My First Day & First Gold With The EQ 800

Hi Guys, I finally got out late Saturday afternoon for my first outing with the Equinox 800. Having received it on Wednesday I put it on charge & the WM 08. Didn’t realise you had to charge the head set as well. Have I ever said that I aren’t the sharpest tool in the shed?? I couldn’t go out after work on the Thursday due to a work related meeting, & couldn’t go Friday as Mrs JW & I went & saw Grace Jones in concert here in Queenstown. Gosh…Grace Jones…she was big when I was in my late teens & into my 20’s. She is now 69. It was far better than I thought it was going to be. Fantastic really.

Mrs JW & I had made plans to head way up into the high country on Saturday but we needed pretty good weather to go where we were planning on going. The weather wasn’t reliable enough on the day so we flagged it. We went over to Lake Hawea to check out property & didnt get home until 5pm. Still…that was enough time for me to go for a quick swing with the EQ 800. I was very keen to first use it on the areas I had first hit with the GM 1000 where I got pretty good results on tiny gold.

This is an area where I have thrashed with my GP 3000, 4500 & the Zed. So any reasonable size gold has well & truly been got. So only this tiny gold on offer…if even that is still there after going through with the GM 1000 & getting the gold that I got with that until it was getting no more.

So I arrived at the first spot & cranked up the EQ 800. Started off pretty much with just the factory pre set settings. Chose to use Gold 1 mode for our mild ground, sensitivity on 20 which I think was factory pre set, cranked the volume up to 25 as I started off with just the detectors internal speaker & there was a bit of wind. Auto ground balance, noise cancelled & I was into it. First thing I noticed is that its internal speaker isn’t as loud as the Gold monster’s. This was when I decided to use the head phones & worked out, with a bit of trial & era, that I needed to charge the head unit which I hadn’t done. So after a bit of mucking around I just ran the cable direct from the control box to the headphones & we were away. I mucked around with the frequencies. Trying 20 khz then 40 khz & multi. All seemed to handle the ground with no problems. My first signal I think read -1 on the VDI. Gosh…this was a novelty for me on a detector. More so a gold detector…VDI numbers. Can’t say I have ever run a detector with these before. Always just digging every thing. I cant recall what frequency I was in, I need to take a pen & note book for these finer details & for the VDI numbers as well. Turned out to be my old favorite… a bloody shotgun pellet. Still…it was one I missed with the GB2 & the GM 1000. 2nd signal…the same. Damn…here we go…I thought. Had a good swing around this area & nothing else. Definitely no gold. Moved on to a 2nd spot. First signal was reading -9 & was a little iron stone hot rock. Ended up getting quite a few of these & they were always around the -9 mark. No gold on this spot either. I was starting to think that I shouldn’t be surprised as the GB2 is 71 khz & the GM 1000 45 khz & the GMT 48 khz. Moved on to spot number three.

Now this is where I recently pinged a couple of bits deep into a couple of crevices with the Zed, & they weren’t big bits. .34 & .54 I think from memory. This was also an area where I got a tiny bit with the GM 1000 that I put on you tube.

This area has been a bit of a hot spot so I did a bit of scraping down to bed rock in a few places where I had got gold with the Monster & the GB2. MMmmm…nothing but -9’s & little hot rocks. Moved on to where I had got those two bits recently with the Zed. In fact it was the same bit of ground between two parallel runs of exposed schist where the Zed scored for me. I had by this stage got a better feeling for the EQ 800 & had cranked the sensitivity up to max, 25. Preferring frequency 40khz & multi. I was in this high end getting some bump falsing but that is something I am use to with the GM 1000 so I ran with it & just practiced my careful coil control. It was worse in multi so I just stuck with 40 khz, only going into multi to double check a suss signal. Straight away on hitting that area right where I scored a bit with the Zed I got a good positive hit. I cant recall what the VDI number was. I actually think there was no reading at all but just a positive hit in the head phones. Bit like when the GM 1000 gets a hit but no movement on the gold chance indicator. Not until you scrape a bit off. Well On scrapping a bit of & the signal still being there I then got a VDI number. Pretty sure it was in the negatives & then it started jumping around a bit.

Well bugger me. It was a tiny bit of gold. And I mean tiny…but my first gold with the EQ 800…Ye Ha

Then only a few inches away…another signal.

You will notice that the ground is a bit damp which I am saying helped a lot. I like detecting in damp ground. It gives you an edge in depth I do believe. Also at the bottom right is the back filled hole from the Zed dig a couple of weeks ago.

Another tiny bit of gold.

Then only a few feet away another signal. No way. I did notice that the VDI numbers were in to the low positives & pretty consistent. & was pretty confident that this was going to be gold.

Down a good three inches & gold it was.

So there we had the first three bits of gold in a row for the EQ 800. I was gobsmacked to be honest for that 11" coil & the tiny size & the depth of a couple of them.

But it wasn’t over yet even though daylight was starting to run out…another signal.

Scrapped off a few inches & was into the schist bedrock & the signal was still in there. Got to be gold in there.

It was but oh how small.

I was going to pack it in at this stage as I had a bit of a walk back to my wagon & it was starting to get dark. But I couldn’t help myself & got another bloody signal :rolleyes: This one took a bit of finding & then it turnd out to be a small bit of iron stone. Bugger…oh what was that…another signal. This time it was a bit of gold & it was too dark for a photo. So pocketed it & then made a quick exit.

So at the end of a few hours detecting I had 5 tiny bits of gold that I honestly didn’t think I would get in this location.

I am totally blown away with the EQ 800’s small gold capabilities…even more so with that 11" coil. Bring on the 6"…Cheers guys.

Good luck out there

JW :smile:

7 Likes

Awesome mate! That’s just insane, never thought the Nox would find flakes that tiny with that big coil… Cool! :grinning:

Thanks Goldenboy_98. Yes the EQ 800 is surprising a few people with its tiny gold finding abilities with that 11" coil that is made more for the coin & relic side of its abilities.

Good luck out there

JW :slight_smile:

1 Like

thank you great pictures and knowledge

Thanks for the detailed post.
You got a nice haul there.

Thanks guys. Went back for a few hours on Wednesday evening & was gobsmacked to find 12 more tiny bits.
This was the biggest at just .06 of a gram & it was down a good 3 inches.

The rest were tiny.

Not a record in weight though.:slight_smile:

Best of luck out there

JW :slight_smile:

4 Likes

You must surely have got all the gold from there now. Havnt seen you back there for a coupla weeks or so.