Fish N Chips
New member
I got my Teknetics T2 'Classic' delivered today. I have been excited beyond belief. I opened the package and assembled the detector. It went together easily and looks great. The LCD screen does flex a bit on the top of the handle, but I do not notice it while swinging or using it. I think it is the effect of the plastic handle flexing, not a design flaw. I would take some force to beak it, and it is likely a mute point. Build quality is good, not as good as my Tesoros, but still very nice. I like the adjustable arm cuff, you can set it up perfectly to fit the user. The weight is a bit more than my Tesoros, but still very light and it balances well. The tones remind me a lot of the Tesoros, and should help shorten the learning curve.
All the videos I watched made it simple to get going very quickly. I was surprised my ground was so iron rich, averaging 75 to 80 on the ground balance. No wonder I struggle with depth from my Tesoros concentric coils. The DD coil may help with this. I did some tests on coins and trash and played with the tones. I like the all metal being able to display the TID, that should give some great depth and be good for gold prospecting.
I took the detector to a local park. There is a large RADAR array at the park left over from WWII. They still use it and it was on as the EMI was terrible. The detector was going crazy, almost unusable. My daughter was along with my Silver Umax and even it was going crazy. My Eldorado also struggles at this park at times. I turned the T2's sensitivity down to 20 and it ran stable enough, but was very chatty. We also struggled with our drought conditions, digging was tough and the park has not seen water in months. I was still able to dig some coins 4-5", a glob of lead, some brass pieces and an old license plate year tab.
I did find the flaw in the DD coil, bottle caps and pull tabs. I have read this a lot on forums with the DD coils, they sound so good and are coin sized. A lift of the coil did help to show most of them as trash, something I need to remember when getting that high but slightly jumpy reading. Coin TIDs did not drop off or jump like the bottle caps, the sound just faded away but was consistent. It did well on other IDs and tones. I know the result of passing pull tabs and foil (gold rings), but it sure is nice to be able to cherry pick and not tear up the park, especially as dry as it was. I did notice that pull tabs ring the same VID as nickles, another thing I need to figure out how to separate (if possible). I am pretty good on my Eldorado at figuring pull tabs and bottle caps as there is more separation on my discrimination dial between the tabs and nickles, but admit I hate parks in general for the trash. Tired of the dry dirt digging we headed to a second park.
The second park they have been watering a bit more but it was still very dry, but there is no EMI to deal with. What a difference, the detector was very quiet. Again I struggled with a few bottle caps but was noticeably better in identifying them. I was running along a large oak and got a soft signal. 8 inches down I found a 1980 clad dime, good depth and I am sure it will go deeper especially in better and wetter ground conditions. We tried the Silver on the dime and it would not hit on it in the dry dirt even at max sensitivity. We began finding some 1960-1970 pennies, a few quarters and of course pull tabs and bottle caps, lol. No amazing finds but it was a good first run. I did dig more as I am still learning the machine. It is very sensitive. My daughter did very well with the coins while I played with the variety of targets trying to guess and dig.
I like it, it seems to be a great machine. It is not any 'better' than my Tesoros, but I do think it has much better depth, some great features, and the DD coil will work well in the mineralized soil. I did not realize my soil was so hot, even the parks were running 74 or above on the ground balance. Maybe not that unusual, but higher than I was anticipating. I hope I do not struggle with the discrimination too much with the switch from the concentric coils to the DD. It seemed to ID iron easily, but I do hunt around a lot of bit of tin cans which can ring up high. I see why Monte likes the small coil. I used the 11" coil and it struggled in the park trash around the tables and BBQs. It will be great for fields and the open areas of the parks, but the smaller coil will see a lot of use on this machine. I doubt I could even run the 15" coil unless the site was really clean. I considered getting one, but will stick with the 11" and 5" coils. I like the depth meter, I can see that useful for sniffing out deep old coins. The TID is fun, but I do still rely on the audio and repeatable tones above all. The different tones are nice, but found I like the 1, 2+ and sometimes the 3. 2+ being my favorite, the 1 reminding me of my Tesoros. The audio is quite good, I am starting to learn its descriptive nature. As with my other machines there is simply no doubt when you hit a good target, the questionable ones are the trash. I have learned this with my Tesoros and need to remember it with the new machine. I can only see this audio rule not working when looking for those partially masked and really deep signals.
I remember the same frustration learning my Tesoros, digging lots of trash compared to good targets. I know time swinging the machine and learning it will be the cure. I do think it has the capability to go deep, which I look forward to using for old silver in our hard hit parks and homes here. I look forward to learning the nuances of the new detector. I plan to toss the 5" coil on tomorrow and trying again in the trash and bottle caps. I am curious to see how the small coil does. I am betting better target separation, better TIDs and discrimination due to the fewer trash targets under the coil at any one time. At least I do not have any bottle caps and pull tabs at my 1800s sites!
Sorry for the long write up. I can not wait for tomorrow to play some more.
All the videos I watched made it simple to get going very quickly. I was surprised my ground was so iron rich, averaging 75 to 80 on the ground balance. No wonder I struggle with depth from my Tesoros concentric coils. The DD coil may help with this. I did some tests on coins and trash and played with the tones. I like the all metal being able to display the TID, that should give some great depth and be good for gold prospecting.
I took the detector to a local park. There is a large RADAR array at the park left over from WWII. They still use it and it was on as the EMI was terrible. The detector was going crazy, almost unusable. My daughter was along with my Silver Umax and even it was going crazy. My Eldorado also struggles at this park at times. I turned the T2's sensitivity down to 20 and it ran stable enough, but was very chatty. We also struggled with our drought conditions, digging was tough and the park has not seen water in months. I was still able to dig some coins 4-5", a glob of lead, some brass pieces and an old license plate year tab.
I did find the flaw in the DD coil, bottle caps and pull tabs. I have read this a lot on forums with the DD coils, they sound so good and are coin sized. A lift of the coil did help to show most of them as trash, something I need to remember when getting that high but slightly jumpy reading. Coin TIDs did not drop off or jump like the bottle caps, the sound just faded away but was consistent. It did well on other IDs and tones. I know the result of passing pull tabs and foil (gold rings), but it sure is nice to be able to cherry pick and not tear up the park, especially as dry as it was. I did notice that pull tabs ring the same VID as nickles, another thing I need to figure out how to separate (if possible). I am pretty good on my Eldorado at figuring pull tabs and bottle caps as there is more separation on my discrimination dial between the tabs and nickles, but admit I hate parks in general for the trash. Tired of the dry dirt digging we headed to a second park.
The second park they have been watering a bit more but it was still very dry, but there is no EMI to deal with. What a difference, the detector was very quiet. Again I struggled with a few bottle caps but was noticeably better in identifying them. I was running along a large oak and got a soft signal. 8 inches down I found a 1980 clad dime, good depth and I am sure it will go deeper especially in better and wetter ground conditions. We tried the Silver on the dime and it would not hit on it in the dry dirt even at max sensitivity. We began finding some 1960-1970 pennies, a few quarters and of course pull tabs and bottle caps, lol. No amazing finds but it was a good first run. I did dig more as I am still learning the machine. It is very sensitive. My daughter did very well with the coins while I played with the variety of targets trying to guess and dig.
I like it, it seems to be a great machine. It is not any 'better' than my Tesoros, but I do think it has much better depth, some great features, and the DD coil will work well in the mineralized soil. I did not realize my soil was so hot, even the parks were running 74 or above on the ground balance. Maybe not that unusual, but higher than I was anticipating. I hope I do not struggle with the discrimination too much with the switch from the concentric coils to the DD. It seemed to ID iron easily, but I do hunt around a lot of bit of tin cans which can ring up high. I see why Monte likes the small coil. I used the 11" coil and it struggled in the park trash around the tables and BBQs. It will be great for fields and the open areas of the parks, but the smaller coil will see a lot of use on this machine. I doubt I could even run the 15" coil unless the site was really clean. I considered getting one, but will stick with the 11" and 5" coils. I like the depth meter, I can see that useful for sniffing out deep old coins. The TID is fun, but I do still rely on the audio and repeatable tones above all. The different tones are nice, but found I like the 1, 2+ and sometimes the 3. 2+ being my favorite, the 1 reminding me of my Tesoros. The audio is quite good, I am starting to learn its descriptive nature. As with my other machines there is simply no doubt when you hit a good target, the questionable ones are the trash. I have learned this with my Tesoros and need to remember it with the new machine. I can only see this audio rule not working when looking for those partially masked and really deep signals.
I remember the same frustration learning my Tesoros, digging lots of trash compared to good targets. I know time swinging the machine and learning it will be the cure. I do think it has the capability to go deep, which I look forward to using for old silver in our hard hit parks and homes here. I look forward to learning the nuances of the new detector. I plan to toss the 5" coil on tomorrow and trying again in the trash and bottle caps. I am curious to see how the small coil does. I am betting better target separation, better TIDs and discrimination due to the fewer trash targets under the coil at any one time. At least I do not have any bottle caps and pull tabs at my 1800s sites!
Sorry for the long write up. I can not wait for tomorrow to play some more.
