Minelab Explorer Classroom Forum

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Charles (Upstate NY)
So far in the field the ETrac has come in 2nd place behind my Explorer SE with SE Pro coil. We were out last week going head to head on tiny targets and deeeeep coins, Etract got its share, it did well but could not match the Explorer on several targets.

May be your soil conditions or any other number of factors causing this.However here in the midwest the result were the exact opposite with three longtime Explorer men's Explorers falling behind the E-Trac.So much so that all three got E-Tracs and sold the Explorers.Their old,deep coin count has went up dramatically with the E-Tracs and none of them even think about going back to the Explorers.

Just one thing alone can cause the E-Trac to find more good targets in a day and that is the fact that it is faster and will allow you to cover more ground well not to mention it is so much more stable so as not to give you a headache from all the falsing and ground noise at many sites.

The main reason many long time Explorer users struggle with the E-Trac is they try and force it to become an Explorer IIII.If they would just learn to operate the E-Trac in the way it was designed to be operated they would get much better results.

It often comes down to the old saying "It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks" I am afraid.That is why so many new to FBS folks are doing extremely well with the E-Trac.They do not struggle with the old "un-learning" curve.Rather they read the manual and often Andy's book and then go out and do well.

Of course if they knew way more than the E-Trac they might do even better

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sgoss66
This is great stuff, guys. Etrac Tom, thanks much for the advice. Using the E-Trac is definitely an interesting experiment...

Charles -- a question...can you elaborate on this statement you made?

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For example why does the machine decide silver and gold targets are iron and position them way over on the iron side of the screen and tell me not to dig them when I know for a fact they are not iron or ferrous having confirmed this by digging gobs of them?

Can you give me an example of a silver target that your Explorer wants to put on the "iron side of the screen" (i.e. high FE numbers) that, instead, you know you need to dig? What is it that tells you you need to dig that target that your Explorer says is "iron?" I'm at the stage of learning now where I'm trying to learn to dig these "machine calls them iron but they are really silver" type targets, and it's been a "slow climb up the mountain" for me, in terms of learning how to do it. Yes, I can "look down" now, and see that I have "climbed quite aways up," but when I look up, that mountain peak still towers above me!

Steve

I guess a picture is worth a thousand words so tomorrow I'll post a picture of some small targets I have been digging. Things that lurk on the dark (left) side include small gold and silver chains and clasps from chains, I have a habit of digging the lobster claw like clasps from silver chains. A couple days ago I got a piece of silver chain with just 2 little hoops and a tiny silver sandel post earing. About a week ago I got a 14k gold charm. The bad news...I also dug the tiny 3/16 inch round aluminum piece square tabs are attached to on pop cans, 1/8 inch split shot sinkers, 1/8 inch brass washers (they are thick) and all manner of bits of brass and copper and the dreaded fishermens jewelry e.g. barrel swivels and broken pieces of barrel swivels, snap locks etc. Not all of that is way left on the screen but the smaller and deeper bits are. I dug some what's its over there also after I switched to conduct tones. Found out where bobby pins hit now. I dug a staple, yeah the tiny kind you would staple a couple pieces of paper together with, it was unused. Incredibly I dug this tiny piece of wire, its .314 inch long and .035 inch thick I was stunned the machine could even detect it. Imagine me trying to find that in a pile of sand at night with a LED light...madening. lol

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Ray-Mo.

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Charles (Upstate NY)
So far in the field the ETrac has come in 2nd place behind my Explorer SE with SE Pro coil. We were out last week going head to head on tiny targets and deeeeep coins, Etract got its share, it did well but could not match the Explorer on several targets.

May be your soil conditions or any other number of factors causing this.However here in the midwest the result were the exact opposite with three longtime Explorer men's Explorers falling behind the E-Trac.So much so that all three got E-Tracs and sold the Explorers.Their old,deep coin count has went up dramatically with the E-Tracs and none of them even think about going back to the Explorers.

Just one thing alone can cause the E-Trac to find more good targets in a day and that is the fact that it is faster and will allow you to cover more ground well not to mention it is so much more stable so as not to give you a headache from all the falsing and ground noise at many sites.

The main reason many long time Explorer users struggle with the E-Trac is they try and force it to become an Explorer IIII.If they would just learn to operate the E-Trac in the way it was designed to be operated they would get much better results.

It often comes down to the old saying "It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks" I am afraid.That is why so many new to FBS folks are doing extremely well with the E-Trac.They do not struggle with the old "un-learning" curve.Rather they read the manual and often Andy's book and then go out and do well.

Of course if they knew way more than the E-Trac they might do even better

I suppose its possible the ETrac is just not as good as the Explorer on a east coast saltwater beach, but it fared no better against the Explorer in the Pacific Northwest magnetic black sand either. Maybe your soil is the exception to the rule. Trust me as soon as I see an ETrac get a signal on a target I can't I'll own one, that's why we are doing head to head tests in the field. I have respect for the ETrac, I dug a real nice barber quarter with one that was being guarded by several pieces of iron, that earned my respect. It is a Minelab after all. But so far I find the most piece of crap signal I can get on my Explorer and let the ETrac folks try to tweak their machines to at least match it, the machines are close but the Explorer still latches on to a few targets beyond the ETrac's grasp. With more tweaking maybe that will change.

May very well be the iron riden sand as I have not yet hunted salt beaches.It might take some work to get it to run well in those environments if possible.The E-Trac is a killer in my cut nail carpeted burnt town site from the CW.TTF in open screen pulls the goodies out like magic and some are tiny pieces of lead and harness brad washers at good depth.I had a V3 that was no where close to performing as well as my E-Trac except on micro gold jewelery.But then my AT Pro does as well at a third the price and it is water proof lol.

Are you running in Manual on the SE and they running in manual or Auto on the Etrac?? On beach sand do they have the GROUND setting set to NORMAL, when going to grassy areas inland use DIFFICULT. Try TRASH on HIGH then NORMAL over those targets if it's on NORMAL and it hits in the discriminated blacked out area on the Etrac it will just go null silent. Do they have some very little blacked out area on their discrimination screen like the RELICS PATTERN in presets compared to your SE screen, are you in IRON MASK or a discrimination screen?? The Etrac suprisingly likes SOME discrimination in order to function better on finding targets it's maybe written in the software programming of it. Are you from the WESTERN area of N.Y. you and I may know each other from earlier this decade/ latter part of the last decade when I used to go to a lot of metal detecting contests around the state and in the North East?? Last name Wilson possiably from around Medina area????

Really really really deep targets on the Etrac make a thunk sound thunk thunk when swinging over them but still ID well especially when DEEP is turned on.

Anyways this has been interesting to say the least. Whatever machine you feel is the best one for you and it's what you like and if it makes this wonderful hobby a great experience being outside with good friends and good times in the fresh air feeling good and healthy finding some great wonders of the past that is what it's really all about right??

Best to all Merry Christmas and a great find filled Happy New Year too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Ray-Mo.
May very well be the iron riden sand as I have not yet hunted salt beaches.It might take some work to get it to run well in those environments if possible.The E-Trac is a killer in my cut nail carpeted burnt town site from the CW.TTF in open screen pulls the goodies out like magic and some are tiny pieces of lead and harness brad washers at good depth.I had a V3 that was no where close to performing as well as my E-Trac except on micro gold jewelery.But then my AT Pro does as well at a third the price and it is water proof lol.

I just picked up an AT Gold to hunt for...well don't want to spoil the surprise. ;-)

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EtracTom-AdirondacksNY
Are you running in Manual on the SE and they running in manual or Auto on the Etrac?? On beach sand do they have the GROUND setting set to NORMAL, when going to grassy areas inland use DIFFICULT. Try TRASH on HIGH then NORMAL over those targets if it's on NORMAL and it hits in the discriminated blacked out area on the Etrac it will just go null silent. Do they have some very little blacked out area on their discrimination screen like the RELICS PATTERN in presets compared to your SE screen, are you in IRON MASK or a discrimination screen?? The Etrac suprisingly likes SOME discrimination in order to function better on finding targets it's maybe written in the software programming of it. Are you from the WESTERN area of N.Y. you and I may know each other from earlier this decade/ latter part of the last decade when I used to go to a lot of metal detecting contests around the state and in the North East?? Last name Wilson possiably from around Medina area????

Really really really deep targets on the Etrac make a thunk sound thunk thunk when swinging over them but still ID well especially when DEEP is turned on.

Anyways this has been interesting to say the least. Whatever machine you feel is the best one for you and it's what you like and if it makes this wonderful hobby a great experience being outside with good friends and good times in the fresh air feeling good and healthy finding some great wonders of the past that is what it's really all about right??

Best to all Merry Christmas and a great find filled Happy New Year too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't pay any attention to the ETrac's settings but the ETrac user is an expert. Keep in mind we dig DEEP in beach sand, not deep like you do in the dirt DEEEEEEP. I think a lot of dirt hunters would be shocked how deep there machine will go with some salt water and clean sand. I lived in Eastern NY by the way. Merry Christmas and keep digging before you guys freeze up for the winter.

Wow! Charles, what settings are you using? I have an Exp ll.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/06/2011 10:44PM by s1u2r3f4.

Charles -- I'm impressed...you got that Explorer finding some SMALL stuff. Impressive...

Hey E-Trac Tom -- I KNOW that thunk thunk thunk sound you are talking about! I heard it the other day on the E-Trac...shoulda dug that target, huh? My Explorer can kind of do that, too, but it was very pronounced on the E-Trac. That's a great tip, thanks!

Steve

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Minelab CTX 3030
Minelab Equinox 800
Garrett ProPointer AT
Lesche hand digger
Lesche 38D Ground Shark "King of Spades"

Norman, OK



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/07/2011 01:34AM by sgoss66.

Yes your right Charles deep in sand is different than deep in soil way less halo effect from leaching from corroding out into the surrounding area. So far around here it's better to have target seperation and a smaller coil as the targets aren't too deep just trashy sites no one hits anymore. Can't believe the stuff I'm finding that people going by say has been hunted out, NOT!!
Oh I thought you may have been a gentleman I know from that area.
I too live in Eastern N.Y. Glens Falls/Lake George area.
Salt definitely does have an effect on detecting targets but so does the correct settings on the machines for the area your hunting in right.
I got an AT-PRO for jewelery and rainy days out and water hunting too the AT GOLD wasn't out then beginning of the year, I just bought the 5.5 x 8.5 coil for it too.
I also have a G2 fast, fas,t fast, dual processors 19KHZ for jewelry/relics and very, very trashy sites. It resets in hundredths of a second between target hits.
Got an Omega8000 also for coin hunting to try out this summer it hits good on silver, 7.5KHZ .

Etrac is the same old FBS explorer basis detector, just program and processor a bit different. and they are the same deep--have used both with Tone 1 without discrimination-maybe Pro coil a bit deeper lets say 5mm compare to 1050, but etrac programing makes it a bit different from explorer, I dont know how to explain but I think that on Etrac manual sensitivity has different numbers compare to explorer, lets say explorer 13 is still deep, but etrac 13 looks like not. But have to test it both, side by side to be sure if its true. This is why-I think--- etrac can bare higher sensitivities than explorers. with my all explorers spend time can say they have manual sensitivity border, with my not original coil cables explorer SE and XS has 18 or 22 manual sensitivity-from this points explorer starts to work a bit different.
Very important when you test detectors side by side use the same Noise cancel Channel and coil sweep speed, because faster sweep can hit a bit deeper compare to slower sweep.the same with different noise cancel channels, they work a bit differently. in my experiments channel 1 is a bit deeper than 11 for small targets. etrac and explorer usual preset channel is 11 and if near you some person with explorer or etrac push noise cancel button he will get different channel.

Stasys I just read on here somewhere someone said that on the ETRAC after 25 manual on up to 30 it's like it's in a boosted sensitivity mode. I have never tried to run that high I usually stay in Auto +3 and have tried to switch over to manual 22 to 24 on targets but not a real difference. May have to try really high sensitivity above 25 to see if there really is a difference. Most of the time I see 17-21 in Auto +3 for sensitivity when hunting. Soil here is about an 85 for ground ballance on other machines I own so fairly mineralized not too bad.

I also found that the Etrac hits better with a slightly faster sweep speed than when I swung an Explorer.

Really deep targets on the Etrac make a distinct thunk, thunk sound when sweeping over them.

When I noise cancel it comes up as either 11, 9, or 6 most of the time around here. Mostly 11.

Was going to upgrade to the ExplorerSE with the pro coil from the Explorer 2 because of the changes/improvements and the vco pinpoint mode that I like, but after reading up on the Etrac in Andy's new book out on both machines I decided to try it out so I jumped all the way up to the Etrac and have had no regrets in doing so.