Tejon at the beach

[1badtacoma]

Last weekend I went on vacation to Atlantic Beach, NC. The tejon worked great on dry sand, but I could not ground balance it on wet sand to save my life anyone else have this problem? I had the sensitivity low but still nothing. It was killer on the dry sand though.

 

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[Steve in Cali.]

I run a Cibola on the dry and slightly damp sand at local saltwater beaches and it works great.

When it hits very damp or wet sand it freaks out though.

 

[Dixie Digger]

you will have this problem with all single frequency detectors.

 

[1badtacoma]

Thanks guys just making sure it wasnt just me.

 

[SamsSon]

Your Tejon was just letting you know it can't handle that type of sand very well.

Some detectors never let the user know they can't handle the ground in a certain area. These automatic detectors tune down without the user knowing he has lost most of his depth.

This is one reason why I prefer a manual ground balance machine.

 

[EasyMoney]

I have written scrolls about this subject of manual GB vs automatic GB. But here is a shortened version:


I hope this explains it well enough to help some understand it a bit better;

"Autotrac", "autotrak", and "auto ground balance" are all the same thing. Every company terms it differently.

"Automatic retuning" is an entirely different thing too, it refers to the automatic return to threshold.

All detectors have automatic tracking (GB)

Most have automatic retune to threshold. A few don't.

The old Compasses nugget hunter models have the original autotrac and also the best ever made. The Tesoros come in at a very seriously close second. Personally, I have found more goodies on the high iron salt beaches here in Oregon, Washington, and California beaches wet or dry, with an old, underpowered Tesoro Silver Saber than with anything else I have ever tried there, and the old Compasses run a very close second place.

Some detectors have a "manual" ground balance too.

A well designed detector with only a super-fast automatic GB will outperform a manual vlf one that is not watched like a hawk and continually retuned every 5 minutes or oftener. It's just the way it works. There are no exceptions, regardless of price or brand name or anything else.

The Tesoro Tejon runs with full gain, AKA power, continually.

Full gain does not mean full sensitivity.

Full gain means full power ..high volt amps.

Sensitivity means "more sensitive to iron or iron ore" (Fe). This includes the soil ..matrix.

The Tejon and the Fisher 1270 and the Nautiluses, and the various cheap White's like the Classics and Prisms, and the various Garretts from the Ace 100 through the Ace 550 and the 1250's through the 2500's all run not only with very high sensitivity, turned down or turned up, they also run with full power .. AKA volt amps. This is why they have such a rotten time with bad soil and linear scrap .. AKA nails, wire, etc, but get some unbelieveable depth in milder soil. They are designed this way.. Read the latest entry for the Garrett 2500 in Metaldetectorreviews.net for more proof of this statement. It's written by a person from the western USA, Washington State, I believe, and an area which is so bad with different minerals that the only detectors that work well enough there are various Fishers, lower-priced Tesoros, old Compasses, and most White's.

Note: In my most recent testing I have discovered that the new White's Pulsescan TID is probably the deepest and most user-friendly PI ever made , anywhere, and by anyone, for teardrop to quart jar sized objects. It is a really powerful detector, seemingly running on steroids. It is possible to achieve as much as 20 inches on a quarter - in the ground. I went to the factory the other day and was really surprized at it's performance. It even has a very good discriminator, better than I've ever seen on any other PI unit.

The various detectors I listed with high gain and high sensitivity including the Tejon, 1270, Cortez, etc. for example, make so much noise on scrap steel and iron objects in much of the nasty western soil - and have problems in even lighter soils too. We can omit some of that though by turning the Tejon's sensitivity down to zero for example, but most people don't want to do that because they actually think for some unknown reason that it will deplete some of it's depth . It will not though, and in fact it will normally increase it's depth in bad soil due to the lack of masking.

All the above I mentioned were designed for the Eastern USA and SE USA soil and Central European market, where the soil is usually much less ironized. The Tejon can be sent back to the factory for calibration along with a soil sample from the bad ground area, but it still will not outperform the cheaper Tesoros with their strictly automatic GB and super-fast speed of recovery time in our nasty western soil, the same super-fast autotune not found with the higher-end Tesoros. The upper scale Garretts can have a chip designed by Garrett to help with this problem a bit in the bad soil, but it does not completely cure the problem. Even the new ones have this aftermarket chip already installed by Garrett but the same thing applies, they are just plain not designed for much of our rotten soil from the Rocky Mountains westward, and a few other places too.

If anybody has any technical or electronics engineering questions feel free to contact me via PM.

BTW, a single or dual frequency detector does as good a job or better on iron and salt beaches as does a multi-freq, regardless of which company made it or how much it costs. In fact, most Minelabs multi's do well on small iron disc but really suck on the larger iron objects when it comes to discrimination, and it's partly due to their super slow processors taking so long to register. The White's DFX has the same problem. It's all in the circuit design, not in the amount of frequencies it choses to run on at any given nanosecond. And yes, there is no multi frequency detector made yet that runs on more than one frequency at the same time. If that happened there would be noise and calamity and mayhem beyond compare and comprehension, much like listening to a short-wave radio, a percussion band, twelve dogs howling at the moon, and a 5 yr old's birthday party all at the same time.

Have a good one all. Hope this helps.

EasyMoney

 

[1badtacoma]

wow Thanks,

That explains alot.

 

[SamsSon]

BTW, a single or dual frequency detector does as good a job or better on iron and salt beaches as does a multi-freq, regardless of which company made it or how much it costs. In fact, most Minelabs multi's do well on small rion disc but really suck on the larger iron objects when it comes to discrimination, and it's partly due to their super slow processors taking so long to register. The White's DFX has the same problem. It's all in the circuit design, not in the amount of frequencies it choses to run on at any given nanosecond. And yes, there is no multi frequency detector made yet that runs on more than one frequency at the same time. If that happened there would be noise and calamity and mayhem beyond compare and comprehension, much like listening to a short-wave radio, a percussion band, twelve dogs howling at the moon, and a 5 yr old's birthday party all at the same time.

Have a good one all. Hope this helps.

EasyMoney

Finally! Someone whom this forum respects has come out and said it!

I give you a score of perfect 10 for the above paragraph.

For the most part the multi frequency GREAT ADVANTAGE is a myth. Lots of us have known this for years and I'm a Minelab lover too.

I don't get into the hobby detector technicals because my day job gives me enough stress. But I know what works and so do lots of others here.

The Minelabs and other multi frequency machines do a great job but it's really in spite of the slower processors. I wish Minelab would drop the baloney and make a fast single frequency GT that weighs about half as much as the present model. And too I wish they made a nice 10 inch concentric coil for it. Personally I hate those DDs (me ducking tomatoes). I dream of such a detector.

Someone once told me my wish had be granted years ago and my dream machine is readily available. It's called the Tejon.

The GT with single frequency would be lightening fast and with the mono coil it would be the deepest VLF possible for coins.

But we live in a world of business psychological warfare.

 

[JOE(USA)]

Easymoney,

Another stunningly brilliant dissertation by you to 1badtacoma post!! Thank you. Joe

 

[EasyMoney]

Hey thanks all..

One thing I might comment on though, that being that the DD coil was invented by Compass Electronics and although they are still being used today the accompanying circuitry used by some detector manufactureres oftentimes defeats the original purpose of the DD. It was originally designed to help compensate for higher mineralization, but with some circuitry it doesn't do that at all. There is no need to point fingers at any specific manufactureres because we already know who they are, but in the right detector with the right circuitry the DD is one mean searchcoil. I use one on my Compass R&C and it is just about wonderful in bad ground. Both Tesoro and Fisher have used the DD with some very satisfying success. Again, it all depends on the application, not the coil type, but of course all DD configurations are not the same either, or at least most of them aren't.

BTW, I plan to snag yet another old coin here in Sweet Home, Oregon this evening when it cools down a bit - in the heart of White's country where White's were invented and made, Compasses were made and invented, Fishers were made, and Teknetics were invented, and I'll do it with my trusty Compass Relic and Coin, or possibly with my cz-70. Well Maybe I will with the cz, and maybe not? The cz ID's deeper, but the Compass signals deeper, about an inch better in disc and 1" deeper in all metal. On the salt beaches though the cz is the best I have ever used there for depth when using everything notched in. The Silver Saber finds more stuff on the beaches though, and the Silver uMax works like a charm there too, and much better than people would believe.

I just hope that there are still coins left there after the White's TDI comes out on the market a couple of weeks from now though. What a powerhouse! They are having to hand stuff the things right now instead of doing it automatically.

Have a good time out there folks. I will too.

EasyMoney

 

[Dixie Digger]

try taking your Tejon or and other single freq detector to the salt beach and see what kind of depth / performance you get in wet sand! so YES there is a big diff between single and multi freq detectors as far as processing info on mineralized land. now if its the # of freq or something else i don't have a clue.i just know of the many iv used the single freq detectors don't perform well on wet salt sand. even my Tiger Shark,that has a salt mode looses about 2" when on salt sand as to non wet salt sand..i see no loss at all with my Excal or GT?

 

[Chibuya]

Oh boy,

Great info, but all the technical jargon makes my head reel!!

So I live in So. Cal Pasadena area and want to upgrade from my Ace 250. Would like to search parks as well as dry beach sand. I posted this on another thread and two folks recommended the Tesoro Vaquero.

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks so much for all of your great advice!
Stacey

 

[Keppy]

Oh boy,

Great info, but all the technical jargon makes my head reel!!

So I live in So. Cal Pasadena area and want to upgrade from my Ace 250. Would like to search parks as well as dry beach sand. I posted this on another thread and two folks recommended the Tesoro Vaquero.

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks so much for all of your great advice!
Stacey

Yes my thoughts are ......Minelab Musketeer Pro... If you watch Ebay you can pick up new ones in the box for around $300.00 the dealers want $700.00 ...I got one new in the box $270.00..............and they are deep and a good detector use a DD coil and the ground balance on them is fixed or manual and they are easy to ground balance not like some of them.................this is my second one i have been leaving the Sovereign at home and useing the Musketeer in parks and fields it is a great detector but no one talks about them it is a sleeper.......................................==Jim_K==

 

[aladdin]

Easy! good to hear your imput again. Recently got a silver umax . I went to Atlantic Beach NC beaches and didn't have any problem in all the sands I hunted /wet /dry didn"t matter. I have found that my white classic 111 may or may not do well on a gvn day in the wet stuff / but this silver is the little detector that thought it could and does. Listen to Easy