The Minelab Equinox: An Advanced Guide
Excerpts from JR’S full review…
Both books in his Equinox series are in 110-120 page range and small standard format of 8 ½ x 5 ½ inches. Don’t be fooled by the small number of pages. A lot of very specific Equinox information is packed in these two books that as of this review, is not found elsewhere.
Due to the tight TID range of the Equinox that tends to stack different targets in a small range, you really need to be up on what I call “filter” tests. These are tests with different settings, coil sweep methods, meter readings, and audio responses to further ID a target as junk or dig. Clive digs in and spends a fair amount of time showing you how to learn to recognize the many common forms of junk we encounter so we can ignore them and dig the targets that are likely to be the targets we are searching. Of course he does explain no “filtering” tests are 100% fool proof, but what he explains should cut down on some targets that the “filtering” test indicate are recognizable as junk targets.
One of my suspicions is that there may be a lot of people giving up on the Equinox. It is a very, very capable detector, one of the best ever made at its selling price. But the other price you pay is a very high learning curve that some will just not invest in. In the hands of an experienced detectorist who has taken the time to learn and understand how to use the Equinox’s powers, they will probably match up very well against a similar experienced detectorist using other brands of detectors in this price range and the next higher price range. Newbies tackling Clive’s two Equinox books are more likely to continue in the hobby than those who do not study his books.
Both books are priced fairly for the amount Equinox specific information they provide. In my experience a lot of metal detecting books have included a lot of filler fluff to increase the page count so as to inflate the book price. There is no fluff in either of these two books. Every Equinox owner will gain some useful information from either one. Me when I buy a reference book for something I am interested in, I read it and keep it for future reference and often end up re-reading them.
Here is an update to my review of Clive Clynick’s The Minelab Equinox: “An Advanced Guide”.
I think this book goes deeper into the 600 and certainly the 800 than his first Equinox book. This is because the 800 has some more useful options over the 600. The other reason Clive has more time on the Equinox than when he did on is first book on the Equinox.
Again, I will say I don’t go over his books topic by topic because you need to buy and read the book for this information. But I can tell you about a couple of areas that has been very helpful to me.
As you should know by now that this detector is a high gain detector that reports darn near everything that passes under the coil. Thus this is where its chatty reputation comes from. In fact the first 2 weeks before I read Clive’s first book I thought my detector was broken.
Especially in his second book he goes into more detail how to quiet down this detector using proper ground balance, noise canceling, sensitivity adjustments and recovery speed, mode and frequency selection and iron balance. All of these properly used will result in a quiet machine with little or no adverse effect on depth. In some cases with proper frequency and mode selection along with proper ground balance, noise canceling and sensitivity settings you will actually increase your depth and ability to find weaker targets.
The next great area of book two is his detailed instructions on how to correctly ID trash targets by using proper filtering coil sweep techniques. Following this topic is a list of Target ID Numbers and ranges and what junk you will typically find in certain ranges and also what he calls anomalies (good signals among the junk targets) and what to watch for depending on the nature of the site you are hunting.
He also explains the nature of some of the Equinox’s bias toward round coin sized objects. Finally someone gives us a lot of detail on Identifying junk targets and separating out the good stuff from the junk by various methods.
I have heard bits and pieces of the above information in metal detecting forums and videos, but it is very nice to have all of it in a small book form.
JR
Thanks Kindly, JR.
clive
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