Vaguero=Iron magnet?

[fsuhunter]

I have had my Vaquero now for 3 months (with approximately 30 hours use). I generally swap back and forth between the V and my minelab xterra 705 (btw, I have around 150 hours on the minelab). I hunt at beaches in Sweden and also on a lot of plowed farms in Denmark. The Vaquero does well enough on beaches (as long as I stay in the dry sand) I hunt- the finds are more or less on par with my minelab. However, when I am in plow fields the V is very frustrating compared to the minelab. I am simply unable to avoid digging FAR too much iron with the V. I sometimes get fooled with my minelab, but it happens rarely, and even when I get fooled, I realize that the object I am digging is probably iron. With the V, i get the same sweet sound for iron that I get for gold, silver and copper (i.e., I get a nice clear signal forward, backward and side to side with no scratching/breaking). With some of the medium/larger pieces of iron I can dig it up, put it on the ground, Set my discrimination on max, yet it still gives a nice signal. This almost never happens with my minelab!

So I have a number of questions. Is it simply a case of me not understanding the very subtle sound differences on the V yet? If so, what am I doing wrong? For those of you that have experience detecting in old European plow fields, is it possible to avoid digging so much iron? Any tips would be helpful because at this point, I am feeling very frustrated with my purchase...

 

[mortarman]

Where is your sensitivity set at? You may have it turned up too high. If the fields have a lot of iron trash you may have to sacrifice some depth to eliminate it. The disc and sens. work hand in hand. If I'm wrong on this, someone with more experince can chime in.

 

[tvr]

Are you running super tuned? (With the threshold set higher than could be used in all-metal mode).

I have a Cibola (same circuit card that is in the Vaquero) and find that if running super tuned, big iron does indeed sound like very good targets. With the threshold set to just above audible so it is very usable for pin-pointing and sizing targets and the discriminator set in the iron range there is a sharp edge to the beep on big iron that is not there on non-ferrous. It does take some listening and learning the sounds to hear what the detector is saying. Small nails do discriminate out nearly completely.

The H.O.T series seems to not discriminate out iron cleanly, particularly big iron. Another clue is that on big iron there is a a bit of an echo just off the edge of the beep. That is in addition to the sharp edge. Those two indicators and using the pinpoint to size targets gives an idea of whether or not you are detecting a big piece of iron. Some other detectors discriminate out iron much better. The Compadre does. Some others do too.

Here is the discussion when I was doing some iron testing of Compadre, Cibola and Tejon:
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?17,1010874,1010874#msg-1010874
Cheers,
tvr

 

[fsuhunter]

Are you running super tuned? (With the threshold set higher than could be used in all-metal mode).

I have a Cibola (same circuit card that is in the Vaquero) and find that if running super tuned, big iron does indeed sound like very good targets. With the threshold set to just above audible so it is very usable for pin-pointing and sizing targets and the discriminator set in the iron range there is a sharp edge to the beep on big iron that is not there on non-ferrous. It does take some listening and learning the sounds to hear what the detector is saying. Small nails do discriminate out nearly completely.

The H.O.T series seems to not discriminate out iron cleanly, particularly big iron. Another clue is that on big iron there is a a bit of an echo just off the edge of the beep. That is in addition to the sharp edge. Those two indicators and using the pinpoint to size targets gives an idea of whether or not you are detecting a big piece of iron. Some other detectors discriminate out iron much better. The Compadre does. Some others do too.

Here is the discussion when I was doing some iron testing of Compadre, Cibola and Tejon:
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?17,1010874,1010874#msg-1010874
Cheers,
tvr

Good pointers overall! I do not run the V in supertuned mode, and I have tried lowering both sensitivity and threshold. But I have not done so very systematically with the iron problems I am having. Put differently, when my detector starts to chatter too much, I lower threshold and sensitivity which calms things down. I end up with fewer signals, but still dig large iron. I really like your suggestion to lower threshold so I can use pinpoint sizing. That is kinda what I do with the minelab to determine whether or not to dig.

 

[thump7]

I wasn't going to reply to this but just can't help myself.
I just sold my Vaquero about a month ago after useing it for 2 years, the last thing this machine is - is an iron magnet.
I seldom if ever dug iron with that machine unless I was going for faint signals in vco, or I chose to.

If I dug all the signals that sounded good or fair in disc mode, I am sure that I would have dug up a bunch of junk too.
Vco or All-metal is king on this machine, or at least that is the way it was for me.

For coin sized targets in vco, check to see how close you can pass the coil towards the target before the threshold gets loud. for iron the threshold will be screaming back at you before the coil is even over the target. Silver and aluninum - threshold gets loud just as coil is touching the edge of the target. Copper - the coil has to get right over the target before you get a sudden increase in the threshold. Make sure you do this from at least 2 sides.

In any event, iron is easy to tell apart from any other type of metal useing this technique.

 

[foxhunter]

Amen thump7...............said it all!!

 

[magadan]

I have had my Vaquero now for 3 months (with approximately 30 hours use). I generally swap back and forth between the V and my minelab xterra 705 (btw, I have around 150 hours on the minelab). I hunt at beaches in Sweden and also on a lot of plowed farms in Denmark. The Vaquero does well enough on beaches (as long as I stay in the dry sand) I hunt- the finds are more or less on par with my minelab. However, when I am in plow fields the V is very frustrating compared to the minelab. I am simply unable to avoid digging FAR too much iron with the V. I sometimes get fooled with my minelab, but it happens rarely, and even when I get fooled, I realize that the object I am digging is probably iron. With the V, i get the same sweet sound for iron that I get for gold, silver and copper (i.e., I get a nice clear signal forward, backward and side to side with no scratching/breaking). With some of the medium/larger pieces of iron I can dig it up, put it on the ground, Set my discrimination on max, yet it still gives a nice signal. This almost never happens with my minelab!

So I have a number of questions. Is it simply a case of me not understanding the very subtle sound differences on the V yet? If so, what am I doing wrong? For those of you that have experience detecting in old European plow fields, is it possible to avoid digging so much iron? Any tips would be helpful because at this point, I am feeling very frustrated with my purchase...

=================
I totally agree with you! Vaq is a great machine for dry sand and freshwater beaches (including wet part and shallow water), it is finding any coins, gold and silver incliding tiny juvelry. When it comes to the search in the fields and in the forest, I start digging lots of iron. Big pieces of iron are rather easy to distinguish, but the 1/2" to 1" massive pieces often give a good, non-broken "coin-type" signal. I often dig with my friends which use Terra 305 and 705; these instruments work better in the situation when you have 20 pieces of iron to one coin in the soil. So, I am going to buy another machine by the next spring (Deus??), and the Vaquero will become a beach-only tool.