An Equinox 800 Experiment

[rayoh]

I just got a 800 and have to say, "why did I wait so long". I have hunted for a total of 10 hours at two places that one wheat penny a day is good. At one of these parks, I have found 800 silver coins since 2004. Here are my totals. 22 wheats, 2 mercury dimes, one silver roosie, two war nickels, and one buffalo. I am impressed with the ease of use and how this detector hunts in modern trash.

Yesterday I was at a spot that is at the bottom of a steep hill. I have found numerous silvers and wheats here and all were 8 plus inches deep. I have used an Etrac, SE Pro, Vanquish 540, F75 in all metal, and an Anfibio Multi. I have found silvers with all. Yesterday, I decided to see if the 800 could hear anything in this spot. I would dig a mere blip as long as I could get a signal from a couple of directions. This spot is devoid of trash as it gets little traffic. I got three signals that were faint with no numbers. Two repeated, but truly were just a slight blip. What were they? 1920 wheat from 9-10 inches, 1919 mercury dime from a similar depth, and the last was "mind boggling". It was the crustiest clad quarter I have ever found. A 1965 from 12 inches.

If I had not know about this particular spot, I would not waste my time doing this type of experiment. I knew that anything left would be extremely deep, but I thought my previous hunts with the deepest detectors made had got everything within reach of any VLF detector. To be honest, I would not dig these signals 99% of the time. I always like to find the limits of any detector I am using. The 800 did not disappoint me. PS, depth is not everything and the 800 is a fast, accurate detector that has surprised me with some older coins that were not all that deep, but were close to being masked by iron or junk. The 800 is the closest thing to perfection that a coin hunter could want.

 

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[Minelab Matt]

I just got a 800 and have to say, "why did I wait so long". I have hunted for a total of 10 hours at two places that one wheat penny a day is good. At one of these parks, I have found 800 silver coins since 2004. Here are my totals. 22 wheats, 2 mercury dimes, one silver roosie, two war nickels, and one buffalo. I am impressed with the ease of use and how this detector hunts in modern trash.

Yesterday I was at a spot that is at the bottom of a steep hill. I have found numerous silvers and wheats here and all were 8 plus inches deep. I have used an Etrac, SE Pro, Vanquish 540, F75 in all metal, and an Anfibio Multi. I have found silvers with all. Yesterday, I decided to see if the 800 could hear anything in this spot. I would dig a mere blip as long as I could get a signal from a couple of directions. This spot is devoid of trash as it gets little traffic. I got three signals that were faint with no numbers. Two repeated, but truly were just a slight blip. What were they? 1920 wheat from 9-10 inches, 1919 mercury dime from a similar depth, and the last was "mind boggling". It was the crustiest clad quarter I have ever found. A 1965 from 12 inches.

If I had not know about this particular spot, I would not waste my time doing this type of experiment. I knew that anything left would be extremely deep, but I thought my previous hunts with the deepest detectors made had got everything within reach of any VLF detector. To be honest, I would not dig these signals 99% of the time. I always like to find the limits of any detector I am using. The 800 did not disappoint me. PS, depth is not everything and the 800 is a fast, accurate detector that has surprised me with some older coins that were not all that deep, but were close to being masked by iron or junk. The 800 is the closest thing to perfection that a coin hunter could want.

Heck yeah - well said!

Matt

 

[MackDog]

Sounds like a spot we hunt coins are 8"-9" inches. It was an old pond at one time and most of the coins sank. We have hit it hard and the Knox 800 has torn it up after all other detectors. The other day after I updated to V3 I went back and ended up with 5 wheats all prior to 1919 a 1920 buffalo nickel and 1899 IHP. SInce the upgrade is more stable I can run sensitivity to 24 or 25 in our mineralized soil. So it keeps getting better

 

[ArfieBoy]

Congratulations! Very nice finds! Thanks for sharing.

 

[dave_e]

Way to go Ray.

I recently got an Equinox 600 to pair with my Nokta Impact and I like it so far.

I'm also from NE Ohio. We should hunt together some time.

 

[Cobradude22]

I just got a 800 and have to say, "why did I wait so long". I have hunted for a total of 10 hours at two places that one wheat penny a day is good. At one of these parks, I have found 800 silver coins since 2004. Here are my totals. 22 wheats, 2 mercury dimes, one silver roosie, two war nickels, and one buffalo. I am impressed with the ease of use and how this detector hunts in modern trash.

Yesterday I was at a spot that is at the bottom of a steep hill. I have found numerous silvers and wheats here and all were 8 plus inches deep. I have used an Etrac, SE Pro, Vanquish 540, F75 in all metal, and an Anfibio Multi. I have found silvers with all. Yesterday, I decided to see if the 800 could hear anything in this spot. I would dig a mere blip as long as I could get a signal from a couple of directions. This spot is devoid of trash as it gets little traffic. I got three signals that were faint with no numbers. Two repeated, but truly were just a slight blip. What were they? 1920 wheat from 9-10 inches, 1919 mercury dime from a similar depth, and the last was "mind boggling". It was the crustiest clad quarter I have ever found. A 1965 from 12 inches.

If I had not know about this particular spot, I would not waste my time doing this type of experiment. I knew that anything left would be extremely deep, but I thought my previous hunts with the deepest detectors made had got everything within reach of any VLF detector. To be honest, I would not dig these signals 99% of the time. I always like to find the limits of any detector I am using. The 800 did not disappoint me. PS, depth is not everything and the 800 is a fast, accurate detector that has surprised me with some older coins that were not all that deep, but were close to being masked by iron or junk. The 800 is the closest thing to perfection that a coin hunter could want.

If I may ask what is your preferred mode? I normally run field 2 with recovery on 3 for the 600. Iron biased 0 and the FE on 0. Never gave park modes much thought. Are they better? I mostly hunt old 1800s house locations. Thanks

 

[vferrari]

If I may ask what is your preferred mode? I normally run field 2 with recovery on 3 for the 600. Iron biased 0 and the FE on 0. Never gave park modes much thought. Are they better? I mostly hunt old 1800s house locations. Thanks

In general, targets of low conductivity or small size typically respond better to higher detector operating frequencies. Conversely, targets of high conductivity or larger size generally respond better to lower detector operating frequencies. Theoretically, as a simultaneous multi-frequency detector, the Equinox overcomes the limitations of varying target response to higher or lower frequencies because multiple frequencies are transmitted into the ground simultaneously. Nevertheless, the various Equinox multifrequency search modes (Park 1, Field 2 etc.) use frequency profiles that are weighted to higher or lower frequencies and, therefore, are optimized for specific groups of target types (e.g., coins, jewelry, gold, relics, etc.). Although that does not mean that just because a mode is optimized for lower or higher conductors or smaller or larger targets, that it can't see the targets that it is not optimized for. With that said, the Equinox Modes rack out as follows:

Park 1 is weighted towards the lower frequencies in the spectrum and therefore favors high
conductors like pure copper, silver, and clad coins which tend to be detected better/deeper at
low frequencies like 5 and 10 khz. Regardless, all five frequencies are still used so you are also
still going to hit on mid conductors like nickels, brass, aluminum and even gold. This is probably
the best "all around" search profile to use and to learn the machine with. Probably best for coin
shooting in parks and athletic fields.

Park 2 is weighted towards the higher frequencies and will hit harder on the mid-conductors
(nickels, gold) and small targets (earrings, pendants) than Park 1 but will still hit on the high
conductors too, perhaps not to the same depth as Park 1, though. Good search profile if you
want to zero in on jewelry, especially gold jewelry. But will hit small silver and copper jewelry
and also coins as well. Some like to use this search profile for relic hunting, too.
Field 1 is similar to Park 1 in that it is biased towards high conductors, but is a two tone search
profile. Have not used this search profile at all.

Field 2 is similar to Park 2 in that it is biased towards mid-conductors. It has slight differences in
ferrous/non-ferrous tone break and recovery speed vs. Park 2. This search profile is my favorite
relic hunting search profile and the search profile I have found the most old silver with (because
that silver was in the same fields as the relics I was hunting).
Beach 1 is biased to high conductors and is for dry and wet sand salt beaches. Great search
profile for beach hunting. Don't be fooled by the fact that it biased to high conductors, it will find
gold, too.

Beach 2 is able to deal with the ground phase effects of changing salinity better than Beach 1
and is suited for salt surf and underwater detecting. Same targets as Beach 1 but under water.
[Gold search profile is 800 ONLY]

The Gold search profiles are very different than the other search profiles in that they use VCO
audio which varies pitch and volume based on proximity to the target (similar to pinpoint mode).

Gold 1 is suited to milder ground and Gold 2 is suited to more mineralized ground. The both are
optimized for gold so, again, even though they are multi-frequency, they favor the high
frequencies (mid-conductors).

Each of the search profiles are very different in how they sound and behave. Therefore, I
would stick with a single search profile (Park 1 if land hunting or Beach 1 if beach
hunting) to learn the machine before search profile hopping.​ Because the machine uses
multi-frequencies, it is unlikely that you will actually be missing out much despite the fact that
the search profile may "favor" certain types of conductors. It still sees practically everything.

So to answer your specific question about whether Park Modes are "better". This is really an "it depends" type of answer. If you managed to slog through the mode descriptions above, the first thing you will realize are that Park 1 and Park 2 are very different and optimized for two completely different groups of targets. Park 1 is a great general purpose 5-tone mode that is probably best optimized for high conductive coin shooting (silver, copper, and clad). Park 2 is better for mid-conductive targets like nickels, brass , small jewelry (especially gold jewelry), lead, and, unfortunately, aluminum and uses 50 tones by default. Similarly, Field 1 is a great ferrous/non-ferrous detector mode that is optimized for higher conductors and larger targets. Field 2 is a 50-tone, mid-conductive mode that is optimized for mid-conductive relics (brass, lead), gold coins, and nickels, but it will also hit on silver coins as well, but perhaps not as hard as say, Park 1 or Field 1. HTH