Dazzled by the Equinox once more

[dfmike]

Second time out with this machine. I had a few hours after work to get back in the woods and see if this detector could work its magic again. I got my answer rather quickly. Keep in mind that this place is littered with rusty bottle caps and nails. In other words, not what I would call detector friendly territory. The first target I dug was an old penny. The second target responded strangely: Single high tone on one side and a midrange broken tone on the other side. The ID was all over the place but mainly above iron to the high 20's. On my first outing I mainly recovered rusty nails when I had similar tones and ID. I decided to dig it out since I am still learning the NOX language. Out comes a rusty nail. No surprise. I swing the coil on top of the plug and this time I get a solid and unwavering 22. I did not know what to expect since pennies tend to have a far less stable ID on this detector. Out comes this little sterling silver 1908 five cent beauty. These are hard to find and when deep, most detectors can't get them because they are so small and weightless. I only found three of these so far and this is my oldest. This find alone made my day. I continued for a while in this area and found 2 more silver dimes (a faded 1941 and 1962). Later came the 1941 and commemorative 1951 nickels and I also recovered a total of 15 pennies ranging from 1938 to the early 60's. The religious pendant was found last. It reads sainte famille protegez nous which translates to holy family protect us. To be fair, I uncovered more rusty nails than with most other machines I have used here but not as many bottle caps.

I have found good coins with my other machines in this area (mainly my Nokta and MX7) but never as much as this in a relatively short time. I don't want to knock the others but there is something the Equinox does in trash that I have never experienced before. It's almost like it revels in it. I'm not sure it would do better than any other modern detector when the targets are well separated from one another but in places with dense ferrous and non ferrous debris, it just seems to pick out the good stuff better than anything I have used so far.

I hope the streak of good results will continue. So far, I'm impressed with the performance I am getting.

I used park 1 again, recovery 3, 5 tones, sensitivity 21 with the small 6" DD coil. Auto ground balance was giving me a low 5 so I tried manual with the same results. I just left it there and it seemed to work just fine.

 

[IDXMonster]

Nice fishy there Mike! I’ve found a few of those here in southern Wisconsin, they are a small coin! Good work in the junkyard…

 

[BigTony]

Second time out with this machine. I had a few hours after work to get back in the woods and see if this detector could work its magic again. I got my answer rather quickly. Keep in mind that this place is littered with rusty bottle caps and nails. In other words, not what I would call detector friendly territory. The first target I dug was an old penny. The second target responded strangely: Single high tone on one side and a midrange broken tone on the other side. The ID was all over the place but mainly above iron to the high 20's. On my first outing I mainly recovered rusty nails when I had similar tones and ID. I decided to dig it out since I am still learning the NOX language. Out comes a rusty nail. No surprise. I swing the coil on top of the plug and this time I get a solid and unwavering 22. I did not know what to expect since pennies tend to have a far less stable ID on this detector. Out comes this little sterling silver 1908 five cent beauty. These are hard to find and when deep, most detectors can't get them because they are so small and weightless. I only found three of these so far and this is my oldest. This find alone made my day. I continued for a while in this area and found 2 more silver dimes (a faded 1941 and 1962). Later came the 1941 and commemorative 1951 nickels and I also recovered a total of 15 pennies ranging from 1938 to the early 60's. The religious pendant was found last. It reads sainte famille protegez nous which translates to holy family protect us. To be fair, I uncovered more rusty nails than with most other machines I have used here but not as many bottle caps.

I have found good coins with my other machines in this area (mainly my Nokta and MX7) but never as much as this in a relatively short time. I don't want to knock the others but there is something the Equinox does in trash that I have never experienced before. It's almost like it revels in it. I'm not sure it would do better than any other modern detector when the targets are well separated from one another but in places with dense ferrous and non ferrous debris, it just seems to pick out the good stuff better than anything I have used so far.

I hope the streak of good results will continue. So far, I'm impressed with the performance I am getting.

I used park 1 again, recovery 3, 5 tones, sensitivity 21 with the small 6" DD coil. Auto ground balance was giving me a low 5 so I tried manual with the same results. I just left it there and it seemed to work just fine.

Nice digs, gotta love those old coins and stuff!
Tony

 

[jim tn]

Nice fish scale and other saves. Your 5 cents coin looks about the size of our half dimes. Good hunting! HH jim tn

 

[Ted S]

Congrats! Looks like you got the hang of it quickly!

 

[silvercoinboy]

What FE setting are you using? You can probably adjust that and get rid of some of the nails

 

[fwcrawford]

You had a great second outing with that Equinox!!!
I bought a small coil for mine earlier this year and it has impressed me, especially in trashy sites like you are describing.
The stock coil also does surprisingly well in trashy sites.
It sounds like you already taken a shining to your Equinox.

 

[JimmyCT]

Great finds !! You are learning the equinox extremely fast and doing quite well in learning the language. Curious - Are you using Park1 multi or are you using a single frequency ?

 

[dfmike]

Congrats! Looks like you got the hang of it quickly!

I must admit I wasn't sure I would like using another Minelab partly because the X-Terra I once had only brought me frustration and I sold it with great relief. Although the tones sound somewhat similar, the machine is so much faster in its recovery. I think of it as a small but very high performance car that is feather light (Lotus anybody ?). The engine bay might be small but it's got so much power. I hope I'm not getting carried away. I'm not one to be easily impressed (usually).

 

[dfmike]

Great finds !! You are learning the equinox extremely fast and doing quite well in learning the language. Curious - Are you using Park1 multi or are you using a single frequency ?

Multi all the time. I'm not sure but I think that's where its unmasking capabilities come from. I can understand that in certain situations single freq might be useful.

 

[dfmike]

You had a great second outing with that Equinox!!!
I bought a small coil for mine earlier this year and it has impressed me, especially in trashy sites like you are describing.
The stock coil also does surprisingly well in trashy sites.
It sounds like you already taken a shining to your Equinox.

What surprised me was the depth I could get with that small coil. In areas with more open space, I could use the stock coil but the woods are so dense here, it's really the only sane option. I enjoy how light this combination is. Perfectly balanced.

 

[dfmike]

What FE setting are you using? You can probably adjust that and get rid of some of the nails

I'm using the default which is 2 I believe. I haven't changed it. Of all the settings, Iron Bias is the only one I don't fully understand despite reading the manual twice. A few nails dug out of this junk pile is really not a problem.

 

[fwcrawford]

What surprised me was the depth I could get with that small coil. In areas with more open space, I could use the stock coil but the woods are so dense here, it's really the only sane option. I enjoy how light this combination is. Perfectly balanced.

Oh yes, that detector is much lighter with that small coil.
Allows me to detect longer too..

 

[silvercoinboy]

Try bumping up the FE1 setting and see that the straight nails start to break up.

 

[Seahuntr]

Very nice, Im new to its well and getting excellent results as well but at the beach. So far it has lived up to the hype!

 

[dlaczko]

DanL here. If the 12 inch coil at 7 or 8 recovery acts like the 6 in coil, imaging what the 6 in can do. The 6 in is also great around structure (fences, etc). I often put the same program in User and use like 10k to decrease digs of bad targets.

 

[Highlifter1000]

Nice job