Synchronizing the Compadre dial indicator mark with the 5c Nickel icon.

Hey Todd, you can easily calibrate to a modern or any nickel, many do and say they like it that way when nickels hit on the 5 cent mark and everything else lines up pretty good if you do.
I would never do this because I find it is based on flawed thinking...for my preferences for hunting, anyway.
Some have said it not just the nickel thing but for some other reasons I can't remember right now, all hunters have their little peculiar ways so whatever works for them, great.
In my case in the time I have done this I have found there is no coin that is more odd, strange and more unpredictable as far as getting consistent readings.
Don't know why, could be the conductivity area it inhabits are in some weird twilight zone range, on edge coins can react different than others, masking trash can have more effect than on other coins or what...but there us something different in nickel behavior compared to other coins and I have seen this on all my detectors.
Forget silver war nickels, those can come in from near regular nickel area to way up the line and are the weirdest, but all other varieties for me have acted different including the most common the Jefferson nickel.
I have air tested many, still I see small differences in where they firm up as I dial them in and unlike other good targets that usually have no noise and just come in as I thumb down this one can be a little more noisy than other coins...I just don't trust this coin using my personal rules for behavior and making digging decisions.
For my hunting using my Tesoros the only thing I would consider calibrating to is one of the most numerous and common coins I come across which is a complete non eaten away zincoln.
On my Compadre these come in exactly at the 3:00 position on my knob, always have with no adjustments from me and after digging many hundreds if not up into the thousands by now I have come to trust it, depend on it as much as I can on any common target without actually knowing what it is before I dig.
Eaten away zincolns can be slightly different and come in a hair lower, I have even dug a couple a bit higher, but good ones hit on that 3:00 area like 99% of the time for me...or it seems that way.
I also go by the tone and what I hear as I dial past and then down to that area, I can't really put into words what I hear that that alerts me to these compared to other things like can slaw or other trash that might also come in at the exact same area but it is also pretty darn consistent on good shaped zincolns.
With my Compadre set this way I can make good educated guesses on zincolns and trash, I can usually guess when I am swinging over most tokens because these are slightly higher and have come to know most other targets up and down the range after digging them for so long to a pretty good degree, again as well as you can make educated guesses on targets still hidden in the ground.

Everyone does this different so try the nickel calibration if you want but keep that small screwdriver handy and try my zincoln settings too if you want to compare.
You can change at any time...it doesn't take long.

No matter where your knob ends up we all become used to target behavior that we consistently see, even if all readings are slightly skewed from what we would consider normal...we all have the ability to adapt over time.
If for some reason mine would hit zincolns on the tab mark and everything else got moved around I would not like it if I couldn't change it but eventually I would get used to it and deal with it if I had to.
Luckily I don't have to and choose to use a target for calibration I trust way more than any nickel of any kind, age or date.
I still find many nickels and I mean a lot, mostly Jeffersons, always have with all my detectors and never had a problem in this area.
The reason why is I am a gold hunter and good bad or ugly I tend to dig lots of nickel area targets because it is in a prime area to find gold and I have found many gold rings in that range.
All my gold in that area have come in solid with no noise so I probably could avoid digging a little more trash in the nickel area than I usually do but as far as letting the what if's bother me I have made my peace with leaving most jumpy or noisier trash in the ground but nickel area trash still triggers those what if feelings to a small extent.
You just never know in this biz and try as I might I still haven't gotten that X-Ray vision thing to work as yet.
If I am going to dig some iffier targets and go outside my strict digging rules for avoiding trash more often than not it will be in that nickel range.
I have dug many nickels that came in slightly below, slightly above and many dead on that nickel mark in my time so as I said from the behavior I have seen and in my experience I just don't trust that coin's overall behavior so why calibrate to it when there is another target I trust much more?
That is me, many use that nickel and wouldn't hunt any other way with a Tesoro and there is no rule or law that says you have to do this any specific way.
Try them both, dig a few dozen or maybe a lot more targets and make a decision that is best for you.
More fun in it overall when you get it right for your way of hunting in your dirt going after the most common targets in your sites.


Oh yea, good luck on finding a 3 cent nickel out there, I hope you do.
I have seen plenty pics of all kinds of nickel coins posted here, shields, V's, buffs and all, many silver trimes too, but for the life if me I don't remember ever seeing anyone post an actual 3 cent nickel pic.
These must be rare or at the very least extremely hard to find so go get yourself one if you can.

Hi Digger27 !
I've been re-reading some of your older posts and came to the above #2 in this thread.

First of all, I assume you are still using your SkiWhiz Compadre with the dial indicator calibrated to a good condition (non-eaten-up) zincer cent, with the indicator mark set at the 3:00 O'clock position on the faceplate and you are still happy with that setting...am I correct ?

I'm thinking of calibrating my C that way, but before doing this, there are a couple of things I need clarified.

1.0)...Should I calibrate with the zincer cent buried in the soil or on top of the soil....or does it matter ?

1.1)...If in the soil, for calibration purposes would you suggest 2-3 inches deep or close to the signal limit of the 5.75" coil, say 6" deep ?

2.0)...I assume you tighten the Allen wrench type set screw at the exact position where the signal "comes in" full while thumbing the dial DOWN.....correct ?

Thanks !
Todd

Are you wanting to set to where it falls in or falls out ? If you knew where it falls out, you can distinguish nickels from aluminum bits. At least that is what I set to when I set the knob via set screw. Having the nickel fall out is better than fall in because you want to set closer to foil to pick up gold bits, not nickels. Just my thought on this and I am not usually right.

bibelot,

I think the subject title may have steered you off when replying.
Sorry, this happened, but my preferred practice is to always retain the original thread title in my replies.

The following paragraphs (pasted with quotation marks) from Digger27's above reply-post #2, explain why I will be following his practice of calibrating to a non-eaten away zincoln instead of a nickel. He's my guru , especially when it comes to advice on the Compadre.

"Hey Todd, you can easily calibrate to a modern or any nickel, many do and say they like it that way when nickels hit on the 5 cent mark and everything else lines up pretty good if you do.
I would never do this because I find it is based on flawed thinking...for my preferences for hunting, anyway."

"For my hunting using my Tesoros the only thing I would consider calibrating to is one of the most numerous and common coins I come across which is a complete non eaten away zincoln.
On my Compadre these come in exactly at the 3:00 position on my knob, always have with no adjustments from me and after digging many hundreds if not up into the thousands by now I have come to trust it, depend on it as much as I can on any common target without actually knowing what it is before I dig."


bibelot, your comments regarding "falling in or out" are interesting. I'm hoping Digger27 will jump in here and give me his thoughts on that before I calibrate my Compadre.

Thanks for your reply !

ToddB64

ToddB64 said:

bibelot,

I think the subject title may have steered you off when replying.
Sorry, this happened, but my preferred practice is to always retain the original thread title in my replies.

The following paragraphs (pasted with quotation marks) from Digger27's above reply-post #2, explain why I will be following his practice of calibrating to a non-eaten away zincoln instead of a nickel. He's my guru , especially when it comes to advice on the Compadre.

"Hey Todd, you can easily calibrate to a modern or any nickel, many do and say they like it that way when nickels hit on the 5 cent mark and everything else lines up pretty good if you do.
I would never do this because I find it is based on flawed thinking...for my preferences for hunting, anyway."

"For my hunting using my Tesoros the only thing I would consider calibrating to is one of the most numerous and common coins I come across which is a complete non eaten away zincoln.
On my Compadre these come in exactly at the 3:00 position on my knob, always have with no adjustments from me and after digging many hundreds if not up into the thousands by now I have come to trust it, depend on it as much as I can on any common target without actually knowing what it is before I dig."


bibelot, your comments regarding "falling in or out" are interesting. I'm hoping Digger27 will jump in here and give me his thoughts on that before I calibrate my Compadre.

Thanks for your reply !

ToddB64

Click to expand...

Zincolns were at 3:00 in the dirt or out.
Shallow ones anyway, in good dirt at any area I could get to up to 6-7", in bad dirt here I don't get much past 3-4".

Still think the same way about nickels.
Nickels are still all over the place for me on the Compadre, the Vaq too, lots were right on but I dug most semi solid and decent signals all around nickel anyway.
Some were nickels, some was trash, if I got any gold it was always the kind of signal I always dig, silent thumbing down and then it just came in.
A few months ago I got a decent signal way up high in tabs on the Compadre...it was a buff and not all that deep either so in my soil nickels are even weirder than I used to suspect.
Evidently my soil here causes up averaging on my Tesoros on the deeper ones and I mean 3" or deeper.
I know my Fisher does this because it is designed to, I have seen it a lot on my Mojave and not just on coins, I have dug tabs that came in way too high, that high nickel on the Compadre should have clued me in but at the time I didn't think about it...now I know.

I would like to say the Mojave is dead on 3:00 on zincolns like the Compadre but it is not.
Close but not exact most times like the Compadre but they still seem to come in solid thumbing down vs. screw on caps and other junk that usually doesn't so I will live with it.

I still say in my mind the best thing to do is calibrating to the most common problem target out there and to me that is zinc cents.
It will save time whether you want to dig them or not, and if any large gold rings come in there like class rings don't worry, you will know it, they don't sound like zincolns or anything else I have ever come across.

Calibrating like this is just an exercise anyway, you get enough signals of anything you learn where they come in even on those zincs be they a little high or low...you can adapt to anything.
That 3:00 thing on zincs was there from the get-go on mine so I just got used to it, that's all.
Not much of that matters the way I hunt now anyway, I dial up then I dial down...if it comes in solid I usually dig it no matter where it is from high iron on up, plus a few extra exceptions to that solid rule if my instincts kick in.
On the Mojave I am still digging a bit more trash than usual because I am learning it but not much more.
I will dig even less as my confidence rises in time.
Still finding great things with it, even digging some not so great signals and found treasure that were masked well by iron, that instinct thing kicked in on more than one of those.

Calibrate to anything you want but it is logical to me to do it to a target that is more normal acting than any iffy ones so to me that is zincolns.

I just saw this thread....here's a pic of an 1865 3 cent nickel I found a couple years ago in close proximity to a set of railroad tracks in an old southern WI city. I actually found it with my modified IDXPro...

The Deleon could discriminate penny varieties better than any other normal Tesoro.

DIGGER27 said:

Zincolns were at 3:00 in the dirt or out.
Shallow ones anyway, in good dirt at any area I could get to up to 6-7", in bad dirt here I don't get much past 3-4".

Still think the same way about nickels.
Nickels are still all over the place for me on the Compadre, the Vaq too, lots were right on but I dug most semi solid and decent signals all around nickel anyway.
Some were nickels, some was trash, if I got any gold it was always the kind of signal I always dig, silent thumbing down and then it just came in.
A few months ago I got a decent signal way up high in tabs on the Compadre...it was a buff and not all that deep either so in my soil nickels are even weirder than I used to suspect.
Evidently my soil here causes up averaging on my Tesoros on the deeper ones and I mean 3" or deeper.
I know my Fisher does this because it is designed to, I have seen it a lot on my Mojave and not just on coins, I have dug tabs that came in way too high, that high nickel on the Compadre should have clued me in but at the time I didn't think about it...now I know.

I would like to say the Mojave is dead on 3:00 on zincolns like the Compadre but it is not.
Close but not exact most times like the Compadre but they still seem to come in solid thumbing down vs. screw on caps and other junk that usually doesn't so I will live with it.

I still say in my mind the best thing to do is calibrating to the most common problem target out there and to me that is zinc cents.
It will save time whether you want to dig them or not, and if any large gold rings come in there like class rings don't worry, you will know it, they don't sound like zincolns or anything else I have ever come across.

Calibrating like this is just an exercise anyway, you get enough signals of anything you learn where they come in even on those zincs be they a little high or low...you can adapt to anything.
That 3:00 thing on zincs was there from the get-go on mine so I just got used to it, that's all.
Not much of that matters the way I hunt now anyway, I dial up then I dial down...if it comes in solid I usually dig it no matter where it is from high iron on up, plus a few extra exceptions to that solid rule if my instincts kick in.
On the Mojave I am still digging a bit more trash than usual because I am learning it but not much more.
I will dig even less as my confidence rises in time.
Still finding great things with it, even digging some not so great signals and found treasure that were masked well by iron, that instinct thing kicked in on more than one of those.

Calibrate to anything you want but it is logical to me to do it to a target that is more normal acting than any iffy ones so to me that is zincolns.

Click to expand...

Digger27 !

ToddB64