anton said:
Secret Squirrels said:
but i will say right up
till a few hours ago it was going on ebay this morning
:lol:
that sounds like the old "hype vs reality" scenario starting to kick in..you can rest assured you are not the only one thinking like that..after the honeymoon of the release day is over, they will start coming up for sale all over the place..the one glaring factor showing up in everything shown so far is the jumpy id's making (for me personally anyway, as a coin hunter who likes stable id,and stable id at depth,which i get from my etrac,deus and impact)it pretty well an afterthought..whats the use of a deep, fast machine if you have to guess and roll the dice to work out what the target is? might as well dig everything (and like OLDGT says, theres reasons some of us dont want to dig it all
) and go hunting with a pi.. look, it is what it is, its a 1300 dollar mid range detector and a decent upgrade for the xterra series, it certainally hasnt "made all other detectors" oboselete, according to the (obviously)delusional minelab pr guy who coined that term for it
You are right anton, it was the "hype vs reality" scenario. But in reality you needed to read the entire sentence especially the part i've highlighted
So, in the interests of those sitting on the fence, those waiting on the arrival of their machines, and the sake of a good story, i will start from my arrival at miners den Adelaide.
Upon receipt of the Equinox i asked Shane if i could unbox and put it together in the shop so i could begin the charging process on my travel home. If i was able to get it fully charged i wanted to try a 100+ year saltwater swimming enclosure to determine if the site warranted a return visit due to the distance from home.
When unboxing, my immediate impression was a quality product, I found only a couple of minor annoyance factors with the package. firstly, the armrest padding is identical to the exterra 505 and really needs to be addressed at some future stage. The padding works away from the armrest from contnually placing your arm in and out whilst detecting/recovering, perhaps bevelled edges on the padding would relieve this issue. Secondly, i obviously wanted to charge on the way home and although it is understandable that an in car charger is an accessory, it should have been made available to purchase immediately :N: I was fortunate to have a jaycar store nearby and purchased a high speed car charger and suitable adapter so i could still use my navman as well. I also purchased a high speed in wall adapter as i noticed this is not supplied or available. As i said, minor annoyances, but it would have really peeved me if i didn't realise this before going home :| .
Ok, so i get to the water hole and the charging light stopped blinking 5 mins after arrival
Approx 3 hrs with the more expensive high speed chargers :Y: When viewing the quick start guide supplied i mumbled some choice words as to M/L being overtaken by the chinese. I couldn't read the instructions as they were in a foreign language, :lol: :lol: Duh, should have looked a little harder, sorry M/L :8 So from memory (reading the manual the night before) i vaguely recalled i only had to noise cancel and no need to G/B unless there was excessive noise.
The machine was impressively quiet :Y: and very easily controlled sweeping underwater, but i found it very difficult locating and extracting the targets when pinpointing in the black swampy murk that appeared and stayed every time i dug
( this will improve with experience) I came away from this highly dissapointed in the difficulty and also the amount of actual targets responded to.
After arriving home i unpacked put the headphones on charge, paired them (easily) and was impressed by the quality of the item, response, and comfort/fit.
once completely re reading the manual i headed out about 11pm to the old school site (play area) a minute down the road, i had only detected here the once for a good amount of pennies and silvers, so i was sure there would be more for the EQ. This area is mostly grassed so i used the screwdriver, however the ground was so hard i bent it and reverted to the slit method. once again the ground was to hard and it was difficult and messy retrieving pull tabs,screwcaps and brass/ copper plate at 4-6 inches (the only signals), so once again i headed off disappointed.
Next i went across the road to the old main oval site which is a huge area and has a mixture of grassed and dirt areas. i was able to use the small digging tool here
after 3 hrs i had only retrieved a 20c surface coin and non ferrous junk
this is when i was threatening to sell the *&#@ thing on ebay tomorrow
:lol: ]
I was thinking the 505 was obviously good enough to leave nothing behind for the EQ, how wrong i was
It dawned on me that in all my years detecting, be it gold or relics, ground balancing had always been a crucial part of setup, then why was the manual saying not necessary? So in desperation i found a clear spot and pumped that machine until it settled on a number
As soon as i took the first swing i noticed a distinct difference to the talk of the machine, i also zoned straight on to thrippy at 7 inches ]
arty: :rainbow: within the next hour and a half i had retrieved every coin and a charm for the night and finally went home very very satisfied with my purchase. :Y:
the end result will be in my new thread "squirrels EQ finds", even though it was such a frustrating day and night, you can't pay for the kind of experience i gained in my first day with the Nox. ]
Thank you M/L for what will undoubtedly become a very valuable tool in my arsenal. Money well spent :rainbow:
Regards, and relieved, Reg.
