Cortes Opinions Please

[reddirtfisher]

Hello, ....I just bought a Compadre and I just love it. I am looking at the Cortes too but I have heard mixed reports on it. I would appreciate any feedback from you guys on this machine. For negative opinions please PM me. Thanks, RDF.

 

[Dan-Pa.]

Gosh those designers sure must have good eyes as their screens are awful small comes to mind.

Certainly has a learning period unlike mos Tesoro's which are user friendly..

Am sure you will hear from ardent Tesoro users pro and con...

 

[daddyflea]

Screen was the reason I bought the deleon. I wanted the Notch but Screen was too small. Put a Notch on the Deleon and I am there.

 

[reddirtfisher]

There are a lot of things I like about the Cortes. Yes, the screen is really small but it has everything else I want. Hope some more of you guys join in here and let us know about how this unit has done for you. I would like to know about depth, discrimination, coil choices etc. Thanks in advance. RDF

 

[dan b]

It's like a vacuum cleaner for coins, and the battery life was amazing. I got almost 60 hrs out of a set, some of that with the backlight on low. I found the depth to be adequate, not Tejon-deep, but often as deep as I cared to dig. There is a lot of information on the screen, and I never found it to be too small. Then again, I'm just a young whipper-snapper compared to some of the people here.

For Canadian coins, all I looked for was the 95 to flash by on at least one swing. If I saw that, I dug. Zincs fell in the 80's so I could ignore those when I got tired of digging. I dug $140 out of one schoolyard with the Cortes, and watching for the 95. Personally, I hate having to memorize a bunch of numbers, so having just one to remember was great.

On the negative side, I never really "got" the SUM mode. Hold the button and swing with small arcs back and forth a bunch of times until the tone settles. I think that's the just of it. In that time, I could just dig it up and see what's there. I wish the tones were on full time, and maybe not quite as many. 4 tones like the Golden seems right to me.

To make a long story short, I think the Cortes is an awesome machine in the $400-$500 range. For the full retail price, there are better solutions. I love Tesoros, and will never part with my Tejon, but I think the ID machines are best left to the other companies that are good at it. I would love to see Tesoro stick with the "beep and dig" machines, but come out with more tone machines like the Golden

 

[jabbo]

The SUM mode is helpful when meter is jumpy on a target, not needed everytime. When in Notch mode on my Golden I turn down the Threshold, helps eliminate deeper pulltabs, but doing that doesn't work as well on my Cortes for some reason.