CZconnoisseur
Junior Member
Have had several good hunts with a grand total of maybe 25 hours with the Equinox 800 so far, and she is definitely a performer! Last night Mike and I hunted a rental house built in 1901 within walking distance of where I live....and the house next to it is also unoccupied at the moment!
We started in the front yard and were digging zincs here, clad there; almost everything at this rental was 5" deep or less, except for 2 zincs that somehow managed to get to the 7" level - Mike and I both thought we were on the trail of one or two Indian cents but not to be this time around....I remember setting Recovery to 7 and Iron Bias to 3 and set out along the concrete walkway to try and sniff out a masked coin or two. Got over one spot and got some jumpy high 20s low 30s numbers, dug out a deep rusty nail and RESCANNED the hole and got a tighter 29-31 hit, very soft; and crossways was 28-29 - excitement was building for a silver quarter but it was a shallower, larger rusty nail very near the first one that was falsing just perfectly :thumbdown: I wish I could have recorded that one but surely more are out there! :biggrin:
Not 10 feet away I got a tight but scratchy one-way 22-24 hit inches from the old concrete walk and zeroed in on a 4" Wheat dated 1930 S. Dug out several roofing nails from the same hole, along with a couple thin siding nails. This signal was struggling to get through but every now and then those 22-24 numbers popped up and "suggested" further investigation. I didn't totally scan the walkway 100% but Mike and I plan on returning there very soon - our hunt window on that place draws to a close very soon!
There was a 12-13 indication that sounded a little deeper, and initially got excited to see gold in the hole! That was totally debunked by a post elsewhere about "S.BROS.14K" hallmark of shame on some less than desirable "14K" jewelry. Plated only but not marked as such...
We got to the backyard and starting finding clad dimes, zinc cents, a quarter here and there....all shallow 3" or less targets. I started to get the feeling the place had backfilled dirt, or been hunted by the serious lack of older targets both good and bad from the backyard. But that was to change....walked over a non-descript area and got a mess of mid and high-tone hits all clumped together...20s, 30s, it was all over the place. Tried to zero in on the highest one and popped a 1944 Washington from less than 2" deep. Come again?! Two Mercs were less than 4 inches from the quarter, and then a rusty bottlecap and some can slaw were below the level of the coins....a total mess but with a great outcome! It looked like some of the soil had been scraped in that area, and it definitely needs more dig time....
Any detector would have found that mess of silver, steel, and aluminum however that 4" deep Wheat with all the nails nearby would likely be hidden from some machines no doubt....
Last week Mike and I visited a local pounded spot to get some time on the new machines....looking for those deep, soft non-ferrous hits among all those nails. I remember getting a little discouraged by all the deep iron I was digging, but finally came across a soft 19-21 slightly bouncy deep indication, and then digging a large bent nail from the usual 8" level. Once that was out I was sure the machine was just too zippy on deep iron until rescanning the hole....the 19-21 was still there but a little off to the side maybe 6" away there was another high tone hitting 24-27 previously heavily masked until now. Decided to get to the 19-21 signal first and was rewarded with a 1915 D Wheat at 8 inches. Next up was the higher toned target, and at only 7" down but under a large root was a 1911 Barber dime. So my opinion was totally changed by this "trio" of targets - the detector was not fooled by the iron on the Wheat cent, however the dime was not easily detectable by itself without first moving the iron. Occasionally I've purposely dug up deep iron just to see if that in itself unmasks some nearby coins. 9 out of 10 times there's nothing to be gained except a really deep hole and some pain the next day....but sometimes if you're feeling lucky :blowup: you'll get rewarded.
On a second visit to the same spot I remember getting a solid 13 indication and a good "sizing" from the audio of the target. I called it a nickel and pinpointed it down to the 8" mark - a lovely 1901 V nickel came up. Didn't get anything until about 3 hours later...not far away I got a one-way 22-24 hit that was really squirrelly I can't hardly describe what it sounded like but those 22-24 numbers would show up every now and then.....and curiosity killed the cat and I had to dig it.....a Wheat from the Teens must have been on-edge
I keep Recovery speed at 2-4 in the local parks for a good mix of depth and separation, and Sensitivity is usually 20-22. Occasionally Mike and I will get some strange EMI that "paralyzes" the detector for a few seconds, and a quick restart fixes it (maybe the EMI just goes away, too). This has never happened simultaneously to us...not sure what to think of it but everything has its foibles....May try running lower Recovery and high sensitivity next hunt there, but first we need some rain in a serious way!
So far, with only 25 hours of use with this detector but with a few good recoveries I'm very pleased on how it works overall. Deep iron is a problem BUT the small foil balls and beavertail fragments aren't as prevalent as with the Deus, both LF and HF coils. The Nox likes round iron items - anything with a bolt head or screw head or really any bend in the material will show up with the Equinox. The skeleton key from the rental house was a jumpy 20s hit but had scratchy audio - not knocking the detector by any means it's simply another way to get to the cheese at the end of the maze by signal processing, multi-freq, etc. Just like everyone else we're all getting our hours in behind the machine and getting to know the language.
There's still gold country only 3 hours' walk west of here, and also a ghost town I'm keen on hunting soon. I will likely do better at the ghost town since it's fairly hard to access on foot - who knows what's waiting out there?!
We started in the front yard and were digging zincs here, clad there; almost everything at this rental was 5" deep or less, except for 2 zincs that somehow managed to get to the 7" level - Mike and I both thought we were on the trail of one or two Indian cents but not to be this time around....I remember setting Recovery to 7 and Iron Bias to 3 and set out along the concrete walkway to try and sniff out a masked coin or two. Got over one spot and got some jumpy high 20s low 30s numbers, dug out a deep rusty nail and RESCANNED the hole and got a tighter 29-31 hit, very soft; and crossways was 28-29 - excitement was building for a silver quarter but it was a shallower, larger rusty nail very near the first one that was falsing just perfectly :thumbdown: I wish I could have recorded that one but surely more are out there! :biggrin:
Not 10 feet away I got a tight but scratchy one-way 22-24 hit inches from the old concrete walk and zeroed in on a 4" Wheat dated 1930 S. Dug out several roofing nails from the same hole, along with a couple thin siding nails. This signal was struggling to get through but every now and then those 22-24 numbers popped up and "suggested" further investigation. I didn't totally scan the walkway 100% but Mike and I plan on returning there very soon - our hunt window on that place draws to a close very soon!
There was a 12-13 indication that sounded a little deeper, and initially got excited to see gold in the hole! That was totally debunked by a post elsewhere about "S.BROS.14K" hallmark of shame on some less than desirable "14K" jewelry. Plated only but not marked as such...
We got to the backyard and starting finding clad dimes, zinc cents, a quarter here and there....all shallow 3" or less targets. I started to get the feeling the place had backfilled dirt, or been hunted by the serious lack of older targets both good and bad from the backyard. But that was to change....walked over a non-descript area and got a mess of mid and high-tone hits all clumped together...20s, 30s, it was all over the place. Tried to zero in on the highest one and popped a 1944 Washington from less than 2" deep. Come again?! Two Mercs were less than 4 inches from the quarter, and then a rusty bottlecap and some can slaw were below the level of the coins....a total mess but with a great outcome! It looked like some of the soil had been scraped in that area, and it definitely needs more dig time....
Any detector would have found that mess of silver, steel, and aluminum however that 4" deep Wheat with all the nails nearby would likely be hidden from some machines no doubt....
Last week Mike and I visited a local pounded spot to get some time on the new machines....looking for those deep, soft non-ferrous hits among all those nails. I remember getting a little discouraged by all the deep iron I was digging, but finally came across a soft 19-21 slightly bouncy deep indication, and then digging a large bent nail from the usual 8" level. Once that was out I was sure the machine was just too zippy on deep iron until rescanning the hole....the 19-21 was still there but a little off to the side maybe 6" away there was another high tone hitting 24-27 previously heavily masked until now. Decided to get to the 19-21 signal first and was rewarded with a 1915 D Wheat at 8 inches. Next up was the higher toned target, and at only 7" down but under a large root was a 1911 Barber dime. So my opinion was totally changed by this "trio" of targets - the detector was not fooled by the iron on the Wheat cent, however the dime was not easily detectable by itself without first moving the iron. Occasionally I've purposely dug up deep iron just to see if that in itself unmasks some nearby coins. 9 out of 10 times there's nothing to be gained except a really deep hole and some pain the next day....but sometimes if you're feeling lucky :blowup: you'll get rewarded.
On a second visit to the same spot I remember getting a solid 13 indication and a good "sizing" from the audio of the target. I called it a nickel and pinpointed it down to the 8" mark - a lovely 1901 V nickel came up. Didn't get anything until about 3 hours later...not far away I got a one-way 22-24 hit that was really squirrelly I can't hardly describe what it sounded like but those 22-24 numbers would show up every now and then.....and curiosity killed the cat and I had to dig it.....a Wheat from the Teens must have been on-edge
I keep Recovery speed at 2-4 in the local parks for a good mix of depth and separation, and Sensitivity is usually 20-22. Occasionally Mike and I will get some strange EMI that "paralyzes" the detector for a few seconds, and a quick restart fixes it (maybe the EMI just goes away, too). This has never happened simultaneously to us...not sure what to think of it but everything has its foibles....May try running lower Recovery and high sensitivity next hunt there, but first we need some rain in a serious way!
So far, with only 25 hours of use with this detector but with a few good recoveries I'm very pleased on how it works overall. Deep iron is a problem BUT the small foil balls and beavertail fragments aren't as prevalent as with the Deus, both LF and HF coils. The Nox likes round iron items - anything with a bolt head or screw head or really any bend in the material will show up with the Equinox. The skeleton key from the rental house was a jumpy 20s hit but had scratchy audio - not knocking the detector by any means it's simply another way to get to the cheese at the end of the maze by signal processing, multi-freq, etc. Just like everyone else we're all getting our hours in behind the machine and getting to know the language.
There's still gold country only 3 hours' walk west of here, and also a ghost town I'm keen on hunting soon. I will likely do better at the ghost town since it's fairly hard to access on foot - who knows what's waiting out there?!
There were still a few things I could adjust and tune for with the XP...but that's like riding a bike....come back to XP at a later date (inevitable) and will pick it right back up! For hiking trips to local ghost towns XP gets the nod for portability 
