Still hating Nox, but not as much. Please help.

But is all that noise from some kind of interference ? Or is it just sounding off on multiple targets in the ground ? A lot of people complain about the AT pro being really when coming from a much quieter detector and the Nox is much the same.....less sound is filtered out by the detector , some of it you are going to have to hear. Thats something you have to get used to , more sensitive detectors sound off on more items in the ground and dont necessarily discriminate everything. While its confusing at first you get a better picture of what is in the ground.

longbow62 said:

There have been places that give my Nox 800 fits. I usually lower the sensitivity till it quietens down to a tolerable level. You might try multiple noise cancels a hunt. I run mine in Park2 zero discrimination, Iron bias 0, speed 6-7, and as high a sensitivity as the site allows. My tones and tone volumes are setup in 5 tones with pitch and volume increasing as you go up from low to high conductors. I hunt super trashy places and at first I thought it was unbearable hearing everything in the ground, but over time my brain got used to it, and it's amazing now how I can pick good targets out of iron and non-ferrous trash. I dig less trash now with the Nox 800 than I do with the Impact with it's wide target I.D. numbers.

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Do you run any stock programs the way they are set? I am new to detecting and have to take the 40 some page manual with me to make all these changes. I was hoping this 800 would be easier to use, so far it has been frustrating. I mean on one swing I am getting like 3 tones in different spots. Then when I hit a strong signal and try to cross the same spot from the other direction to mark the X , I will lose it all together. Then move on to another spot and I will be hearing all kinds of weak signals and different numbers showing up on the screen.

Next time I can get out, I will try these tweaks that you suggest. I hope it doesn't lose depth with lower sensitivety.

I currently use a Gargoyle Titanium Star and EMI is not really an issue but even when I take it off of "phone" mode I still get text messages on the screen and nasty twitter notes about hunting on Govt property and that I should move my truck??

Help please??

normx2 said:

I currently use a Gargoyle Titanium Star and EMI is not really an issue but even when I take it off of "phone" mode I still get text messages on the screen and nasty twitter notes about hunting on Govt property and that I should move my truck??

Help please??

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You're pretty cool and don't need any more help.

One interesting thing I found by accident is the key fob for my Ford f250 will make the nox sing. I hunt a park that once was part of a furnace that made pig iron. You can't believe how many signals you can get with one swing!! Gotta find the sensitivity that will make it searchable. And each area is different. The good signals are always repeatable.

I bought my 800 last summer. I haven't had much of a chance to take it out since I bought it, but I took it out for a spin in my yard today. I'm in the same camp. I'm starting to think I wasted my money, although I know way down inside that is not the case. I know if I hand my 800 to someone who is very familiar with the instrument, they'll find something in no time.

In my first session of the day I swept just off to the side of my driveway. But when I started digging, I found nothing.

Keep in mind, I'm upgrading from the Fisher F2. Perhaps I bit off more than I can chew?

Try manually selecting the quietest channel instead of the using auto noise cancel procedure. Ive often found a quieter channel than the one it auto selects. Just use the +/- , you have 18 to choose from. Just a thought.

Also, if it sounds like R2-D2 without so much as moving the machine, you may want to try updating the firmware, doing a factory reset, and then starting over.

Also keep in mind that driveways and sidewalks usually have rebar embedded in them which makes them difficult to hunt alongside, and the Nox has excellent side detection capabilities so it will sound off within a foot of them. What i do is turn the sens down and hunt them at a tanget to my swing. The 6" coil is great for this too.

DigthenChuck said:

Do you run any stock programs the way they are set? I am new to detecting and have to take the 40 some page manual with me to make all these changes. I was hoping this 800 would be easier to use, so far it has been frustrating. I mean on one swing I am getting like 3 tones in different spots. Then when I hit a strong signal and try to cross the same spot from the other direction to mark the X , I will lose it all together. Then move on to another spot and I will be hearing all kinds of weak signals and different numbers showing up on the screen.

Next time I can get out, I will try these tweaks that you suggest. I hope it doesn't lose depth with lower sensitivety.

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As far as depth goes people make a lot to do about how deep a machine is, but honestly I find most everything within 5 inches of the surface. As far as tweaking tones and volume check out dirtfishing on youtube he has a video on doing this.
https://youtu.be/_ur0FfDDKUo

On another note the first time I ran a Nox 800 my buddy let me swing his awhile. To be honest he does not care much for the detector either, but he has barely give it a chance. The first time out I ran his in Park1 one and loved it! I found lots of clad in a empty lot. The machine smacked it hard and I loved the tones. When I got mine I only ran Park1 a few times then switched to Park2 and it drove me nuts until I set the tones and tone volumes to how I wanted them. After that it was just digging a lot of signals good and bad to figure out what the machine was telling me. Again I am running zero discrimination so I hear everything in the ground and the tone pitch draws my attention to investigate a target.

Hi DigThenChuck,

I'm sorry you are having problems with your Nox. A lot of good suggestions here so far. I've got hundreds of hours on mine so I'm going to add a few more.

First, I live in the foothills of the Rockies. My detecting areas are on old decomposing granite, volcanic ash and clay, and deep river deposits of mostly iron bearing rocks. Automatically, my Equinox 800 and 600 will detect all of the small (.5gram to .25 gram tiny bird shot sized) particles of naturally occurring iron along with all of the other metallic trace minerals in my soil because of the simultaneous multi frequencies. When I have the detector set up correctly (default Park 1 is the best place to start) and I press the horseshoe button which means that everything is being detected across the whole range of the detector from -9 to 40, I can hear a lot of popping noises like the ground has lots of targets as I sweep my coil even when I know I have cleared all of the human produced garbage. When I press the horseshoe button again most of that noise goes away.

You live in an area of Maryland that has many similar geologic characteristics as where I live. You have coastal river/ocean deposits, then you have decomposing granite, remnants of volcanic activity and gneiss and schist too as you get closer to the hills northwest of you. Even without EMI problems and human trash, you likely have a lot of naturally occurring iron and a variety of differently mineralized soil.

So, first I would go somewhere free of power lines and wi-fi if possible and without a lot of human trash. I would reset your Equinox 800 by holding down the power button for more than 5 seconds. Then I would go to Park 1. The manual says that in difficult soil conditions (which you may have) you should keep your sensitivity around 15 or maybe less. Default Park 1 is 20 which may be too high (I usually have to run mine between 13 and 18, anything higher is not very pleasant) so try 10 to 13 to start. The manual also says that in difficult soil you need to auto noise cancel and ground balance. Try to find and area with as few strong targets as possible. So do the auto noise cancel. If you haven't been ground balancing, hit the settings button again and the second icon will show ground balance. Press and hold the accept/reject button (check mark/x) and pump the coil between 6" and 1" above the ground until you hear some beeps and the number on the screen stabilizes. Hit the pinpoint button to get back to Park 1 and see what it sounds like. If you still have lots of noise with the coil off of the ground or pointing away from you, lower the sensitivity until it settles down and try ground balancing again. Sometimes I have to ground balance over a rock formation or a sidewalk since my soil is so noisy! If it doesn't get quiet you may have a control module or coil problem.

Minelab in Illinois will definitely fix it if there is a problem.

good luck, Jeff

Noisy Nox

check coil connector make sure it is snug. My Nox 800 seem unreasonably noisy when I first got it. Thought it was defective. Assuming yours is not defective then read on.

First you need to understand the Nox is a hot, hot machine reporting damn dear everything under the coil large and small. More so than other mid range detectors like the AT Pro's. I will compare the AT Pro since I owned one for 3 years and I am not trying to down the AT Pro. Great machine, but the Nox is a different beast.

Everything depends on correctly setting up your machine for each location since they all can be different. Even in your own yard. You may have underground power lines, nearby overhead power lines or other electo magnetic radiation sources. Try moving out to other hunt areas free from interferences. In most cases noise canceling should solve those noise problems. Try manually cycling through noise canceling to get a quiet channel.

But even if you are away from noise sources the Nox seems noisy because it is reporting back a whole lot of data from the ground. I always quiet mine down by these steps any time I change locations.

1. noise cancel
2. ground balance (more important that most think).
3. if still noisy lower the sensitivity. I don't care if you may lose some depth, you already are losing those targets due to the noise of using a high sensitivity level sounding off on even very small targets.
4. set your recovery speed according to your area.
5. set your iron balance according to your area.
6. lower your sensitivity to get to a quiet level.
7. if you have a nox 800 use tone breaks to alert you to your type of targets you are hunting and lower the volume on the targets you consider solid junk signals.

Again this depends on your hunt areas. If you are cherry picking a park for old silver then lower your sensitivity, lower your recovery speed, lower your iron balance to 1 or zero and slow your swing down. Set tone breaks, volume, and pitch to favor silver coins and de-emphasis bottle caps and pop tops. Screw caps, well you just have to mostly dig those.

Get Clive's Clynicks two books on the Equinox. But be prepared to be confused and enlightened by his books. Pay careful attention to his terminology. Sometimes he may use some terms that may be new to you. Remember he is an experienced detectorist on many machines.

The Nox 800 is in my opinion more difficult to learn than say the AT Pro but learn it you must if you want to get the most out of a well designed machine with just a couple of flaws. Those flaws being a compress TID range and Iron falsing issues. You probably will have to put in the hours to master the 800.