The Equinox sucks

[jkline]

Thanks silver. At first I scoffed at the notion that you 'never hunt a place out', but Ronstar and I keep hitting coins in an area that has been pounded. I will grid a spot from all angles of the compass. My speed is usually 4, I was just using different setting to experiment. 4 seems to be the sweet spot for me.

I'll say it again: the nox finds silver. It has put a walking liberty half, 2 WA quarters, a Seated quarter, 1 war nickel, 3 Rosies and 4 mercs in my pouch.

What got me alarmed was the Seated 1877 quarter, at 4", which was at best a really iffy signal. Then I started 'double detecting': every obvious silver signal my ctx or etrac would find I would scan it with the nox, or if I dug one unexpectedly, I'd put it back in the hole and go over it with the Nox. Most of the time, it would hit the coin, but 5 times the coins (4 dimes, 1 quarter) were completely invisible to it.

The only reverse comparison is going to places I've pounded with my FBS machines: the nox didn't open them up again.

An acquaintance just got a nox-- maybe next week we'll go out and test them together. Again, not hating on the machine-- each has their pros and cons, and it is something that every Nox user should have in the back of their mind.

 

[PhDtector]

Soil conditions can change a lot, especially moisture. That's partly why nobody gets everything,

 

[pulltabfelix]

Sunday morning last: I go back to where Ronstar found a Barber dime. The Saturday he found it, I gridded with the Nox an hour later. Zip. The next day I go back with the Etrac and gridded the same 100 sq feet-- Score! Just 5' away from Ronstars plug: 1937 Merc. this isn't the first time this has happened.

Today, after work I join Ronstar at another haunt. He motions me over-- holy sheet, silver quarter 5" deep, in the hole. 4" away from a plug of mine from the same Sunday, but in the afternoon. Ron puts the quarter back in the hole and I swing with the nox. Only an iffy zinc penny signal. Nothing-- no adjustment , no angle would make it come in any better than an iffy zinc penny.

I run back to my rig and get my Etrac-- Ronstar got to hear that sweet Etrac warble. In earphones it would have, as Elmy would say, 'Blown your ears off." 26 47.

The Nox, in my experience, leaves at least 15% of silver in the ground. There are certain conditions where treasure is rendered invisible to it. There was a nail a couple inches from RonS's quarter. The Nox finds silver... but oh Earthly and Calabash, I'd be happy following you guys all day long.

Now if anybody has any idea on how to keep this from happening-- I'm all ears. In my estimation, I wasted $800 for the kind of detecting I do. This MF is getting repackaged and sold.

I won't bother with a pic of the Merc-- we know what they look like.

I don't want to bash the 800 but it does not compare to the CTX3030 on ID'ing targets. Some days hunting with my 800 I feel like it is a dig all machine. I think the problem is that it sees too much small stuff under the coil and reports back iffy to seeming good signals on small stuff. Many a times, I get a good signal and it is a 1/4" piece of copper wire or small fragment of can slaw or something so small I cannot even find it. And then the depth gauge is pretty useless. Then there is the narrow TID range. I have had others who I respect saying that the narrow TID range really does not matter and they explain it to me in terms I don't understand. What I do understand is that CTX3030 users can call targets before they dig better than I can with my 800.

So long story short, buying a CTX3030.

 

[JimmyCT]

Your first line bashes it. That’s ok I know what the equinox is capable of and so do many others. Wish you the best with your new CTX.

 

[Ronstar]

Love the exchange of info and ideas. A question I have is why does the Nox seem to miss 4-6” quarters and dimes? I admit I probably miss coins due to not overlapping swings correctly but when the F75 detects it its game over. I do get weird signals occasionally, and maybe should have dug to find out, but coins just do not seem invisible to the F75 unless masked by iron. The nail in the infamous hole is a more modern steel variety.

 

[fwcrawford]

Love the exchange of info and ideas. A question I have is why does the Nox seem to miss 4-6” quarters and dimes? I admit I probably miss coins due to not overlapping swings correctly but when the F75 detects it its game over. I do get weird signals occasionally, and maybe should have dug to find out, but coins just do not seem invisible to the F75 unless masked by iron. The nail in the infamous hole is a more modern steel variety.

I have to agree that this is very odd.
When I first got my Equinox, I took it to an old house that my buddy and I have been to many times with too many different detectors to count to the point that we started digging any kind of signal I matter how bad it was.
The main reason I decided to try here is because it was very dry at that time and this house is vacant and the yard is pretty overgrown, so digging would not be a problem.
To be perfectly honest, I was not expecting to find anything especially the first time out with it.
When I got there, there was not much area to detect, but I started up the Equinox and started searching and within less than 10 minutes, I got a very good signal reading 20.
I basically kept swinging over this signal in disbelief wondering how such a good signal could still be here after so many hunts there.
I dug the plug and found a 1909 wheat penny in the hole with an old rusty nail about 3” long about 2-3” away.
Now I cannot believe that this target was simply missed so many other times there… the area I found it at is a small side yard where I found two Barber dimes, an IH cent and my buddy found a Mercury dime there also along with other coins so we have blanketed that area very methodically.
Now I realize we are talking about two entirely differently scenarios here, but you can understand why not only myself, but others are having a difficult time digesting what is going on with that quarter that will not give a good signal.
We have all experienced these kind of results from the Equinox.

 

[JimmyCT]

Love the exchange of info and ideas. A question I have is why does the Nox seem to miss 4-6” quarters and dimes? I admit I probably miss coins due to not overlapping swings correctly but when the F75 detects it its game over. I do get weird signals occasionally, and maybe should have dug to find out, but coins just do not seem invisible to the F75 unless masked by iron. The nail in the infamous hole is a more modern steel variety.

Mr. Ron,
I can’t answer your question on 4-6” quarters and dimes. I find there is something seriously wrong here. I have never found so many shallow silver coins until I started hunting with the equinox.
I went back to a place that myself and many others have pounded over the years.
First year - 2018 with the equinox, I found 48 silver coins at this place. ( mainly dimes) Majority of them were shallow too 2-6”.
I’m not quite sure what’s going on and what you have witnessed but I find the total opposite. To me the equinox is hot on silver.

I do want to point out I do not have the latest software version either. I rolled back to the second update. That third software version something changed… I’m not going to get into specifics but something was off for me especially hitting on silver.

 

[Ronstar]

Just to be clear, I’m not dissing the Nox. There has to be something wrong with this specific unit and the more we exchange ideas and experiences the better we all become.

 

[JimmyCT]

Just to be clear, I’m not dissing the Nox. There has to be something wrong with this specific unit and the more we exchange ideas and experiences the better we all become.

I never took your post as such. I truly believe with sincerity you are grasping at answers like the rest of us. I’m baffled as you are.
I can’t for the life of me figure what the issue with jkline’s equinox is. I wish someone close to you guys had an equinox to compare. The unit could be a rotten apple. Or maybe in your part of the country, a different program works superior to Park1. I wish I could be there to investigate the matter. And of course find a few silvers too

 

[Ronstar]

Two of our Search and Rescue members bought 800s. As soon as the one guy is back we are planning on getting him to go head to head with Jeff on the one hole. If he gets a hit then trade coils and start eliminating causes. Meanwhile come on out, never too old to learn new tricks…….

 

[silvercoinboy]

Mr. Ron,
I can’t answer your question on 4-6” quarters and dimes. I find there is something seriously wrong here. I have never found so many shallow silver coins until I started hunting with the equinox.
I went back to a place that myself and many others have pounded over the years.
First year - 2018 with the equinox, I found 48 silver coins at this place. ( mainly dimes) Majority of them were shallow too 2-6”.
I’m not quite sure what’s going on and what you have witnessed but I find the total opposite. To me the equinox is hot on silver.

I do want to point out I do not have the latest software version either. I rolled back to the second update. That third software version something changed… I’m not going to get into specifics but something was off for me especially hitting on silver.

I think it is REALLY hot on nickels!

Now I believe there are more nickels left at hunted spots because hunters discriminated out their range. The Nox allows you to see them clearly... #13

 

[jkline]

13 for sure. I dig 11-14. My only war nickel with the nox was 13/14.

 

[JimmyCT]

13 for sure. I dig 11-14. My only war nickel with the nox was 13/14.

Silver war nickels are a wild card type of coin. I had them come in at 14 and 17. In this place you and Ron are hunting, I wouldn’t be notching anything. In cases like yours, I run wide open.

 

[BigTony]

@fw-- I did FE and FE2. Each from zero to four. It didn't make a difference on the 'invisible' quarter. In other plugs, the higher the FE, on both, the less distinguishable the quarter was.

I seemed to be getting the best results with very low FE/FE2 and a recovery speed of 4.

Do you use 50 Tones and field 2? If not test those out with recovery 2, ground balance 0
Those were my settings yesterday at a farm in NJ.
I hit a KG II, came in 21/23 no date but cool, no brag
28 other people on that hunt didn’t get it and several went over that area where I found it.
Tony

 

[jkline]

I usually do park 1.

The vagaries of detecting: two weeks ago found a quarter in a spot pounded for 30 years. No iron in the hole. 5". In all that time, that tiny little piece of real estate never had a coil swing over it.

Modes have no effect on the problem I'm having. There are conditions, and I can't understand what those are, where my nox cannot hit a coin that an ATPro, Etrac, Ctx and F75 have hit. Not all coins, just some coins. Again, it finds silver, but there are times when it doesn't.

 

[JimmyCT]

I’m thinking of every idea I can. It could possibly be a case of silent EMI.

 

[BigTony]

I usually do park 1.

The vagaries of detecting: two weeks ago found a quarter in a spot pounded for 30 years. No iron in the hole. 5". In all that time, that tiny little piece of real estate never had a coil swing over it.

Modes have no effect on the problem I'm having. There are conditions, and I can't understand what those are, where my nox cannot hit a coin that an ATPro, Etrac, Ctx and F75 have hit. Not all coins, just some coins. Again, it finds silver, but there are times when it doesn't.

And there are times it can’t find coins either, doesn’t have to be a silver.
I have noticed this with many machines. I got a quarter hit on a plowed field using the Impact (made in Turkey). I was hoping for a silver but I couldn’t find the dang thing no matter what I tried, 25 minutes at least. I almost toss the machine.
The next day I was there with another detectorist and he hit it using a Whites. It was standing straight up on one side of the hole. It was a toasted large cent, maybe British, because it was very thin and larger than a US large.
The Impact was marketed on finding old European thin coins.
The NOX has a similar feature, I am told using field two.
Let me know what detector you will be getting or using; you never know I might switch too.
No one has the CTX where I hunt, so maybe that +outdoor be an edge for me.
Best of luck, keep digging
Tony