I received an email mid-week from Minelab stockist, Metal Detector Sales Northern Ireland, to say my new EqQUINOX 800 was going to be dispatched on Thursday; I was like an excited kid at Christmas!
My immediate dilemma was that if it arrives on Friday do I use it at the dig I was going to on Saturday. I knew there would be a learning curve and didn’t want to spoil my Saturday dig swinging a detector that I didn’t know how to operate properly.
The Equinox turned up on my doorstep on the Friday morning and I quickly set it up and got it on charge. That evening I studied the manual and tried to get my head around the menu system, it was surprisingly easy and I even managed to add in a custom user profile that I had found online.
With renewed confidence I decided I’d attend Saturdays dig with the new Equinox and give it my best shot, but I did take my old detector just in case I got overwhelmed by the multitude of setting options the Equinox offered.
Saturday arrived and I headed off to meet up with my local club in the county of Devon, UK. It was to be the hottest day of the year so far, with a winter of digging in wet and freezing conditions I was looking forward to putting my shorts on and feeling warm!
The dig site was a mixture of meadow and stubble fields. The day started out slow for the 30 or so detectorists who attended with not many finds turning up and to top it all the farmer decided to start spraying slurry onto the stubble fields which were the only ones that were producing the occasional hammered and roman coins!
I eventually hit into a 1938 penny, so knew the settings were good and I was getting the occasional shotgun cap and aluminium, but nothing exciting!
I met up back with some of the other people at lunchtime in the field where our cars are parked and there were a few hammered and roman coins being shown around. Revitalised with a sandwich and some coffee I headed back out across the fields and decided to try one of the smelly sprayed stubble fields. I passed two other people heading out of the stubble field back into the meadow, with nothing to show for their efforts, regardless I decided to head into the field on my own and put up with the pong!
I headed over to the far side of the field, which ran parallel to a railway embankment. I stayed about 20 feet out from the embankment and started to work my way up a wide avenue of short stubble that had enough width to not impede my swing.
I had a few iron tones but nothing that encouraged me to pause my stride and investigate further.
Suddenly a tone rang through my headphones that said STOP, I ran the EQUINOX’s coil both ways across the spot, there was no fluctuation in the sound, and the target ID was showing a consistent 19. A buzz of excitement ran through me as I went into pinpointer mode, not that I needed to pinpoint, the signal was so strong I could eyeball exactly where the target lay, it was just force of habit. I swung my shovel round, cut out a square clod, and flipped it over, I ran the coil over the clod, nothing, it had to be in the hole! I pulled out my trowel and pinpointer and dropped to one knee next to the hole, like someone who was about to be knighted. The trowel and pinpointer were not needed; the sun's rays had done the job for me, glinting off the bright yellow coin 7” down in the hole. I arose and looked around me, I wanted someone to confirm what I was seeing but I was all on my own in the field!
I had to record the moment of the big reveal so I grabbed my phone and started to video
https://youtu.be/odhvxFN5oGU
I honestly didn’t know what I was picking up out of the hole when I started recording the video, except that it was gold in colour, I Iater had it identified by a club member as a George IV Full Sovereign in stunning condition.
My first day with my Equinox 800 had proved fruitful, but the weekend was not over!
On Sunday I decided to go to my local beach in Exmouth, Devon, my previous detector was not that great on the beach so I was looking forward to checking the Equinox’s capabilities on the mineralised wet sand.
I put it in to the Beach 1 present and sensitivity at 20 and headed off across the beach towards the water’s edge, the dry sand presented no problem to the EQUNIX, it remained stable and gave good signals on a variety of targets, including modern coins and small lead fishing weights.
Where the sand turns to shingle, about 15 feet from the water’s edge I had a nice crisp signal, I turned and checked from both directions, no difference! The pessimist in me said canslaw, but as I dug, the hole started to fill with water and a glint of gold caught my eye as I turned a shovel full of sand onto the beach. A gentle swish around with my pointer picked out a slightly encrusted gold ring with blue and clear stones.
Only 9ct, but a great start to detecting with my EQUINOX 800 and I am already smitten, it really is a pleasure to use and seems to hit the targets, especially the gold ones!
Stuart - England, UK
