Ask away when you are ready.
Here are some Equinox Beach Hunting Tips in the Meantime
Always perform a noise cancel before hunting in the mode that you are going to use (each mode needs to be noise cancelled and ground balanced separately).
Ground balance is typically not needed on the dry sand, but it also only takes a few seconds to do it so you might as well do it to learn if for no other reason.
After Noise Cancel and GB - set sensitivity only as high as you can and not hear chatter. You can be successful at Sensitivity Setting 20 (the default) but can eek out some more depth at higher settings of 22 to 23 or even all the way to 25 if there is no chatter. The dry beach sand is were you can usually get away with higher sensitivity settings because there is little ground feedback chatter and hopefully little to no EMI unless there are a lot of hotels and concessions close to the shore with wifi blasting or if there are a lot of beach goers with cell phones.
Use Beach 1 on the dry sand although you can probably get away any mode. I recommend Beach 1 anyway because that is what you will want to use in the damp/wet sand at the tide line anyway where the other modes become unstable due to the increased salinity concentration in the ground reference. So, just go with the Beach 1 defaults. Learning Equinox on the dry/wet sand in Beach one is a GREAT way to learn the machine, so go for it. After you gain more confidence in the Equinox and have a better understanding on what the settings do, then start to experiment with them. Especially, the various tone settings and the recovery speed settings. Iron Bias is tricky and is only something you want to fool with if there is a lot of ferrous on the beach.
If you are going to take Equinox beyond the tide line into shallow salt water or surf, then you will probably want to opt for Beach 2 which is more stable under those conditions. If there is a lot of black sand, moving water/sand then you will probably want to switch Ground Balance to tracking because the ground reference will rapidly change with the surf action. Again, if you switch to Beach 2 you will want to noise cancel and ground balance or go to tracking when switched into that Search Profile mode.
There is a lot more to beach hunting than meets the eye for the inexperienced detectorist.
It is not just randomly puttering around the beach and if you do that it might be a frustrating experience for you.
Look for the towel line and on-beach concession areas and lifeguard stations and beach entrances. Think like a beach goer and where you typically lose stuff. Putting your keys in your pocket before you hit the sand, bending over and taking off your flip flops, reaching for pocket change for a concession stand item, placing your watch and other valuables under your hat on your towel then forgetting you did that before you pick up the towel to shake it off. Depending on the number of people on the beach most of those towel line "fresh drops" of jewelry or clad only hang around for a day or so, if that, before being scooped up by the local detectorists or sinking beyond the reach of detectors, or are sucked up by sand grooming machines at night or dawn.
The real treasure is beyond the tide line. People most typically lose their jewelry the moment they first enter the water. The cold water shrinks their fingers and boom the ring drops off. Or they get hit by a wave and lose the watch, bracelet, or earrings. If the jewelry is heavy gold, it is going to sink fast and deep.
It does not take a lot of sand depth to put finds out of the reach of detectorists. That is why beach detectorists are in the water where the losses occur or looking for cuts in the tide line where sand has been removed from the beach by a recent storm or watching the tide table so they can follow the ebb tide out as it reaches the low point.
You will encounter a lot of trash that will "sound good". Aluminum can ends that tear off of beer and soda cans sound great and can be deep. Intact aluminum cans also sound great. If they are shallow you can get an idea of the size of the target by using the pinpoint feature. If the pinpoint signal traces a footprint larger than a coin or ring, it is usually junk. But even the small junk targets easily fool folks like pull tabs which ring up at 14 or 15 just above nickels (13), or round freshness seals that ring up at a solid 7 and sound like a gold ring. Bottle caps can also sometimes sound good with variable numbers but peaking in the 20's, but they will also typically have a telltale iron grunt that you can hear if you press the horseshoe button removing all discrimination while swinging over the target. Variable numbers usually indicate a junk target like a bottle cap or other mixed metal junk, but it could also be a coin spill or just a deep target on the edge of detection. So my recommendation is to just scoop everything - this helps you learn the language of the detector but also ensures you don't miss a good target. You will likely get frustrated with a lot of ketchup packets, crown caps, pull tabs, fishing sinkers, cans, and aluminum tent stakes but you will also probably end up with a few dollars in clad and perhaps something more valuable.
Have fun.
