Digging deep with the Vaquero

[BillZ]

I have had my Vaquero for almost a year now and have been pleased with it. Right off the bat, it performed as well as the XLT I owned before it and even went a little deeper.

Yesterday I went to a small neighborhood park I have pounded and tried something that Digger has been going on about, Power Balancing.
Power Balancing is a grounding technique that detecting genius, Monte invented. He discovered that the normal grounding procedure wasn't as optimum for discrimination mode hunting because you were grounding while in all metal mode.

I have hunted for deep targets in the past while in super tune mode and had some luck. The Vaq would detect down to about 8". Yesterday power Balancing took me to the next level. After following the Power Balancing instructions, I hunted slowly and dug every repeatable deep sounding signal with my Disc just below nickle. Once I located a target, I would thumb the disc to see where the signal dropped off. One thing to keep in mind is that deep targets many times will signal lower in the Disc than they would normally. I have seen this on TDI machines as well. So, dig those Zinc signals and it may come up as silver, especially Sterling.

My results on a short hunt were very promising. I found several coins and coin size objects in the 7"-10" range. Below is a pic of a few of my finds with the depth marked below them. The coin on the right is a nickle and it sounded clear as a bell, like it was just below the surface. The ring is Sterling silver and it's signal broke off in the zinc range. The little piece of metal on the left is very small and thin and I was amazed that the Vaq picked it up at the depth it was. The 10" item on the right has glass in the center and seems like it was some kind of small lens. It was an honest 10" down from the surface of the ground, not the top of the grass. I also found several pennies in the 7"-9" range. All modern, but I have found several wheaties and a few silver coins in this park before. I know it will just be a matter of hunting there one or two more times before the good stuff appears.



Here is Power Balancing explained by Monte. Many of you may have seen this before but I want to stress that it works. You will want to try it on your Vaq.

Power Balancing is a term I coined a log time ago when using different detectors once I figured out how positive the offset was for some of them in the Discriminate mode. I do it with many models in the Discriminate mode, whether Threshold based or Silent Search. It's been almost 30 years since I learned to do this, and I have had a lot of very improved success, especially with Tesoro models since I hunt in some 'bad ground.'

a.. Locate a metal-free clean spot of ground to adjust the GB. You might pick some of the more mineralized ground in the area you're searching (and if you have an All Metal mode you can help locate such a spot.

b.. Select the Discriminate mode.

c.. Set the Discriminate level at the minimum setting (or where you might just reject iron nails on the ground).

d.. Use the highest Sensitivity level w/o noise or chatter.

e.. Start with the search coil held about 6' above the ground, and no higher than 8".

f.. Briskly, ob the search coil toward-and-away from the ground going from 6" down to about ½".

g.. Most likely, the audio is silent during both the down-stroke and up-lift. Slowly decrease (counterclockwise) the Ground Balance control while you briskly bob the search coil.

h.. When you get a 'beep' on the up-lift of the search coil ... STOP! This indicates you are now adjusted slightly negative in the Discriminate mode.

i.. Continue to briskly bob the search coil, from ½" up to no more than 6", and very slowly increase the GB adjustment just to the point where the falsing on the up-lift is gone. ... STOP!

You are now 'Power Balanced' in the Discriminate mode. You have only enough GB adjustment to be very functional and not have any falsing, and the discriminate circuitry doesn't have to deal with as much ground signal. You will get better depth and target response, especially in more mineralized ground.

[ramer]

Thanks for all the info and tips on this detector. I'll save your post in case I end up with one of these machines. Tips and tricks from experienced detectorists is way better than any detector manual.

[BountyHunter]

That post is a keeper, saved it in my archives / knowledgebase.

Very well presented and explained, much thanks!

[swinging4gold]

This post needs to be on the Vaquero-owners "must-read" list.

Thanks!

[DIGGER27]

Originally Posted by swinging4gold

This post needs to be on the Vaquero-owners "must-read" list.

Thanks!

Monte is a legend in this hobby, about 50 years or so as a dealer and a hunter.
He has other great tips and tricks, too, and he usually hangs out on Findmall, nowadays.

http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=61531

The address of his website listed in this post has changed.
it is now.org...not .net.

"Audio Target Classification"
http://ahrps.org/_tipsAndTechniques/...sification.pdf


Found another one...Nail masking performance test.
http://ahrps.org/_tipsAndTechniques/...mance_Test.pdf


Monte's website....
http://ahrps.org/index.php

[swinging4gold]

I have to admit I don't use the full depth of my Vaquero on my first pass while hunting parks or schools. It's just too much fun to raise the disc and grab as much clad in a day as I possibly can.

But then I get disheartened by the lack of silver and old coinage in my collection. I've tried searching just above iron, but the amount of trash that I encounter sounds like just a blizzard of signals in some locations...

Tomorrow, I have the morning free and I'm headed for an 1875 park where I first used my 12x15 SEF and killed the dimes. I want to go back over the limited area of park that I skimmed and make a serious effort with the stock 9x8 coil to dig all signals. I've experienced several deep signals in my 3 months as a detectorist and I also know from air-tests that I'm going to be looking for those faint, short, consistent blips. And by God, I'm going to dig them all!

I will bump this post up again with my results.... Wish me luck, Digger.

[DIGGER27]

Originally Posted by swinging4gold

I have to admit I don't use the full depth of my Vaquero on my first pass while hunting parks or schools. It's just too much fun to raise the disc and grab as much clad in a day as I possibly can.

But then I get disheartened by the lack of silver and old coinage in my collection. I've tried searching just above iron, but the amount of trash that I encounter sounds like just a blizzard of signals in some locations...

Tomorrow, I have the morning free and I'm headed for an 1875 park where I first used my 12x15 SEF and killed the dimes. I want to go back over the limited area of park that I skimmed and make a serious effort with the stock 9x8 coil to dig all signals. I've experienced several deep signals in my 3 months as a detectorist and I also know from air-tests that I'm going to be looking for those faint, short, consistent blips. And by God, I'm going to dig them all!

I will bump this post up again with my results.... Wish me luck, Digger.

I know what you mean about that iron stuff.
I have one site that is in a park and I suspect has some old, deep silver around but it is in the area where there used to be an old farm house and barn and other buildings.
The amount of iron all around here is incredible...I call it the iron mine.




Not only parts of wagons, vehicles and farm machinery, and I mean some huge stuff, too, but when they knocked down this building and others around it, (which I can state for a fact all had tin roofs), it seems like they just left all the debris and just covered it all up with a half foot of dirt to make this section of the park.

From time to time I just go there and pick out small areas and dig everything to clean it up and see what is masked till I get sick of that and then move to another part of the park.
Eventually, I will find those old coins if they are there.
Haven't found any yet, but so far I have found a very high quality silver plated spoon that dates back about 100 years and this beautiful keyhole plate.



Just gotta be patient with sites like this, so I use the threshold as much as possible, dig all the junk I can stand and then go back to a combination of the threshold and disc and shoot for coins and jewelry in other areas.
It's a hobby, not a job.
The object is to have fun, so I try to do that always.


Good Luck!

[swinging4gold]

Well, my 1875 park gave up only a 1954-D wheat, as far as historic coin. I also found a '59 memorial 6 inches deep and entwined in the roots of a maple. I focused on a very small grid in the park, so my results are by no means conclusive. BTW, I hunted just above Foil and thumbed the disc. like crazy.

Like most parks, I think this one has been hit before. All the clad is within 3 inches. The up side is that it's a bank, as far as clad goes. My new money-spot.

Time to practice my door-knocking skills in some of the historic neighborhoods.... I also have used the historic maps website to locate some old school-houses. Never a dull moment and the treasure quest never ends!

[Ictinike]

Not to necro a thread but this is some great information and I read up on this and used this on today's hunt..

Not sold quite yet on it as I was constantly trying to re-adjust to the conditions and when the machine wouldn't sound off for long periods of time I was second guessing the balancing. Also several targets that were faint and deep I could never locate in the hole. One was about 10 inches deep and while the Vaquero said it was there I balanced in AM and lost it..

I'll have work on this more but it did really narrow down for me small targets and kept pulling out .22 casings and what I believe are small grommets out of jeans/jackets/etc. Really small stuff and .46 in clad and 1 wheat.

[swinging4gold]

Originally Posted by Ictinike

Not to necro a thread....

HILARIOUS MAN!

Good luck with your Vaq! I had mine out today going over a sidewalk tearout. Talked to a utilities guy who informed me of another tearout about to happen in my town.... It's good to make small talk with the guys who work on roads and get updated.

I just got an Etrac, but the Vaq and the Compadre definitely have their place. I never thought I'd have 3 detectors in my arsenal, but here I am.......