Jim upstate NY
New member
Last night I went across the street lugging the Se and etrac along, both set up with an X8 coil and X1 probes. I used teh same headphones for both, just switching the plug from one to the other
started out thinking I would hunt a small area with one then go back over with another and check out each taget found with both, but leaving one against a tree soon became a pain in the butt going back to get it to check a target, So I just hunted with the etrac and held the ex in my left hand till I got a signal I wanted to check with both
Explorer settings iron mask one line on left notched out, never can remember the different values on the SE as compared to the II, but run both with just one line of iron mask.. ferrous audio, gain at 7, variability full, sens at 24 manual.. fast on deep off
Etrac settings expanded coin pattern, opened up in the 40-46 range down to fe 20. Variability full, gain 24, sens at 24 manual,
fast on deep off, difficult ground and high trash on.
First things first.. I find very little difference in weight if any, I should weigh them but no scales in my house other than a mail scale..
the change in the handle seems to get a better feel, but the angle makes your hand slide up toward the control box, where on the explorer it seems to stay down on the rod.. anyway no big difference except the etrac does seem to be a bit more comfortable, but maybe with gloves off you might be bothered by blisters from the control box rubbing you hand after swinging a long time?.. never really had a problem with that part of it anyway.
OK the results.. Unfortunately for some reason this site is strange for a 200 year old yard.. either you are in the iron or you are not.. very little modern trash for a yard still lived in.. so not lots of targets to compare.
The front yard where most stuff should be, is just a total null.. not sure from what, I expect roofing nails all over, and only got a few coins there from the beginning and it was all wheats and clad, and maybe 6 inches at the deepest on those except a lone flying eagle near the road in cleaner ground at 2 inches I found the first time over there with the etrac.
As for teh signals I did get, for the most part both detectors saw all targets. Again I didn't do this hunting with the explorer first, so only thing I am seeing now is teh explorer can see what the etrac does, I might try the other way around soon. as it wasnt that bad carrying the extra detector, kind of gave the body a balance
Anyway so I located a target with the etrac and layed it down and switched the the SE on and checked it with the SE..
I didnt really get over any iffy type targets except for some iron falsing coming thru on the etrac that when checked with teh SE did its normal low tone grumble.. easily ignored if hunting... Where the etrac require switching to quick mask and seeing it was indeed an iron false.. maybe these type targets can be ignored after a while, but they sound so similar to what a deep coin in iron sounds like on teh SE I have to check them out on the etrac to be sure.. Maybe the coins will hit harder on the etrac and we eventually can feel better about checking these so close.. I did dig on a few of these to be sure there really wasnt a coin down there the SE wasnt seeing, but the few I checked were indeed nails..
On to one other results.. modern trash.. I got a signal on the etrac up close to the house that was reading a pretty solid 12-44.
Checking with the SE, I got a few blends of signals, where it would read in the coin range, but drop off in another spot, hitting it from one spot it would read dime, another was more over in the tab range.. Would I have dug it with the SE? hmm.. probably just because of the one good angle, but it was a definite dig with the etrac.. and it turned out to be a piece of aluminum next to a merc dime.. So the trash density setting giving the best value may actually have something to it.. And using it in high modern trash may help some get more coins out of there.. I got a couple spots with more modern trash to try that on.. one thing I wished I tried was switching the SE from iron mask to my upper right pattern, as I use that in such areas to see if I got the same type response I got from the etrac..
Other coins that I found 3 wheats and a button, were such easy targets both detectors had no problem seeing.. wish I could have got some more iffy ones, both for testing and to actually have found more
Other than that, the one thing I can say is for some reason the SE seems to have much more volume even with audio settings the same other than ferrous and conductive setting. the target seems smaller on the etrac as well.. even with same coils, I seem to get a bigger response from the se left and right than I do on the etrac.. strange but true unless it is just the volume difference that makes it seem that way..
started out thinking I would hunt a small area with one then go back over with another and check out each taget found with both, but leaving one against a tree soon became a pain in the butt going back to get it to check a target, So I just hunted with the etrac and held the ex in my left hand till I got a signal I wanted to check with both
Explorer settings iron mask one line on left notched out, never can remember the different values on the SE as compared to the II, but run both with just one line of iron mask.. ferrous audio, gain at 7, variability full, sens at 24 manual.. fast on deep off
Etrac settings expanded coin pattern, opened up in the 40-46 range down to fe 20. Variability full, gain 24, sens at 24 manual,
fast on deep off, difficult ground and high trash on.
First things first.. I find very little difference in weight if any, I should weigh them but no scales in my house other than a mail scale..
the change in the handle seems to get a better feel, but the angle makes your hand slide up toward the control box, where on the explorer it seems to stay down on the rod.. anyway no big difference except the etrac does seem to be a bit more comfortable, but maybe with gloves off you might be bothered by blisters from the control box rubbing you hand after swinging a long time?.. never really had a problem with that part of it anyway.
OK the results.. Unfortunately for some reason this site is strange for a 200 year old yard.. either you are in the iron or you are not.. very little modern trash for a yard still lived in.. so not lots of targets to compare.
The front yard where most stuff should be, is just a total null.. not sure from what, I expect roofing nails all over, and only got a few coins there from the beginning and it was all wheats and clad, and maybe 6 inches at the deepest on those except a lone flying eagle near the road in cleaner ground at 2 inches I found the first time over there with the etrac.
As for teh signals I did get, for the most part both detectors saw all targets. Again I didn't do this hunting with the explorer first, so only thing I am seeing now is teh explorer can see what the etrac does, I might try the other way around soon. as it wasnt that bad carrying the extra detector, kind of gave the body a balance
Anyway so I located a target with the etrac and layed it down and switched the the SE on and checked it with the SE..I didnt really get over any iffy type targets except for some iron falsing coming thru on the etrac that when checked with teh SE did its normal low tone grumble.. easily ignored if hunting... Where the etrac require switching to quick mask and seeing it was indeed an iron false.. maybe these type targets can be ignored after a while, but they sound so similar to what a deep coin in iron sounds like on teh SE I have to check them out on the etrac to be sure.. Maybe the coins will hit harder on the etrac and we eventually can feel better about checking these so close.. I did dig on a few of these to be sure there really wasnt a coin down there the SE wasnt seeing, but the few I checked were indeed nails..
On to one other results.. modern trash.. I got a signal on the etrac up close to the house that was reading a pretty solid 12-44.
Checking with the SE, I got a few blends of signals, where it would read in the coin range, but drop off in another spot, hitting it from one spot it would read dime, another was more over in the tab range.. Would I have dug it with the SE? hmm.. probably just because of the one good angle, but it was a definite dig with the etrac.. and it turned out to be a piece of aluminum next to a merc dime.. So the trash density setting giving the best value may actually have something to it.. And using it in high modern trash may help some get more coins out of there.. I got a couple spots with more modern trash to try that on.. one thing I wished I tried was switching the SE from iron mask to my upper right pattern, as I use that in such areas to see if I got the same type response I got from the etrac..
Other coins that I found 3 wheats and a button, were such easy targets both detectors had no problem seeing.. wish I could have got some more iffy ones, both for testing and to actually have found more
Other than that, the one thing I can say is for some reason the SE seems to have much more volume even with audio settings the same other than ferrous and conductive setting. the target seems smaller on the etrac as well.. even with same coils, I seem to get a bigger response from the se left and right than I do on the etrac.. strange but true unless it is just the volume difference that makes it seem that way..
With my SE and EX2 wheats are very scratchy. So far it looks like to me with my ET in this area with exceed or equal the depth of the Explorers. My complaint and problem is with all the falsing. The deep target ID reading are nothing like the air testing and the 12+,-1. But that is not a problem with me since I've always have hunted in conductive tone and I dig all deep repeatables. I took a chance and bought this new machine mainly because the PR made me believe that silver was just going to jump out of the ground.
It appear to me that ML migh have released some bad machines. I hope not for all that are experiencing problems. I can't wait for the rain, I have some sites to really give the ET it's test. Happy Hunting to all!! 
EddieB