A few weeks ago I purchased a used Teknetics T2 Classic. I have always thought they were great looking machines and they are known for going deep and being good metal detectors. This machine, although used looks brand new and I was excited to get out and go metal detecting with it.
My first trip out with it the ground was so hard I quickly gave up. It was more like trying to dig through concrete than dirt. One thing I noticed about it right away is it seemed like I was getting a lot of chatter and interference.
My second time out it was even worse. I couldn’t make heads or tails of what the machine was doing. I tried to turn down sensitivity down to 30 and take my discrimination up as well. When those changes didn’t seem to make a difference I tried changing the frequency. I probably wasn’t out a total of two hours because I just couldn’t handle all the noise in the headphones.
The last time out wasn’t any better. I kept getting what sounded like good signals but they would disappear or get real jumpy, the depth gauge seemed to be off and not in a consistent way. The VDI numbers were jumping all over on just about every target.
I know it sounds like I am complaining but I’m not. It takes a lot of work to learn a new machine and you have to put the field time in to get it figured out. I know these are good machines, I’ve seen to many positive talk about them that I know I just have to get out and use it. So tomorrow that’s what I plan on doing.
I was out the other morning for about two hours with the Tesoro Outlaw. In that short amount of time I felt like I was already getting the hang of it, like it will soon be an old friend. Tomorrow, I am going to try and leave it in the truck and I am going to do everything I can to try and learn this T2. Over the years I have learned a lot of new machines and I have always been successful by getting out there and just digging. I’ve never had much faith in test gardens and air tests, I believe to learn a machine you have to do so with real world experience and just get out there and dig and dig until you understand.
I hope tomorrow I have some great news about how the T2 and I are starting to understand each other and have a bonding moment!
Leave a Reply