Vaquero vs. AT PRO

[homebre]

Let me preface this by saying I love my Vaquero. Yesterday I want out with a friend who used an AT PRO. I was using a "V" with a 10x12 SEF butterfly coil. We were hunting a pasture that was a pre-civil war homestead. The pictures show a button and what I think is a keyhole latch, but need help with IDing them. The pictures are of some things I found, except another ax head. Here is my problem: We hunted for 3 hours, and I found tons of iron whether discriminating or not--most of it large iron. He found much better objects including a lead ball, a brass handle and over a dozen shotgun shells using the AT PRO. I got really frustrated. The AT PRO seemed deeper and could DISC much better. Is it just my bad luck, poorer hearing, or the machines ability for relics. I have used my V with the SEF most of the last half year and have found good finds in parks and playing fields for coins and jewelry. I would like some honest opinions on the pros and cons of the 2 machines. He was telling me the AT PRO is deeper and does not become an iron hog like the "V". Comments?

Thanks,

Andy from HIllsborough

 

[Hombre]

Hi homebre...

You might want to go back to using your stock coil, the concentric coils discriminate better then the DD coils. There used to be a sticky at the top of this Tesoro forum that had an explaination of why concentric coils were a better choice than the DD/widescan coil in all soils excluding highly mineralized soils. That article about the pros and cons of DD coils was written by James Gifford, that guy is somebody to listen to. Just my 2

 

[kaolinwasher]

ya what size of coil was he using?? yours was a bit big if you had an iron infested spot funny they both have the same 15khz but i know the vaq has more disq set all the time , as the At pro you can adjust that way back , try a small er coal and lets see what happens

 

[cladcanada]

I been waiting for a Tesoro vs Garrett face off , especially the at pro. .

There's just gotta be a Tesoro that trumps the all too common at pro

 

[4fun]

starting over I was getting a book, first wide scans only see a long narrow picture of the ground and because of that don't tend to overload the detector with ground mineralization. A concentric coil see all of the ground underneath the coil, so it see more of the ground at the same time. Not good in highly mineralized soil but great for target information. Now about which detector is a better performer, there is only about a million things that could have been going on that day and without being there I could not begin to answer that question. things like battery condition, were your detectors interfering with each other, is your V sick does it need to be sent in with the coil you are using to be calibrated. But i do know tesoro's can be a little noisey in the iron but they are not iron hogs, I do not dig a lot of iron, once is a while i will get fooled but that is not often. Besides if you are not digging than you really don't know. I like to hear the pops and crackles, that way I can also hear the differences if there is something close by. hope this helps

 

[bigjon]

starting over I was getting a book, first wide scans only see a long narrow picture of the ground and because of that don't tend to overload the detector with ground mineralization. A concentric coil see all of the ground underneath the coil, so it see more of the ground at the same time. Not good in highly mineralized soil but great for target information. Now about which detector is a better performer, there is only about a million things that could have been going on that day and without being there I could not begin to answer that question. things like battery condition, were your detectors interfering with each other, is your V sick does it need to be sent in with the coil you are using to be calibrated. But i do know tesoro's can be a little noisey in the iron but they are not iron hogs, I do not dig a lot of iron, once is a while i will get fooled but that is not often. Besides if you are not digging than you really don't know. I like to hear the pops and crackles, that way I can also hear the differences if there is something close by. hope this helps

that sound about right to me do a air test on it . and get you a concentric coil and dd coil will kill you in iron

 

[PostalTwo]

The at pro uses a dd coil as well was he using the 5x8? I agree that u will likely have better luck with the concentric.

 

[atomicscott]

Let me preface this by saying I love my Vaquero. Yesterday I want out with a friend who used an AT PRO. I was using a "V" with a 10x12 SEF butterfly coil. We were hunting a pasture that was a pre-civil war homestead. The pictures show a button and what I think is a keyhole latch, but need help with IDing them. The pictures are of some things I found, except another ax head. Here is my problem: We hunted for 3 hours, and I found tons of iron whether discriminating or not--most of it large iron. He found much better objects including a lead ball, a brass handle and over a dozen shotgun shells using the AT PRO. I got really frustrated. The AT PRO seemed deeper and could DISC much better. Is it just my bad luck, poorer hearing, or the machines ability for relics. I have used my V with the SEF most of the last half year and have found good finds in parks and playing fields for coins and jewelry. I would like some honest opinions on the pros and cons of the 2 machines. He was telling me the AT PRO is deeper and does not become an iron hog like the "V". Comments?

Thanks,

Andy from HIllsborough

I keep telling people this, but they just argue with me! Even my fisher F2 found way less iron & much more 'good' targets, regardless if using the stock 9X8 coil or 5.75 DD. It was very evident to me, as I was using the V and F2 back to back. The higher I cranked the sens. on the Vaq, the worst the disc was. Supertuning was like not even using disc, no matter how high I cranked the disc knob. My X-Terra 505 was the huge revelation though, I find goodies in the spots where I only found big rusty iron with the Vaq. If you like (especially iron) relics, the V is great! Try your Vaq again with the stock coil and see if your AT Pro buddy still does better. I think he will. HH

 

[JB(MS)]

Those were replies on the original Tesoro forum a few years ago to a post asking about coils. Below are the responses by James and Vince to his question.

"Stick with the concentric coils. Concentric coils are overall better discriminating coils. They are used mostly for coin and relic hunting. Wide scan coils on the other hand are designed to work in the heavier mineralization. The wide scan "sees" 30% less ground effect than a concentric, but does not discriminate as well."--James Gifford

"If a widescan and concentric coil are exactly the same size, typically the concentric will be deeper. Consider this, the transmit coil on the concentric is the same as the coil size. On a wide scan, some of the coil is taken up by the receive coil (the other D in the double D). So the transmit coil is smaller than the actual coil size. This is why widescans have a tendency to be larger coils, to get back the depth. As James said above, the big advantage with a widescan is the reduction of ground effects."--Vince Gifford.

 

[smokey63]

Is it just my bad luck, poorer hearing, or the machines ability for relics????

I say neither, your friend may have just put his coil over the better targets,.The Vaquero is my main relic machine (with Tesoro 10x12 Widescan coil) and it is a capable as any other machine out there, and better than most in my opinion. From the relics that you recovered I would say it is the choice of coil. Looks like you are in an iron laden site and with the larger coils, they is going to drive you nuts. With the V in this area you are going to have to try a 5.75, 5x10, or maybe something like a Sharpshooter coil. I have the Tesoro 5x10 and it does well in these sites. Also, if you were running Supertuned, it just added to your problem. I run mine Supertuned all the time and I just adjust the disc to compensate for this, usually 1 to 2 marks above Iron with little depth loss.

Keep in mind also that your friend is more than likely watching his VDI, listening to Iron audio and deciding what to and what not to dig. If I am relic hunting I am digging everything. Now we have to wonder what he might have missed.

Take those straight square nails and set the disc on the V right at the point where they break tone (pop, crack) and dig everything else. If I am not mistaken some of the Confederate buttons will come in at the Iron range. The bent square nails are more than likely going to fool you every time even after you disc the straight ones out, they do me anyway.

Also, keep in mind that all of the larger targets that we sometimes pass by (which I used to be guilty of) such as, iron, coke cans, roof tin, plow parts, horse shoes, etc, could be masking that one prize relic we are looking for. This is why I now have that dig it all attitude and recheck every hole after digging a larger target. I would venture to say that the iron spike in the photo could mask and area 2 feet around it and no telling how deep.

Sorry for the lengthy post, just my opinions, but weather is terrible, so no diggin today...LOL

 

[atomicscott]

I bet your buddy doesn't have to change any settings or spin a knob to check the target ID? Another plus for the AT Pro

 

[MarkCZ]

Well he probably dug less targets as well. Doing that he was more able to cover more ground being more selective about what he was digging.

If you super tune the "V" it does take a greater liking to Iron, that was one reason for me to switch to the Tejon.
Now if he dug less, then that means that he dug less iron and less low conductors, that's to say he just past them up. Now in an area where its likely for some Gold Jewelry he would have most likely past it up as well. It sounds to me like he may have been hunting more like a coin shooter than a relic hunter.

I don't think I would ever trade out my metered machines for a beep & dig, so at this point I have both but I got them for two different purposes, (neither include relic hunting)
With the beep & dig I plan on Jewelry and picking up any coins that turn up.
The metered detector I plan on Coin Shooting and targeting coins and working around the trash, this leave most of all the jewelry except silver.

For me the two machine comprising's in this topic are to much in different classes to really compare them.

Mark

 

[LittleJohn]

I own and use both machines and Mark hit the nail right on the head!

Here are a few things to consider. One of the biggest reasons he probably dug more desirable targets is the amount of information he had to review before deciding to dig a target. He didn't have to listen for the crackle...He has an iron symbol that pops up when his coil goes over iron...regardless of where his disc is set or what size the iron is. In that case he would keep walking until he covered a target that gave a higher vdi number with no iron signal.

Bent nails fool every detector I have used at some point. ..so don't let that get ya down, it's just part of the game. I spent the whole weekend detecting a relic field with an F75. It got to the point where I didn't need to look at the vdi numbers and just listened for that solid repeatable beep. I would only check numbers once I was happy with the signal. Many times ...and I mean a bunch...I would get a 22 vdi number which is foil. Being a Tesoro user...I didn't believe it was foil...and thought maybe it could be gold or even a button...so on every occasion I dug the target anyway...and every single time it was foil...but I l learned that lesson about my machine...and now have a lot more confidence in it.

One of the things that prompted me to keep digging the foil signals was that my buddy dug a 14k gold man's wedding band with his machine...In a civil war camp field ...In the middle of nowhere...go figure.

Keep at it with your Vaquero...try some of the different Tesoro tricks to disc out iron...Most of the information you have with a Tesoro is the texture and variance of the beep...Some love it...Some don't have the patience to truly learn it...but your vaquero is just as capable as the garrett if you really learn it.

Good luck!

LittleJohn

 

[homebre]

-- moved topic --

 

[fwcrawford]

I've never used the AT Pro, but I do have a Vaquero.
I use it to search around old house sites that are filled with iron and dig my share of it.
I usually search with the disc. very low since it almost impossible to know what may be in some of these sites.
My Vaquero is a high tone model and that does help in IDing iron.. the detector makes more of a snappy spitting sound as the coil moves away from the target.
It's now 100%, but it does help.
I usually can tell when I am over something none ferrous by the nice smooth sound the detector makes which the high tone may help in this case too.
I used a Cibola for a while and it was the standard or low tone model and to be honest, I couldn't tell any difference in the signal when over various targets.
I have read where the users of the Tejon set the tone frequency up high on the adjusting knob to help tell iron from none ferrous targets.
Like the others stated, these are two different machines and it is hard to make comparisons,
Possibly your buddy just happened to get his coil over some good targets before you did.
My buddy uses a DFX which is worlds apart from my Vaquero, but I make some nice finds to match his.. sometimes he finds more and sometimes I find more.
You stated your buddy found about a dozen shotgun shells...I know first hand that the Vaquero can find these as I have found lots of them and they sure do sound good too.
I don't know about the coil you were using as I have the standard coil and both of the small coils and they do fine for me.
That little 5.75 concentric coil is a very good coil.
You might try swinging fast over the target to see if it breaks up or gets snappy.. sometimes this is an indication of iron..remember, your buddy's detector has multi tone plus VID to help him ID targets.
You have to listen carefully to get any information from a one tone none VID machine, but with a good set of headphones it can be done.
Hope this helps out some.

 

[fwcrawford]

You are correct in you statement about confederate buttons coming very low.. I found a pewter Infantry button last year that ID'd much lower than a nickel.. I wonder how many of these I have missed before.
Most brass buttons come in much higher than this button and I was surprised at what I had found by the low reading.

 

[MichiganJason]

I hate to say it but I've used both the Vaquero and the AtPro and the At pro is a much better machine. It just gives so much more info so of course your buddy is going to dig more goodies. I found the Vaquero to have terrible audio. The most unpleasant tone that offers little information. If you're in an area where the targets are sparse I think the V could hang with the At but in a trashy/iron area, the at pro is going to stomp you all day long. Hopefully Tesoro's newest offering will be multi tone.

 

[mudpuppy]

What MarkCZ said...not really a technical apples to apples comparison...the Pro has "iron Audio" on/off feature..so a guy can go through an iron laden junkyard iron audio off and cherry pick high tones, of leave it on and listen to it all...the Pro is a unique machine on a lot of counts vs many other units...not just the Vaq...it was fun to follow the first adopters when it came out and read the posts...after a while, a guy cant argue with results...the posts are telling since they are being used very successfully far and wide in a lot of different hunting sites and situations....
Mud.

 

[Larry (IL)]

Not really a fair comparison, different tools trying to do the same job. You might be able to get a rusty bolt out with a Crescent wrench but a socket wrench is much better.

 

[MichiganJason]

Its a totally fair comparison. I'm as big a Tesoro fan as the next guy but I won't lie to myself. You put one guy with an At pro and one guy with a Vaquero at a trashy old home site and see who finds the most goodies, The At pro guy will win 99 times out of a hundred. I think a lot of Tesoro users just don't like to admit that. They will spend so much time trying to decipher a good signal that the at pro user will be getting their coil over more targets therefore has a better chance at digging that rare button or coin.