Fairly New With the Etrac, Looking for some tips

[barlowchiro]

I got my etrac a couple of weeks ago, since then I have been using it in my yard and the school next door. I have found several wheaties, some clad, and some junk.

I uploaded the modified Andy Sabisch pattern that Angel uses along with his settings. I also downloaded a park pattern that I found online (http://www.minelab.com/products/trea...-trac?view=faq), it was the top on on this page labeled, park pattern.

With the modified Andy Sabisch pattern, I get lots of false signals etc... The park pattern has alot more discriminated out, but I have had the most success with that one (no silver though). I recently got a Sunray X5 and tried that out today and found a clad nicket, 8 memorials, and 2 wheaties.

Are you guys just going really slow and digging only the repeatable good sounding signals? I am going slow, I hear a good sounding beep, slow down to investigate, and the more slowly I swing and the longer I check out that signal, the better it sounds. I try it at 90 degrees and it still sounds pretty good sometimes. I dig and it is a dang nail!!!

Any feedback is appreciated.

[Epi-hunter]

The more you disc out, the more you are missing.

When you say false signals do you mean actual falsing, or that you are digging iron when the signal sounds good?

Iron falsing is tough on any machine. I had fits with it with the E-Trac for a long time - and still do sometimes. Any more, though, I can almost always tell because the tone just sounds too good - higher-pitched, and also the pinpoint is off when tried from different directions. It does take a lot of practice.

I can tell you that Angel moves very slowly, many times gridding small sections of ground from two or three different directions. He also does not just dig good, repeatable signals. In fact, most of his finds are a result of hearing and digging tough signals that others have walked over. That kind of knowledge and skill takes a lot of practice.

He also tends to run the machine hot (sensitivity set on manual rather than auto, to a point high enough to hear falsing, but just listens through the falsing).

I do know what you mean. Iron can sound really nice on the E-Trac. But there are clues to give it away.

[nicklehead]

Save some of those nails and then put them on the ground where you can compare the tones to tones fron a clad quarter or dime. You will notice a screechy or squeeky element to the nail tone and not the coin , that's the key. For whatever reason , good targets have a cleaner more melodious tone than junk--copper plumbing fittings being a big exception. While you're doing this test play with the threshold pitch until you find what sounds like the cleanest tones to your ears---some set it really low (below 3) but I prefer it a bit higher as it seems to bring out the melody of nickels and gold better (around 12 to 14) but I endured years of power tool noise and firearm reports before hearing protection was cool.

You're still going to dig trash with the e-trac just not as much as with other units and you still have to earn it by digging in general and correlating the good finds to the good tones.

[barlowchiro]

Thanks for the tips guys.

I apologize, but I guess I don't really know what iron Falsing is. I mean that I hear a good signal and dig it, and it is a dang iron nail.

I do know what you mean about the kinda screachy/too high pitched sound of an iron nail compared to the smoother response of a coin. I just need to get out of my yard and venture out into the real world and do some detecting. The only detecting I have done is in my yard. Granted my house was built in the 1st decade of the 1900s, so there is some good stuff here, but I need to go other places and see what is out there. Also, there is tons and tons of iron in my yard. Nails, beaver tails, pull tabs, etc... I was hoping the X5 would help me some.

I tried running in TTF for a few minutes with the X5. I noticed that I was getting a really nice tone and it was hitting at 11-2, 12-4 etc... Do you guys just dig the high CO 11, 12, 13, 14s?

Jake

[RobW]

I only dig repeatable signals that low, that are stable and don't bounce (11/12-09/14)..otherwise I find it's just trash..mostly beaver tails..but I still dig my fair share of those. A lot of what I dig depends on the type of location I'm at and what I expect to find. The problem and Fun of this hobby is that you just don't know...like the late 1600's/early 1700's buckle I dug last year in a park....or the Spanish reale I dug in a median strip. If I'm in a park, unless I have found old coins, I don't dig below 11/12 (much more variable)-30, except for the nickel values

[Epi-hunter]

Thanks for the tips guys.

I apologize, but I guess I don't really know what iron Falsing is. I mean that I hear a good signal and dig it, and it is a dang iron nail.

I do know what you mean about the kinda screachy/too high pitched sound of an iron nail compared to the smoother response of a coin. I just need to get out of my yard and venture out into the real world and do some detecting. The only detecting I have done is in my yard. Granted my house was built in the 1st decade of the 1900s, so there is some good stuff here, but I need to go other places and see what is out there. Also, there is tons and tons of iron in my yard. Nails, beaver tails, pull tabs, etc... I was hoping the X5 would help me some.

I tried running in TTF for a few minutes with the X5. I noticed that I was getting a really nice tone and it was hitting at 11-2, 12-4 etc... Do you guys just dig the high CO 11, 12, 13, 14s?

Jake

I was probably confusing in my reply on this. Sorry!

Iron falsing just refers to hearing what sounds like a good tone (silver level) when the target is actually iron.

Then there is the concept of general falsing, usually meaning that maybe the sensitivity is set too high or there is EMI (electromagnetic interference) affecting things. Usually it means that the ground/surrounding conditions are sending false signals (where there is no target).

I would stay away from the small coil for now if you can. The stock coil is excellent. And go to a park or somewhere where you can expect less iron with every swing.

[Epi-hunter]

Thanks for the tips guys.

I apologize, but I guess I don't really know what iron Falsing is. I mean that I hear a good signal and dig it, and it is a dang iron nail.

I do know what you mean about the kinda screachy/too high pitched sound of an iron nail compared to the smoother response of a coin. I just need to get out of my yard and venture out into the real world and do some detecting. The only detecting I have done is in my yard. Granted my house was built in the 1st decade of the 1900s, so there is some good stuff here, but I need to go other places and see what is out there. Also, there is tons and tons of iron in my yard. Nails, beaver tails, pull tabs, etc... I was hoping the X5 would help me some.

I tried running in TTF for a few minutes with the X5. I noticed that I was getting a really nice tone and it was hitting at 11-2, 12-4 etc... Do you guys just dig the high CO 11, 12, 13, 14s?

Jake

I have never personally understood the point of TTF on the E-Trac, since it was designed to keep the FE numbers very steady for good targets (unlike the SE or other Explorer models). I can see the point if the goal is to find iron, but for coinshooting I don't get it. The CO number is what tells you what you have found.

The FE number should almost always be 12 or vary within 11-13.

[barlowchiro]

Just curious, but why stay away from the smaller coil? It seems that while not as deep, it would offer better discrimination from the junk?

[jkress]

Hi there barlowchiro.

You now have in your hands one of the best machines out there. thumbsup01 You've been away from this hobby for awhile now, so it will take a bit
of time to become familiar with this new machine.

Iron will give an intermittent high tone with one pass of the coil. Before deciding to dig a target, re-sweep to listen for a constant repeating signal from that same angle. Most times if you can hear the same sound from a right to left swing and back again... it's worth investigating further. (If you can not repeat the same high tone you heard to begin with, without changing your sweep angle, in my experience it always proves to be an iron false.)

Change your position around the target and sweep again to see what happens. If a high tone remains... go after it to see what it is.

I still dig a couple of old rusty iron objects every hunt. The day I don't dig a few iron pieces means I might have passed over some
silver surrounded by ferrous items. I know I have hunted efficiently if I have 4-10 iron pieces in my pouch on the drive home.

Keep hunting with your new machine... the E-Trac will soon make you amazed with it's capabilities. It does take lots of trial and error to learn.

Please feel free to ask me any questions you might have.

Just curious, but why stay away from the smaller coil? It seems that while not as deep, it would offer better discrimination from the junk?

Angie and I talked about your specific question quite extensively a few nights ago.

Please know that I have used the X-5 many times. It rocks.

But first you should learn the smooth tones, chirps, blips, hisses and pops of the Minelab straight out of the box. Learn the detector first, then
add more tools later. thumbsup01 The X-5 is, although great, definitely an all together different beast than the stock coil.

[barlowchiro]

OK, that makes sense as to why I should stick with the stock coil. I did notice a big difference in the sound of responses when I switched back to stock coil, it is definately more chatty than the X5. I wll go back to the stock coil and keep it on there for a few weeks/months to get more comfortable with it.

I want to go out to some parks and hunt, but I am not sure if any of the parks around me are old enough to have silver. I know there is one park near me, but they say you need a permit that is good for only one week at at time. Not to mention this is a quote from their rules/regulations

Shovels, spades, garden trowels and other similar tools may not be used to dig
into or turn over ground areas that are covered by turf, vegetation, shrubs, or
trees. Permissible digging tools are screwdriver or other similar narrow pronged
devices.

I guess this means no digging basically.

[Tony Two-Cent]

You will definitely find a lot of nails when using that Andy Sabisch discrimination pattern. Since that pattern has the FE line opened up to 27 the rusty nails often produce a decent signal. The same thing happens to me when I use that pattern, I find a lot more rusty nails.

I only use that pattern when I'm trying to find really deep coins at a site that has been hunted to death and is no longer producing anything using the stock coins pattern. The number of rusty nails you dig can be reduced somewhat by trusting the pinpoint mode on the E-Trac. If the target doesn't pinpoint where the center of the signal seems to be, it is most like a nail or other rusty iron junk. (But not always.)

On deep coins that are in highly mineralized soil or are surrounded by iron junk, the FE number can jump up in the 20s, even as high as 27. In my latest video you can see a 22-37 signal that ended up being a deep Indian Head cent. The Andy Sabisch pattern will allow you to find such deep coins, but you will hear more falsing and find more rusted iron. It just comes with it.

Personally, my recommendation would be to use the stock Coins discrimination pattern for the first six months or so, just so you can get used to the signals that an E-Trac produces.

One last thing: I completely agree with Epi-Hunter's comment about Two Tone Ferrous. Since I am almost exclusively a coinshooter, I don't really see any benefit at all of hunting in TTF. The one possible exception to this might be if you were hunting in a farm field and wanted to dig every conductive target. To my way of thinking, hunting in conductive multi-tones gives you so much more information about a target.

Hope this helps a little. thumbsup01

[1147SILVER]

The best thing I did was buy the 6x8 sef coil it did few things for me reduced a lot of chatter that you get when you use the stock coil forces you to slow down I also pin pointed better with it the target separation is amazing and finding silver in pounded out parks is very likely. If you don't have the x1 proble strongly suggest it.

Steve

[POKIE73]

going slow and keeping your coil as tight to the ground is the best advice the x5 coil is a great tool in real trashy locations but it takes a lot of time as you do not cover much ground i find myself going way to fast its hard to go slow but with time you can get better dennis

[Full Metal Digger]

You will definitely find a lot of nails when using that Andy Sabisch discrimination pattern. Since that pattern has the FE line opened up to 27 the rusty nails often produce a decent signal. The same thing happens to me when I use that pattern, I find a lot more rusty nails.

I only use that pattern when I'm trying to find really deep coins at a site that has been hunted to death and is no longer producing anything using the stock coins pattern. The number of rusty nails you dig can be reduced somewhat by trusting the pinpoint mode on the E-Trac. If the target doesn't pinpoint where the center of the signal seems to be, it is most like a nail or other rusty iron junk. (But not always.)

On deep coins that are in highly mineralized soil or are surrounded by iron junk, the FE number can jump up in the 20s, even as high as 27. In my latest video you can see a 22-37 signal that ended up being a deep Indian Head cent. The Andy Sabisch pattern will allow you to find such deep coins, but you will hear more falsing and find more rusted iron. It just comes with it.

Personally, my recommendation would be to use the stock Coins discrimination pattern for the first six months or so, just so you can get used to the signals that an E-Trac produces.

One last thing: I completely agree with Epi-Hunter's comment about Two Tone Ferrous. Since I am almost exclusively a coinshooter, I don't really see any benefit at all of hunting in TTF. The one possible exception to this might be if you were hunting in a farm field and wanted to dig every conductive target. To my way of thinking, hunting in conductive multi-tones gives you so much more information about a target.

Hope this helps a little. thumbsup01

I have to agree with Tony about the stock coin mode. I have had my e-trac 2 1/2 years and I still use it every time I MD. The only change I made was to open up the upper right corner. Tony and I both have videos on youtube and we try to show exactly what we are hearing when we dig up a good find. Best wishes and HH, Dave.