First Tejon hunt...

[jbow]

We started off in a lot that used to have two old homes and soon will be a Walgreens. There are 60' magnolias on the lot, it's brushy besides that. Both Richard and I were using Tejons and neither of us found anything with the Tejon. There really was a very high level of trash and that is what I dug. After about 30 minutes I put it up and got out the SovGT. I had a coin in under 30 sceonds using the GT because of it's great ID ability when using a Digimeter on it. We didn't stay much longer but I want to go back over there and use the Soverign a little more in the front yard area.
Next we went down the road to a Confederate area where lot's of stuff has been found. We went back in the woods where the trenches were, once again using the Tejon. We hunted for about an hour. Richard found a three ringer and I found a buckin' ball, a nice one but I was lucky to dig it because I really could not tell what to dig and not dig. I also found a .22 brass and a .22 bullet, Richard had a handful of .22 bullets. I also found several shotgun shells and a piece of an iron cooking pot. I guess that's not too bad because I would have dug that stuff using the GT also.

I am going to give this detector at least 6 months to see if I like it or not. So far, it seem's a little like a toy after being used to a Soverign with a meter... That will change as soon as it find's me a button. Part of the reason I didn't enjoy the Tejon as much is that I do not yet have a pinpointer to use with it and that make's the digging much harder and more messy. I have an inline porbe on the GT and it's just plain easy... I'll have a probe for the Tejon in a day or two and then i'll like it better.

I don't think the Tejon will ever be the detector of choice in a high trash area.

More to come...

Julien

 

[Mike Livingston]

How abot using a small coil on it?

 

[jbow]

I am going to get a smaller coil but I would still be digging trash at a site like the first one because there is so much of it there and I could not tell the difference on a lot of it. To be honest, using the dual disc did help some but it was hard for me to tell from the tone what was trash and what was good without digging it. I had disc one on foil and disc two on nickel because I like to dig nickels and also some brass buttons fall near a nickel and this site was right beside a Confederate Military Institute. If I had set disc two to take out pulltabs I would have probably found more good stuff with the Tejon but not for sure because there was a LOT of aluminum junk...

Thanks,

J

 

[rentasquid]

to be patient. It takes a little while to switch gears! I just tried out my new Bandito II uMax this past weekend, and it drove me crazy not hearing a high and low tone, but I already started picking up tone differences between coins and junk. You'll get it down in no time, and then feel confident going into trashy spots. Is there too much trash to pick up some of it, so that you might expose the goodies? Well, best of luck to you Julien.

J.

 

[Dig'n in Va.]

Dig it all and sort it out later and you'll have the goodies along with the junk...I guess that statement is a little too extreme, but seriously, no matter what detector you use if a coin is hiding under a beer can or a button is among some bottle caps you're gonna miss it if you discriminate out the junk or walk by these "junk" signals. All the tips about small coils, lower sensitivity, slow sweeping from multiple directions, etc. are all great and will help to a certain degree. Especially If you are strictly coin hunting and have a limited access time to a spot. Then with a metered detector or higher disc. settings you can be more assured that you will dig mostly coins only, with little trash targets. As long as you accept the fact that you are leaving behind possible good rings, jewelry, and relics...But if you want those relics and you have the time to spend at a site, then you need to get the trash targets out of the way and see what good targets are being masked around and under the junk..It's an old & TRUE saying that the best discriminator is your digger. I don't care who it is or what high dollar detector they're using, if they go thru a site letting a meter tell them what NOT to dig, they are leaving good stuff behind for those who ain't afraid to work for it.... These are the thoughts of a relic hunter who prefers detectors that have great depth and the ability to let me know the difference between ferrous and non ferrous targets.. I ignore the small ones and dig everything else..I keep a sharp shovel and wear gloves to protect from the diggin blisters, and while it might sound like hard work, the relics you bring home that others have walked over make it worth while... Dave

 

[Doug[Manila]]

If its aluminum then there's good hiding in that trash. You were able to cherry pick coins using the Sov but that's what it is...cherrypicking. Given the limited time it may have been a good decision. Your tesoro didn't fail you. You will dig more but you will find more too.

 

[christian_99]

The secret is with this machine is SLOW DOWN. It sounds as if in both sites you went to fast. Think of how many things you left in the ground by going as fast as you did. Again, as a reminder to some of the "newbies", go find yourself the area the size of your kitchen or living room, and spend hours in that one little section. Now picture throwing a dime on the floor and see how long it will take for you to pick up that coin? Really think about this....the coin is probably a half inch and the square footage of that room is what 5' x 10', 10 x 10', how long would it take you to find that coin? The reason why is that I used a dime as that is the size of a cuff button. And if you are looking for that size of object you have to go slow. If the area's you are talking about had a lot of activity, then you NEED to go slow as you are passing up a lot of stuff, especially if they are doing construction or whatever the particulars are of that area. Finally, if the site is well known, how many other people went into the area with other machines? If they had Whites machines, then they did the "Fast" swing, and left a lot of stuff in the ground. If they had the Nauti, then you might be in trouble, however they could only cover so much ground at a time. In summary, slow down and pace yourself. I can go into a "hunted out" area, and do the same thing I am advising you to do and come out with percussion caps (pistol and rifle), buck balls, and cuff buttons, in the same size area. The stuff is there, but if you are going too fast, you are leaving some really good stuff behind. Sure the Sov is great in some cases but the re-set response of the machine is slow. So while you may dig this or that, the moment you get the shift with your signal, you aren't detecting, the machine is re-acting on the signal and you have just lost a few inchs of ground by this one trait of the machine. Further if you go into iron area's, if there is a coin next to an iron nail- you will miss the coin as the machine will null out and go low, as I am sure you may or may not have figured out. With the Tesoro's, just that one little spike up in sound, a sweet sound will tell you- that you have something good next to the iron nail. So slow down and listen, if you don't like the machine, sell it to me. I have both the Cibola and Vaquero and am finding some really fantastic things with both, in fact doubling my finds in the short period of time that I have owned them. I was using a $1200.00 top of the line machine, which I still use but in certain area's is completely useless. So go slow and take your time.

 

[Bebo]

Dig all get all. HH!!!

 

[jbow]

Thank you, sometime's I need to hear the obvious. I have been thinking that the Tejon is a "beep and dig" detector, and it is but with the dual disc it is more. You make a lot of sense and when I have time... it is what I will do. I have a new site that I found today and I plan to do just that... dig it all but I am doing it slightly different since I do have unlimited time here. I am going through first with my TID SovGT and clean it up some but eventually I am going to use the Tejon for the final cleanup. This site has an area of about 2,000 sq ft that I am searching closely for a lost ring and I WILL find it, if it is indeed there... and return it to the one who lost it.

Thanks again for this post. Sometimes the most simple things are the hardest things to see... for me anyway.

Julien

 

[jbow]

I usually go really slow, this day I was with someone else and they were "ready to move on"... BUT, that first site is time limited. It covers a good acre and is set to be developed. If I take the route of digging everything there I will not cover very much of it. My next move there will be to take the GT back over it with the small coil, then maybe i'll start digging everything. Sometime's I think you have to make decisions that may not be the one's you'd make in a perfect world... I want to make the best of it before it's all covered in concrete and asphalt. I really don't think this site has been hit very much at all... the second site we went to has been hit hard over the years.

Thanks for your help...

Julien

 

[jbow]

Yeah, I know it didn't fail me. I'm just not used to it. Too many people love the Tejon for it to not be a great machine, I know it's just that I am not yet comfortable with it... but I will be!! Someone called me today with info on a site to help me learn the Tejon. It is a WW-I training site with millions of canister shot and not much trash. That should be a good place to practice the Tejon. I like what Dave said above... and I have been thinking that is why people find so much good stuff with the Tejon 1: They dig everything and 2: The tejon see's EVERYTHING!!!

It certainly hit's more stuff in a given area than my SovGT does... and that's a fact.

J

 

[jbow]

Do you have "standard" settings for your disc and alt? or do you set it different at different sites?
How do you set them?

Thanks,

Julien

 

[Mike Livingston]

It does see alot. I heard the respose time is next to none.

Mike

 

[Dig'n in Va.]

Julien, I'm sure there are other Tejon users that are more qualified to answer this question than me.. As I stated in my earlier post, I am basicly a relic hunter and the main thing I want to disc. out is small iron junk such as bits of fence wire, nails, etc.. But while doing this I also still want to be able to hear the larger iron objects and be able to determine that these signals are in fact iron even though they are giving a "good" beep.. The truth is, I was never able to do this with the Tejon with 100% confidence. I owned two different Tejons at different time periods and feel I gave them both a long enough time to prove what they could do for me. I ended up replacing the Tejon with a Vaquero because it suits my needs as a relic hunter better than the Tejon. The second discriminator control of the tejon is only needed for coin hunting as there is no need for it when relic hunting. That's why others who use the Tejon for coins could better tell you of their method of using the two disc. settings. I have used Tesoro's for many years and still own a couple of the older models and while I think the Vaquero is Tesoro's deepest & best "pure" relic detector, I still can better ID iron sizes & targets with their older models that didn't have such high gain and the disc. range was not the expanded 180 degree as the newer models. For example on the older models such as the Bandido's, at zero disc. setting it would ignore the small iron and give recognizable "clicks" and "ticks" on the progressively larger iron targets. It was pretty easy to audibly ID iron and know what size it was to determine if you wanted to dig or not. Sometimes when designing a detector for as much depth as possible it suffers in other areas. For example the Nautilus DMC IIB has transmit power adjustability, disc. mode sensitivity adjustment, all metal mode sensitiity adjustment, threshold level adjustment, coil balance, ground balance, and just an overall feel that you have complete control of all functions for whatever situation arises.. The Tejon has a preset wide open threshold in disc. mode, a preset wide open sensitivity in all metal, a too slow retune speed which makes it very hard to keep a smooth threshold when using all metal mode and almost impossible to hunt this way in bad mineralization..Sorry if I'm straying away from the main question about the dual disc. settings but I guess this reinforces what I said about others being more qualified to give you an answer. The ones who have mastered the exact settings where they have confidence on what is being discriminated and can actually ID targets by the audio are the ones to give you an answer.. I guess I just never got comfortable enough with it's disc. capabilities and performance to be able to do that and keep it as one of my relic hunters, so I hope you can get a better answer from someone who is doing great with theirs and would be more qualified to give advice on it than me....... One final thought would be to keep on using it as much as possible and keep digging questionable signals. The more hours put in and the more targets dug up the more you learn, no matter what model....HH.... Dave

 

[Doug[Manila]]

They each have their strong points. I'd say the Tesoro (btw I have a Vaquero) is more a relic unit than the Sov as it is hot on brass, bronze - buttons, buckles, military pins, rings, etc. But if I am after silver coins I'd use the Sov first.
Now if you hit a trashy site infested with iron, I'd use the Tesoro first and after it cleans up some that would be the only time I'd use the Sov as the Sov nulls in iron.

 

[jbow]

The best bet, I think, is to use both if the site isn't time sensitive. That is what I was thinking when I bought the Tejon.. to use both detectors on sites. Best of both worlds!

J

 

[jbow]

Don't worry about straying. I want to hear anything you have to say. I am surprised to hear you say that the Vaquero is the best Tesoro relic machine. You are the only person I have ever heard say that. Everyone else say's that the Tejon is the number one relic hunter. What is the advantage that the V has over the T? Is it just in the disc or the lower gain?
I too cannot see the Tejon as an ID machine... just disc/beep/dig. I am, however, giong to keep using mt SovGT as well as the Tejon on the same sites whenever time will permit. This way I should find everything I can possibly find.

THANKS...

J

 

[Dig'n in Va.]

My choice of the Vaquero over the Tejon may be just a matter of personal taste rather than one being better than the other. Many people use and like the Tejon for relic hunting and I don't mean to imply that it's not a good detector. I called the Vaquero Tesoro's "pure" relic detector because every control & function seems designed with relic hunting in mind. While the Tejon works for relics also, it seems they had coin hunting in mind for it when they put the second discriminator control which has no use in relic hunting, only needed for coin hunting..My list of reasons for liking the V over the T is this---the V uses one 9 volt battery, easy to replace and long life... the T uses the AA's with battery holders that have very flimsy "snap" plastic doors that were starting to crack apart on the ones I had...the V has a frequency change switch which comes in handy for eliminating interference from various electrical sources including other close by detectors operating on the same frequency...the T doesn't have this feature...the T has a preset maxed out threshold setting and a higher gain which means that most places you have to cut back on sensitivity to maintain stability and quiet operation, also the GB setting is very critical with the T....the V has slightly less gain and an adjustable threshold, this means that in areas where the T has to be throttled back on sensitiity, the V can be kept at max sensitvity and the threshold can be adjusted for stability without losing depth.. I think this is what some have in mind when they talk about "supertuning" the V, turning the threshold wide open is not always the best setting. With the sens. set high to maintain depth you can sometimes find a spot a little less than wide open on the threshold setting that gives better depth & stability. You don't have this capability on the T..Also due to the "high strung" nature of the T it is not as clean at discriminating out iron as the V and if you start raising your disc. setting too high on the T you will lose depth, especially if you do not keep a good GB setting.. The V is a little more forgiving and by the time you get the T calmed down to hunt as smooth as the V you won't find much difference in depth of detection...While I do like the V more than the T it's still not the best relic hunter I have. Neither the V or T work very good in BAD mineralized dirt. They also need to be swept slower than I like. Although the V can be swept faster in all metal mode and then clicked to disc. to check out the targets. It's very very hard to try and hunt in all metal mode with the T especially in bad ground. Also any Tesoro that has the tiny plastic coil mounting bolt will break on you and you need to drill out the holes and replace the coil bolt with the 1/4 inch nylon bolts you get at Lowes...... this is about all the likes & dislikes I can think of right now and just remember this is just my personal feelings about what I like and what works best for me, it don't mean I'm right, it just means I got my own opinions about the detectors I've used....HH....Dave

 

[Mike Livingston]

I have no problem with iron so far on my T and the threshold is vairable. I heard the big chunks can cause problems. Mr T has a higher freqency and is very sensitive to gold. I can kick out a 2.5"
nail and still get small rope gold chain very cleanly. Set Disc 1 to 0 and Disc 2 on Iron and switch to D2 to check. My MXT can also do that but is a little choppy with a little less depth as well.
My Whites 6000 Pro XL and Exploroe XS cannot see it at all.
Mr T is easy to ground balance for me. I just use my thumb on the hand that holds the detector and if its is off alittle it still does good. Electrical interferences don't appear to bother it as much, or no worse, than my other machines. I was told the battery doors have been improved, BIG CONCERN, the hinge can be torn but flexing will not wear them out and just unscew the two screws to replace them if needed. The T & V response time is said to be the best there is and the means alot to me. I would have gone for the V but I already have the MXT which is in the 14 - 15 hz range as well and the VDI works well as it is not averaged and does well on small lower conductive targets, I have recovered many SMALL pieces of jewelry with it and am Expecting the T to be even better.
And I do like my Sunray Pro Gold, latest version, hedphones. The limiter does what it is supposed to now, did I all ready say that?
Thanks for the input.

Mike