Iron signals

[Squirmingcoil77]

Hello all. I'm looking to upgrade from my Xterra 705 and my logical first choice is the Equinox but I'm still on the fence. The xterra is an excellent detector but I love the customization of the Equinox.

I've watched a lot of videos and one thing I noticed is that it gives a good target response to iron. small iron and even larger pieces are giving off high tones and the meter is showing numbers in the dig diggable target range. is it how the people are setting up their detectors or does the Equinox just not do well in iron? my xterra always registers iron as iron...low grunt. thanks for the help.

 

[laplander]

The 705 is an awesome machine no doubt Squirmingcoil77. True the Equinox will "sound" off on iron, ferrous targets have a signature that is easily distinguished and along with the iron bias feature will reduce digging iron to a minimum. The equinox's overall performance is well worth any trade offs as this detector will bang out targets that my older minelabs won't even give a hint of a targets presence. My opinion give it a try!
Jeff

 

[Squirmingcoil77]

I appreciate the insight, Jeff. It really does seem like a great machine. I'm a long way off from getting one so I'm still trying to get all the info I can before making a purchase.

 

[Jason in Enid]

You'll dig iron with ANY machine. I don't dig any more with the EQX than I did with the CTX or E-Trac, so I wouldnt say that iron causes it problems. I keep my Iron Bias quite low too.

 

[jmaclen]

Hi,

The Equinox has the Horseshoe button. I know it is an extra step but if I'm hunting for coins and jewelry or non-ferrous relics in one of the Park or Field modes with iron discrimination set at zero or so, I can easily check shallow to medium depth targets for iron probability by pressing the Horseshoe button, which immediately removes any discrimination or notching and check for numbers that are bouncing around from -9 to +20 or so. It is like using the 705 in one of the discrimination preset modes and pressing the AM button. USA coins, jewelry and non-ferrous relics will give much tighter numbers which don't go into the negative range unless they are tiny jewelry, tiny lead or adjacent to iron. I press the Horseshoe button again and go back to iron (-9 to 0) discriminated hunting. On targets past 8" in my bad mineralized dirt, any target can give negative numbers so I have to take a chance. I'm sure it is different for deep targets in mild soil conditions. You also have the threshold tone that is independent of the target tones. It gives a wavering null signal when passing over a discriminated or notched target (usually iron in the factory presets) which is easily recognizable. So, if I am hunting with low iron numbers discriminated and I'm using a background threshold tone and hit an iron target I may get a null in the threshold, a somewhat distorted audio response and jumpy numbers especially if changing swing directions 90 degrees.

You can also change the low iron range pitch level and change the volume level from silent to max volume to suit your hunting style. You can also adjust the iron bias setting.

I have owned the 705 and still have an old, made in Ireland XT 50. They are great detectors but the Equinox 600 and 800 can definitely hit targets accurately in bad mineralization that my XTs and many other single frequency VLFs did not notice or had poor audio and target ID responses in my testing.

Like Jason, I have not dug anymore iron with the Equinox. I have dug less since there are so many ways to ID iron pretty effectively on the Nox.
Jeff

 

[PDH]

I'm primarily a relic hunter and I bought the equinox to use in areas with lots of iron. So far I like the Nox alot but I think in the long run it's going to prove to be a better coin hunter than relic hunter machine. When relic hunting, my biggest issue is that nails (which seem to be everywhere) have the same target ID number as CW bullets. The good news is that by using all metal (horseshoe) mode or simply listening to the audio tones closely you can quickly determine that the target is ferrous. If you are cherry picking you would just pass that signal by and move onto the next one. If you aren't cherry picking then you would stop and dig those targets thinking that you had a nail and a CW bullet sitting beside one another in the same hole. That leads to digging up a lot of nails, but more digging genrally adds up to more good finds too.

 

[Squirmingcoil77]

I really appreciate the info, guys. That cleared things up for me. I used to run my Xterra in prospecting mode and switch over to all metal when I got a signal to see what it was, so I'm used to that hunting style. Of course, in parks I'd slap the small coil on and run in disc. Good luck to you all and thanks again.