1\/ \u201cTech\u201d<\/p>\n

I recently gave a talk on the Equinox to a group of mostly amateur hunters–prospective buyers.\u00a0 Minelab\u2019s National Sales Rep was in the audience.\u00a0 Amongst the first things I said was that (having read some of the online \u201cTreasure Talk\u201d tech rundowns on this machine), that it was \u201c\u2026the first detector that I\u2019ve ever had to translate to English!\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 In that manufactures like to promote their machines as being \u201cturn on and go,\u201d I\u2019m not sure if the Rep liked me saying this.\u00a0 Probably not.\u00a0 It\u2019s true, though some of the language used in explaining \u201cMulti IQ\u201d and how it accomplishes enhanced noise reduction and target ID accuracy can only be called \u201ceye-glazing.\u201d \u00a0This talk of \u201cdata points\u201d \u201cresolution\u201d and \u201cfrequency weightings\u201d is a lot to digest and I\u2019m still weeding through some of it.\u00a0 My point here though is that the end result is a detector that\u2019s pretty simple to operate and get great results from.\u00a0 One idea I tried to emphasise in \u201c\u2026From Beginner to Advanced<\/u>\u201d<\/em> is that no matter how complex a detector is–the most important thing is to have a good grasp of some very basic ideas of theory (the different characteristics of ferrous versus non-ferrous signals for example), and some simple ways to apply these.\u00a0 A while ago I got a text from a hunter asking if I could give him a \u201cquick rundown\u201d on how to run the Equinox in a sentence or two.\u00a0 I guess this kind of thinking must come from being used to simpler detectors–hunters want specifics–“now.\u201d \u00a0Similarly when I first got the EQ I was also looking at \u201cYouTube\u201d videos for \u201ctricks and tweaks\u201d that would help to solve particular site and target problems.\u00a0 The idea was: \u201c\u2026if I collect enough of these\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Looking back I see that 99% of these \u201cinstructional\u201d videos were of little or no real value.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also heard guys on the forums dismiss my first EQ book saying that more could be learned from \u201cguys on this forum\u201d–sharing quick tips.\u00a0 To me this represents going in the wrong direction.\u00a0 It\u2019s general and basic<\/em> knowledge that allows you to address specific challenges–not the other way round.\u00a0 If I had called this book: \u201cThe Minelab Equinox: Theory<\/u> <\/em>and Practice\u201d it would probably still be on the shelf–but it is<\/u><\/em> theory, basics and general machine skills and features knowledge that provide the background for learning.\u00a0 It\u2019s this background learning that lets you adapt, tune, recognise \u201cquality\u201d\u2019 responses and draw your own accurate conclusions in any hunt situation.<\/em>\u00a0 These generalizable<\/em> skills represent a huge advantage. \u00a0One only needs to take a look at some of these \u201cYouTube\u201d videos to see this principle in action–people just plain \u201cusing the Equinox badly\u201d –not bothering to engage in even the most simple target testing.\u00a0 This detector was not designed to help you find flyspecks of aluminum, \u201ctoo big\u201d objects or random misshapen targets.\u00a0 Any cheap \u201cstick beeper\u201d can do that.<\/p>\n

The \u201ctheory\u201d I\u2019m talking about is not that involved–or stuffy.\u00a0 The starting point is the simple idea that the ground forms part of the signal. <\/em>\u00a0Rather than \u201cpunching\u201d down though the ground to hear metal–what a detector actually does is to separate metal from ground.<\/em>\u00a0 You could say that by way of processing–a detector separates the \u201corder\u201d of a clean metal target from the \u201cchaos\u201d (or \u201cnoise)\u201d of the ground\u2019s signal.\u00a0 That\u2019s it.\u00a0 With a sophisticated detector like the Equinox, what you have is the machine responding to the relationship between ground and target with great precision.\u00a0 The last thing is that at a certain point–all detectors fail to accomplish this separation\u2014and there is a lot of valuable target information to be gotten from this failure.\u00a0 The idea that\u2019s served me well has been to learn to recognise the junk–and work backwards from there. <\/u><\/em><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a look at how the Equinox\u2019s features combine to create its remarkable performance.<\/p>\n

 
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