Help with Vaquero

[dhall-nc]

First let me say hello to all! I live in Kings Mountain N.C

Here is the problem I am having, and I hope someone can give me an idea of why and what to do about it. I use the vaquero with the standard coil. When I try to hunt places like washes or dirt paths,
the machine goes crazy. In all metal mode with sensitivity cut back,
the threshold falls out often followed by a loud whine. The threshold
will be sporadic and very slow to recover and GB the machine is impossible.

I know I have some magnetic soil here, I have used a magnet on it,
but I don't seem to have the problem grassy areas.

Any help here will be appreciated!

Darryl

 

[rentasquid]

That sounds pretty weird! So, your saying that it works fine in grass...that it balances well, and runs good? And when over the bare soil, it acts up? Both my Cortes and tejon were a little noisy in bare ground situations here in Oregon, but for different reasons (the cortes had a preset GB, and the Tejon was just too sensitive). Not sure what is going on for you. You might want to give Tesoro a call if nobody comes up with an "I know what your problem is".

 

[dhall-nc]

rentasquid, Thanks for taking the time to reply!

Darryl

 

[dhall-nc]

Let me make myself clearer, the vaquero has performed fine in other areas where there is bare ground. It is the land I live on that I am having trouble with. It is in the country, no previous buildings or electrical equipment.

I am trying to beep for fine gold as fine gold has been taken out of the streams that the washes run to. It is the banks and floors of the washes along with lower lying land that I am having the problem with.
Mostly bare to sparse ground cover.

As I said, I found what seems to be a lot of magnetic sands in these areas. Would a different coil help?

Thanks
Darryl

 

[Dig'n in Va.]

First off, the all metal sensitivity is preset at full power on the Vaquero & Tejon. So lowering the sens. setting won't help in all metal.. Only the disc. mode is affected by the sens. knob. You mention that it does okay over the grassy areas. I'm wondering if you are "scrubbing" the coil on the ground in the bare dirt area whereas in the grass you have the coil a little higher? Have you tried to hunt the bare dirt area in disc. mode ? Try it in disc. mode at zero disc. setting and see what happens? If it is still noisy then raise disc. to knock out iron and see what happens?. The Tejon & Vaquero are not the best in mineralized ground and maybe what you are experiencing is normal since you say the dirt has magnetic "iron" mineralization. Here is a test that I can do with mine and duplicate the results you are getting, set up your detector on a bench with no metal or electrical interference nearby. I have hot rocks, both negative & positive that come from the dirt I hunt in. I can wedge these between my spread fingers along with good targets so there is separation between them as I sweep them in front of the coil to represent ground mineralization. You will find that the slow retune speed of the threshold will cause the threshold tone to do just as you describe. The Vaquero & Tejon in my opinion are not good detectors to hunt in all metal in bad ground due to the slow retune speed along with some other things.. A fast threshold retune may cost you a little depth loss but will react faster to the changing ground conditions and keep all metal operaton much smoother..This may not be your problem but some experimenting will show you a lot about what is going on..Post up your results from the disc. hunt results and we'll see what else we can figure out...... Dave

 

[dhall-nc]

Dave, thanks for your input! I have tried to switch to min. disc
in those hot areas and find that I get a lot of chirping.
Do you think a different coil might help, or is the machine just not going to handle this hot ground?

Do you beep for gold with your Vaquero? How have you found it to perform, any tips?

Thanks!
Darryl

 

[Dig'n in Va.]

Darryl, I'm not sure if your mineralization is exactly like mine but it sounds similar. At minimum disc. setting the chirps are the ground signals. In my dirt if I raise the disc. to knock out iron they will quiet down. However the ground itself is now like a big iron target that has been disc. out. Any good target even a few inches deep will be masked out by the discriminating effect against the larger iron target (the ground)..As far as different coils are concerned, I haven't tried the small 5.75" but I did use the 10x12" DD coil on my Tejon and I wasn't impressed with it. It showed no depth gain over the stock coil and while it "might" have been a little easier to GB in the bad dirt, it still had very poor penetration depth.. I've never tried the Vaquero for gold hunting as I mostly relic hunt..I have used most Tesoro models for years, along with other brands, and they've always had great performance in every way except great depth. When the Lobo ST came out this was a big step up in detection depth and I liked the LST except that it had preset GB in the disc. mode. Instead of improving upon the LST, Tesoro went with the Tejon and then the Vaquero & Cibola.. In "MY"opinion, they took a big step forward in depth of detection power and two giant steps backwards in all other areas of performance..I still have several models of Tesoro including a Vaquero, but for the bad ground I use another brand. As for tips with the Vaquero, keeping a good GB is important, and as you've found out, in some ground this is hard to do. Also the Vaquero doesn't work as deep with a fast sweep speed. I usually slow down a bit from the speed I swing my other Tesoro's to avoid missing targets. With the older models that had the 120 disc. range I could hunt at zero disc. setting and it would ignore nails & small iron while picking up brass, lead, coins, etc. among the iron. The Vaquero needs to have the disc. setting raised to fine tune it to avoid the nails. Due to the difference in disc. range and the higher gain & sensitivity of the newer models, they are a little more noisy and do not pick thru the iron as good as the old 120 degree discriminators..All this is just my opinion from how they perform for me in my dirt and is not meant to be a put down on Tesoro detectors..I still own and use some of them but I don't feel like the newer ones are best suited for some of my hunting situations..If you can get the Vaquero to smooth out and work good in other better dirt areas, then it's probably just a ground thing and nothing wrong with your detector......Dave

 

[dhall-nc]

Dave, thanks for taking the time to help with this matter. I went out again today and have concluded that the vaquero just can't cut the mustard in this soil. It really is great in other areas, but I need a machine that can handle this ground and find small gold.

Do you have any idea what I might look for?

 

[Dig'n in Va.]

Darryl,,It sounds like you need a detector that is designed for gold hunting. There are a lot of gold hunters out there that would be better qualified than I am on advising which detector works best among the gold seekers..As for handling the bad dirt, I have found the Minelab Advantage works the best for me. But I'm using it for relic hunting and I actually don't know how it would do for gold. It operates at 5 khz freq. and most gold detectors use the higher freq. range. I'm sure there are other factors to consider, but just because a detector can handle bad ground doesn't mean it will be a great gold detector. Years ago I borrowed a Gold Bug and tried it in the mineralized dirt to see how well it could penetrate it. It actually handled the ground pretty good but it was basically an all metal detector and seemed to be hot on very small stuff but not that great on larger relic items at great depths. Since that time the Gold Bug II has come out with the added iron ID/disc. circuitry. I haven't tried this one but if I was going to try hunting for tiny gold pieces I believe the GB II sounds like a good one..But as I said, you'd be best to get some advise from one of the full time gold hunters who would know more about what you'd need...good luck and let us know what you come up with..... Dave