Treasure Talk

I made my first visit to the U.K. in 2010 in search of Celtic gold. I attended a Minelab conference just prior to that visit and was asked what detector I was going to use. A Minelab was not on my list. Why? At that time, Minelab was synonymous for “low and slow” detecting, with slow being the main problem. The farm fields I was to hunt in England were huge, and in my mind, ground coverage was paramount. I wanted a detector that I could swing fast all day long, something light in weight and with a fast recovery time.

Fast forward to 2018 and a return trip to England for another go at those huge farm fields and Celtic gold. This time I was packing two Minelab Equinox detectors, one with the stock 11” DD coil, and the other with the new 15” x 12” DD coil. My first trip had not produced the Celtic gold I was seeking, and this time I was going all in with the Minelab Equinox in the hope that it would do the trick for me.

Metal detecting for gold nuggets is one of the most difficult detecting tasks, and learning to run a VLF detector in highly mineralized ground will challenge even the best detectorists. There is more to this subject then can be covered in a brief article but I will try and offer some tips to get people started with the Minelab EQUINOX for gold nugget detecting.

This blog entry may help give some insight into metal detecting in U.S. parks with lots of modern trash. It also illustrates how somebody like me experiments with different discrimination settings. In my view it is this kind of experimentation that best teaches you the ins and outs of any new detector…

I can think of no better time to put the new EQUINOX 800 through its paces on shallow targets than after a large festival. After these events, there are always an abundance of lost treasures lying mostly on the surface, hidden only by the grass, or a thin layer of dirt; but you will also hit targets at depth. Over the years, this has become well known amongst detectorists and, as you can imagine, these events always bring a multitude of us ‘out and about’, rushing around to see how much we can find, before everyone else…

Metal detectors, decades ago, had very limited depth capability. Therefore, increasing detection depth was a prime focus for all detectorists. Metal detector advertising has always made “more depth” part of the selling point for most new detectors. This focus on “more depth” made sense for a long time but, more recently; it has been shown that more depth is only part of the equation…

One of the EQUINOX’s best features is its strong Target Identifications (TIDs) system. I’ve never seen a detector able to give such reliable TIDs at depth like the EQUINOX can. Not only in Multi-IQ (multi-frequency), but also in all single frequencies, and the TIDs for non-ferrous targets are stable across modes and frequencies. ..

In Part 3 we ended with mentioning the different Multi-IQ “frequency weightings” for the different search profiles. Part 4 explains further why it is not a simple matter of just referring to specific individual frequencies for learning more about Multi-IQ technology. Let’s now consider one of the key practical detecting outcomes and then discuss how this was achieved…

EQUINOX and the dreaded coke problem…

Gold coins, micro-gold nuggets (0.7g) and cut quarters, located in the ground under coke, are no problem when you wield the new EQUINOX! I hate hearing coke, as it breaks your concentration and you always end up thinking “what have I missed.” This is the main reason I moved onto the Minelab multi-frequency machines. Hopefully this blog will put you at ease with a commonly asked question on Facebook and various forums – “Does the EQUINOX hear coke?”

I have seen some confusion on the internet regarding the differences between the Minelab EQUINOX 600 and EQUINOX 800. I think that the EQUINOX 600 is being somewhat overlooked because it’s not the “top model” but, in my opinion, it is incredible value for a remarkably low price. I hope this blog will clear up any confusion and, in the process, show why I think the EQUINOX 600 deserves a second look by some people…

My involvement with EQUINOX has been purely around the Gold Mode, leaving the testing of the coin & treasure modes (Park, Field, Beach) to the experts in these areas. Typically, a general-purpose metal detector has a token gold (or prospecting) mode with much lesser performance than a dedicated VLF gold detector. Not so with the EQUINOX 800…