Does anyone utilize threshold with the Equinox.

[Truth]

As you know I’m trying everything just to get a one up on my game. Would threshold work for me on against me in iron? Thanks for allowing me to ask and learn about my obsession.

 

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[vferrari]

Threshold as it is implemented on the Equinox non-gold modes simply helps you identify when you are passing your coil over discriminated out or notched targets. Typically, only the ferrous region is discriminated out on most people (the default setting). In that case, if you run threshold tone, if you hear it dropping out while you have iron disc'd out, that means you are passing your coil over iron. It is simply a less sophisticated way of running all metal with out all the tones sounding off which prevents ear fatigue if you still want to know when you are running over iron (or whatever else you have notched out). It is just another choice that is up to the user but it doesn't really improve performance, per se.

 

[nagant]

I tried it a couple times but i really like the quiet when running with out it. Was strange at first but definitely increases my staying power.

 

[vferrari]

I tried it a couple times but i really like the quiet when running with out it. Was strange at first but definitely increases my staying power.

It is definitely not for everyone. It helps mask the tinnitus in my ears. Ha. Seriously, though, it is just another way to "hear" iron if that is what you want to do. On the other hand, the implementation of threshold on the Gold Modes is "true" threshold that, when adjusted properly, enables you to better hear faint signals pop out of the background and is very important to improving detectability of small, low-to-mid-conductive natural gold targets.

 

[midalake]

As you know I’m trying everything just to get a one up on my game. Would threshold work for me on against me in iron? Thanks for allowing me to ask and learn about my obsession.

I have not used this option for beach hunting. Either with my Sovereign or Equinox. Dave

 

[RustyGold]

While watching Bill Suthern's YouTube channel, I noticed he was using the Threshold feature to hunt for gold nuggets.

 

[Juiceman]

I like it. It works for me, try it out.

 

[Metal Detecting Stuff]

I like threshold so that you know if your headphones are paired while swinging.

Wayne

www.metaldetectingstuff.com

 

[Ogre1190]

I've used a just BARELY audible threshold since I started detecting. Just makes the real faint squeakers pop for me. Dunno why. Just my preference.

 

[Possum]

I've always used threshold on every machine I've owned. It's an invaluable tool and once you start using it and understanding what it's telling you, you'll find yourself using it all the time. Heck, I've been using the threshold so long, that I wouldn't know how to act without it running in the background... JMO

"D"

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

Threshold is super important when beach hunting.

 

[midalake]

Threshold is super important when beach hunting.

OK I will bite. Why do you think some type of solid threshold [definitely audible] Is super important compared to a threshold that is set right at the point of being audible? Dave

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

OK I will bite. Why do you think some type of solid threshold [definitely audible] Is super important compared to a threshold that is set right at the point of being audible? Dave

Well first beaches are noisy environments and second the deepest targets, and smallest gold targets which are barely detectable require a good solid threshold tone. See these two 1700's Spanish 8 reales, two of a pit of 40 Spanish 8 reales dug out of a single hole on a NJ beach. The only tiny clue that those were down there was the smallest bit of threshold tone disturbance. No target tone, heck most swings the TID cursor didn't even register and when it did the ID was way down in the area of nickel, yet we were swinging over a pit of 40+ silver Spanish 8 reales.

 

[midalake]

Do You Have any black sand issues where you hunt? Large waves? I find that if I run any type of threshold the black sand and moving water will be too much of a distraction to making any headway down the beach. I find myself double checking too many ghost signals. Also I have been doing this a long time. I have experimented on so many tic signals and have not been able to enhance any of them by running threshold. In Fact, I have had threshold mask very faint tics.

Now on the Equinox I do not have enough time on it to comment on threshold, I will say though it may be an option with this machine from what I have seen so far.
On one other note. I find that very few of my gold finds are just the smallest tic if a signal. I have found a few thin gold chains this way, but any other type of gold usually is not a tic.

PS Very awesome find BTW. Dave

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

Thanks midalake. I have hunted mostly south NJ beaches so yes large waves during storm hunting, black sand piled up in layers and streaks, iron, beach foam, seaweed, dune grass you name it plenty of false signals. I mostly hunt the wet sand at low tide.

Do I always slow down and hunt in max depth mode for the faintest of threshold warbles, heck no. So let me amend my previous statement, threshold is super important when beach hunting 'sometimes'. If I'm hunting one of the shipwreck beaches you bet. If a storm has stripped feet of sand off a beach yes again. If I'm moving fast hunting lifeguard stands during the summer, nope!

As you know beach hunting can be quite complex. Site conditions can change from one low tide to the next, day to day, season to season. The site conditions at 36th street can be vastly different from the site conditions at 38th street, or a mile down the beach, or 20 miles. So I adapt to whatever the site conditions are. Sometimes these lend themselves to slowing down and gridding, focusing on small or deep targets, sometimes that's a waste of time.

 

[Truth]

Threshold as it is implemented on the Equinox non-gold modes simply helps you identify when you are passing your coil over discriminated out or notched targets. Typically, only the ferrous region is discriminated out on most people (the default setting). In that case, if you run threshold tone, if you hear it dropping out while you have iron disc'd out, that means you are passing your coil over iron. It is simply a less sophisticated way of running all metal with out all the tones sounding off which prevents ear fatigue if you still want to know when you are running over iron (or whatever else you have notched out). It is just another choice that is up to the user but it doesn't really improve performance, per se.

I don’t notch out anything I lower the tone and volume on iron. Will notching out iron stop falsing more? But will that also stop me from find those 2-10 flat buttons?

 

[vferrari]

I don’t notch out anything I lower the tone and volume on iron. Will notching out iron stop falsing more? But will that also stop me from find those 2-10 flat buttons?

If you are basically running all metal, Truth, then the non-gold mode threshold on the Equinox really won't help much.

 

[midalake]

Thanks midalake. I have hunted mostly south NJ beaches so yes large waves during storm hunting, black sand piled up in layers and streaks, iron, beach foam, seaweed, dune grass you name it plenty of false signals. I mostly hunt the wet sand at low tide.

Do I always slow down and hunt in max depth mode for the faintest of threshold warbles, heck no. So let me amend my previous statement, threshold is super important when beach hunting 'sometimes'. If I'm hunting one of the shipwreck beaches you bet. If a storm has stripped feet of sand off a beach yes again. If I'm moving fast hunting lifeguard stands during the summer, nope!

As you know beach hunting can be quite complex. Site conditions can change from one low tide to the next, day to day, season to season. The site conditions at 36th street can be vastly different from the site conditions at 38th street, or a mile down the beach, or 20 miles. So I adapt to whatever the site conditions are. Sometimes these lend themselves to slowing down and gridding, focusing on small or deep targets, sometimes that's a waste of time.

OK Roger that on changing conditions and beach complexity. I always hunt the wet sand at low tide. My primary beach is not old and no ship wrecks. My black sand varies though. I can run wide open on the far side and about 3/4 power on the other side. I love my Black Widows and am always concentrating for the smallest tick. I work slow compared to most people I see, not sure if this is good or bad. I always consider every beach hunt looking for a needle in a haystack. I do tend to concentrate a bit harder around cuts and places of sand removal.

Dave

 

[timmysys]

I try to understand the treshold how help to find deeper targets. But I don’t understand.

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

I try to understand the treshold how help to find deeper targets. But I don’t understand.

This will increase your finds...the Equinox (and Explorer, eTrac, CTX) uses a 'balanced' DD coil. Its balanced on a razor's edge. The balance is super touchy, when a metal target upsets the coil balance this is what triggers a signal to your headphones.

Inside the coil there are two windings of copper wire. A transmit winding and a receive winding. The transmit winding creates a magnetic field at the transmit frequencies, this field penetrates the ground. The receive winding sits quietly listening but there's a trick to this. Normally if you put a receive winding near a transmit winding that's blasting out a signal the receive winding would pick up that transmitted signal. But via a trick of electronics, if you physically overlap the transmit and receive windings precisely (balance them), the transmitted signal is canceled out on the receive winding. When you look at both the transmit and receive windings on an oscilloscope during balancing you can watch the transmit signal on the receive winding get smaller and smaller until when the two windings are overlapped just right, the transmit signal vanishes from the receive winding, the coil is now in balance. But the balance is super touchy, if you just barely nudge the overlap of the two windings, just a smidgeon, the coil is out of balance and the transmit signal re-appears on the receive winding.

So we have established that the coil's balance is super touchy, that the transmit winding generates a magnetic field and the receive winding is positioned inside this magnetic field sitting quietly in perfect balance. When a metal target is waved through this magnet field, the transmit signal induces a signal into the metal target which bounces back and is picked up by the receive winding, the coils balance has been upset, the target's signals is now on the receive winding, the detector processes this and gives you a tone.

Understanding just how sensitive this balance is, brings us back to the Threshold tone. The absolute deepest (or smallest) target a detector can detect, that just barely upsets the coils balance, is a super weak signal that may only warble the threshold tone. It will be too weak many times for the detector to determine a TID, or even give a tone, but it will warble the threshold tone.

Way back maybe my 1st year using an original Explorer XS I was hunting with Dave Z a Whites DFX master. He called me over to check a signal. I was using a 15 WOT coil and wasn't hearing anything, but I was listening for a real signal with a tone and ID. Dave proceeded to dig several IH cents from a depth I thought was mind boggling. He had his arm in the hole to his elbow. Since my Explorer routinely crushed his DFX on depth I was baffled. So I asked him, Dave you had no idea what that was right, you knew something was down there because something was barely upsetting your machine, so you took a shot. He looked at me and said, "You don't miss much do you".

So at the very edge of what your detector is capable of even detecting, its the threshold tone.