Still prefer the Tesoro machines..............

[Sven]

Something about Tesoros..............always come back to them.
Tried a few other brands and models of LCD, multi-tone, ID machines. Tried to like them and bond with them. Some worked great but, all had short comings
of some sort. Never did click with them. Sorry I sold my main unit Tesoros to fund them. Oh, well, had a Tesoro Amigo II as back-up and actually would use it instead of the ID machines a number of times, go figure.

Anyways I have a surprise Tesoro unit on it's way, won't be here for a few weeks, hopefully before the snow flies get a chance to try it out.

 

[Smudge]

Its a hard love affair to break off.

 

[deliveryboy]

I can relate, somehow I can't walk away from these great machines.

 

[Hombre]

We all know they are not the deepest detector out there, but in the small ferrous mine fields where I hunt they can't be beat.

 

[Dirtdigger33]

It's the only brand I own. I started out detecting with another brand, but after I bought my my compadre ( my 1st Tesoro), I sold my other two detectors that were a different brand and now I only own 4 Tesoros nothing else. I do not get much time to hunt and Tesoro has provided me with excellent quality detectors that are affordable. I can't wait to see which one I will buy next or which coil I will buy next, but it will definitely be a Tesoro. Thank you Tesoro for providing me with hours of enjoyable effective hunting. I never come home empty handed or frustrated. HH

 

[tabman]

Tesoro detectors are just plain fun to use and that's what it's all about.

tabman

 

[Dan-Pa.]

Well made, lightweight units with great service after the sale and above all user friendly in most cases make them the favorite of many.
PS: tough to beat Tesoro for gold jewelry especially the small items....

 

[fowlercharles]

Hi Sven, You are so right about Tesoro machines! They simply perfect our understanding of "finding" our "Comfort Zone". After that, ain't nare need a messing with any others! Don't make no sense! Lol, HH, Charlie

 

[Fishers Ghost]

Received the Sand Shark today and I must say now that the internals of this detector are nothing like what I saw on the pics that I viewed.(maybe that tector was a fake) This detector is typical tesoro high quality.
I have tested it in my test patch and it performs extremely well and matched my other PI in that ground; It also had no trouble detecting a 1.34gm gold nugg through a 1.6 kg iron ore slab. The ore gave a tone but it was possible to hear the nug through the ore signal.It also produced a weak tone from my test patch ground minerals. I imagine that the Sand Shark would be capable of finding gold in low to very mild ground iron minerals.
I am looking forward to trying it out at the beach.

 

[pelanj]

Fishers Ghost, does your SS have a rock steady threshold or is it wavering a little? Mine seems to waver and as far as I remember it had not done it before...

 

[Fishers Ghost]

Yes it has a slight uneven waver in the threshold that I believe is caused by local elec interference because it is not so noticable when I take the machine away from the city area. I have not heard an SS threshold tone before but in the normal mode my machine sort of barks/squarks at me rather than to give a clean tone and in the VCO mode it does produce a VCO tone but it is not a clean smooth tone, The SS also responds to ground iron minerals in my local school grounds and parks and is at a level that is boardering on being annoying. I will be able to find out how it performs at the beach tomorrow but at the moment the detector is impressive and air tests at least as good as my Infinium...........The Infinium of course handles iron mineralisation much better and gives a strong response to gold because that is the type of metal and ground it was designed to perform best in/on......Aside from that, the SS is shaping up as a very good beach machine (Of course we already know that because the SS has built a great reputation over the years) with a gold field capablity that is limited only by the level of iron mineralisation.

My SS is fitted with the 10.5 inch coil and can detect a 0.14g nugg at approx 2cm in air and a flat 0.23g nugg at around 8 cm. I doubt that the detector would locate these bits in mild mineralised ground but it does indicate that the detector is quite sensitive. with a 10 inch coil.
I have tested it on gold chains and the SS is not much different to any other machine and will struggle to find small link chains with links less than 0.2g. You will have to listen very carefully if you are hoping to find gold chains with any PI.

 

[mortarman]

My Sand Shark was doing the same thing with the uneven threshold. I read an old post by Terry and he suggested instead of wrapping the coil wire around the pole all the way up, to instead run it straight up along the shaft as far as where the metal pole starts and then start wrapping it around. It actually helped with the threshhold. Just had to use a few more velcro straps.

 

[Topo]

I think they add an addictive frequency on the tones

 

[Fishers Ghost]

Fishers Ghost, does your SS have a rock steady threshold or is it wavering a little? Mine seems to waver and as far as I remember it had not done it before...

Went to the coast with the Sand Shark today.
80 knot On Shore winds a bit of rain and rough seas.
The SS performed extremely well finding 8 dollars in coin a couple of dog collar chains, a nice heavy sil ring with rubies, onyx and peridot, only six bobby pins, a tent peg and a chrome plated metal handled artist brush.
All items were more than 11 inches deep and most likely closer to 16 inches. My scoop blade is 11 inches long and all targets were deeper than that; All were in wet compact sand that did not cave in as I dug down.

The SS threshold was wavering all of the time with volume at max and threshold loud enough to hear above the wind. All targets gave a signal that was easily noticed. So the wavering threshold appears to be normal. It was possible to smooth it out by turning the volume down and cranking the threshold up but this seemed to reduce sensitivity significantly.
By running the vol at max and setting the threshold to where the wavering peaks were just on the edge of silence seemed to be fine and you would be unlikely to miss a target that was within range..

This particular beach is detected regularly by local very experienced detectorists and because the targets were all deep except for the chains it would seem that these targets were out of range of the detectors that the locals use. I know that some use the Excal, Dual Field and Inf.

I am very very pleased with the performance of the SS; It is right up there with my other beach machines and may even be somewhat better where depth is concerned and I am comparing it to my Sov And Infinium, these two detectors go seriously deep at the beach plus the Inf goes deep in goldfield conditions.

The chatty threshold can be lived with and I found it easy to become used to it especially when by lowering the threshold to just on the brink of silence did not reduce the detecting depth ability.
The machine is light and did not tire my arm at all over 5 hours detecting, so I am unlikely to need to use the belt mount set up.

I tried using VCO but did not like it because I felt that the response on weak signals was not as possitive as in the normal mode. This may be due to my bad hearing rather than an issue with the detector. I set the threshold tone to the tone that sounded loudest rather than the tone that I liked the sound of because this will offset my dodgy hearing.... Well that's what I reckon anyway.

I did notice that the detector is very much affected by elec interference at a couple of the beaches and this effect is greater than what I have experienced with the Sov and Infinium on those beaches.

The two dog chains are interesting in that they were not deep at approx 6 inches but gave a weak signal. They are chrome plated metal chains that weigh in at 213g and 150g. The heaviest chain has links that are 27 .3 mm long x 3.8 mm thick and the lighter one has links 19mm long and 3.8mm thick. So they are not small chains and they are attracted to a magnet.

Looks like the Sand Shark will be getting a lot of use me thinks.

 

[Fishers Ghost]

This is my first days finds with the sand shark not inc the junk targets.
This morning I tested the two gemstones in the ring and they are Tourmaline, not ruby and emerald as I first thought.

http://i792.photobucket.com/albums/yy203/ausnapshot/DSCF3363.jpg
http://i792.photobucket.com/albums/yy203/ausnapshot/DSCF3365.jpg

 

[tabman]

Fishers Ghost that sure is a nice looking and unusual ring you found. I've never seen one like that. Way to go!

tabman

 

[Fishers Ghost]

Thanks tabman,

I am looking forward to trying the SS at the beach on a much calmer day. 80 knot wind blowing me all over the beach while being sand blasted and buffeting the HPs was not conducive to good detecting.
I feel certain that without the wind howling around me I would have found even deeper targets.

Another aspect I liked was that the sweep speed could be quickend up a bit to VLF type speeds without losing sensitivity.
With a strong wind blowing and the rain being blown in from the off shore storm I was not messing about and moved along the beach quickly while still managing to find deep targets.

After playing around with the Pulse Width control and testing a few small and large targets, weak and strong signals, I felt that the pre set position gave the best results and that turning the control up to a long PW did not improve response any great shakes but I will do a bit more fiddling with this adjustment where weak signals are concerned to be sure.

 

[Fishers Ghost]

Put the Sand Shark through its paces again yesterday while the day was calm, no wind or rain and little wave noise.
The chattery threshold started to become annoying because this time I could hear it more more easily and it will I think in retrospect hide some deep weak signals. I still recovered all targets from between 11 and 16 inches, 7 coins in tot and not much junk. The detector is very easy to use and clearly capable of serious depth on coin size items.
I may have been a little hasty in saying that the SS might push my Infinium aside because this machine has good elec interference compensation and high iron minerals usability plus it will ground balance.
That said; the SS is an exceptional salt beach machine and will find what others have missed.
External Elec interference was playing havoc on one beach making the detector unusable in that location and it was also responding to the local airfield air traffic transmissions. These transmissions cause problems with my other detectors but the effect was particularly strong in the SS.

I used the SS in the water and waves and it is just as good/stable in the water as it is out of the water.Detection depth seemed to be somwhat better and A couple of targets were unrecoverabl due to depth and wave action.
The threshold remained unchanged eccept for a slight tone when the coil was lifted above the waves.
Overall,I consider the sand Shark to be a well constructed very capable beach machine that is deffinately in the Keeper catagory.

A lot of people complain that they cannot detect light gold chains with a PI; Well you are not alone in that respect.
If you want to find tiose items then you will need a high frequency VLF with salt beach capability. I use my Lobo ST in the dry sand for that purpose. The LST was not designed for salt beach work but it can be put to good use there with carefull attention to settings.