Thanks for all the info. I took it out for a trial run today and i am simply amazed! So much faster recovery speed than my T2. I went to a permission that ive hunted probably 50 times and thought it was hunted out. I didnt really expect to find much considering it was my first time using this machine. I tried Park 1 & 2 and Field 1 & 2. Field 2 and Park 2 seemed to work best at this location. I found 2 Silver Rosies,1865 IHP, several wheat pennies, a "queen" figurine which i believe is silver, a 2 ring gardner bullet, an old dog tag, a key and lots of modern coins. All of which had been missed previously by myself and several other people who have hunted there numerous times. I can tell right away this machine loves coins!
Sounds like a great week, much less a great day. Normally, I would advise those new to the Equinox to refrain from mode hopping, but if you are an experienced detectorist who really understands the settings, then have at it.
The modes are as much about the desired targets as they are about the detecting environment.
Quickie mode summary:
Park 1 - Primarily a stable coin shooters' mode for parks as it is weighted to the lower frequencies in the MultiIQ spectrum. 5 tones and designed to target primarily high conductive targets. The high iron bias setting might help against falsing but beware of its tendency to also preclude unmasking non-ferrous that may be beneath or near a ferrous target. Relatively lower recovery speed at 5 maximizes depth without introducing too much ground noise.
Park 2 - Weighted toward the higher frequencies in the MultiIQ spectrum which makes it more suited to small, mid-conductive targets like gold jewelry and nickels. Again designed more fore these types of targets than for relic hunting, but many relic hunters swear by this mode. 50 tones. Fairly Quick Recovery speed at 6. No Iron bias.
Field 1 - A simple two tone mode (ferrous//non-ferrous) that is weighted to the lower frequencies. Ferrous tone break is high at 2 vice 0. Suited to looking for deep non-ferrous, especially high conductors, in the field with a quick recovery speed at 6. Also no iron bias.
Field 2 - Preferred relic mode for most. Higher frequency MultiIQ weighted. Ideal for small, mid-conductive relics like buttons, minie balls, and even gold. 50 tones and VERY high recovery speed at 7. Also no iron bias.
All of the above modes can be run in single frequency (5, 10 , 15, 20 (800 only) or 40 khz (800 only)). If you run in single frequency, then the Multi IQ "personality" that defines each of the Park/Field modes effectively goes away and the only thing that differentiates the modes then in the differences in the user parameter settings (e.g., tones, breakpoints, discrimination settings, and recovery speed). Note that Iron Bias does not exist in single frequency mode, regardless of where you have it set before you went into single frequency because iron bias relies on Multi IQ signal processing to work.
Beach 1 - Designed primarily for damp to wet salt sand (note most of the other modes can run stable in dry white wand even at a salt beach). Hits deep on high and mid conductors. Can find small gold jewelry at depth.
Beach 2 - Designed primarily for surf and shallow salt water hunting (Equinox can be submerged up to 3 meters). Note that to enable stability, Beach 2 will throttle back transmit power if it senses a high level of black sand or mineralization in the mud.
Note that you cannot run single frequency in either beach mode.
800 Only:
Gold 1/2 - basically the same mode but with two different recovery speeds. What sets Gold mode apart form the other modes besides the Multi IQ signal processing that is high frequency weighted is the audio and threshold. Unlike the other modes, Gold mode uses a true threshold which can be used to ferret out weak signals and it uses Voltage Controlled Osciallator emulating pitch audio versus tone ID when a signal is detected. This means that you have to get the target ID off the screen to ID the target as the audio will only alert you to signal strength and relative size of the target with pitch increasing in volume and duration based on the proximity and mass of the target to the coil.
Like I said previously, the default user settings for each of the modes is pretty well thought out by ML and should require minimal adjustment or tweaking. If you find yourself making relatively significant changes to Equinox settings you need to consider that he key to Equinox is maximizing signal to noise ratio, not just the signal. You need to realize how making a change to settings that affect signal may affect noise. So if you make significant changes to recovery speed in an attempt to maximize depth, you may need to reconsider the impact to swing speed and also may significantly increase ground feedback noise which is counterproductive. Increasing sensitivity too much can result in overloading the coil with shallow junk targets or increase EMI pickup.
HTH
