Another Vaquero question

[Bobby S]

So I took my vaquero out today...it was to a house i've found some silver at before. Well i barely found anything today, I couldnt even get my detector ground balanced. But something that bothered me is that I found a penny even having my discrimination maxed out...can that happen?

[mts]

Yes, a copper penny will still be found with the discrimination maxed out. You didn't keep the discrimination maxed out the whole time did you? If so, that could be part of your problem. You can lose some depth with the discrimination turned up high. Also, if you weren't ground balanced properly you could lose even more depth. How deep was the penny? Was it copper or zinc?

[Bobby S]

Yes, a copper penny will still be found with the discrimination maxed out. You didn't keep the discrimination maxed out the whole time did you? If so, that could be part of your problem. You can lose some depth with the discrimination turned up high. Also, if you weren't ground balanced properly you could lose even more depth. How deep was the penny? Was it copper or zinc?

I had the disc turned up high for a lot of the time detecting cuz i wanted to try cherry picking the silver. The ground balancing was just impossible to figure out in that type of soil....the penny was only a couple inches and it was 1967 so idk if thats copper or zinc

[sandtrout]

I also run my disc in "maxed out" position when cherry picking. It gets all the silver and also copper pennies without the clad pennies. I don't mind copper...usually in much better shape than the clad (which means USABLE when cashed in!).

[Bobby S]

I also run my disc in "maxed out" position when cherry picking. It gets all the silver and also copper pennies without the clad pennies. I don't mind copper...usually in much better shape than the clad (which means USABLE when cashed in!).

What do you do about choppier signals when maxed out in disc?

[mts]

The Vaquero doesn't lose too much depth when detecting at max discrimination. But not all detectors are like that. You should check to make sure you aren't giving up a bunch of depth on your Vaquero when the disc is turned all the way up. For example, my Tesoro Silver uMax can pick up a silver dime at about 7" with disc set at Foil. If I turn the disc up all the way the Silver uMax can barely pick up the same dime at 1".

[fwcrawford]

Bobby,
Pennies minted during 1982 and later are zinc pennies.
You are going to pick up copper pennies with max disc., but I think you can disc. the zinc pennies out with the disc. control, but it is still going to have to be set very high.

[sandtrout]

I also run my disc in "maxed out" position when cherry picking. It gets all the silver and also copper pennies without the clad pennies. I don't mind copper...usually in much better shape than the clad (which means USABLE when cashed in!).

What do you do about choppier signals when maxed out in disc?

Well, for me, it usually means there's trash or iron with the target (and the target may be something that reads well but still trash masked by more trash....can also be a quarter next to trash. Dig the trash and rescan hole.

Sending a pix of my Vac face plate that works for my area. Consider doing one for your area.

[sandtrout]

didn't know it would come out so big...do you need me to resize or can you do it on your end?

[sandtrout]

will try it again.....

[Bobby S]

will try it again.....

Thanks for the picture..it will def help

[oldcoon]

In my not-so-humble opinion discrimination settings mean very little unless you can ground balance your machine.
Ground balancing is pretty straightforward.
Start with a nice threshold tone, lower the coil to the ground.
If the sound increases turn the ground balance knob toward the minus sign.
If the sound decreases turn the ground balance knob toward the plus sign.
Ideally there should be no variance in the sound when the coil is held waist high to on the ground.
God I hope I explained that right.
I always had trouble explaining this.
I can do it quicker than I can explain it.

[fwcrawford]

Oldcoon has got it right... it is very easy to ground balance once you understand what kind of response you are looking for.
This seems to be a confusing subject, but I believe many times folks are trying to ground balance over ground that has iron or some other metal trash and they forget to check for this before ground balancing.