2 tone vs. multi...

[bentrac]

That's what's great about the etrac you have the options. If one setup didn't work there's something else to pull out. It always makes me feel like there's a chance. I get warm fuzzys I try everything on the sites I hunt. There's no perfect setting but there is perfect settings for a particular sight the key is figuring out wich ones to use.

 

[grouser]

I've spent approx. 1500 hrs. in the field with my machine - approx. 1000 to 1200 hrs. of these hours running in 2TF - I've never noticed any loss of depth - pulled silver dimes at 8 to 9 inches a bunch of times - and that's with a 6" Excellerator coil.

I've returned to many junkie sites that I originally hunted in Multi-Tones and made some real nice finds by going over the same ground in 2TF.
I'd have to say that at least 80% of the sites I returned to and hunted in 2TF gave up good finds that I missed the first time around.
I just hunt nice and slow - and wiggle in on any good targets - if the numbers look good and there's no - or very little bounce - I dig it.
Everyone has their own opinions on how they like to program their machines - it's what ever works the best for you - but as far as I'm concerned - hunting low and slow in 2TF in junkie ground is the only way to go.

HH --- Mark

good info from someone that has many hours in the field ,,, thanks. What do you think about the phenomenon of a deeper coin giving off a high FE number and causing a false iron response??? Have you found that to have merit?

 

[Goldmanjace]

I've spent approx. 1500 hrs. in the field with my machine - approx. 1000 to 1200 hrs. of these hours running in 2TF - I've never noticed any loss of depth - pulled silver dimes at 8 to 9 inches a bunch of times - and that's with a 6" Excellerator coil.

I've returned to many junkie sites that I originally hunted in Multi-Tones and made some real nice finds by going over the same ground in 2TF.
I'd have to say that at least 80% of the sites I returned to and hunted in 2TF gave up good finds that I missed the first time around.
I just hunt nice and slow - and wiggle in on any good targets - if the numbers look good and there's no - or very little bounce - I dig it.
Everyone has their own opinions on how they like to program their machines - it's what ever works the best for you - but as far as I'm concerned - hunting low and slow in 2TF in junkie ground is the only way to go.

HH --- Mark

good info from someone that has many hours in the field ,,, thanks. What do you think about the phenomenon of a deeper coin giving off a high FE number and causing a false iron response??? Have you found that to have merit?

It is just logical that when hunting in ferrous sounds that you will get the audio response that goes along with the FE value. It is even stated in andys book that coins can do this (give a different FE value other than the usual 12). This is a fact.

 

[silversweeper]

I hunt mainly in TTF all the time, with manual sensitivity as high as I can get it to run stable, and with a wide open screen for the most part. If I'm getting a ton of iron falsing I may block out the top two and bottom couple of lines, except of course for the little section for big silvers at the top right. Most of the sites I hunt are too trashy to hunt in conductive multi tone. I've tried it and in order to keep from constantly looking at the numbers, I have to discriminate so much out that it seems all I'm listening to is a null. So I switch it over to TTF with an open screen and see that I'm sweeping over good targets mixed in with the trash. Not to say that both settings don't have their place and find targets that the other won't. The other day I hunted a yard in TTF, switched over to conductive with a generous discrimination screen set up for coins at the end of my hunt and found a '39 merc with a wheatie that was nearly 10 inches deep........in a spot that I had not only swept over in TTF but had dug a shallower target right next to earlier in the day! And yes, I always recheck my holes...lol..I just didn't hear the merc the first time. Now....it could very well be that I was coming in from a different direction and the merc was masked by trash, or the other target, the 1st time. Even the second time through, when I did find it, it was an iffy signal at best. I only dug it because the numbers kept fluttering back to 11-45/46, the tone was much like iron falsing. So I guess I will continue to use TTF and, when I have time, I'll go over parts of the site I'm on again in conductive to see what happens. I've been trying this for a while now, trying to find that magic setting where mind and etrac merge........

 

[stasys]

TTF and multi is the same deep and discrimination dont do any depth loss except in trash it add more work for detector and close targets to iron can be lost. Plus very important to use max Gain with sounds Long, Long will give longer -true-not shorted respond to target, and Max Gain will give loudest sounds for deep targets. in TTF and open screen its helping to hear deep or small targets between iron sounds. Fast and deep Off, no point in them.
Deep targets can give iron sound in TTF and Multi the same because not enough respond for detector to decide what is the target under coil-not enough clear signal for detector brains. I had situation when in conductive and in TTF was hearing only broken iron, happily I switched to constant on my explorer to get more clear respond from the target and get more depth and stability. this is the same on ETrac with Tone 1. Very useful instrument-dont ignore it with sounds Long.

 

[Southwind]

I tried TTF, again, last night at our city park and while I did find 1 silver dime and 1 wheat I still felt it wasn't best for that environment. The heavy trash just has it giving middle-tones constantly. There is the occasional low iron, but the vast majority all sounds the same making you spend all you time looking at the meter. I had goldensilver check the signals I did recover and in multi-tone it was just as good a tone as in TTF.

I still think the reason TTF tends to work for some is that since all noferrousus targets sound the same, you have more of a tendency to recover more questionable targets which naturally will pull a few goodies more cherry picking might have missed. Kind of like using a detector with no tone ID.

 

[Southwind]

Here is my situation.

Over the last 30+ years I've put in a lot of time with a lot of detectors. At one point in my life, when I was younger, I put in a good 30 hours a week or roughly 750 hours a year since my hunting is seasonal for roughly half the year. A good part of that was spent with the "dig it all" mentality. I dug a lot of goodies, but a heck of a lot more junk. I never really felt the few goodies the "dig it all" concept gave me was worth the time I spent digging junk so I started to lean more toward being a selective hunter. The success of a selective hunter depends on 3 things. Experience, which I had plenty of, a very good target ID detector and a bit of luck. The luck is either there or not, but you can find very good target ID detectors that increase those odds and that is what I did. I went on the quest for the best target ID detector for me and my needs. I went through a heck of a lot of machines until I settled in with the DFX. Not an extremely deep machine, until you fully understand it, but in my opinion still one of the best target ID machines for the selective hunter.

I've been using the E-Trac now for 3 years with a conservative estimate of 15 hours a week or about 1125 hours total. I'm no E-Trac expert, but I don't consider myself a slacker either. I've run many head-to-head tests between the E-Trac and the other well known top of the line machines. Check my Youtube channel for videos of those head-to-heads on the DCDetector channel. I like the E-Trac because it is also a very accurate target ID machine when it comes to deep copper and silver. Lacks on the low gold and nickles, but makes up for it as a silver killer. I can take it to our city park and come home with virtually no junk and all goodies. Only one other detector has prove to have this ability and that is the V3i, but it takes a bit more understanding. Now to the TTF idea. I see TTF as not very selective hunter friendly, and in fact more to the dig it all mentality. If thats what you enjoy then it can net you a few more goodies. If you're like me, the selective hunter, you'll spend more time digging junk and trying to analyze those targets that it is worth in a few added keepers.

 

[silversweeper]

I tried TTF, again, last night at our city park and while I did find 1 silver dime and 1 wheat I still felt it wasn't best for that environment. The heavy trash just has it giving middle-tones constantly. There is the occasional low iron, but the vast majority all sounds the same making you spend all you time looking at the meter. I had goldensilver check the signals I did recover and in multi-tone it was just as good a tone as in TTF.

Were you using TTF with 2 tones, 4 tones, or multi-tones? I have only used TTF with 2 tones and have no problem differentiating between good targets and junk. This seems to be the way to go for me unless I'm at a site that has a lot of conductive trash in the ground, like aluminum and foil, pull-tabs and screwtops, etc.. If the trash is mainly nails and other iron objects, with the occasional pulltab or foil, then TTF with 2 tones can't be beat in my opinion. Hunting the same site with conductive multi-tones is too much like listening to a caliope as it hits on all the high conductive numbers of iron, unless a lot of discrimination is used and then I feel like I'm missing good targets masked when iron/trash targets null out the tones. If the site is super trashy with aluminum and foil then I can see where conductive would be the way to go because all those targets sound good in TTF with 2 tones, thus a lot of number id checking. I guess in the end it's all just user preference and what works best for each person is what they have learned and feel comfortable with. Personally, I'm trying to become efficient on all of my machine's settings so that I have options to choose from when I hit sites that are different. But I'm most definitely still a novice as compared to most hunters on this forum, and I learn from everyone else's comments/experience!

 

[Southwind]

I was using 2 tones and pretty much a wide open FE and CO. Nothing but 1 line at the very bottom, not even all the way across, and the same at the very left top. This is a 128 year old park so there is lots of conductive trash as well as iron.

 

[stasys]

Here is my situation.

Over the last 30+ years I've put in a lot of time with a lot of detectors. At one point in my life, when I was younger, I put in a good 30 hours a week or roughly 750 hours a year since my hunting is seasonal for roughly half the year. A good part of that was spent with the "dig it all" mentality. I dug a lot of goodies, but a heck of a lot more junk. I never really felt the few goodies the "dig it all" concept gave me was worth the time I spent digging junk so I started to lean more toward being a selective hunter. The success of a selective hunter depends on 3 things. Experience, which I had plenty of, a very good target ID detector and a bit of luck. The luck is either there or not, but you can find very good target ID detectors that increase those odds and that is what I did. I went on the quest for the best target ID detector for me and my needs. I went through a heck of a lot of machines until I settled in with the DFX. Not an extremely deep machine, until you fully understand it, but in my opinion still one of the best target ID machines for the selective hunter.

I've been using the E-Trac now for 3 years with a conservative estimate of 15 hours a week or about 1125 hours total. I'm no E-Trac expert, but I don't consider myself a slacker either. I've run many head-to-head tests between the E-Trac and the other well known top of the line machines. Check my Youtube channel for videos of those head-to-heads on the DCDetector channel. I like the E-Trac because it is also a very accurate target ID machine when it comes to deep copper and silver. Lacks on the low gold and nickles, but makes up for it as a silver killer. I can take it to our city park and come home with virtually no junk and all goodies. Only one other detector has prove to have this ability and that is the V3i, but it takes a bit more understanding. Now to the TTF idea. I see TTF as not very selective hunter friendly, and in fact more to the dig it all mentality. If thats what you enjoy then it can net you a few more goodies. If you're like me, the selective hunter, you'll spend more time digging junk and trying to analyze those targets that it is worth in a few added keepers.

Very very logical . Only can say my situation is a bit different -I am from Europe, but with time I start to think similar like you, because wire and the rest strange signals usually junk.

 

[grouser]

I was using 2 tones and pretty much a wide open FE and CO. Nothing but 1 line at the very bottom, not even all the way across, and the same at the very left top. This is a 128 year old park so there is lots of conductive trash as well as iron.

help me understand,,,, you say two tone CONDUCTIVE is what has been working for you and your selective style......

 

[Southwind]

Multi-tone conductive is what works best in this environment. It keeps me from having to look at the display every 2 seconds. Really I use a combination of TTF, Multi-Tone, Auto +3 and Manual sensitivity depending on conditions. Conditions can and do change drastically in this park. In the few areas where conductive trash is minimal I'll use TTF if the iron is bad. In areas where trash is bad I prefer multi-tone auto +3