newbie needs help and advice

[wabash river rat]

howdy everyone out there. as you can see, I'm the new guy,at least for now. i have been following this forum and just can't get enough of it. i have gone through many of the different topics trying to gain as much insight into this art/hobby as i possibly can. i've gotta say some of you are a real hoot! i have worked as a firefighter for the nlast 23 years and i'm slowing down. still like to do all of the fun stuff i used to do,but now the old body is telling me no a lot of times. so i've been thinking about md'ing for a while. i figure it will give me some exercise after i retire in a couple of years, plus keep me in the outdoors which i love. any way down to the skinny of this whole thing. i know virtually nothing about doing this, what detector to get ,where in east central illinois to go, or how to get permission from my lovely wife. i know that there are a lot of ideas about the best detector to start with.i am interested in relic and coin hunting. i've got about $500.00 to play with to get set up. i've been thinking about a tesoro vaquero. i would like to find something that will have decent depth. the fact that tesoro has a lifetime warranty really appeals to me. but i was reading earlier in the detector review forum that the vaquero completely and suddenly loses sound at a certain point. no weak signal. which leads me to another question. would i be better off as a newbie with a detector with a screen to tell me what's going on or like a lot of you have said, just take the time to learn your machine. i'm open for any and all suggestions. i'm figuring that there is someone out there that is somewhat familiar with illinois,and i don't mean chicago. bee there twice and sure didn't leave anything there that i would have to go back and get. sorry if i offended anyone, but i'm just a little ol' country boy that is in a village of about 500 and loves the river, huntin' and fishin'. not much use for the big city or their political views. sorry barak. sorry for ramblin'. must be first time jitters. as for gettin' my wife's permission i figure i'm on my own with that one,but then after reading some of the posts, i may get as much or more info on that question as i do on the rest of the others. one last thing before i go if you don't mind. are there any Christian organizations out there for md'ing? hey thanks for everyone's patience! God bless ya'll!

 

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[wolfmanjoe3]

Wabash River Rat - welcome to Tnet!

I'm pretty new here myself, so I'll leave it up to my esteemed colleagues to respond to your questions about the vaquero, etc.

I will give you my advice on "how to get permission from my lovely wife" - show her some pictures of the great finds that some of the folks here on the forum have dug up. My wife was happy to see me enthused about a hobby that would get me outdoors, get some exercise, and have the potential of paying for itself. It is a great hobby with lots of great people who are willing to help.

Good luck and HH (happy hunting...)

Joe

 

[SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS]

WRR,

welcome to the board.

Lots of history in central Illinois; Visit the local
libraries for histories of the towns in your area.
Should give you a lot of ideas on where to hunt.

Hope we will be seeing some of your finds
this season.

have a good un...........................

 

[Sandman]

WRR, Welcome to the hobby and forum. We try to have fun here and answer questions when we can.

The Tesoro Vaquero is a great detector and very deep for coin and relics. The Tejon is more of a relic machine, but very good on coins too. Both are light weight and have extra coils available when you need them. Many are raving about the Ace 250 right now because it is just talked about more. However it only has a manual ground balance which you will need. The Ace is also cheaper. For the money you mentioned, you can get the better Tesoro and will be happier with it. As for screens, it is nice if you don't trust your ears and screens lie. Many have passed up a good coin because the coin was on edge or the reading wasn't where they hunter thought it should be. Much better to recover it if it makes a sound.

Read the field test reports at Tesoro's web site. By the way, wives soon send you out detecting after you give them a ring you found. No more cutting the grass, etc.

Good Luck,
Sandman

 

[wabash river rat]

joe, i hope that this gets out there to you, but i'm pretty much computer illiterate. don't know if i'm doin' this right or not. hey thanks for the help with the wife.i'll try that tomorrow when i get off of shift. as a matter of fact today was our 3rd anniversary. sure wish some of your esteemed colleagues would step up. hope to get some advise real soon on a detector choice


wrr

 

[wabash river rat]

shermanville,
thanks for the advice. we have a pretty good library in the tow that i work in. lots of old little towns around to check out. what part of illinois you from? thanks again and God bless ya'll

 

[wabash river rat]

sandman,

thanks so much for the advice. i was sure hoping someone would chime in on the detector thing. unless someone comes up with a strong arguement, my mind is pretty much set on the vaquero. thanks again and

God bless ya'll

 

[Gribnitz]

Howdy. Don't believe what your hearing about the sound going out on the Vaquero, mine sure doesn't. If I had to do it over again, I think I would have gone with the Cibola though. Here in Missouri the soil is pretty much clay and stuff only sinks to that clay layer and stops. You might consider the cheaper, but still very deep Cibola and buy a 5.75 coil with the money you save over the Vaquero. Also, if you never used a detector before, the manual ground balance on the vaquero may cause you to actually lose depth due to not tuning it right. Ground balancing is tricky and if it isn't set up just right it makes you get false signals, or lose a lot of depth. The Cibola is turn on and go. VID's are nice, but they make you second guess a lot and you stare at the stinking screen instead of digging. You will miss some stuff trusting an ID screen.

 

[wabash river rat]

gribnitz

thanks for the info. i've really been having a hard time deciding. if the tesoro's warranty is as good as they say, then that is deffinately the way i want to go. being new to this,what would be the purpose of the 5.75 coil? thanks again and...


...God bless ya'll

 

[l.cutler]

I have a Tejon and I love it. I have thought about getting a Vaquero just because I seldom use the extra features on the Tejon. You do have to ground balance correctly, but it is not difficult, and you really don't need an ID screen. The 5.75 coil is smaller and works great for finding goodies mixed in with trash. You lose a little depth with the smaller coil, but it is a great accessory to use in those trashy spots.

 

[Gribnitz]

being new to this,what would be the purpose of the 5.75 coil? thanks again

The 5.75 is a small coil to pick around trash. It allows you to pick up a target that a larger coil would miss due to having a lot of trash nearby, which masks out the good stuff. The 5.75 is the second coil you will end up wanting once you find out how much junk is really buried. A lot of people never even put the standard 8x9 back on after using it. The neat thing is the 5.75 loses almost no depth over the 8x9. I have the Tejon and the Vaquero, both with manual ground balance. I think I would have preferred the Tejon and Cibola combo if I had to do it again. My neck of the woods doesn't really need the manual G/B, but I do travel a lot so I wanted one with that option. The bad thing about the ground balance is that it is easy to nudge and knock out of whack and never notice you did it. If it gets knocked out of whack too badly, you are going to miss a lot of targets.

 

[TonyinCT]

Everyone has said a lot of true things about the Vaquero and Cibola. I'll just add that if you've never used a detector with a target ID you won't miss it. It is a handy tool but you can get by with just the sound. Either the Vaquero or Cibola will do very well for you.
Let me know if you need any nore help .
TonyinCT

 

[BuckleBoy]

I second that motion. I've never used an ID machine, and I haven't missed it one bit. Still found oodles of great stuff in 15 years of diggin. I may eventually break down and get one, but I trust my ears more than a screen at this point.

Buckleboy

 

[thompy]

i think everyone should start out with a non tid unit to train your ears, i just about bought a vaq. but like a faster sweep speed, i don't think you could go wrong with your choice. good luck. thompy

 

[DFX-SE Gregg]

Wabash River Rat thats funny about Chicago I am a police officer there! So as you are I am a public servant also! But I did notice you asked about a Christian forum for mding....hope it is OK to mention another forum in this case....sounds like a good cause, here you go>>>http://www.findmall.com/list.php?13 If you don't see it, or is erased, send me a private message good luck! As far as a detector goes, a Garrett ace 250 would probably get the job done for starters. If you really find you are hooked, I use a White's DFX. But that would probably be down the line for you. If you are coinshooting parks take a look at the m6 by Whites should be somewhere in your price range. The good think about the Garrett is its only around $215, and if you decide detecting is not for you, you could easily sell for $160-170. Also m6 good resale value. Good luck

 

[paul1410]

WRR, welcome to TN.
Tesoros are good machines however the lifetime warranty only applies if it was purchased new.

As for the more information: read. This site is a gold mine of information and some of the links that people post here are very good also. Subscribe to a magazine. Find some detecting/treasure hunting books. A good source for these, which can be hard to find in book stores, is ebay. Once you're done with them you can usually resell them and make your money back.

Lastly, get out there and start detecting, learn your machine and develop your own style.

Happy Hunting

 

[George (MN)]

Hi, I guess what detector you want would depend on what type of hunting you want to do & what features on a detector are important to you. It sounds like whatever you get should be under 4 pounds. As for target ID detectors, I like them.

With a target ID detector, you can get a pretty good idea of what something is before you dig it. Especially if the target is within a few inches of the surface. The errors in ID are mostly when a target is deep, or if there are 2 or more targets under the coil at the same time & coins on edge may ID wrong. Trash like large iron will jump around on the ID. With no meter ID or tone ID, you can get some idea of what something is by using the discrimination control, turning it up to see at what point something stops sounding off. If you're at an old no longer used site, you may want to dig everything. But at a park loaded with pulltabs, most people wouldn't have the patience to dig it all.

For one of my next detectors, I'm looking at the Fisher F4. It's a lightweight detector that has visual (numerical) ID & 4 tone ID, comes with a double D coil that works best in highly mineralized ground & is longer than wider for good coverage & separation. Plus it comes witha 4" coil for trashy areas. Cost about $425, available early April. Also a 10" coil is an option & sells for a cheap price. It also has discriminate notches so you can accept & reject objects of different conductivity.

But I started detecting with detectors that had no visual or tone ID & did good. The current Tesoro detectors with no ID have auto pinpointing that shrinks the target, but I prefer manual target shrinkage. Everyone has preferences after they've owned a few detectors as to which little things they really like or don't like. But when getting your first detector, it is probably pretty hard to not like most of them, as anything is an improvement over nothing.

Guess my advice is avoid very heavy &/or complex detectors for your first one, but that still leaves many dozens of choices. You might want to go to the mfrs websites, like www.tesoro.com www.whiteselectronics.com www.garrett.com www.detecting.com (for Bounty Hunter), www.fisherlab.com Then you can read the pros reviews at the site www.losttreasure.com & others reviews at http://metaldetectorreviews.net I hope I have been of some help. Good luck & happy hunting, George (mn)