I have now put in about 60 hours with my vaquero. The first 20 were rather frustrating because I ended up digging MUCH more iron (both large and small) than I ever did with my X-TERRA 705. So I spent the next 40 trying to learn how to reduce this amount as well as improve my overall detecting.While I dig much less iron now, I find that it is at the expense of depth and missing out many targets. Here are some of the things I am doing:
1. Learned how to properly ground balance: This really helped with depth and stability/falsing. Once I learned how to ground balance, I was surprised at how often it was extremely positive or negative. I also found out that I needed to check the ground balance often to account for changes in ground conditions.
2. Lowered the threshold (usually) to around the 1-3 O'klock setting. I set this starting in all metal mode, and then increase the threshold until I hear a tone and switch to discrimination mode (just past iron). Once there, I leave it alone. But should I set it higher than this?
3. I keep sensitivity at around 9-10 (I lower it however if there is a lot of small junk or just too many signals) to maintain stability.
4. Now on to iron..I found that if I did not have a clean/repeatable signal in four directions, it was probably old iron. So now I dig mostly only those four way repeatable signals. While I dig much less iron, I noticed that my depth is now very poor. I found very few signals below 3 inches. For those of you that have detected old european farms, you know that there is a ton of old iron.
5. With other detectors (XTERRA 705) I could usually scrape off 3 inches of the topsoil to get a better idea of what I was digging. This does not seem to work well with the Vaquero. For example, I would have a signal that sounded very clear in two directions, but would not sound off in the other two. I would then scrape a few inches of dirt and all of a sudden I would get a nice clear four way signal. BUT...it almost always ends up being iron.
6. I have used sizing to reduce iron as well (a small coin probably shouldn't give a signal in a wide area like rusty iron), but I am worring that I could miss larger artifacts/coin spills etc.
7. This is more of an embarrassing observation than anything else. I have lent out my detector to a few people and when I should them how to use it, I will put a coin on the ground and then a piece of iron (usually one I dug up earlier in the day). The problem is, I get a lovely (and to my ears the exact same) four way beep when I go over iron and the coin. I even crank up the discrimination as my face turns red but the detector still picks up the iron. I have verified this with two different vaqueros. Naturally the person I am showing asks what the problem is. I simply answer that when the metal is in the ground it will discriminate or that the it is old iron and will fool any detector. The truth is though, I would have no problem discriminating this with my Xterra...
In short, I am getting better at not digging iron, but I suspect it is coming at a high cost (i.e., lower depth and missing good targets). Hopefully you can provide me with some good tips/ suggest ifi am doing anything wrong or confirm if I am doing things properly.
1. Learned how to properly ground balance: This really helped with depth and stability/falsing. Once I learned how to ground balance, I was surprised at how often it was extremely positive or negative. I also found out that I needed to check the ground balance often to account for changes in ground conditions.
2. Lowered the threshold (usually) to around the 1-3 O'klock setting. I set this starting in all metal mode, and then increase the threshold until I hear a tone and switch to discrimination mode (just past iron). Once there, I leave it alone. But should I set it higher than this?
3. I keep sensitivity at around 9-10 (I lower it however if there is a lot of small junk or just too many signals) to maintain stability.
4. Now on to iron..I found that if I did not have a clean/repeatable signal in four directions, it was probably old iron. So now I dig mostly only those four way repeatable signals. While I dig much less iron, I noticed that my depth is now very poor. I found very few signals below 3 inches. For those of you that have detected old european farms, you know that there is a ton of old iron.
5. With other detectors (XTERRA 705) I could usually scrape off 3 inches of the topsoil to get a better idea of what I was digging. This does not seem to work well with the Vaquero. For example, I would have a signal that sounded very clear in two directions, but would not sound off in the other two. I would then scrape a few inches of dirt and all of a sudden I would get a nice clear four way signal. BUT...it almost always ends up being iron.
6. I have used sizing to reduce iron as well (a small coin probably shouldn't give a signal in a wide area like rusty iron), but I am worring that I could miss larger artifacts/coin spills etc.
7. This is more of an embarrassing observation than anything else. I have lent out my detector to a few people and when I should them how to use it, I will put a coin on the ground and then a piece of iron (usually one I dug up earlier in the day). The problem is, I get a lovely (and to my ears the exact same) four way beep when I go over iron and the coin. I even crank up the discrimination as my face turns red but the detector still picks up the iron. I have verified this with two different vaqueros. Naturally the person I am showing asks what the problem is. I simply answer that when the metal is in the ground it will discriminate or that the it is old iron and will fool any detector. The truth is though, I would have no problem discriminating this with my Xterra...
In short, I am getting better at not digging iron, but I suspect it is coming at a high cost (i.e., lower depth and missing good targets). Hopefully you can provide me with some good tips/ suggest ifi am doing anything wrong or confirm if I am doing things properly.