I swept until I found some clean ground on my front lawn and had auto sensitivity climb to 20. I then took a card board box and measured off half inch increments, making marks on the side of the box like a ruler.
I laid the detector on the ground with coil flat to the ground, with the front half of the coil under the box. I again nc'd and again ended up on channel 9. The coins were swept across the top of the stationary coil at varying speeds.
In all metal, deep and fast both off, low trash and neutral ground; these are my results: US Clad Quarter
Auto 20............6 inches clean tone and ID, 6 1/2 inches broken tones and jumpy ID, 7 inches chirp
Auto +3 (23) 7"/ 7.5" / 8"
Manual sensitivity at the most maximum stability with out starting to chirp was 23
Here are the results at "stable" manual 23................. 81/2" solid and clean, 9 1/2" Broken, sloppy, and 10" chirp
almost same depth results at Manual 26 even though detector was chirping and falsing horribly, small increase in depth about 1/2 inch
At manual 30, detector flipping nuts, completely unmanageable, results 10" /10.5" / 11.5" Even though the detector hit the coin at 10 inches, there were louder falses, so to pick the quarter out of that mess would probably be quite difficult
IMPORTANT NOTES:
I got the exact same results with using discrimination and in all metal.
I got the same results after resetting the detector by holding down the power button.
It made no difference if the coil was on the ground or in the air: same results
It made no difference regardless if fast was on or off, deep on or both. and it made no difference if in low trash, high trash, difficult soil or neutral soil.
It made no difference if gain was 22 or 30, in fact experimenting with gain, I found that once I went to 26, the volume of the tones would no longer increase.
Regardless where I set the gain at, even at 1, it did not allow me to increase my sensitivity, as if the two (gain and sensitivity) were not related in anyway and the gain function on this thing is truly only for increasing the volume of faint signals and once you get to 26 there is no further increase in volume.
Unlike my previous SE's where if my gain was set above 7 or 8, the machine would false on iron more. Now, that still may be the same on the ETrac but this was an air test so the relationship between gain and sensitivity may still exist. I don't know.
It made absolutely no difference if I had the Sun Ray probes on or off
At faster sweep speeds, I did notice a slight increase in ID depth by 1/2"-1", not as big a deal as I thought it would be. And in most cases, in trash, I could not sweep that fast anyways.
Now for my SE, using the exact coil in the exact spot on the lawn:
All metal, fast off, deep off, gain 7
Auto sens at 27...............solid tone, ID lock: 8 inches, sloppy ID, broken tone: 9 inches, chirp at 10 inches
Manual sensitivity most stable at 24................solid tone, ID lock:11 1/2", Sloppy and broken: 12 1/2", chirp: 13-14 inches
Manual 32..................... solid ID and tone amongst falsing badly: 13 inches
My SE had almost a 30% depth advantage over my ETrac. Could of told you that with out even doing the above testing. The difference is pretty clear, in those sites that my coins are 6-10 inches, my SE picks them up and my ETrac is falling an inch short. It seems that on both my SE's and the ETrac, that there is a loss of depth of about 20% on "in ground" targets depending I am guessing on mineralisation and/or the moisture content of the soil.
I laid the detector on the ground with coil flat to the ground, with the front half of the coil under the box. I again nc'd and again ended up on channel 9. The coins were swept across the top of the stationary coil at varying speeds.
In all metal, deep and fast both off, low trash and neutral ground; these are my results: US Clad Quarter
Auto 20............6 inches clean tone and ID, 6 1/2 inches broken tones and jumpy ID, 7 inches chirp
Auto +3 (23) 7"/ 7.5" / 8"
Manual sensitivity at the most maximum stability with out starting to chirp was 23
Here are the results at "stable" manual 23................. 81/2" solid and clean, 9 1/2" Broken, sloppy, and 10" chirp
almost same depth results at Manual 26 even though detector was chirping and falsing horribly, small increase in depth about 1/2 inch
At manual 30, detector flipping nuts, completely unmanageable, results 10" /10.5" / 11.5" Even though the detector hit the coin at 10 inches, there were louder falses, so to pick the quarter out of that mess would probably be quite difficult
IMPORTANT NOTES:
I got the exact same results with using discrimination and in all metal.
I got the same results after resetting the detector by holding down the power button.
It made no difference if the coil was on the ground or in the air: same results
It made no difference regardless if fast was on or off, deep on or both. and it made no difference if in low trash, high trash, difficult soil or neutral soil.
It made no difference if gain was 22 or 30, in fact experimenting with gain, I found that once I went to 26, the volume of the tones would no longer increase.
Regardless where I set the gain at, even at 1, it did not allow me to increase my sensitivity, as if the two (gain and sensitivity) were not related in anyway and the gain function on this thing is truly only for increasing the volume of faint signals and once you get to 26 there is no further increase in volume.
Unlike my previous SE's where if my gain was set above 7 or 8, the machine would false on iron more. Now, that still may be the same on the ETrac but this was an air test so the relationship between gain and sensitivity may still exist. I don't know.
It made absolutely no difference if I had the Sun Ray probes on or off
At faster sweep speeds, I did notice a slight increase in ID depth by 1/2"-1", not as big a deal as I thought it would be. And in most cases, in trash, I could not sweep that fast anyways.
Now for my SE, using the exact coil in the exact spot on the lawn:
All metal, fast off, deep off, gain 7
Auto sens at 27...............solid tone, ID lock: 8 inches, sloppy ID, broken tone: 9 inches, chirp at 10 inches
Manual sensitivity most stable at 24................solid tone, ID lock:11 1/2", Sloppy and broken: 12 1/2", chirp: 13-14 inches
Manual 32..................... solid ID and tone amongst falsing badly: 13 inches
My SE had almost a 30% depth advantage over my ETrac. Could of told you that with out even doing the above testing. The difference is pretty clear, in those sites that my coins are 6-10 inches, my SE picks them up and my ETrac is falling an inch short. It seems that on both my SE's and the ETrac, that there is a loss of depth of about 20% on "in ground" targets depending I am guessing on mineralisation and/or the moisture content of the soil.
This was a quickly done, not exact test. I will do a more controlled test tomorrow and the machine was in first turn on, factory presets. The preliminary testing says a huge depth increase. I am going to mark down all the settings it is in right now, air test it; and then change the settings to where I had them on my original unit I sent in and see if there is any depth loss.