Ok this is a dumb newbie question but.......

Then it says turn the knob 5 turns in one direction and then 2 in the opposite.

Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with a Vaquero, but what the heck is that? Surely there are simpler machines around.

I would rather not spend half my detecting time trying to ground balance my machine.

Why not get a Cibola?

http://www.tesoro.com/Cibola.html

My old Garretts used to balance like that. Yes that knob turns all the way around. When set in the middle, it probably turns all the way around 5-times to the left or 5-times to the right. I'd have to hold the coil a few feet above the ground, turn it on and listen to the tone the detector made. Then I'd lower the coil. If the sound increased, I'd have to raise the coil up and turn that knob a little (one way or the other - I don't remember which) and lower it again. When the sound remained constant, I had the ground balanced. (If you are out of balance the other way, the sound will vanish when you lower the coil to the ground. You want that tone to stay constant.)

Be gentle with that control. If you twist it too hard, and you happen to be at the beginning or end of its' range, you could hurt it. I had an old machine that turned forever to the right. (I was still able to use it, but I always wanted to send it in for repair.)

As you move across different soil structures you will need to re balance it from time to time. (The constant tone will either get louder and stay that way or vanish and stay that way.) So you'll need to raise the coil, turn that knob slightly, lower the coil, and continue doing that until the tone stays the same and you have the ground in balance again.

After you get the hang of it, it's not so bad. After I discovered the newer machines with auto-ground-balance, I never used those old machines again. (The weight factor and graphics had a lot to do with that too.)

The Vaquero sounds like a nice machine. Don't let that one knob scare you away.

No, it is really easy. It turns past it's range of adjustment, you can feel the slight resistance when you hit the end but it will keep turning. This is so you can't damage it by going too far. You just bob it from a foot or so in the air to an inch or so off the ground while holding the pinpoint. If it gets louder as you drop the coil, turn the knob slightly counterclockwise, if it decreases in volume turn clockwise. When there is little or no change, you got it. Some set it with a little increase in threshold, a little positive, to get more depth. It really takes only a couple of seconds.

Ah the good old days. Actually, manual ground balance is better once you understand how it works.

The Vaquero's ground balance knob turns endlessly, but if I recall correctly (my manual is at home, I'm at work, rather than out detecting, which I would much rather do), is only effective for 3+3/4 turns. So the instructions tell you 5 in one direction and 2 in the other to bring it back to about center for you to start your ground balancing.

Tesoro has a video showing how it's done that you can download from their site.

-- Tom