ArthurEvans
Jr. Member
- May 10, 2016
- 27
- 35
- Detector(s) used
-
Garrett AT Pro, AT Max, Ace Apex;
Tesoro Tejón
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
At a small beach in Cape Cod this week. Covered the beach pretty thoroughly with my ATP yesterday. Seemed to GB fine on auto. Pretty noisy, but I discriminated out the junk and kept the sensitivity low, and found some good clad without digging too much junk.
Back at same beach today, and thought I'd try out the Tejón. It would not ground balance! The whole range of the knob was wayyy on the positive side. I really worked at it, and was ready to give up and go back for the ATP, but first I thought I'd see if it worked at all... scanned about five feet, and found a zincoln. Kept going, found more. Much quieter than the ATP, though slower (DD on the Garrett, 9x8 on the Tejón). I still found plenty, in spite of the machine being totally ground UNbalanced. Good deep signals, too. Found about 1/3 as much as I had with the ATP, going over the same ground. I did dig more bottle caps and pull tabs, but I was learning to recognize them by sound and thumbing the knob, and I mostly knew when it wasn't a coin.
I think the reason for the failure to GB is that this beach is on the marshy, bay side of the Cape. There's marsh grass all around, and on beaches like this, you often find wet pulpy decaying vegetation 6-12" under dry sand. The sand moves to cover the grass, and it decays, but holds salt water like a sponge. Good for the ATP that it wasn't bothered; and I'm not too surprised by the Tejón, given its legendary trickiness to GB. I thought it would be hard to do, and need a lot of touch-ups. But I didn't think it would be impossible! I did later shift to a beach that is pure, dry sand all the way down, and the Tejón balanced fine.
This isn't meant as a comparison, and I love both machines. I'm sure the ATP wasn't at fault for missing stuff, just me not overlapping enough. I'm just struck by how well the Tejón worked, even though I couldn't balance it properly. It helps me understand why people have so much success with Tesoros that have preset GB.
Back at same beach today, and thought I'd try out the Tejón. It would not ground balance! The whole range of the knob was wayyy on the positive side. I really worked at it, and was ready to give up and go back for the ATP, but first I thought I'd see if it worked at all... scanned about five feet, and found a zincoln. Kept going, found more. Much quieter than the ATP, though slower (DD on the Garrett, 9x8 on the Tejón). I still found plenty, in spite of the machine being totally ground UNbalanced. Good deep signals, too. Found about 1/3 as much as I had with the ATP, going over the same ground. I did dig more bottle caps and pull tabs, but I was learning to recognize them by sound and thumbing the knob, and I mostly knew when it wasn't a coin.
I think the reason for the failure to GB is that this beach is on the marshy, bay side of the Cape. There's marsh grass all around, and on beaches like this, you often find wet pulpy decaying vegetation 6-12" under dry sand. The sand moves to cover the grass, and it decays, but holds salt water like a sponge. Good for the ATP that it wasn't bothered; and I'm not too surprised by the Tejón, given its legendary trickiness to GB. I thought it would be hard to do, and need a lot of touch-ups. But I didn't think it would be impossible! I did later shift to a beach that is pure, dry sand all the way down, and the Tejón balanced fine.
This isn't meant as a comparison, and I love both machines. I'm sure the ATP wasn't at fault for missing stuff, just me not overlapping enough. I'm just struck by how well the Tejón worked, even though I couldn't balance it properly. It helps me understand why people have so much success with Tesoros that have preset GB.
