Can someone explain why glancing at the meter is out of the question?

[Andy Sabisch]

If you run All White (All Metal) and Ferrous tones, you hear iron as a low tone and the good stuff as a clearly different, higher tone. So, while you can not differentiate a nickel from a dime from a bullet by the audio alone, all you have to do is move your eyes slightly and glance at the meter to see what the Digital value and SmartFind cursor location is. I spent close to 2 hours in an iron-infested site testing patterns and All Metal yesterday evening here in Tennesee on a business trip and found it quite easy to distingush the good signals from the "low growls" of iron . . . . not sure I would care to hunt that way in many areas due to the incessant noise especially with the E-Trac's see-through capabilities but it can be used it you are so inclined. It does require some slight eye movement to look at the screen but only if you HEAR a good tone . . . . . so I guess the question again is how is this different than hunting in Ferrous on the Explorer other than having to GLANCE at the screen to ID targets that are not iron?

I will be taking some people out Civil War relic hunting with a pair of E-Trac's this weekend in Atlanta and they are seasoned Explorer users that also hunt wide open in Ferrous audio - I am interested to get their read on using the E-Trac setup as they are used to hunting with it.

As many have said, "The E-Trac is NOT (repeat NOT) your Explorer" and one needs to either go into it with an open mind to find a way to get it to do what you want it to (much the way we all did when the 1st Explorer came out . . .or have we forgotten that fire storm comparing the Explorer to the Sovereign) or if that is not an option, stick with what is working for you now - the Explorer - and know you are still finding more than anyone other than possibly an E-Trac user.

Interested to see what perspectives there are on this . . . . . . and preferrably from those that have used the E-Trac in iron-rich sites rather than simply reading over the manual and staking out a position based on what others have posted.

I posted this as a response to a previous post but wanted to allow others that had not followed that threads to chime in . . . and let's try to keep the reponses out of the ditches and away from the "flaming" that seems to be more and more the norm.

Andy Sabisch

 

[john316mole]

I have an E-Trac coming tomorrow. I have a site a few miles from my home that is iron infested that has relics from mid 1800's. If its not iron, then it is a good relic....no modern trash at all. I have taken in the last year over 1000 good relics and 5 old coins from this place using Explorer Se, CZ3D, CZ21, Sovereign(Mod by Dixie), F-75. All found targets, but some are much better than others in this environment. Presently using mod Sov as my best unit to produce now. I will post my findings and comparision after using it there for awhile .CZ3D and Mod Sov are the only units I now own.

Brad Heath

 

[jbow]

Now, since they do not have everything linear. I am hoping that, while coins and minnies fall around 12 ferrous, maybe pulltabs and screwcaps fall somewhere else in either cond or ferrous so that I can quickly see what they probably are and disc them out if I want to. I know that I will be using some disc all the time so that I can take advantage of the Trash Density settings. I don't think anyone is going to hunt this machine in true AM mode. You would lose too much of the capability of the machine. I can't wait... i'm sitting by the door!!

I'll let you know how it goes today... in the square nails, iron bits, hot rocks, and ore... with the occasional bullet and button. Going to trry to fing the round plate that must have been with the box plate I found. No other machine has been able to find it, the box plate was over a foot deet under roots.... maybe something else is there...

I feel like Jack waiting for the magic beans.... (no giants please).

Julien

 

[Jim upstate NY]

with little modern trash no need to, and probably no need to with the etrac I wouldnt think.. My biggest problem with the screen is being able to even see where it is reading in a field in full sun forget it, you almost have to rely on tones..

I like running wide open, with 1 notch of iron mask just to knock out most nails and the monotony of the iron going off, then digging by audio.. the main reason of being wide open is to prevent any masking or averaging of targets. if your masking out pulltabs then a coin near them will generally read lower and maybe enough to knock it out or cause a response that sounds like a false.. this way I can hear the higher tone of the coin coming through and work the target to correct reading.. by taking away the different tones or making them all read the same, you are now forced to memorize each targets reading or place on the smart screen as well as stop to check the meter each time.. where on the explorer hunting in a modern trash filled area, the only coins you needed to worry about reading with same tone as tabs etc were maybe indians and nickels and some other odd ball coins... you could still hunt silver and large cents etc and ignore all other targets even with a wide open screen and not worry about masking or even looking at the screen except to verify bottle caps, as they read with high tone, but those you can even safely disc out even as well as very little reads there in that area thats any good, if anything at all.. and at the same time even get indians and nickels because of teh smooth tone.. hopefully they ept that, where shotgun shells and tabs generally sound warbly and the coins hit solid toned.

Dont get me wrong you can hunt in modern trash with a pretty tight pattern and still get most of the stuff but you better be going super slow, if we need to do this on the etrac, then the faster processor may be a mute point. but you add lots of iron in and you better not be masking too much of it or you will not hit on the good stuff.. the coin pattern on the etrac sure looks like it knocks out lots of iron.

we may be able to mimic a iron mask pattern and use conductive as long as its not letting too much iron to false on..but if you have to bump it way up, there goes the purpose again

But now with the trash and most all coins reading the same ferrous range then its going to be the same tone.. forcing you to conductive to rely on audio , and that also means high falsing and tones from iron...or check the meter on every hit.. and if its near the explorer on locking in you can mess with a target quite a while for that truest reading.. and hope the sun isnt out.. maybe you can see the screen in the sun.. will find that out soon also

Maybe this etrac will be not masking targets and will be fast enough to use a pattern and not miss anything, but I kind of doubt it... I got mine in today.. dont know when I will get out with it, but will be testing it out soon.. looks nice though and it powered up OK...

 

[digitrich]

your question could be rephrased: "Can someone explain why driving the fastest car in the world and never taking it out of 1st gear might be a bad choice while racing in the Grand Prix?" Mine Lab boo-booed... big, on this one. The screen still hangs, the iron now falses through and beyond where coins typically register, ferrous 1-12, the top right quarter of the screen. There flat out is no way to hunt effectively with this machine in all metal in a typical site. The two choices for hunting all metal are: In conduct tones where nails tone in high. Or Ferrous tones where all desirable targets give the same tone including nails falsing. And no, looking at a screen is no way more effective than listening to tones and never will be. Which leads one to the conclusion that this is not an all metal machine and not even a nearly all metal machine. Mine Lab has specifically stated, just as every other manufacture of metal detectors across the globe has as well: "all metal detecting is the deepest search method available and the less discrimination used, the better, that using discrimination may make you miss good targets" and then they put out a machine that utterly requires some form of discrimination to hunt??? And they are planning to sell this machine to a mass following of hunters who are used to hunting in all or nearly all metal?? I am beyond disappointment. Bloody amazed would be more accurate. As one Explorer lover to another, who should we send the hate mail to? The things I have stated in this post are actual observations of using my ETrac with the discrimination now required and having small iron falsing higher than it used to, Closer to coins in a screen that's nearly twice as long?????????????., then again with the ETrac in all metal, staring at the screen; and then yet once more using my SE on the same ground in all metal, ferrous tones, with the very same coil (Pro 11); the results broke my heart and dashed all my hopes. I was really hoping for different results, everything in me wants this machine to be better than my last one, don't forget that, this isn't a ML bash parade, I want my ETrac, but I want it to have an all metal ability, otherwise, I can and any other good hunter could find more with an SE. That is the results that I have seen so far. IMHO Sorry.

 

[big-ears]

like your standing behind the detector? A meter that is pointed toward your face would help out the reflection problem. I am right handed and hunt that way, but the meter is pointed like I am behind the detector instead of it off to my right side. If the control box could be pivoted toward me to my liking would be a simple but effective fix for some of the problem. Just a thought. By the way this is not an offer, an offer to, neither a solicitation or reference to any person, or persons who metal detect, relic hunt or try the new e-trac just cause they want to............ah sorry

 

[dreamweaver43]

Andy,

Do you believe the etrac has better see-thru ability, compare to the explorer series? And if so, how is that, considering the machine is still using the same technology (28FBS) as the explorer series. I understand it as the etrac is analzing the same data, just at faster speed compare to the SE. Is that a correct assumption??

Brad

 

[Hungry]

Reading these posts makes me wonder how much people are missing if they go by the numbers, particularly if they contain FE numbers, I ignore them. I use my SE about 30 hrs a week. If I went by the Numbers, I would loose about 50% of my coins. The $1-$2 coins in Australia come in at 06-27 and 07-26 ideally.but I get them at 02-08 right down to 30-31. 30-31 comes up very often , so I tend to just go by ear. I seem to have developed a six sense when it comes to detecting,I can't explain it.I just use the KOSS headphones and the coins come in loud and clear, and I have what they call PROFOUND HEARING LOSS, I need headphones to hear the TV, and can not hear the phone ring , but can talk on it. My wife says it's selective hearing loss, LOL

When I see how much credence is given to the numbers, everyone wanting charts and such , I just wonder,as when I started off with the SE, that's what I was doing,It nearly drove me mad for 6 months, I was going to smash it to bits every day I came home. It was a big leap from my Sovereign Elite, and so were the sounds. I read about detecting in FE sounds, but that was not for me, so I have always detected in Conductive and learnt not to trust the Numbers at all, Maybe they need to add in a 3rd set of numbers for metal density before you get any accuracy , I do think that everyone needs to cool down and just use this new device and see how it performs, and in what manner. I know it must be a culture shock for the blokes who have detected in FE mode, as it was for me coming from a Sovereign, but it is a new detector, and needs to be appraised as such. I hope the ET is advanced as they say it is, and it is worthwhile looking at the screen numbers, but I feel that if I go by the Numbers I will still loose a lot of coins, I have to wait 2 weeks before I get my ET, so time will tell. HH. Bob

 

[Ray-Mo.]

I went out tonite and hunted open screen all metal in ferrous and found you can really pick the good stuff out of heavy trash as long as you have patience and watch the numbers.You do have to go slow and wait on the digital to catch up but it is very accurate and you can find coins in the middle of heavy trash.With the little 4-1/2" X 7" excelerator it was even more precise in picking out the good signals,downright surgical.
But be ready to get blasted with an almost overwhelming amount of signals.I was able to pick out 6 wheats,one 1885 Indian and a 1916S Mercury dime in 2 hours at a very small part of a park that most people give up on because of the massive amount of trash next to the spring.It is the same old park that a group from this forum hit when the Guvenor had the get together a couple of years or so back at Stockton MO.
A person will have to realize it is not the same as an Explorer in ferrous and try it with an open mind or just give it up and move on.All the wishing in the world won't change the machine but if you look for positive improvements over Explorers you can find many and take advantage with good results.At least I have and I am just getting started,Ray.

 

[jimpugh]

n/t

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

It appears minelab dumbed down the best feature of the explorer family with the E-trac. I have a F-75 and don't use it nearly as much as my XS because of this feature. The F-75 is much faster (that has turned out to be a much smaller benefit than I originally anticipated, suspect that may be true with the E-trac unless it gets the display speed up to same speed as audio), but by and large it seems to be able to detect most everything the XS can and vice verse.

But.....

In the trashy areas where we all hunt both machines will give a widely varying signal from sweep to sweep over the target and as one circles the target. With the F-75 single axis of display I will see one number jumping about, perhaps from iron to pulltab to coin. It could be anything. With the explorer if I see the display jumping in a certain pattern up and down as well as across I have a much better idea of what is in the ground. i.e. coins buried with iron can give an high sound despite the fact that smartfind icon is displaying well to the left of the screen. If the icon at the top of screen but even a little ways to the right it is worth investigating, if it bounces from extreme upper left to extreme right but a bit lower from the top more likely iron falsing.

It looks like the E-trac has most of the coins and trash mapped to a very narrow band of the display, thus making it almost a single axis display machine.

There are quite a few of us who run our machines with minimal discrimination. Most of us have arrived there on our own after trying the discrimination patterns and finding them lacking. The basic reason, though hard to explain, is that wide open the machine gives us lots of information. First audio, and if it sounds good then take the time watch the 2 axis smart screen. When you start mapping various sounds and target IDs to the same sounds/area of the screen you are losing information. Much like using discrimination and only having a null instead of a sound is losing information.

The fact that it is almost impossible to explain all the subtleties of listening to the explorer sounds makes it very difficult for anyone to write an algorithim that would duplicate what we are doing in our brains when we listen to all the chatter. Computers, even fast ones are years from being able to do many tasks, this is probably just another example.

I would think Minelab probably did quite a programming effort to do the audio and display mapping they did on the E-trac. I'm sure it would be a pretty easy job to undo it or at least make unmapped an running option.

Alot of the other features sound like improvements.

Chris

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

It appears minelab dumbed down the best part of the explorer family with the E-trac. I have a F-75 and don't use it nearly as much as my XS because of the lack of 2D display. The F-75 is much faster (that has turned out to be a much smaller benefit than I originally anticipated, suspect that may be true with the E-trac unless it gets the display speed up to same speed as audio), but by and large it seems to be able to detect most everything the XS can and vice verse.

But.....

In the trashy areas where we all hunt both machines will give a widely varying signal from sweep to sweep over the target and as one circles the target. With the F-75 single axis of display I will see one number jumping about, perhaps from iron to pulltab to coin. It could be anything. With the explorer if I see the display jumping in a certain pattern up and down as well as across I have a much better idea of what is in the ground. i.e. coins buried with iron can give an high sound despite the fact that smartfind icon is displaying well to the left of the screen. If the icon at the top of screen but even a little ways to the right it is worth investigating, if it bounces from extreme upper left to extreme right but a bit lower from the top more likely iron falsing.

It looks like the E-trac has most of the coins and trash mapped to a very narrow band of the display, thus making it almost a single axis display machine.

There are quite a few of us who run our machines with minimal discrimination. Most of us have arrived there on our own after trying the discrimination patterns and finding them lacking. The basic reason, though hard to explain, is that wide open the machine gives us lots of information. First audio, and if it sounds good then take the time watch the 2 axis smart screen. When you start mapping various sounds and target IDs to the same sounds/area of the screen you are losing information. Much like using discrimination and only having a null instead of a sound is losing information.

The fact that it is almost impossible to explain all the subtleties of listening to the explorer sounds makes it very difficult for anyone to write an algorithm that would duplicate what we are doing in our brains when we listen to all the chatter. Computers, even fast ones are years from being able to do many tasks, this is probably just another example.

I would think Mine lab probably did quite a programming effort to do the audio and display mapping they did on the E-trac. I'm sure it would be a pretty easy job to undo it or at least make unmapped an running option.

Alot of the other features sound like improvements.

Chris

 

[digitrich]

with the exact same coil, the 4.5/7 Excel. I put it on fast, high trash, difficult ground, auto +1-+3, and even manual 20, eventually settled on audio long, and yes I found some stuff between the trash, Two copper pennies, 72 and 69 and one clad dime; but none of it was deeper than 4 inches except 2 soda cans, three tin lids, and about 4 large nails at 5-6 inches deep that were large about 5inches long. It didn't bother me that the tones came in the same at the ferrous 12 line, what bothered me was that it kept giving me repeating 12-40 numbers that ended up being small nails and after I took them out of the hole and rescanned, I got no more signals. I don't know what the deal is with the 1-30, 1-31, 1-32 etc. to the 1-40 line but nails hit there and I am not talking once, I am talking 50-60 times in an hour and a half, giving a false high tone in ferrous and also a false high tone in conduct tones and after I disc out the whole darn line, it still did it, one line lower at 2-35 and 2-36. My SE on the same ground with the same coil, pulled 4 Indians and a seated dime in 35 minutes, 1 was 6 inches deep and I had been scanning that same spot (about a 15' by15' area of a grand stand) for at least an hour and a half with the Etrac. My SE, I was running at manual 26, STABLE, the ETrac in auto +3, ran itself several times at a sens of 10, which means if I didn't have it in A+3 it would have been running at 7. Come to think of it, I had no finds whatsoever in auto sens on the ETrac in that hunt and they all came in while I was in manual sens. Now my SE falsed out high tones in conduct IM 27-28 when I used to use it prior to ferrous; BUT the cursor never was on the right side of the screen at the same time for a nail, maybe a real large piece of iron, but a small nail, never. My ETrac is giving me high tones in Conduct and ferrous tones with the cursor landing in coin range for a nail, not a piece of large iron falsing, but an actual, small nail. I called ML and I told them about the ETrac auto sens dropping to ten at ALL 4 sites I've hunted with it and they told me that was normal and also the nails falsing above coins: normal. They told me "it is not an Explorer", and you know they're right, it's not an Explorer, the reason it's not as heavy as the SE is because they took every number off the screen but the number 12, and while they were at it; they took out the low ferrous tones, no wonder it doesn't weigh as much. What gets me is, why my SE is handling the soil better than my ETrac? When I put it manual sens in that situation and push it, the tones clipped worse than an F75 to the point I had to move to audio long, and that's some chopped spinach there. The last thing that I haven't tried is to turn my gain down much lower while I up my sensitivity, maybe a gain of 22-24 is too much for it in real dense trash, I don't know, but I am beginning to wonder if I am wasting my time. If I find a coin on edge in that 1-35 1-36 range, that would mean I would have to dig 30 to 40 false nails for a coin, may as well be using a PI.

 

[Andy Sabisch]

The entire algorithim that the E-Trac uses to process signals was rewritten from the Explorer hence the remapping and functions such as GROUND and TRASH DENSITY. The machine does have better see-thru capabilities than the Explorer . . . . . I have seen the reports where people are saying that this is not the case but a number of people have seen it and it does take some time to get the hang of the unit. If you think back to the Explorer, how long did it take to really MASTER that unit . . . . . .and again, this is NOT an Explorer despite the same color, shape and close name (E-Trac vs. somethning else).

 

[Andy Sabisch]

I am not taking Minelab's position on comments such as this - when the project was underway, we raised this very early on (that the angle was not optimized for viewing) but as you can see, some things were heard but teh direction had already been deceided. Yes, there is a bit of an issue related to the angle of the housing . . . . . . and yet another point worth forwarding to Minelab for future consideration.

 

[Ray-Mo.]

Your dirt must be a lot worse than mine and that may be part of the problem .In auto mine seems to run 18 to 22 .I may get time this evening to try at a 140 year old stone school house that has a lot of coal cinders on one side .My hopes are not to high,Ray.

 

[NH Bob]

You all know I'm a die hard all metal and tone hunter.
I even through a few pennies out to insure a true coin hit. After working in all metal and ferrous sounds, I edited the screen to ferrous 20 splitting the screen horizontally and conductive sounds. Raised the variability to max and tried that. Way too much nulling. But the tones were there.
I tried all kinds of options, some helped smooth out the choppy tones. Seems the Explorer had softer tones.
What I finally came up with that I can live with is. Clear screen, Ferrous sounds, Variability max, Deep on, Manual sens., and 2 tones. Yup. 2 tones. In multi tone you have a harder time catching that one tone that says F12coin. In 2 tones, the constant drone of iron is dominant as with the Explorer. And when the second distinctively higher tone jumps in, you are instantly alerted without straining to hear a certain tone.

 

[NH Bob]

I've only found one way to hunt all metal and thats going to take some getting used to.
See my earlier post in this topic.

 

[mattockman]

n/t

 

[Andy Sabisch]

n/t