Joe, thanks for the kind words, and I picked up the Wal-Mart MO and will be sending it tomorrow.
And as for me, I'd rather spend 20 minutes with a fast, damn good discriminator to find 4 times what a so-called powerhouse, depth-demon $3500 machine that makes me dig down 10" in hard clay soil to find a rusted zinc penny in four hours of fiddling with a lot of controls and settings. I think you get my drift..
Go ahead and quote me, I'm not ashamed and I don't try to BS people with any opinions either. Seems that you and I are reading off the same sheet of music. That's good.
Now, using a plastic or clay pot or a "test garden" is NOT a fair way to test a detector for depth or discrimination capabilities OR smooth operation. There are so many variables that disallow this that it's just about ludicrous to even think that it's fair.
Some people don't quite understand this, so I'll give a short narrative.
Each and every coil radiates a different width signal, a different pattern, and a different depth. There are no two coils that operate exactly the same as another, regardless of what a detector company says about them. They are all a tiny bit different than their clone. . the pattern of the radiation makes the different detectors all read differently than in real life, and this includes tests in a "test garden" too. Don't EVER rely on those practices and don't ever tell someone else that they are reliable either, because they are not. And we haven't even considered the rate of retune (SAT), level of +/- voltage to the receiving coil, speed of and height and lows of the RMS signal, etc., and how all these facets all interact with each other in all different situations compounded by whatever matrix we are trying to cancel (ground balance). In fact, there are actually hundreds of determinants including impedence, resistence differences, the properties of resistors, capacitors, thyristors, transformers, shunts, pots, trimmers, etc. to consider and compute changing values for before making any dependable decisions as to how well a detector will work "outside the box".
Some coils can get real close to big pieces of metal and still find a coin within 2 or 3 inches of it. When you use a dirt or clay pot (same thing), or a plastic one, or a test garden,, there is no strata (the polarity) of the molecules present as there is in normal, slowly evolving alignment of molecules, all having their positive ends all facing the same direction, all headed out like a bunch of sardines in can, all facing the same direction. You see, after awhile, EVERYTHING obtains a magnetic alignment, including water, air, dirt, plastic, metal, chicken soup, etc. All it takes is time, and the longer of time it has, the better the molecules align. It works almost the same in electrical wiring, but when the electrical circuit is completed it speeds the alignment up to the nth degree.
Soil is like everything else. It has all it's strata (different layers of different minerals, in different chemical combinations or singularily, all having the same substance) alligned magnetically, or quantumly or electrically. In fact, it is ALL just pure energy, ALL of it, and it's all ELECTRICAL (AKA magnetic) energy too. It always comes down to it's magnetic properties and magnetism is quite simply - electricity. They are the same.
Everything is the same, be it electricity, or chemical, it is all only energy, and nothing else. There is no such thing as real solid either. Now let's talk about the soil some more. I get dozens of questions about ground balance, so here is a short thing or two about that too.
Your ground balances are simply nothing more than a knob or circuit or switch that controls the voltage changes in response to the substance that the signal encounters, be it ground, water, metals, etc, it makes no difference. . The ground balance operates differently on some coils and some detectors and soils than on others. There is no way to predict or predetermine by testing how well it will work by using a test garden or a clay pot, or a plastic jug full of sand from the beach. To try to do so is basically foolery or even as bad as being perhaps not very knowledgeable as to how ground balance even works?
Here is an example: If I went to the Oregon coast my Fisher cz-70 would find a nickel in the black sand about 7 inches. It would be the deepest of all detectors in most cases with sometimes the Compass going a bit deeper in different sand there.. My Sovereign would find it at 6" and the Sov goes a little bit deeper than any Minelab Explorer and the same as a Sov GT.
But when I take a pailful of the sand back to test at home or up on the beach there up off the ground completely, all the detectors act completely different than they did at the oceanside, even the Sov to some degree. They all switch places in depth, ALL of them. No matter what I do, the whole thing becomes chaotic and wierd. The Fisher no longer is the King of depth in that situation, but the Compass is, and so is the Tejon. On the beach the Tejon might as well be used as a boat anchor though, it HATES high black sand, and to the M-A-X! But in a plastic pail full of the same sand that I dug out of the exact same test area on the beach the Tejon beats just about everything, except for the Compass. Even a cheap White's Classic 3 beats the Fisher cz, you know, the one I said that got the best depth with on the actual beach..?
Conclusion; don't EVER rely on a test garden, a test pot, or an air test to decide whether a detector is a good one or not. Rely on whether the detector actually works where you need to use it, and not in a barrel somewhere, or a pot or test garden either. Air test may be the best indicator of a detector's depth potential but there is a lot more to it than that.
Ok, so what, so I know a few things that seem a bit odd, but I AM odd, it's my mission in life to think outside the box. Some people know some things, and some people know others. My main purpose here is to inform or be informed. If I can't inform, I'll be more than glad to BE informed, and at times I am too, and hopefully by someone who will take the time to explain something to me.
Tim, I would go with the detector that has the very best range of iron discrimination that you can find. The one with a real wide iron rejection band to adjust, because it will better help you to decide whether the relic you find is good, or bad. Find someone with a 1270 and try it out, otherwise you may already have the best you can own, unless you could find a Baron MIllinium somewhere cheap with the proper combination setup of module plus coil. A Garrett 2000 (not a 2500) has extreme depth in light to medium soil, but it too sucks in high iron soil, just as does the Ace 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 400, 500 1250, 1350, 2000,and 2500's. None of the Aces or the aforementioned are schematically well-designed for black sand or salt beach hunting, and it even says right there in Charlie Garretts own charts that they aren't either.. I'm not ready to call Charlie a liar. He knows his own machines. He makes other detectors better designed for the bad soil. The Garrett Infinium would be my #1 choice for beach hunting, anywhere.
Ray, I'm having a bit of trouble understanding why a Tejon would "eat batteries", because mine won't. Does it seem to have plenty of power? If not, then there certainly is a problem with too high of resistence somewhere near the first transformer somewhere and that would put a big drain on the batteries.. Tesoro will probably fix that problem for free, but maybe won't pay your postage. The Tejon was DESIGNED for your world..
Here is a site that should be visited by all, just in case you want to know the why's and hows of metal detecting. And I'll toss in a much more complicated version (George's) for those who are considerably more technically inclined.
Keith Wills:
http://www.brokendetector.com/ground-balance.htm
George Payne:
http://jb-ms.com/Baron/gb.htm
These two guys are the best of the best, and absolutely indisputable in their knowledge of metal detectors. Without George Payne you would not be using the very detector you are using today, and without Keith Wills you may not be using the modified or previously repaired one you now use.
