Hi Badger,
And thanks for the advise. My favorite machine of all time was the Minelab xs-2a pro, which I still regret having sold many years ago. That was automatic and probably didn't have the depth as the Advantage or a Nautilus I have also owned, but bbs technology and the 17 frequencies I found made it really nice.
On the Tesoros, are the Tejon and their current model line, also vlf or is HOT technology something else? I have over the years read alot of wonderful things said about the Tejon and its depth, but I recall also reading it having problems in my type of soil here near the mountains in TN.
Yesterday I planted a test garden, no coin over three inches deep, and I had so much false signaling, even with sensitivity down to 5 on the Bandido and Disc at various levels, I could not tell two of the four coins I had planted from all noise.
I ran across some info on the web yesterday about negative ground balancing for high mineralzation, that is when you lower the coil it nulls out the sound I might try that before I consider just selling this machine. Air testing is fine on it depth wise, but the in ground test so far in my soil just aint cutting it.