Y'all know the story.......Old, trashy places that you have hunted for years and hit to death with other good machines. Got a little frustrated on my first hunt with the new 800 after digging what seemed like 100 square nails, pull tabs, thin rusty sheet bits, etc. in one of my junk infested sites the whole while thinking " I haven't dug this much junk ever with my other machines!!" I was using the stock Park 2 setting with iron bias at 2-3 and 5 tones. After the hunt I started to realize that on a lot of the holes I was frustrated after seeing a nail or two in the hole and would kind of give up on it. I would remove the nails, cover the hole, go back over the hole and hear the same good tone but I would dismiss it as another nail. Boy, was this a mistake. After a while I was also dismissing the lower numbers and ignoring the sounds that they gave me. I admit, I was thinking "Same old story, hyped up machine with the same old results." But too many people are finding this machine to be better than this. I regrouped and went back yesterday and was determined to focus on the sounds, stay with the hole, and to slow way down. I started hitting good sounding targets immediately. Circle the hole, sound still good, dig. My first five or so targets were non ferrous items with multiple nails including some fake jewelry and some sort of small brass tag. Instead of covering it up and dismissing the target as a nail, I stayed with it until I retrieved the target and would not get the same sound when I checked the hole. At this site there is a sandstone laid walkway from where the old house sat out to the road. I have went over both sides of the walkway with F75's Etracs and SE's more times than I care to mention without getting any targets. The first 10 feet with the Equinox yielded 5 non ferrous targets including a 1930 Wheat penny. Every hole had at least two nails and some had 4 and 5 mixed in with the target. The wheat penny had 4 nails in the hole before I reached the penny at the depth of my pinpointer. This was an eye opener for me. Slow down and let the machine do what it does. Now I still dug some trash like the deep screw tops and bent square nails but it was different today. I stuck with the holes, dug deeper and found what was making that good tone. I found quite a few .22 short casings and shotgun shells but I consider these types of items "have to dig" items in order to find good targets. What was amazing to me was the fact that I would get good clear tones with all that junk in the hole! The other machines would give chirps, blips, etc. Very easy just to walk away from the target with them. Not so with this machine! If the Equinox has a shortcoming, to me, and this may change with time spent, it would be that the depth meter was not at all accurate. If someone has some tips on figuring out the depth of targets before you dig, I would be really interested. Sometimes the sound of the pinpoint would even be off. I remember hearing on a video someplace where someone said that the Equinox "makes" you dig targets. After this second hunt, I totally agree. I can't wait to get back out and continue learning this machine.
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Equinox 800 first and second hunts.......starting to figure it out.
- Thread starter Ex-Sox
- Start date
coin pirate
Active member
This is a common problem with all Nox800's I've heard, read more than a few complaints online as well.
Not trying to tromp on your excitement, but I can dig rusty nails wit a used $50 Bounty Hunter, the good thing seems to be you're seeing other signals or at least the higher pitches telling you there may be more.
My Safari, Explorer I sold and now E-Trac, can let me know there are good items amongst the trash...is your nox doing that, or only after you dig up a bunch of nails. The difference is not having to dig all the trash to determine what else is there. Maybe settings need tweaked.
fwcrawford
Well-known member
Very good post you have here..... like many others here, including me, you are seeing what Equinox is capable of... the first day I took mine out, I was in awe of it.... it just keeps on getting better too.
Can’t help you on the depth meter issue, but I have also noticed it is not accurate.
I basically go by the loudness of the tone in conjunction with the depth meter as an indicator of how deep to dig.
You’ll get a feel for it after a while.
One thing for sure, you will know when you get over a very deep target... especially silver... it make a sweet sound.
Going slow as you have already discovered is key in finding those deep goodies!!
Can’t help you on the depth meter issue, but I have also noticed it is not accurate.
I basically go by the loudness of the tone in conjunction with the depth meter as an indicator of how deep to dig.
You’ll get a feel for it after a while.
One thing for sure, you will know when you get over a very deep target... especially silver... it make a sweet sound.
Going slow as you have already discovered is key in finding those deep goodies!!
I think you may have misunderstood. I am not digging trash to be digging it. The site I am hunting is blanketed with nails and rusty bits of iron. The trash is in the same hole as the good target. My first hunt I was digging trash and just figured that more of the same is what was making the good tone when I checked the hole so I covered it back up and left it. The second hunt, I kept searching the hole until the signal was no longer heard when I rechecked it. I still dug a lot of trash but I had to in order to get the target. Let me make sure and state that the trash I am talking about is the ferrous stuff and not aluminum. I still got fooled by the caps and pull tabs in holes by themselves. I am not good enough to tell if I am going over aluminum trash. I posted mainly to state that the good tones that you hear may, in fact, not be more nails in the hole and to clean out the hole until the tone is gone when you recheck your hole. Maybe it will help others hunting a site like this is all.
nuggett dog
Member
Ex Sox, glad to hear your 800 is growing on you. Last week my 800 found a 1946 wheat cent 9 inches down under a tree root, there was iron all around it. First time I dug the hole I found small pieces of iron and gave up, filled in the hole and swept the coil over it and the 26 signal was still there. Dug it out again, couldn’t find it and filled it in again and started to walk away. That little voice you hear sometimes that tells ya not to give up got my attention so went back and dug down again, this time much deeper and out popped that wheat cent. Sometimes you just have to listen to what your machine is telling ya. 
coin pirate
Active member
Understand, yeah I mis-read, thought maybe you were digging nails then discovered high tones.
The depth meter is calibrated for coin sized objects somewhere between a US nickel and a US quarter. I don't now which country or denomination Minelab actually used. The manual mentions a US quarter. So anything smaller could be much shallower and anything bigger could be much deeper. Big iron or an aluminum can will often show 1 depth arrow even though they are 6 to 8" deep or more because of size. If you have multiple targets under the coil, who knows. From my experience the depth meter will also register the nearest and lowest conductor before it will pick out a deeper high conductor depending on what mode you are using. I use the pinpoint function constantly to see if I am dealing with multiple targets or not.
Again, from experience, the pinpoint function is calibrated for coin sized targets and can go berserk if you set it over a target but it is a great way to size a target. Smaller and deeper targets have a low/quiet pinpoint tone and bigger or shallower targets will have louder and higher pitched tones. The size of the pinpoint audio radius can tell you a lot too. Most coin sized objects will have a quick short pinpoint tone and very small radius.
Park and Field 1 are supposed to be best for general hunting of all coin sized and larger targets and on paper should be best for all conductive targets since they use lower frequencies. Park 2 and Field 2 are supposed to be better for lower conductors and smaller/deeper targets since those two modes use much higher frequency weighting.
I am assuming that you are using the horseshoe button for iron recognition or that you have accepted the iron range in Park 2. Hopefully you are using the iron tone volume adjustment to lower the iron tone volume. Sometimes when I am in a bed of nails I will hunt in 2 tones with the low iron tone on volume level 1 and with the high tone left on 5 for non ferrous. I also sometimes get tired of listening to the iron grunt and go back to default Park 2 or Field 2, use 2 or 5 tones and add in a threshold tone that goes silent over rejected negative number iron targets responses. So I listen for broken up audio in the non-ferrous range which usually indicates iron falsing, check for a nulling threshold and check for multiple targets.
Hunting in bed of nails with the Equinox is definitely a challenge but there are many ways to tackle the problem which you are finding out from experience.
Jeff
Again, from experience, the pinpoint function is calibrated for coin sized targets and can go berserk if you set it over a target but it is a great way to size a target. Smaller and deeper targets have a low/quiet pinpoint tone and bigger or shallower targets will have louder and higher pitched tones. The size of the pinpoint audio radius can tell you a lot too. Most coin sized objects will have a quick short pinpoint tone and very small radius.
Park and Field 1 are supposed to be best for general hunting of all coin sized and larger targets and on paper should be best for all conductive targets since they use lower frequencies. Park 2 and Field 2 are supposed to be better for lower conductors and smaller/deeper targets since those two modes use much higher frequency weighting.
I am assuming that you are using the horseshoe button for iron recognition or that you have accepted the iron range in Park 2. Hopefully you are using the iron tone volume adjustment to lower the iron tone volume. Sometimes when I am in a bed of nails I will hunt in 2 tones with the low iron tone on volume level 1 and with the high tone left on 5 for non ferrous. I also sometimes get tired of listening to the iron grunt and go back to default Park 2 or Field 2, use 2 or 5 tones and add in a threshold tone that goes silent over rejected negative number iron targets responses. So I listen for broken up audio in the non-ferrous range which usually indicates iron falsing, check for a nulling threshold and check for multiple targets.
Hunting in bed of nails with the Equinox is definitely a challenge but there are many ways to tackle the problem which you are finding out from experience.
Jeff
bootyhoundpa
Well-known member
Very good write up..for your 2nd hunt I would say you are learning the nuances of the 800 faster than most and definitely faster than I did and still are for that matter..I don’t think park 2 would be your best option as I believe it’s frequencies are better for finding small low tones but as you will find whatever works best at the site you are at is what you use..Park 1 or field 1 or 2 may be better or maybe not..I was out yesterday in my favorite 250 year old iron patch and was finally able to hunt in multi frequency for several hours without getting fooled by too much deep iron and when I say iron I’m talking 3/8” pieces of cast iron stove,buckets,bolts,car parts etc..I was using field 1,ground balance 11,separation 5 or 6,iron bias 2 in multi freq ,sensitivity 20.. found 3 wheats and a cool button..signals had a hollow sound and didn’t exactly hit hard but I attribute that to all iron and whatnot the machine is struggling to ignore...I’ve hunted this places probably well over 100 times so every time I go I have get settings that will out produce previous hunts..I dug very little iron and most of the iron I dug was round... I’m getting much better at guessing depth mostly by sound..shallower targets give a cleaner sound sometimes with multiple (beep,beep,beep) signals..deeper targets usually require a slower sweep and only give 1 beep generally speaking.. I never look at the depth meter anymore .. if your settings aren’t too frisky the non ferrous usually hits both directions whereas the iron will often only hit in one direction and not at the exact spot while sweeping unless you slow the sweep way down..the iron also usually has that clpped sound on the edges...
Thanks fellas for the tips! Gonna try some of this stuff! I had time for a quick 2 hour hunt on a small picket post that I have picked over through the years. First signal out of the truck was a nice little pistol bullet. Then I found a rectangular probably carved bullet, hard to tell really. The shot 3 ringer came in at a solid 18. Love finding the bullets! Small round button top, probably not period. Only one pulltab and one screw cap. Enjoyable little hunt in Park 2 with 5 tones, sensitivity was running from 18-20 without any falsing, recovery at 5 and iron bias at 3. There is some iron here but nothing like the other place.
On the later site the picket post I wouldn't be afraid to ramp up your sensitivity as hard as it will go. The depth increase plus pick up small targets will amaze you even more. I run it maxed out all the time. Case in point my friend and I were hunting a 1870's church loaded with nails. next to the road was a power line that was transmitting high frequency for remote meter readings and we had to drop the sensitivity down into the high teens to squelch the incessant chatter. After a few passes I was able to crank it back up to 25 and I hit a mixed signal in the 12 to 13 range. I called my buddy over and he couldn't get a bleep period. We went over the settings to check for the problem and they were exactly the same except for the sensitivity, he turned it up and Walla there was the signal, it turned out to be a shield nickel at 9 inches.
HH Jeff