Still confused ??

[vferrari]

When I did the noise balance, it was set on 1.
I did the ground balance and it set it at 3, and then I set it for auto.

The field is about 50 yards by 100 yards and is the same ground type throughout.

Last week I went over this same general area and it worked fine.

Thought I would finally chime in here, because your first sentence kind of bothered me a little. Whatever number pops up from an auto noise cancel is essentially meaningless except to the detector itself. It is just displaying the channel number selected which has minimum interference. Since there are several to choose from, you could get a different number if you ran noise cancel again. The low ground balance reading is indicative of perhaps low mineralized soil, though that can only be inferred without a mineralization meter, which the Equinox unfortunately lacks. You said you GB then put it in "Auto", did you mean tracking? With mild ground, I highly recommend doing an AUTO ground balance and NOT putting in Tracking because tracking needs mineralization to work effectively.

Remember also, each mode effectively behaves like a separate detector, so each mode you use at a site must be separately noise cancelled and ground balanced upon first use.

Finally, problem "3" - the random bursts of noise really sounds like EMI bursts from buried transmission cable, wifi, cell tower, etc. One thing I did not see, and may have missed, is what sensitivity were you running. If EMI bursts are happening frequently at your site, noise cancel can't really do much for that because it is transient noise and noise cancel looks for the quietest channel at the time you run the noise cancel. So try taking sensitivity down a couple notches in that environment to see if that knocks down the EMI bursts just as eman said above. HTH

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

A Handbook of Civil War Bullets and Cartridges - Grab it through Amazon!

[saanich2018]

Let me try to address some of these questions and comments.

First, Minelab said to try their suggestions first and see if the issue still happens, before sending it in to be checked.

Second, I KNOW for a FACT there are no cables or anything under this field where I have been going. Plus, this happen to me at another field at another school, which again I am almost positive there is nothing buried under the ground like cables or pipes. They cut out an old growth wooded area to make both of these fields. Both of these are in my neighborhood and I have lived in this area since I was a little kid. The area was virgin forest with lakes and streams and trees.

Third, when my unit starts acting up, if I stand in the same spot and do a FP, then go back through the setup process, the 800 works fine again. In the exact same area. If there was something under ground or WiFi or power lines affecting the 800, wouldn't it still affect it after doing the reset? Plus, when the 800 starts acting up, I can walk away to another area and it will still be doing the same thing, just sending out high tones and VDI in the 30's. You are not able to distinguish a single point as it is like the entire ground is metal. But do a FP and it clears up and works fine.

Fourth, I have never heard that I should do the noise cancel with the pinpointer turned on, I will give it a try.

Fifth, as for doing the ground balance and then putting it into Tracking, I am apparently wrong, as I thought this is what I was suppose to do. Hey, I am still learning. I will keep it the tracking turned off. When I am at the beach, should I also keep the tracking turned off?

As for the mode, I have been keeping it in Park 1, when I have been in the field.

Basically the suggestions most of you have made follow along with my conversation with MineLab. They said to increase the recovery speed and lower the sensitivity.

Comments and suggestions??

 

[vferrari]

Doing the noise cancel from pinpoint mode does nothing useful so don't bother.

At the beach in dry sand, no need for tracking.

In salt surf, different story, tracking can help there.

If the schools are connected to the grid in any manner whatsoever (i.e. power, phone, internet) they will generate EMI. Doesn't need to be buried cables you just need to be line of site with the source and you may not even know you are looking at it (e.g. cell tower in a flagpole). The EMI is likely transient in nature, that is probably why it appears to go away after a factory reset. Turn sensitivity down slightly and see if that helps.

 

[saanich2018]

I may be wrong, but in both cases the fields are in valleys behind the schools. As I said, you walk 110 steep steps down to the field. There is no line of site. In the attached image you can see the field is over 100 feet in elevation below the school. You cannot see the school from the field. There are no high power lines around, just normal lines to homes. The closes homes are 200 yards or more away. There are no power or cable underground utilities - which we have complain about especially in ice storms.

As for the phone, the entire neighborhood complains because we are all in a valley and get virtually no cell phone service. The closes cell tower is almost a mile away, with no line of site. Plus, you get no cell signal from it in the valley. The phone companies have our area marked as a dead zone on their maps.

The next time it happens I will try reducing the sensitivity.

 

[ripvanb]

Do you carry your cell phone on you while detecting? Sometimes the cell phone can cause interference when it's on. Also what pinpointer are you using? I've heard that some pinpinters can interfere with the Equinox.

 

[vferrari]

Just to clarify, if your handheld pinpointer is causing interference when you turn it on, then doing a noise cancel with your pinpointer turned on should help as eman suggested. It won't necessarily help if you are just experiencing random bursts of noise with the pinpointer off, which is the case here. Also, not to be confused with doing a noise cancel after invoking pinpoint mode on the detector, which has no effect whatsoever (noise cancel setting just selects the best channel for whatever search mode you are in and doesn't care if you got there directly from the search mode or pinpoint mode) which is what I thought was also being suggested.

 

[smokeythecat]

I would not waste any more time trying to figure out the impossible. Send it back after calling. Machine repairs today are like trying to tell your machanic your car makes a funny noise and then doing nothing about it. Get it done before the fieldfigging season ends.

 

[Whyme]

One last thing..... Mary's 600 was fine then acting funny. Did a new ground balance and it was fine and later it would act funny. I took the coil cover off and cleaned the cover and the coil and it straightened out. There wasn't a lot of gunk in the cover or on the coil, but it did have some dust in it. Give that a try. I would also not bring my cell phone with me when I test. Leave it in the car.