bigscoop
Gold Member
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2010
- Messages
- 13,541
- Reaction score
- 9,086
- Golden Thread
- 0
- Location
- Wherever there be treasure!
- Detector(s) used
- Older blue Excal with full mods, Equinox 800.
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Why does everyone seem to think that they can buy a new detector and that it’s going to perform great for them right out of the box? No possible way that we’re going to get the most out of any new machine after only a few hours of use, just isn’t going to happen like that.
Hundreds of hours of use is what will eventually get us there, regardless the machine. Case in point, two years ago I purchased an Equinox 800 with large stock coil and Grey Ghost headphones. Today, however, I hardly ever take the 6” coil off of the machine and my good target recovery rate is through the roof, easily many times greater then my first year of use with the machine. Why?
The simple truth is that I now know this machine like the back of my hand, something that took more then a full year of use and hundreds of hours of learning all of it’s little nuances. Does this make it a better machine then machine B or C? Nope, but it is a machine that I know and understand very-very well. I can say this same thing about my old Sov GT and my Excals. But here again it took hundreds, if not thousands of hours of use by now. This same thing was also true on my old Fisher CZ-20 and a few other machines I’ve used over the years. You can’t just buy them, turn them on, use them for a few or several hunts, and then pass fair judgement on them.
With every new machine there is going to be a long learning curve regardless how much experience a detectorist might have. When I first got my 800 there were several things I didn’t like about it, the build quality being the most obvious right out of the box but this was to be expected in today’s market. Second, I didn’t like the very narrow VDI range or the fact that it didn’t have a true variable tone in it’s audible target I.D. And the manner in which it already offered several factory installed resident hunting modes and presets was also something I wasn’t all that keen on. And there were also other little details that, and here it comes, that I had to figure how to work around “to suit me” if possible. And last, I had to learn how, depending on settings, this machine processed returns out in the field and why all of those factory presets existed and what those differences were. We’re just not going to learn all of this in a few days, weeks, or months of using this machine regardless how much detecting and/or detector experience we might otherwise have. It just isn’t going to happen.
Take a nickel, a gold ring, and one of those pesky square pull tabs, making sure all of these items read 13 on the Equinox’s VDI. Now have someone bury them in a test garden and when you can tell the difference between the nickel and gold ring VS the square pull tab then only now do you know your Equinox well enough to pass judgement because this distinction can be achieved with the Nox. If you would have told me this prior to my purchase of this machine or after my first year of using this machine I would have told you that you were nuts, but it can be done and today I do it all the time. In fact, I seldom dig any trash targets at all these days despite the fact that most of my land detecting is in heavy trash infested areas.
“This place has already been pounded to death and completely picked apart.” It’s all nonsense and today I never even consider such thoughts. “Look at all those detectorist, no sense in me wasting my time here.” When you truly understand your machine then thoughts like this are just more nonsense because the truth is that 99% of those other detectorist don’t. Sure, they will likely pluck the easier targets but I promise you that there’s still going to be a fair amount of quality targets left behind for the detectorist who truly understands his machine but that isn’t going to happen after just a handful of hunts, or a week or a few months of using that machine. With my Nox it’s taken me nearly two years and several hunrded hours of detecting with the Nox 800 to arrive at the correct programming and settings and coil combinations that have allowed me to continue plucking good targets from all of the above on a regular basis.
Just some useful FYI that you might want to keep in mind when buying a new machine or when you’re perhaps passing judgement on a machine too quickly. The machine is just a tool and just like any other machine we have to learn to use it to the best of it’s capabilities. And all of that simply takes time, and then more time. Case in point, I just recovered this small selection of old coins from a kiddie area at my old local park that’s been hunted to death a thousand times over and I have zero doubt that I’m going to recover even more and hopefully a couple of pieces of old gold in the process. No possible way could I have recovered these during my first year of using the Nox.
Hundreds of hours of use is what will eventually get us there, regardless the machine. Case in point, two years ago I purchased an Equinox 800 with large stock coil and Grey Ghost headphones. Today, however, I hardly ever take the 6” coil off of the machine and my good target recovery rate is through the roof, easily many times greater then my first year of use with the machine. Why?
The simple truth is that I now know this machine like the back of my hand, something that took more then a full year of use and hundreds of hours of learning all of it’s little nuances. Does this make it a better machine then machine B or C? Nope, but it is a machine that I know and understand very-very well. I can say this same thing about my old Sov GT and my Excals. But here again it took hundreds, if not thousands of hours of use by now. This same thing was also true on my old Fisher CZ-20 and a few other machines I’ve used over the years. You can’t just buy them, turn them on, use them for a few or several hunts, and then pass fair judgement on them.
With every new machine there is going to be a long learning curve regardless how much experience a detectorist might have. When I first got my 800 there were several things I didn’t like about it, the build quality being the most obvious right out of the box but this was to be expected in today’s market. Second, I didn’t like the very narrow VDI range or the fact that it didn’t have a true variable tone in it’s audible target I.D. And the manner in which it already offered several factory installed resident hunting modes and presets was also something I wasn’t all that keen on. And there were also other little details that, and here it comes, that I had to figure how to work around “to suit me” if possible. And last, I had to learn how, depending on settings, this machine processed returns out in the field and why all of those factory presets existed and what those differences were. We’re just not going to learn all of this in a few days, weeks, or months of using this machine regardless how much detecting and/or detector experience we might otherwise have. It just isn’t going to happen.
Take a nickel, a gold ring, and one of those pesky square pull tabs, making sure all of these items read 13 on the Equinox’s VDI. Now have someone bury them in a test garden and when you can tell the difference between the nickel and gold ring VS the square pull tab then only now do you know your Equinox well enough to pass judgement because this distinction can be achieved with the Nox. If you would have told me this prior to my purchase of this machine or after my first year of using this machine I would have told you that you were nuts, but it can be done and today I do it all the time. In fact, I seldom dig any trash targets at all these days despite the fact that most of my land detecting is in heavy trash infested areas.
“This place has already been pounded to death and completely picked apart.” It’s all nonsense and today I never even consider such thoughts. “Look at all those detectorist, no sense in me wasting my time here.” When you truly understand your machine then thoughts like this are just more nonsense because the truth is that 99% of those other detectorist don’t. Sure, they will likely pluck the easier targets but I promise you that there’s still going to be a fair amount of quality targets left behind for the detectorist who truly understands his machine but that isn’t going to happen after just a handful of hunts, or a week or a few months of using that machine. With my Nox it’s taken me nearly two years and several hunrded hours of detecting with the Nox 800 to arrive at the correct programming and settings and coil combinations that have allowed me to continue plucking good targets from all of the above on a regular basis.
Just some useful FYI that you might want to keep in mind when buying a new machine or when you’re perhaps passing judgement on a machine too quickly. The machine is just a tool and just like any other machine we have to learn to use it to the best of it’s capabilities. And all of that simply takes time, and then more time. Case in point, I just recovered this small selection of old coins from a kiddie area at my old local park that’s been hunted to death a thousand times over and I have zero doubt that I’m going to recover even more and hopefully a couple of pieces of old gold in the process. No possible way could I have recovered these during my first year of using the Nox.
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