Minelab E-TRAC Forum

How deep will this bad boy hit on coins? I got a hit near a sidewalk and I abandoned ship after 12 inches,My lesch was buried. I just figured my pinpointing was off. My pinpointer was quite as a mouse in the hole and I didn't want to go any deeper.Could I have left a keeper? Or maybe falsing?The sidewalk is really old and it is not reinforced with metal. Also on the iffy signals, Is the high warble going to be there on the iffy signals? Every iffy signal I have had is only getting a good signal from one side. The other sides hit 35 -50 in quick mask.So I pass it up assuming it's iron falsing. When I get over a coin the etrac definitely lets me know. Will it hit solid on the deep ones also,or just give me a faint whisper? My soil is neutral soil that most of us enjoy in the midwest.I have been hunting very slow,Could I be going to slow? My only problem so far is pinpointing. I have gotten worse instead of better. lol Practice,practice, practice.
I'm just asking these questions to help me learn, I'm loving my etrac and cant wait to get better at it. Off to YouTube to look for more etrac videos. Thanks Dan

If it was hitting hard at extreme depth then it was something big - with the ferrous number so high it was probably iron. I've found that if the target is a lot deeper than the depth meter indicated then it is usually a can or something like that. One thing that I do is to turn the volume gain down to about 17 so that it is easier to tell if a target is deep by how soft the signal is - one you get used to listening for the quiet signals you can more easily pass over shallow clad and only go after the deep good stuff.

I agree with doc. I've found whole aluminum cans at 13" deep that read like a quarter with a depth reading of 7".

The deepest coin I've dug with the E-Trac was a 10.5" Indian Head penny. Great thing about it is that I knew it was an IH while I was digging, so I just kept going down till I found it.

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CTX 3030
Sun Ray Gold Pro HP
Pro-Pointer
Lesche Digger
Raptor 31

I have hit a few 10" coins, but most old coins in my area average 6-8"

Thanks for the info guys. Dan

When I was learning to pinpoint accurately with this machine, I noticed that holding the machine above the ground, away from the target before pushing pinpoint, the machine was much more sensitive to the target. If you press pinpoint while the machine is on the ground, this could be our problem. I always pinpoint one way and then turn 90 degrees and do it again. I dont even usually use pinpoint anymore these days as I can get dead accuracy with the turning 90 method. As for the deep target, I agree with everything that was said above. If its a screamer at 12 inches, it usually turns out to be a buried can or large iron. If your relic hunting this is exactly what many people are looking for but if your looking for coins, I always walk away from these. Often times the signal will read quite shallow. If I dig a couple inches beyond where the reading came in, I know its large trash buried deep and I walk away. Thats just my experience though. Good luck and happy hunting -Marc

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Minelab E-Trac / Sun-Ray X-1 / 6" EQ2 / 8" FBS / 12x13 NEL
Minelab Excalibur II 1000 / Vibra-Quatic / Anderson CF "Shorty" Setup For Diving
Minelab Excalibur II 1000 / Anderson CF Straight Rod
XP Deus / Large Coil / Garrett Pro Pointer

Quote
ds6191
How deep will this bad boy hit on coins? I got a hit near a sidewalk and I abandoned ship after 12 inches,My lesch was buried. I just figured my pinpointing was off. My pinpointer was quite as a mouse in the hole and I didn't want to go any deeper.Could I have left a keeper? Or maybe falsing?The sidewalk is really old and it is not reinforced with metal. Also on the iffy signals, Is the high warble going to be there on the iffy signals? Every iffy signal I have had is only getting a good signal from one side. The other sides hit 35 -50 in quick mask.So I pass it up assuming it's iron falsing. When I get over a coin the etrac definitely lets me know. Will it hit solid on the deep ones also,or just give me a faint whisper? My soil is neutral soil that most of us enjoy in the midwest.I have been hunting very slow,Could I be going to slow? My only problem so far is pinpointing. I have gotten worse instead of better. lol Practice,practice, practice.
I'm just asking these questions to help me learn, I'm loving my etrac and cant wait to get better at it. Off to YouTube to look for more etrac videos. Thanks Dan

this was a nail I think,,,,,, one direction across the point or narrow side of the nail giving you a good signal,,,,, the other direction was down the lenght of the nail,,,, reading iron,,,,, keep learning and show us your finds,,, !!!!

The deeper coins I have found and some have been 12 inches deep don't have any certain uniform way they will hit. A bouncy ferrous number is likely. Depending on your soil, etrac sensitivity, and any other targets that are close to your target in question, and sweep speed will influence your numbers. A small bounce in the CO numer can happen too(2-3) points. Will the audio be fainter? Sometimes, sometimes not, but most of the time you will hear a slightly softer tone. If the coin target in question is in a clean area one can sometimes tell a little more about it with the turning around the target as you sweep. Coins on edge sometimes will only hit when scanning across one back and forth direction. These on edge coins are often noticeable when you retrieve it from the ground. Most times you will miss the coin even after pinpointing 2-3 inches sometimes more. Sometimes you'll not have a bouncy ferrous number but rather a "hanger" as I call it around the 25-27 ferrous line. With these you'll still get the high tone and good CO number. The key is watching the screen in quick mask while sweeping and if the ferrous number just hangs and never dives down into say the 31 plus ferrous readings and gives a high tone in the same exact spot without ever moving dig. IMO no matter how good you think you are with the etrac, you will occassionally dig some iron. I tend to base my decisions on digging iffy targets on 2 things. (1) Have I found any other good targets in the area I'm dectecting? (2) I haven't found anything and I'm bored and desperate to make something happen. Of course I prefer number (1) out of the two. Next, is sweep speed. The e-trac is a funny critter. It will lock on to deep silver both large and small. You don't want to sweep too slow, nor too fast. I realize this sounds difficult, but I will give a scenario I have seen many times. I had been sweeping-probably a little too fast and heard a tone, not the silver tone but not the lower tone either. After resweeping it seems the etrac's tone was a bit higher. Scanning again the tone went even higher and finally settled in on the nice high squeal. It's as if the etrac needs to charge up and this is what you will see a lot on deep coins. So you have to be on your toes, I mean ears (LOL) listening for any hint of a high tone. I have also witnessed a faster sweep speed tends to favor the auto sensing mode and slower for manual sensibility. This is my story and I'm sticking to it. Cheers and happy digging.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2012 05:58PM by squirrel1.

I do alot of sidewalk parkways. I mean alot. It is not uncommon for me to get the ultra deep hole with no target recovered. Wish I could tell you what causes it. But I get stumped like you did. And it is not rebar, as these parkways are pre-1940's and older.

"dry holes" are one of two things. It's either a very large item that is buried very deeply, or it's a deep on-edge coin. I hit a deep on edge-coin again yesterday....

I got a solid pinpoint at about 9 inches, dug down to 12 and had nothing. Probe found nothing in the hole either. I re-filled and re-scanned the ground. Same pinpoint, but there was a weaker one about 6 inches away. Dug the second hole to 10 inches and found nothing again. The probe gave no signal in the second hole, but only a very slight increase in one area in pinpoint. I dug out that side about 2 inches. Now I get a signal. Aother 2 inches and now the probe says I'm right on it. There is was, a '44 Merc.

I think if my second plug had been even 1/2 inch smaller or farther over I would never have found it and would have walked away.

Angled targets always throw off the pinpoint, especially with a DD coil. So if you get a pinpoint and a "dry hole", it's somewhere wider out. How big of a hole you are willing to dig is up to you!

Listen to Doc. His Etrac is an oddball extension that has grown out of his shoulder socket, believe me when I say this, I think he is married to his machine. He taught his brother Tim how to work magic with his Etrac, and sometimes I think Tim is kicking his butt, and it's NOT beginners luck either!!!! He has given me a lot of pointers in the field, and I have learned greatly from him, I think he should do some seminars, but then everyone will clean his spots out......NGE

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Exposure to the Son, Prevents burning......

I agree with Mhirshman about pressing pinpoint up off the ground a foot or so before lowering it. The machine seems to lock on to the target rather than mineralized soil. I have gotten what i call ghost signals and used that method to find the target. Pinpoint will locate them but a clear quick mask screen wont find them from any angle after getting the initial beep. I got a 10-48 signal and a short high tone. No signal after that for a minute or so of searching the same little area. I pressed pinpoint about 1 foot above the ground and got a fairly strong pinpoint at ground level after lowering the coil to the strongest tone. It was a tiny little silver ring. I tried to get a signal from it after I found it using pinpoint method as described but got none. Idigid.