am i doing something wrong all i am finding are pennies?!?

[anabolicmonster]

I have been using my se and i bought the etrac last month, I am living up in nh for a little bit and i have been digging some sites up here, I have tried diffent settings,(none I have uploaded, i do it all manually) and all i find are pennies, is it just my luck and the sites? the machine works i tested i buried different coins. Im just diggins up pennies! not even wheaties, oh and one quarter.ha Do you guys think its the sites or my settings, and ive read andys book and used setting from this board, any recc.? what ive learned with both the se and the etrac is to listen my se bang bang silver, etrac rings, sings like silver but its a penny, basicaly anything in the 12-30/48 is a good sign but in my case its penny afte penny. also wth the etrac are most of the targets n the Ferrous 12 that are diggable? any advice would be nice

 

[bigjohn070]

Some of my copper penny's have numbers like silver
dimes but they just lack that silver squeak.

HH
BIG JOHN

 

[John - Maryland]

It's hard to understand how you can only be finding pennies. Unless you are discriminating out silver somehow. Reset your Etrac with the "Master Reset", and then adjust you threshold. (I like 16 or 17). Leave it in auto sensitivity, and set gain to 25 or 26, with Deep on. Also edit out the discrimination Area "Top Right corner". This area is good for finding large silver coins.

 

[sharpshooter]

I'm thinking it's just the sites you are hunting. Most silver dimes will read 12-45 or 12-46 on the E-Trac with an occasional 12-44 on a worn silver dime. Try this next time just as an experiment: Go to the Quick Mask screen and set your machine to accept any FE signal 14 and below and CO signal 30 and above and load those settings into Smartfind. Then, go hunt an old location like a park or schoolyard where old coins are likely to be found and don't dig anything that doesn't read at least 5 inches deep. Pass on the shallow 12-42 and 12-43 signals. Shallow 12-44 signals are likely clad dimes and shallow 12-46 readings are likely clad quarters. I always dig the 12-46 signals regardless of depth and have been pleasantly surprised to find a silver ring on occasion as they will get hung up in the sod and don't always sink like coins. Deep CO readings in the 30's may be a sleeping injun, so dig him out and wake him up. One of the most avid silver hunters on this forum said something once that I've always remembered. Sometimes he will hunt 45 minutes without digging a target. Think about that.....45 minutes! He's not after clad coins; they can be found lying in the Wal-Mart Parking lot!

 

[anabolicmonster]

Thanks for the advice. I went out today for a couple of hours found a bunch of pennies 1965 quarter and a dime, must be the locations, plus it was a little rainy today so it made things that much more difficult, do you guys discrim pull tabs and foil? I know nickles fall in the pull tab range sometimes anyway around that

 

[Crash620]

They were private property, and people were hunting without permission, so "someone" planted a penny bomb, scattering hundreds of pennies around. Imagine you are a property owner looking to rid yourself of a pesky detectorist. A $5.00 investment would yield a fair sized bomb. Just imagine what they could do with just $20.00...

Just a suggestion regarding Sharpshooters advice "Then, go hunt an old location like a park or schoolyard where old coins are likely to be found and don't dig anything that doesn't read at least 5 inches deep." I believe the theory is somewhat sound, but I would not resort to digging only deep signals until you have examined the site thoroughly. I have been to many sites and picked up very old coins less than 2" Just two weeks ago I was working a camp that was producing significant clad in the top 3". My thoughts were like sharpshooter, the good stuff must be deeper, but it was easy digging so I kept at it, and not 20' from where all the clad was, I began hitting wheats at 1-2". Farm sites are a completely different story. Good stuff can be 12" deep or sitting on the surface. The best advice is to know your site. The only way to do that is to dig anything that sounds good. Once you think you have a good feel for the type and depth of targets, then consider using SS's method.

 

[akelley]

Yes - it really does depend on the soil, so do test a few shallow holes first when going to a new site. I hunt mostly moderately mineralized, hardpan soil in San Francisco and my meter rarely reads anything deeper than 5"

-Alex

They were private property, and people were hunting without permission, so "someone" planted a penny bomb, scattering hundreds of pennies around. Imagine you are a property owner looking to rid yourself of a pesky detectorist. A $5.00 investment would yield a fair sized bomb. Just imagine what they could do with just $20.00...

Just a suggestion regarding Sharpshooters advice "Then, go hunt an old location like a park or schoolyard where old coins are likely to be found and don't dig anything that doesn't read at least 5 inches deep." I believe the theory is somewhat sound, but I would not resort to digging only deep signals until you have examined the site thoroughly. I have been to many sites and picked up very old coins less than 2" Just two weeks ago I was working a camp that was producing significant clad in the top 3". My thoughts were like sharpshooter, the good stuff must be deeper, but it was easy digging so I kept at it, and not 20' from where all the clad was, I began hitting wheats at 1-2". Farm sites are a completely different story. Good stuff can be 12" deep or sitting on the surface. The best advice is to know your site. The only way to do that is to dig anything that sounds good. Once you think you have a good feel for the type and depth of targets, then consider using SS's method.

 

[kered]

If you disc out foil and pulltabs you will disc out the majority of gold jewelry too, you never know where some might turn up, i did an experiment once when i first got the etrac, i selected reject on the pulltabs and foil and the cloud like shadow appeared, i then went to learn and with the smallest square proceded to pass some gold i had found with the explorer, by the time i finished not one dot of the pultab/foil shadow was left, it all fell in the pulltab/foil range, lesson learned.

 

[anabolicmonster]

yeah so today i went out for a couple more hours i tried andys coin program the things drove me nuts so i switched back to what im use too, guess what more pennies, so i figured it has to be the spot im searching going to find a new spot next week. anyone from nh hit me on pms

 

[Barry NY]

went out today too - old local school, second time using the e-trac and it's my first land machine - so lots of learning - using NiagraCtyNY's disc pattern and mode setup.
got lots of pennies too - all were in the low 40's...and a 1965 Q at 6" - was a 46-47...1 year too old
plus some junk including an old locker lock..
keep at it - takes time to learn..
do you have the probe with it? if not you must get the mounted X-1

 

[anabolicmonster]

what is the discrimiation pattern niagra ny uses i have the mode, i saw the you tube video but didnt see the discr. pattern do you have a link or can u post it here. yes i have the x1 i saves me a lot of time, its a must have for me!

 

[Elton]

n/t

 

[buckeyetreasurehunter]

First off - I would higly suggest using stock programs and unless your hunting a battle site or somewhere that might produce incredible relics I would suggest sticking with the coin and high trash programs. The E-trac works incredible and even has great "see through" capabilites with high discrimination. I have been hunting with the E-trac since early spring and I just recently started playing with the programs I run and I know guys who are using stock programs and are very succesfull, keep it simple until you are used to the machine.

Next suggestion, SWING SLOW if you are swinging to fast a deep silver coin might be a quick bleep but if you slow down you will pick it up better. Sometimes I swing faster now that I have many hours under my belt and can recognize those quick, faint bleeps and I know to slow down and investigate it but it has taken some time.

stick with stock programs, swing coil slow and coins 8 plus inches deep wont be a problem and you wont miss those great finds