My Report on Brush Hunting with Nox 600

Texaspast

Elite Member
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Nov 27, 2006
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598
Last Thursday I had a day off and had planned for some time to go back to an old sawmill ghost town that I had hunted 20-something years ago. This was a company-built town that had 300 houses, a theater, store, offices, cafe (and at least one non-company bar and pool hall that we know of). The town was built before the mill was built, ready for the workers when they moved in. It was built in 1913, and lasted into the 1930s. Although some coins have been found there, mostly what we found were sawmill tokens. Since then the location has had several oil and gas wells drilled on it, and is not used for pasturage any more. I couldn't tell this by looking at the satellite pictures - at least I couldn't tell how grown up the non-drilled on part was. When I got there, after an hour and a half drive, I was surprised at the undergrowth that had reclaimed the land. You wouldn't believe the blackberry vines, thorn vines and thorn trees! Getting into the site was a challenge all by itself - not to mention finding any place open enough to swing a coil! Plus, I couldn't find any of the landmarks I was familiar with from previous years - so I couldn't tell where the main part of town used to be (we are talking several hundred acres here). Anyway, I put the Nox through its paces out there, for a five hour hunt. As it was, I finally found the right general area (late in the hunt) - I recognized the color of the dirt. The dirt in the good part of the town for some reason was very dark and not gummy, unlike the rest of this area.
Anyway, here's what my impressions of the Nox in a tough field hunt:
First, it probably more detector than I needed out there - at least that day. I didn't need separation speed, as there weren't that many close targets. It did tend to identify heavily rusted bolts and bent nails as good-sounding and ID'ed targets. I suppose as I learn to use the single frequencies along with multi, I'll learn to tell the difference. Another thing I noticed after fighting through undergrowth for several hours - it is not as ergonomically easy on the arm as, say, the Deus. Another pet peeve of mine with many modern coils including the Nox is the open design - I need a solid coil cover when in rougher hunt areas because the spider coils get hung up when swinging. Next, I'm going to have to get the wireless earphones. Whether Bluetooth or with the Minelab adapter, hunting in brush with wired phones is a real headache (literally) when you've used wireless as on the Deus. I'm spoiled now, I guess. Plus, the headphones supplied with the Nox 600 are pretty sad - the wire is a straight wire, not 'springy' coiled. And one side of the pair I got just does not work! Sounds like the element is just bouncing around loose in there. On the plus side, they do feel better on my head than those 'behind the head' phones with the XP Deus. I did not notice any great drawback with the wired coil, though. Anyway, all I came away from this hunt with was hands that looked like I'd been in a fight with a very irritated cat, one sawmill token, a few glass-lined canning jar lids, a WWI military great seal coat button, some Three Merry Widows lids, some interesting unidentified items, and a few hours more experience with the Nox. And I had a great time!
 

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I sure do agree with you on the open web design of coil. Snagaroo city in rough sites.
I would definitely buy a coil cover if Minelab offered a cover to turn Nox stock sized coil into closed design for the brush.

Thanks for posting.
 
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