“The Minelab Equinox: From Beginner to Advanced”
By Steve
Herschbach (Detector Prospector Forum Administrator)
“The Minelab Equinox: From Beginner to Advanced” by Clive Clynick is the first book available about the new Minelab Equinox metal detectors. The 8.5″ x 5.5″ format book is 111 pages of densely packed information that is intended to help new Minelab Equinox owners get the best out of their new detectors.
The early part of the book relies of screen shots to illustrate the various controls on the detector, and then switches to hand drawn pictures to illustrate various concepts described in the book. In this day and age of slick graphics the hand drawn images lend a “homemade” feeling to these books.
I can’t really fault Clive for using the hand drawn images however. A picture does often easily get across some idea that might be very difficult to describe in writing. I personally can sketch out a useful image quite easily, but turning that sketch onto a slick computer generated diagram can be time consuming. In the end the hand drawn sketches get the idea across, and that is what matters most.
The first roughly 40 pages of the book basically go over the controls, adding some details not found in the owner’s’ manual. The real meat is in the last 70 pages of the book. Clive goes into great detail emphasizing important details about the Minelab Equinox meter and audio characteristics. There is a lot of information here about how to use the Equinox features along with good handling skills to get the best performance possible out of the Equinox.
The book has an emphasis on coin and jewelry detecting both on dry land and beach. I therefore think the book will be of most use to people looking for information more specific to these subjects. Information specific to relic detecting or nugget hunting in particular is more in passing while discussing coin and jewelry detecting.
Much of the information presented does assume basic detecting knowledge along with basic knowledge from the Equinox owner’s manual. Clive tries to avoid repeating information already found in the owner’s manual, and so from this perspective I would rate this book as being applicable for detectorists with moderate to advanced detecting skills. People who are totally new to detecting may feel in a bit over their heads initially. That is fine because any detecting book worth having usually needs more than one reading. Things that do not sink in at first make more sense after getting some hours of experience before they “click”.
The book may be challenging for true beginners on the first go, but that is because there is meat here to satisfy more advanced operators. Anyone that perseveres with fully understanding the information in this book will no longer be a beginner, and the good thing is the skills learned will apply to many other high performance metal detectors. The bottom line is I recommend this book for people looking for information that goes far beyond what is offered in the Equinox Owner’s Manual, and which is of primary interest to coin and jewelry hunters.
Clive is an accomplished writer with several titles to his credit that qualify as “classics”, especially as regards jewelry detecting. Visit his website at https://www.clivesgoldpage.com/ to see all the titles he currently has available.
Ed. Note: Thanks kindly for your review, Steve. Your “Detector / Prospector Equinox Fan Club” forum is a great source of information on the MinelabEquinox.
https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/forum/53-minelab-equinox-fan-club