I followed up on a few things and got an email back from Nened...
I will post as written...
Question: I have another question or rather a follow up question about the three channels of sensitivity and how they operate. You said that they are for small, medium, and large targets. Can you shed any more light on what is being done by the machine or how it might relate to how we hunt and how we should interpret what it is telling us. For instance, at depth, an aluminum can might seem to be a smaller more shallow target. How does depth and size affect auto sensitivity. In what conditions such as the depth of targets or the age of a site change the way we might understand what auto is telling us. Conditions might really differ between a site that has seen activity for the last 100 years and one that saw activity in the past, but not in the last 100 years. I hope I am communicting my question well.
Nenad: The three channels are for small medium and large "signals", being from the ground, not actual targets.
Of course, where lots of targets are present, this can influence the Auto setting to some degree.
Basically, the Auto Sensitivity setting won't be influenced by single detections, i.e. locating a deep coin.
If there was no ground response, all targets would benefit from a higher sensitivity, but we all know that there is
always some ground response. As the E-Trac uses digital filtering to compensate for the ground signal, the sensitivity
setting is critical for maximum performance in any given area.
Question: Some have asked if the three channels of sensitivity are new to the ET or if they are also on the Explorer.
Nenad: The Explorer calculated the Auto sensitivity in a similar way as the E-Trac, but in the Explorer the manual selection would
alter the actual setting, hence why the term Semi-Auto was used.
The manual selection in the E-trac has no bearing on the Auto Sensitivity. The Auto Sensitivity is exactly what is being calculated,
and then an offset is applied if the user wishes.
Question: (I sent another email about the first question but addedd a bit about saltwater beach hunting).
Nenad: I think I answered most of these questions in your first email, apart from the Salt beaches.
Saltwater beaches can be tricky, because the wet sand can give a very strong response, and the
dry sand can give an extremely weak response.
In these two scenarios, the Auto Sensitivity can go from very low to high respectively, which is why
manual sensitivity is recommended for most beaches.
Obviously, your Discrimination pattern will have some bearing on whether the machine is noisy or not with a Sensitivity
that is set too high.
Some beaches do have high levels of magnetic sands, or non-conductive mineralisation under the sand layer, so
the Auto sensitivity will work quite well.
So as always, it pays to do a bit of experimenatation, to see what gives you the best results in your location.
Julien
I will post as written...
Question: I have another question or rather a follow up question about the three channels of sensitivity and how they operate. You said that they are for small, medium, and large targets. Can you shed any more light on what is being done by the machine or how it might relate to how we hunt and how we should interpret what it is telling us. For instance, at depth, an aluminum can might seem to be a smaller more shallow target. How does depth and size affect auto sensitivity. In what conditions such as the depth of targets or the age of a site change the way we might understand what auto is telling us. Conditions might really differ between a site that has seen activity for the last 100 years and one that saw activity in the past, but not in the last 100 years. I hope I am communicting my question well.
Nenad: The three channels are for small medium and large "signals", being from the ground, not actual targets.
Of course, where lots of targets are present, this can influence the Auto setting to some degree.
Basically, the Auto Sensitivity setting won't be influenced by single detections, i.e. locating a deep coin.
If there was no ground response, all targets would benefit from a higher sensitivity, but we all know that there is
always some ground response. As the E-Trac uses digital filtering to compensate for the ground signal, the sensitivity
setting is critical for maximum performance in any given area.
Question: Some have asked if the three channels of sensitivity are new to the ET or if they are also on the Explorer.
Nenad: The Explorer calculated the Auto sensitivity in a similar way as the E-Trac, but in the Explorer the manual selection would
alter the actual setting, hence why the term Semi-Auto was used.
The manual selection in the E-trac has no bearing on the Auto Sensitivity. The Auto Sensitivity is exactly what is being calculated,
and then an offset is applied if the user wishes.
Question: (I sent another email about the first question but addedd a bit about saltwater beach hunting).
Nenad: I think I answered most of these questions in your first email, apart from the Salt beaches.
Saltwater beaches can be tricky, because the wet sand can give a very strong response, and the
dry sand can give an extremely weak response.
In these two scenarios, the Auto Sensitivity can go from very low to high respectively, which is why
manual sensitivity is recommended for most beaches.
Obviously, your Discrimination pattern will have some bearing on whether the machine is noisy or not with a Sensitivity
that is set too high.
Some beaches do have high levels of magnetic sands, or non-conductive mineralisation under the sand layer, so
the Auto sensitivity will work quite well.
So as always, it pays to do a bit of experimenatation, to see what gives you the best results in your location.
Julien