that particular unit?
I hope you get things resolved. I have a few friends
(3) who own and use an Equinox and they like them ... for certain applications, but they don't rely on them as a primary-use detector. Instead, their most used detectors are either
XP or Nokta/Makro models. They generally have favorable things to say about all the detectors they prefer, with the only complaints about the 800's being a too-crowded VDI range with things cramped together, and while not always chattery, they can be more often that their other model choices.
Like all detectors, just learn it, use it, and get along with it as best you can even if it does call for a lower Sensitivity level. But if you try different coils or have it serviced and there's no pleasing change in behavior, then find something different that satisfies you. That way you can enjoy this pastime more when you get out.
Monte
