Compadre validates the Deleon

[dan b]

There is a hill at a local park that has produced two silver rings and numerous coins with my Deleon. Today I thought I would set my Compadre at foil and meticulously search for anything I may have missed with the Deleon. I dug lots of pulltabs, can slaw, a couple of zincs and other assorted junk. Conclusion: The Deleon is very effective at leaving the junk in the ground. I don't need to worry that I'm leaving good targets behind.

Dan

 

[amberjack]

that's a good feeling to have

AJ

 

[BarberBill]

I've done very well with the D, also. However, if you leave zinc pennies in the ground, you'll miss some small gold targets. I read that several years ago on one of the forums and went back to retrieving zincs and my second one was a small, black hills gold ring. Unfortuanately nearly all the zinc signals do turn out to be the uselss, corroded coins that zincs usually are.
BB

 

[thump7]

I agree. The deleon / cortes are great id detectors. Put the fun back into detecting for me, when they say it's junk..... It's junk. Doubled my gold ring count from 1 gold a year to 2 lol. I love that tesoro opened up the gold range I'd #'s in the deleon and cortes.
I've been using this technique posted by barberbill here on findmall a few years ago. It works!

CORTES TIP
Even though many gold rings read as pop tops, there is a trick that might help you snag some of them. Pop tops and pull tabs tend to read erratic on the Cortes with each subsequent pass. The numbers will jump around and the bar graph indicators too. With a ring in that exact range, the ID numbers may jump, but only 1 or 2 points at best and the bar graph will be very stable no mater how you sweep the target. Rings will give a much more "stable" meter indication than rings will. So vary your stance when you get a "pop top" signal, sweep and watch those indicators as you sweep the target. If they remain steady, you better dig it. Now it may be the "ring" off a pop top, they will fool the machine, but most of them will show a slightly erratic behavior.

If you watch the confidence bars you will notice they "splash across the screen" when it comes to iregularly shaped junk targets. When they are tight and concentrated its usually a good target...................even if the target is deep..... this characteristic stays. That is quite useful in high junk areas and aids in cherry picking!!

.................find gold rings with the Cortes; don't miss this very important tip!!! Your disc must be set NO HIGHER than the half way point; from " min" to "iron" on the discrimination dial. This will ensure that your detector gets the deeper gold ...not just the surface stuff. In addition sweep with the coil at 3 " above ground and yes...........set the sensitivity to " 4" no I'm not kidding..............no higher than 4!!! Then go out into your favorite park and get ready to be surprised. I'm up to about 30 rings found with my Cortes........all in parks and soccer fields only!!! Final point...... really watch for those tight number sequences.........if the numbers only vary about between 2 or 3 numbers ...it's party time. Example in a really trashy sideline area of a soccer field, most of my pulltabs were coming up 24 to 34 some even flared out to 36........once I identified this "crap zone" as I call it in this case; I stop digging those ranges............my odds of finding goodies go up. Sure enough I find a tight 18 to 21 reading .....screams dig me!!!! So I do.... small ladies 14K ring.......................moments later another reading 28 to 32 fairly consistent....................dig it up ... mens medium 10 K band. Tight numbers on the meter and tight women,,,,,,,these are good things!!! Sweep slower as well. Please give this a try and post your results and exploits but only the one reffering to detecting!!!! LOL LOL

The Cortes is a great unit. I have found lots of "gold " with it. Over 20 gold rings in four months.......not on beaches but in PARKS!!! Here are some tips...........I search for gold rings in pulltab infested areas such as picnic sites.... the rings are there. 1: Do not use too much sensitivity.... hunt at level of "4" you will still get great depth. This unit is quite deep detecting so back off on the dial, 2: Coil should not be closer than 3 inches from the soil........this takes some getting used to. You get better target ID readings more stable and better lock on............... my preplanted !0 K gold ring at 6 inches ; still hits hard with the coil at 3 inches above ground level. Tesoro's do not perform well if too close to soil. 3: Rings and "good" targets lock-on consistently, and the number spread is very tight.,,,,,, in my area pulltabs go from 21 to 34, but rings have a tight 2 to 3 number spread!!! 4:When hunting for gold leave you notch "off" and make sure you do not turn the disc higher than the IRON setting.....let the Meter do the disc" ing!! 5: No fast sweeping if you want deep hits....control you sweep speed........fast sweep is ok for dry sand hunting when looking for recent drops!!! 6: Dig ANY repeatable targets....if they click or tick solidly in the same pitch and sound....... they are often good. I found a 1921 Morgan silver dollar at the base of a tree; and it simply made a very "uniform ticking" from all directions ,,,,,,,,,,,at 8" down.....a Morgan. Try some of these tips and you will begin to see the performance value of this unit............there is more here than meets the eye!!!! Good Luck and dig deep!

 

[thump7]

I've done very well with the D, also. However, if you leave zinc pennies in the ground, you'll miss some small gold targets. I read that several years ago on one of the forums and went back to retrieving zincs and my second one was a small, black hills gold ring. Unfortuanately nearly all the zinc signals do turn out to be the uselss, corroded coins that zincs usually are.
BB

Wow, that was completely coincidence. I put posted a bunch of info you had written about the cortes years ago while you were posting....
I didn't know you still visited the forum.
Anyways, reading and learning from your older posts gave me a huge jump start at learning the cortes, it is some of the best info I came across on the net about it.

 

[rene1garcia@gmail.com]

Howdy, I really enjoyed your post. I just bought a Cortes and am learning it. I love it so far. I'm going to check ur other poast when I get back from a hunt in a few. There is not much on the Cortes on the Inet and I plan to post some videos on Youtube as soon as I learn enough to make a good video. Thanks for your post.
Rene

 

[kaolinwasher]

thump 20 gold rings in 4 years , thats unimaginable for me , I have only found one in 8 years sounds like you really have a grip on that Cortez. Glad i read your post , I learned something today even tho the Tejon is not the same beast i may try running it at a one gain and dig solid signals only see how it goes

 

[thump7]

I should have been more clearer about that.
That was mostly all from older posts written by Barberbill. When I come across good info about detectors, I copy/save it so I can reread it again without having to search through the forums. I had this on hand and thought it was fitting to addit to this thread.
I've only found 5 gold in 5 years, 2 this year with the Cortes using Bills tips above. I never could commit myself to dig trash till the gold shows up.
I read over and over from those who do find a fair amount of gold jewelry, "it not about digging trash till the gold shows up, it's about digging the right trash in the right areas". The Deleon and Cortes being pretty well the same machines seem to have a knack for knowing the good stuff apart from the junk. Now, if only they had tones......

 

[amberjack]

that's number one the right place, they say gold is where you find it and that's true but like nugget hunters, us urban hunters need to think about the same things where it came from and how it got to the spot it is.

so where it come from is a human doing some activity, jumping around with other humans, changing clothes to run around in a uniform that is the same as the other humans..... you get the picture

how it got there trusting something that with a lot of movement can come off , or absent minds who forget they put it in the clothes they took off to do the uniformed activity and then its gone before they know it as they pick up the clothes.

so lush grass and dirt that's conducive to sucking up the dropped item is real handy place if all of the above is happening you got a good place to look.

so if you have found the spot, disc low and go to work it really is that simple, and as my old mates said, trash tolerance is key to finding gold I have spent many days digging tabs and slaw which seems to be the gold's safe hiding place because those absent minded humans also like tossing other things on the ground that hide the gold for the hardest worker to find

gold is expensive and there is a reason for that its not easy to find. but if we are bloody minded and do not take no for an answer and are in the right spot it will present itself eventually

AJ

 

[REVIER]

I read over and over from those who do find a fair amount of gold jewelry, "it not about digging trash till the gold shows up, it's about digging the right trash in the right areas". The Deleon and Cortes being pretty well the same machines seem to have a knack for knowing the good stuff apart from the junk. Now, if only they had tones......

I wholeheartedly concur...and I might add knowing and learning your chosen weapon is also extremely important.

For the first couple years I dug huge amounts of trash and didn't mind, but slowly losing my patience, having less hunting time and what seemed like a faster depletion of my energy reserves dictated some changes needed to be made in my way of thinking and actions.
Since August of 2012 when I decided I needed to learn to dig way less trash but still find more gold in my usually extremely trashy sites I have found about 18 gold targets that tried to hide from me but didn't succeed.
Found with an F70, an F2, my Vaquero and my sweet little Compadre.
I found ways to cut out digging about 80-85% of the trash I used to dig using all four detectors but my gold, silver, old coins and other cool finds totals still soared.
I don't mind digging some trash, it is all part of the game...I just want to dig as little as I can and still find the good stuff.
It took time but I learned ways to do this and I am still learning on every hunt because that should never end.

 

[fedderdavid]

Thank you for all of the tips. I would like to know how you found out about Tesoro’s being able to find more treasure when their search coils were 3 inches form the ground instead of closer to the ground?

Sincerely,

David Fedder