Upgrade...But To What???

[Smudge]

Hey Everybody. I have a small dilemma. Pardon this rambling post. I'm tired.

I used to primarily beach hunt and I have a separate detector for that, so the beach isn't the issue.

My problem is with the land detector.

I used to hunt primarily in tot lots and used my Compadre for that. But I've been looking to upgrade to another detector in order to search in places like athletic fields.

Funny thing is, I'm having a hard time finding a reason to upgrade.

I hunt coins and jewelry exclusively. I'm not a relic hunter.

I have very mild soil, so the lack of manual GB is not an issue for me.

I'm not looking for a really deep machine right now. 6" of depth is plenty.

The Compadre already bangs on the jewelry and coins, and I know it doesn't quite get 6" on depth, but it comes close.

The 5.75" coil does make searching open areas a little more time consuming.

The thing is, I have been looking at a LOT of detectors, from $800 models on down. But when it comes to quality of construction and warranty and simplicity of use, I keep coming back to Tesoros.

I just can't seem to find a reason to set the Tesoro Compadre aside and use something else. It's already geared for shallow gold and coins which are my bread and butter.

So, am I missing something here? I'm not making an idle post just to praise the Compadre. I'm really curious, what am i missing here?

I'm looking hardest at the Cibola, the Golden uMax, and the DeLeon. Leaning a little towards the DeLeon because I'd like the added information that its TID screen can offer.

Is there a detector out there that truly does what the Compadre does, only better? I know the answer must be yes, but I'm suffering either from tunnel vision or information overload.

Thoughts are appreciated.

 

[dmgadway]

Have you considered the vaquero? I've had a cibola for 6 yrs and its sered me well. I upgraded to a Tejon for more versatility. The vaquero will allow GB adjustment for different soils, a larger coil for wide open areas, and adjustable sensitivity. A very versatile detector. cant go wrong with any Tesoro! Just some thoughts.

 

[Jerry Ga.]

Cibola or Deleon, I think you would be happy with either choice

 

[tvr]

I hear ya ... you may be looking for an upgrade to something like this:

 

[Smudge]

I hear ya ... you may be looking for an upgrade to something like this:

Ok, I've gotta ask:

1. How did you do that?

2. Is that a H.O.T. coil?

3. What kind of additional depth did you get?

 

[tvr]

It is a fairly easy mod but I bought it already modified. It is a

 

[jabbo]

Smudge, Don't forget about the Golden uMax for coins and gold jewelry. Great tones, no need to look at a meter with each beep. It has a great notch system that eliminates most shallow tabs, and still gets ladies gold rings. Tabs that are past 7" deep will beep, most shallow tabs won't beep while ladies gold rings at all depths will beep. Most rings in parks are less than 6" deep. The meter on my Cortes can't ID a ring from a pulltab, meters are good to ID coins. The Cortes has a fixed Notch, the Golden has an adjustable Notch system. The Notches can be used at the same time the regular Disc is used, both can be run together for greater discrimination control on the Cortes or Golden. If a nail is close to a ring or a coin, the Goldens tones will shift back and forth indicating two dissimilar targets are being detected, good feature. The same uMax coils fit my Cortes and the Golden. With the 8x9 or the 5.75 coils, the Golden will detect a small gold earring at 4" in air tests, but finding larger gold is better. Class rings and mens gold rings won't beep when Notch is used, their conductivity falls in the pulltab range, ladies gold rings and gold chains are less conductive than pulltabs and so they beep when Notch is turned on.

 

[Dan-Pa.]

For your type of hunting Tesoro provides two metered units and of course if you wish to switch brands lots of metered units out there for your perusal as an accurate ID unit will cut down on your digging...and more time for swinging...

 

[Smudge]

In my neck of the woods, I'm getting fewer pull tabs and more and more bottle caps. They are everywhere.

If there was a detector out there that would give me a decent warning that the item is a bottle cap without reading gold as the same, I'd probably buy it.

 

[jabbo]

Gold rings and bottle cap signals are vastly different on a metered detector and on tone detectors. Gold bracets are close to iron and foil. Gold rings and pulltab signals are about the same.

 

[jmaryt]

maybe the silver u-max?..it has a little more depth,AND you can use different coils on it,aAND it doesn't cost much more!

(h.h.!)
j.t.

 

[Furious T]

If you are looking to upgrade from the Compadre, the three detectors you mentioned would all be good choices. I have owned all three (but not the Compadre) and I still use my DeLeon and Cibola (I foolishly traded my Golden). Since you already have the Compadre, I dont think the Silver Umax would be much of an upgrade (I have one of those too). Both the Civola and the DeLeon are powerful, and will reach the depth you talk about, even with small rings.You probably need to look at the features of the three machines - they are all quite different - and decide which features appeal to you the most. Whichever you buy, of those three you mentioned, you wont go wrong, it's just a matter of deciding which features you want most. The DeLeon is slightly heavier than the other two, but it is NOT a heavy machine. All the best.

 

[dan b]

Is there anyone (including myself) that had a Golden

 

[DiGGER27]

Just my 2 cents...
First, a question...
Why limit yourself to 6 inches?
True, the bulk of the targets we search for are usually within that range, but not everything.
Relics aren't the only thing that could lie below that 6 inch level...jewelery and coins could hang out there, too.
Especially older coins and rings.

From my research, the Compadre has slightly different frequency, circuitry and that small coil for great target separation which makes it the king of the tot lots and enables it to hit on small gold better than most.
The Silver is good, and should hit that 6 inch mark and more, especially with that larger coil.
The Cibola users say it can really go even deeper than the silver.
Supertuning, (threshold turned way up), with these models in all metal can also give you a shot at hearing those deeper targets

I hunt with a Vaquero in very highly mineralized ground and the manual ground balance is a must to get the best depth, for me.
Even though you say you don't need manual GB, there is still an advantage to using a unit that has this feature, like my Vaq.

A 3 1/2 tun pot can enable the user to set his machine to " a razors edge" to really have the best chance of hitting all objects in almost any soil conditions...even good ones, and go as deep as possible with the best and clearest tones to help you decide if you need to dig.
A 10 turn pot can give you even more control in this area.

Just recently, I have begun experimenting with Monte's technique of power balancing in disc, because the perfect GB settings in all metal is not optimum when you switch to disc.
Monte also says that a Tesoro should never be set to the positive, or the negative for that matter.
I am just starting to play around with this technique, but I can tell you that it seems to work and work well.
An trashy area in a park I hunt had plenty of signals good and bad in all metal, but some of the deeper and fainter better sounding signals went away when I switched to disc.
Power balancing brought them back and turning the thresh up to 3 o'clock made them even clearer.

A detector is a tool that we use to not only find the location of targets, but it is used to get the most information that we can so our brain can make the final decision on whether to dig or not to dig.
A detector with a threshold and GB can give you an awful lot of this type of usable information.

Be that as it may, and to answer your original question, a silver or a Cibola with those bigger coils will make it much easier to hunt those larger areas to find that jewelery and those coins you are looking for.
I just want to add, I also have a backup F2 that I use from time to time.
It is super fun, has a VDI, and I have found plenty of stuff, including jewelery and coins with it and it is a joy to use.
I have also hit on coins, and especially dimes, with this great little unit at 8 inches.
Something to think about.
http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=53930


HH

 

[Smudge]

Is the Cibola, Golden uMax, or DeLeon as sensitive to small gold as the Compadre.

I think the Cibola, at over 14 kHz would be, but does anyone know for sure?

 

[DiGGER27]

I have read, due to the different circuitry, the Compadre is the most sensitive to gold.
I will tell you my with the Vaq's higher frequency and set and balanced correctly for the site, I don't think much can escape it's notice.
I have not tested it on any really small gold nuggets or anything like that, but I have found 3 gold rings.
One 14k, and two smaller 10k rings, one with a very thin band.

 

[digginLa]

I own both the DeLeon (5 yrs or so) and the Cibola (2 months). With the DeLeon I've found coins at 8+ inches dug an ax head at well over a foot, I haven't hunted that much with the Cibola so I haven't found anything deeper that 4 or 5 inches with it yet, however I did find a piece ( 1 1/2 ")of very small chain with it, but I think was iron because once I disturbed the site I couldn't get a hit on it again except in all metal. With the DeLeon bottle caps normally give a reading in the tab area first (vid in the 50's if I remember right) then I get reading down in iron (vid upper 20's I think) so far every reading I've had that did that has been a bottle cap. My soil is mild also and I normally have both machines super tuned unless I get around power lines. Hope this helps. Jimmie

 

[Furious T]

I've said it several times before, and I think it's still true...the DeLeon is the best detector I have for identifying iron, which includes the steel bottle caps...it takes a little while to work out what the detector is telling you, but once you do, the system of iron ID is virtually faultless (I cant say 100%, because I haven't finished detecting yet, but it's pretty darn good). The Cibola will find very small gold, but you need to set the disc to just below iron to pick up the really small (sleeper earrings) items. The DeLeon is also good on gold, but I haven't found any really small gold items in the field, probably because I've had the disc a bit too high for them. Both machines are powerful and give good depth.

 

[tvr]

Compadre and Tejon go to essentially all metal at minimum discrimination setting.

The Cibola and Vaquero will give a sharp edge click on small iron at full minimum discrimination setting. That alone makes the Compadre or Tejon less likely to miss small gold, but it would be very small.

In practice, both the Cibola and Tejon have turned up a fair amount of gold for me with discriminator set to ignore a small nail. I have less gold with the Compadre simply because I hunt more with the other detectors. The Compadre is a hoot to hunt with, but I do like being able to set up for more varying conditions and an easy swap out of coils for either trashy ground or open space ground coverage reasons.
Cheers,
tvr

 

[Smudge]

Thanks for replies everybody. They are much appreciated.