EQ800 5th & 6th Hunts Field2 & Park2

Cal_Cobra

Bronze Member
Oct 3, 2008
1,099
1,710
Northern California
🥇 Banner finds
3
Detector(s) used
Minelab EQ800 & Makro Multi Kruzer, the rest are collecting dust...
A little background on this particular "test" site that I take every machine to that I've owned over the past 12 years since I got my first detector. The site has both mineralized soil, and mild EMI, which some machines handle a LOT better than others. First I tried a Fisher C$ and Minelab Sovereign, and maybe got one wheat penny (C$ was shut down from the EMI). I figured there had to be more there, but it wasn’t until I got the CZ70 that it opened up. Someone had cleaned out the top 6” of targets, so anything left there was either deep, masked or both. First trip with the CZ was like Christmas! After 5-6 trips the CZ played out. Then every new machine I got I’d take there, and see what it could find. The first few trips there with the F75 did well, took my Etrac there and only got one wheat and a maverick bakery token. Then for about three years it petered out, it would take everything I had busting my butt to eek out one IHP or wheat, but silver dried up for about three years. I still figured there had to be more. When I got my Red Racer, I did a shoot-out between it and my (at that time) beloved F75. I first detected it with my F75 LTD2, and got nothing, only iron grunts, zero conductors. Then I switched to the Red Racer and pulled two silvers, an IHP and wheatie. It was an eye opener, first silver in three years, and not one, but two AND it was on basically my first hunt with the Red Racer. Then each subsequent trip with the Racers the site was back on, and not all the old coins were deep, several were masked with iron that prevented other detectors from getting thanks to Makro's world class unmasking capabilities. Matter of fact I had my best day there with my Racer2, something like 12 period coins in one hunt including four silvers, it was simply unbelievable to me that my pounded site that I practically gave up on, produced this many coins in about a 3 hour hunt.

As you all know these sites don’t exactly replenish themselves with period coins, so for for the Equinox to do what it did this weekend is beyond impressive, eight DEEP period coins in about three hours is fantastic! For this site I used Park2, and ran it hot with the gain between 22-24, even was able to run it at 25, but found it started to like deep nails at 25. By the way, this site is loaded with old square nails. The original building that was there burned down in the mid 1800's, and I suspect that they razed the burned remnants around this site, and dumped fill dirt over the razed burnt remains when the built the replacement building went up, as once you get down to around 10" - 12" you seem to hit a sea of square nails. Never have found a seated at this site, it's certainly old enough to have them, but I suspect they are beneath this sea of nails.


This was a deep mid conductor signal tangled in heavy tree roots. Little did I know how deep this would turn out to be! Between my Lesche shovel and digger, and a lot of patience (and a few curse words thrown in for good measure!) I finally pulled brought this sucker back to life, it was a dateless buffalo nickel!
40280195465_92c16d7ff0_c.jpg

26303517997_cfb849dc0b_c.jpg

39365770750_13aa785b5f_c.jpg

26303514657_829acfff57_c.jpg

This is what was in that monstrous 10" deep hole!
40280200625_d8a61cb3f4_c.jpg

26303512877_93ec4a10bc_c.jpg

Total take for this hunt (3 hours) was five teens wheaties, a dateless buffalo nickel, 1902-S Barber dime (yeah!!!), 1936-S Mercury dime, some kind of silver button (that sucker was DEEEEEP), a poppers wedding ring, DEEP civil ware era (?) two piece Navy cuff button (this thing is going to LOVE buttons), and two suspender buckles/clips. Now I will say that the non-modulated audio on shallow stiff is a major PITA for deep turf hunting, so I did dig some zincolns, and shallow clad
angry.png

27302447148_d045ebd937_c.jpg

27302443028_a7d68a35f5_c.jpg

This was my second hunt, which I did in Field2. It's a little fresh water beach area that I've pounded over the years. Haven't found a ton there, few wheats, mercs, some rings in the water, and some 1800's relics, but I love the history of the site, and figure detecting it will eventually pay off with something really good (that hasn't happened yet, but I know something really good has to be hiding out there, probably in the water though!).
I've never dug this many wheaties there in one hunt, and I love the wheatie with the iron fused to it!
40280198645_58aa1dab27_c.jpg

Also got a nice antique looking sterling silver ring and a 43' silver war nickle:
40280196715_7162a0065a_c.jpg

27302450318_a1ca864bb6_c.jpg

As I was heading back to the car, I ran into another guy detecting there with a White's MX Sport. Was a pretty friendly guy, and we started chatting. He knew about the EQ800 and said that would be his next machine. He was hunting in the turf, not the beach. I told him I was hunting the beach and he told me that I wouldn't find anything there because he'd already cleaned it out
wink.png
Now truth be told, I was a bit impressed with his MX Sport as he'd just dug a 9" deep merc when I came up on him. He said he's mainly a prospector and had done a lot of dredging in California but when they shut it down, he moved to Alaska. Interesting guy to chat with for sure.
HH,
Cal
 

Upvote 39
It looks like that new machine is a best one to buy now.My old Minelab produced some awesome finds.
 

Thanks for the report Cal. Looks like the new detector is paying off. Cant wait till mine arrives.
 

Nice hunting and thank you for sharing! :occasion14:
 

NICE BUNCH OF FINDS
 

Good play-by-play story. Love hearing how you can "outsmart your prey" at places your previous arsenal petered out at. Like the green patina on the earlier wheaties . And the in-situ measuring to show the task at hand .
 

Thanks for the detailed story of your experience! It sounds great. I have found deep holes hard to dig and put back in good shape. Any suggestions for a clean and neat deep hole? Also, when going deep, how does one avoid pipes and wires? Thanks!
 

Thanks everyone, it was fun detecting over the weekend :icon_thumleft:


Thanks for the detailed story of your experience! It sounds great. I have found deep holes hard to dig and put back in good shape. Any suggestions for a clean and neat deep hole? Also, when going deep, how does one avoid pipes and wires? Thanks!

To be honest, I can make better plugs with my Lesche shovel, but if you're in a park some will frown on a shovel in a park, and you can still dig a nice plug with the Lesche digger, just takes some practice. I typically cut my plug down about 6", and then with the "top" off, use my digger to break up another 4" of dirt and start probing for the target. Some people have towels or rubber mats to dump the dirt onto as to not make a mess. Sometimes, no matter how good you are at digging a plug, it'll just fall apart, but just do your best. If I'm hunting a park, my goal is to leave it so nobody can tell you were there. Never had a problem with wires, only hit pipes at old parks, their iron, no harm, no foul.

HH,
Cal
 

I'm liking this Equinox more and more.
Congratulations on all your finds and thanks for sharing your experience and results.
 

Thanks everyone, it was fun detecting over the weekend :icon_thumleft:




To be honest, I can make better plugs with my Lesche shovel, but if you're in a park some will frown on a shovel in a park, and you can still dig a nice plug with the Lesche digger, just takes some practice. I typically cut my plug down about 6", and then with the "top" off, use my digger to break up another 4" of dirt and start probing for the target. Some people have towels or rubber mats to dump the dirt onto as to not make a mess. Sometimes, no matter how good you are at digging a plug, it'll just fall apart, but just do your best. If I'm hunting a park, my goal is to leave it so nobody can tell you were there. Never had a problem with wires, only hit pipes at old parks, their iron, no harm, no foul.

HH,
Cal

Thanks, Cal...I also use a towel, have a Lesche shovel, and follow your suggested technique...What I find happens with me is the target turns out deeper than anticipated and I have started with a small plug which makes the hole too small to go deeper easily...I have given up on several holes if it is too rocky and I do not want to make a mess of the property...Large iron targets have gotten
me to go deep too and sometimes hard to retrieve those. Thanks for the ideas!
 

What a hunt. Congrats :thumbsup:
 

Nice to see you getting some depth . Gives me hope . My first silver with my 800 was a 1902 O dime . Seems our 800s have like minds but mine was only four inches deep . Great hunt and info .
 

Thanks, Cal...I also use a towel, have a Lesche shovel, and follow your suggested technique...What I find happens with me is the target turns out deeper than anticipated and I have started with a small plug which makes the hole too small to go deeper easily...I have given up on several holes if it is too rocky and I do not want to make a mess of the property...Large iron targets have gotten me to go deep too and sometimes hard to retrieve those. Thanks for the ideas!

If I know the targets going to be deep, I dig a decent diameter hinged plug, flip it over and break up the dirt inside the hole with my Lesche digger. If the targets deeper, then I remove the dirt and keep going until I find it. I have to say that the pinpointing on the EQ is pretty spot on, so it's helpful in making a cleaner plug. I have a couple of other detectors that are awesome for relic hunting where holes don't need to be so visually appealing, but their inability to accurately pinpoint is not great for park hunting. BY the way I've found that although it's easier to start the plug with my Lesche shovel, that the blade on my Lesche digger is a bit longer and I can get a cleaner plug with the digger versus the shovel, although it's a bit more work.

HH,
Cal
 

Nice to see you getting some depth . Gives me hope . My first silver with my 800 was a 1902 O dime . Seems our 800s have like minds but mine was only four inches deep . Great hunt and info .

The only thing 4" deep at the site I dug my 1902S barber is modern clad, but most of that's been stripped away, so surface clad tends to be only 1"-2" deep for the most part, you need to get to 8" or so any more to get coins from this spot. I'll tell you that most of the signals were not great, if you're used to a banging signal from a shallow coin, the deep ones have been for me totally different, I get fluttery, flutey high tones that can bounce around from the mid 20's to low 30's.

The next time I get out to a site like this, and get what I think is going to be a deep coin that comes in like I described above, I'm going to check it with various search modes and settings and see if I can dial the detector in better to perhaps get a better signal and maybe even a bit more depth.

HH,
Cal
 

What are you running your recovery speed at ?
 

What are you running your recovery speed at ?

Ditto on this question.

I tried mine @ 6 (I think that's the factor pre-set for Park 2 mode). And found the depth to be less than my Explorer II was affording me in the turf.

But then later, when testing the 800 on the dry sand beach, lowered it to recovery speed of 3. Seemed to get more depth. An air test later confirmed this.

Unlike the Exp. II, where the difference between "fast" and "slow" (the only 2 options for recovery speed) has no difference in depth. Just length of time you hear the target (hence more likely to hear it @ "slow" versus "fast", yet .... in my experience, no loss of depth to a good ear).

The trouble in my mind, with lowering their pre-set of "6" down to "3" (in order to get more depth), is that: Presto: You'd be sacrificing the fabled knife-blade separation in junky sites. Wouldn't you ? Not sure how "3" or "6" compares (ie.: commensurate settings) to the Exp. II's "fast" and "slow".
 

What are you running your recovery speed at ?

Whatever the default on the EQ800 is in Park2, I've yet to play with of the advanced settings like recovery speed or iron bias.

Now that I'm starting to get a good handle on the detector, I need to start testing recovery speed and iron bias to see how they help.

I'd like another crack at the site I got the barber and merc at so when I get over another deepie I could see how it sounded in different search modes, test the sensitivity from low to high to see what's the minimum gain required to get an 8"+ coin and if lowering the gain improves the audio response, see how recovery speed works, and even iron bias.

So many things to try, and so little time to try them :dontknow:
 

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top