Cinders and Hot Rocks effect on E-Trac Depth

[tippyhound]

I am a old school VLF Discriminator user. I hunt a old Court house lawn in my town and have every since the first VLF Discriminators came on the seen in the early 80's. Prior to these machines you just could not hunt this court house lawn as the cinders were so thick it created a virtual wall for the old TR detectors that could not be penetrated. These cinders are so thick you can see them laying right on top of the ground.

Once these machines came on the seen that lawn became silver city. The first summer alone produced over 300 silvers for me, plus hundreds of clad, new copper, Indian Heads, V and Buffalo Nickles, but even with these machines it was very hard to get any real depth, Most coins came from the 4 to 5 inch depths. The two deepest coins I found was a 1877 and 1853 Seated half dollars at about 10", both found the same day and both produced very poor and broken signals.

This court house lawn dates to 1853 and has had three court houses built on it. I know there are more seated coins there but we just don't seem to be getting down to them. I had high hopes the E-Trac would be my answer there but after two trips up there I have not had one signal at a depth of more then 4 inch's. There is a lot of trash as can be expected with that many years of use. My experience with the E-Trac is it will work thru that trash very effectively, but I just don't seem to be getting past the trash and cinders.

Unlike the older VLF detectors that had the ability to manually ground balance out the effects of the cinders the E-Trac doesn't have that option. Is the E-Trac working through those cinders? The machine seems to be operating smoothly, but I am noticing the Target ID is not all that accurate. Is this a effect of the cinders, and is the cinders hindering my ability to get to the deeper coins?

I could sure use some input on this subject. Some of you more experienced operaters might be of some help here. Your input would be much appreciated. Rick IL

 

[tippyhound]

Since I received no advice from the forum (I guess no one knew the answer) I contacted Minelab via a Email 10/30/2011 with my question on the Cinders effect on the E-Trac. Received a answer 11/1/2011 via a E-mail from Keven Hoagland with some good advice about manual sensitivity settings to over come my problems. We are supposed to be getting a good rain tonight. Will try out his suggestions on Friday. Rick IL.

 

[NebTrac]

Hey Rick,

I wouldn't mind seeing what they suggested to you, or at least a paraphrase of it. Other than going to "difficult" and turning up the sensitivity, I really couldn't see any other way to alleviate the problem. I do know I can go from 20's to around 10-13 when I run into cinder paths or the spot they unloaded the coil into the chute, at "long gone" schools.

Thanks,

NebTrac

 

[stasys]

You need to try use manual noise cancel where is 11 different channels, from my detecting experience 1 and 11 channels are different, try them. second use ground difficult, Gain max 30, sounds Long, sensitivity manual --stable, can be 18 -25, but try to avoid to high sensitivities in detecting, at least you know where should be more. one more ways is Tone 1, you will hear all targets the same, but detector will be more stable and you will get more depth. just in this case you have to look screen. use less discrimination or dont use at all, switch to TTF. try another coil, because some coils are more hot tuned and can give allot signal on hot rocks, this is can be with Pro coil, use old 1050 usually they are less hot if you will get one right.

 

[tippyhound]

Tried to find a way to upload the E-mail to put it on the forum and could not figure it out. I'm not the best when it comes to computers.

I will tell you this a lot of what he had to say had to do with using sensitivity to your best advantage, and how to set the sensitivity to make the machine run the smoothest and get the best depth.

The E-trac was running smooth up on the old court house lawn. I was running Auto+3 and ground at difficult was showing a very low sensitivity reading, in the 12 to 13 range. The I. D. readings were jumping all over the place and I was getting very poor depth. His suggestions was to go to manual sensitivity and to set the sensitivity even lower to smooth it out and get better depth. I'm not sure how this will work but I will set my machine up exactly as he suggested and will see how I do. Will let you know how I do. Rick IL

 

[Ray-Mo.]

Very interesting.Perhaps you could bury a couple of coins next time you are in the cinders and experiment to find what works best.I do know if I run less than 15 manual sens. I start loosing quite a bit of depth at most of my sites. I think if you run very open TTF you may get a lot of falses from the cinders if they are like the ones at one of my old sites.Not all cinders are the same either so experimenting will be your best bet......

 

[EtracTom-AdirondacksNY]

In AUTO you have the ability with the 4 arrows ( the up and down arrows) on the face of the E-Trac to lower the AUTO sensitivity too did you know. We all set it at +3 to get the most sensitivity out of it and then we forget about it but try no +1,2,3 at all and you may have to go - 1 or -2 or -3 also to get the best out of it try that maybe before going to manual as Auto runs smoother. Also you have ground set at difficult but do you have trash set to high also? It may cut down on the false hits from the cinders. I run mine that way all the time, was info in Andy's book.

 

[ryanchappell]

I am a old school VLF Discriminator user. I hunt a old Court house lawn in my town and have every since the first VLF Discriminators came on the seen in the early 80's. Prior to these machines you just could not hunt this court house lawn as the cinders were so thick it created a virtual wall for the old TR detectors that could not be penetrated. These cinders are so thick you can see them laying right on top of the ground. Rick IL

The E-trac advantage isn't quite as clear when the conditions get like this. I long for manual control especially, individual frequency sensitivities, or something to experiment with. I live in central Alabama and we have plenty of cinders, which is an older term for slag from a metal furnace, but most of the soil in the older areas where I reside, is just about as bad because it surrounds the mountain famous for its iron ore veins.

Lately I have been pushing manual sens up to the mid 20s in our bad soil, despite auto sens hanging out between 13-21 and using only an iron mask pattern. Also some TTF. When I hit a bad cinder area I go to an auto sens +3, or lower, until I get a stable signal and NC. I try to remember the NC channels and form opinions on their usefulness, but have not ascertained a lot from it yet. I have found 11 silver coins, in 6 months and attribute the low numbers to a 30 year old active MD club in the area, historic poverty, and depth limited to 3-5 inches in this area.

The Auto sens is preferable since it juggles frequency sensitivities or something to stay stable, but I often find that I can do better with manual turned up into the mid 20s. Too bad they don't have an auto sens +6 or something, or at least allow you to make it hot, and turn it down.

I still have no evidence that the E-Trac is not the best detector for my situation, but am open. I am really enjoying the see through.

 

[tippyhound]

Since I received no advice from the forum (I guess no one knew the answer) I contacted Minelab via a Email 10/30/2011 with my question on the Cinders effect on the E-Trac. Received a answer 11/1/2011 via a E-mail from Keven Hoagland with some good advice about manual sensitivity settings to over come my problems. We are supposed to be getting a good rain tonight. Will try out his suggestions on Friday. Rick IL.

I have been slow to get back on this subject as our rain fall in this area has been very sparse, and we have a grounds keeper up there on the Court House Lawn that has been standing right over the top of us looking for a reason to get us kicked off the grounds.

I have tried all my coils up there (Pro Coil, SEF 8x6, and Sun Ray X-5) , I have tried lowering my sensitivity as Keven Hoagland suggested, I have operated in Auto +3, I have set it on manual and pumped it up as much as I could stand with all the cinders and hot rocks up there, but try as I might I just can't get a target over 3" deep. I know they are there as I have in past years done very well up there. My hope has been to get down to some of those seated coins I know exist as the grounds goes back to 1853, and I have in years past found two seated halves dated 1853, and 1877, but no matter how slow I work, I just can't get through the junk and down to those deep seated I know are there.

Maybe they have all been found, but I very much doubt it. We have a local park just a few blocks away that has been hunted literally to death, and using the Sun Ray X-5 I have been consistently finding old coins, If I can get them there I should be getting them up on the square. I'm not going to call it a dead horse yet. Maybe better luck next spring if we get more rain. Rick IL.

 

[Prep1957]

I hunt a gravel pit with nice beach been around since 1880 pit was used for ice harvest for Chicago.I could never hunt this pit for 30 years due to iron rock and cinders even with Etrac and Safari but the beach was fine.While hunting the beach one day I put on 6X8 for better water control and pinpointing.Just for the heck of it I went to the bad ground and starting finding a lot of coins with 6x8 with sensitivity turned down but no deeper than 4 or 5 inches but I was happy with that.Most of coins that I found were 1940 and up but a lot were silver quarters.I know there are a lot of older coins still left will have to wait for better detector to come out.I bought an X-5 but did not get chance to try out yet still in box.

 

[ryanchappell]

Since I received no advice from the forum (I guess no one knew the answer) I contacted Minelab via a Email 10/30/2011 with my question on the Cinders effect on the E-Trac. Received a answer 11/1/2011 via a E-mail from Keven Hoagland with some good advice about manual sensitivity settings to over come my problems. We are supposed to be getting a good rain tonight. Will try out his suggestions on Friday. Rick IL.

Please try copying and pasting the e-mail into a post on this thread. To copy and paste, you select the text in the e-mail by clicking and holding the left mouse button with the mouse pointer at the beginning of the e-mail and dragging the mouse pointer to the bottom of the e-mail. Once the text is highlighted you can release mouse button and right click the highlighted text and choose copy from the context menu that appears. Choose reply in this thread and right click in the box for entering forum post text and select paste.

Alternatively you could click in the e-mail text and press "Ctrl" and "A" at the same time, that should highlight the entire text. Then "Ctrl" and "C" to copy this text. Open a reply in this thread and press "Ctrl" and "V" at the same time to paste that text into a window. You will need to proof read the text and might have to align it manually or remove extra unwanted text that was copied.

Most of the soil in my city is like the cinder soil in your town square, but that way because it is near a mountain with vast resources of iron ore. I have been trying to get more than 2-3 inches at most of my sites for over a year now, and either got the cricket response in this forum like you did, or people telling me that I am a newbie and doing it wrong because they can find a dime easy in their midwest cake soil at 9 inches.

Sounds reasonable to try the finesse techniques that the minelab email suggest with low power.

 

[ryanchappell]

You need to try use manual noise cancel where is 11 different channels, from my detecting experience 1 and 11 channels are different, try them.

What does that mean? I think there are some typos. My interpretation, correct me if I am wrong, "You need to try manual NC. From my experience channel 1 and channel 11 are different, try them."

How are they different? I can't remember 1 ever coming up after auto NCing. I do think 11 comes up once in a while. Maybe they are more lopsided to high and low frequencies respectively?

second use ground difficult, Gain max 30, sounds Long, sensitivity manual --stable, can be 18 -25, but try to avoid to high sensitivities in detecting, at least you know where should be more. one more ways is Tone 1, you will hear all targets the same, but detector will be more stable and you will get more depth. just in this case you have to look screen. use less discrimination or dont use at all, switch to TTF. try another coil, because some coils are more hot tuned and can give allot signal on hot rocks, this is can be with Pro coil, use old 1050 usually they are less hot if you will get one right.

Sounds long might be kind of noisy in extreme junk right. I think I will try it these settings...

I might just have to pick messy but prime spot and scrap 5-8 inches off the top, a yard at a time, when no one is looking. This could be in a messy area in one of my parks in the bushes along an edge where no one would notice. I dream about running such dirt through a modified gold sluice box. They are building 10-15 story hospitals left and right where I work on top of city blocks where Victorian houses once stood, that were torn down to build ugly commercial buildings, and now the hospitals. They truck off dump trucks full of rich black soil and fill around the site in gravel or clay soil. I wish I could run dump truck loads of that stuff though a gold wash plant...

 

[nge]

Have you tried a "Gold machine" in the area? Such as the GPX 4 or 5,000, sure, they cost big bucks, but they should get you a heckuva lot more depth. Heck your area sounds like " The Gold Fields of Australia " littered with black sand and iron trash. Just my observations and opinions............NGE

 

[ryanchappell]

Have you tried a "Gold machine" in the area? Such as the GPX 4 or 5,000, sure, they cost big bucks, but they should get you a heckuva lot more depth. Heck your area sounds like " The Gold Fields of Australia " littered with black sand and iron trash. Just my observations and opinions............NGE

A relic hunter in Tennessee suggested that on this forum. Would it work in a park like the OP and I hunt? I also hunt old apartment buildings and sidewalk strips. Seem like there are nails every 6 inches, and aluminum junk every 18 inches, in addition to the bad soil, so one would just try to find small deep targets with a GPX?

 

[nge]

it was just a suggestion, trying to keep this a Minelab forum. ( Sorry Minelab ) how about trying a Fisher Gold Bug, a much much cheaper alternative. I would not buy such a machine, because my hunt areas and my state do not experience black sand, nor cinders in quantities as yours does. I have run into occaisional paths filled with cinders, but I was using a different machine and had no problems other than the occaisional "clinker". Because of the steel mills in my state, they used crushed slag to fill a lot of low lying city and county land, the Minelabs punch right through that crap, hence, no need for a gold machine........NGE

 

[tippyhound]

I don't know how this will come out, but it's the best I have been able to get a copy of Keven Hoaglands E-Mail.

Thank you all for your come backs on my post. I am not ready to give up on the E-Trac up there. I have seen this machine get some fantastic depth on coins, but this is the worst conditions I have to date put it in. All my previous attempts up there have been with manual ground balance adjust machines, but even with them any really deep finds have been few and far between. The two seated halves I found up there was 8 to 10 inch's and were very poor signals.

Thanks again Rick IL.

 

[nge]

Tippy, I saved (save as) this to my pictures folder, then went there and enlarged the picture of the email and read it much easier. In effect he said; run your machine in manual then hold your coil about an inch above the ground and do a ground balance, if your thresh hold is a little erratic, then adjust your sensitivity until it stabilizes.......NGE

 

[jbow]

I hunted a yard once that was full of cinder, the soil was black and our soil is red clay. I used every detector I had and couldn't find anything. I finally took my Lesche and inserted it at an angle to about 5". Three "slots". I dropped a nickel in one, a quarter in one, and a penny in one. The nickel and the penny completely disappeared to every machine I had and I had all of them with me, several brands and several models of several brands. The quarter was slightly detectable to some machines but I never would have found it had I not known where it was.
I am sure that yard is full of goodies, it is in an AWESOME place and should be loaded with CW relics. Perhaps a TDI would work there but those cinders defeated every VLF machine I had.

Good luck with them...

Julien

 

[EtracTom-AdirondacksNY]

Now that you have tried almost all the settings on the machine I think it's time to try a very small coil out. I think that you will have better luck with a smaller coil as remember the coil and machine is seeing and sampling an LOT of EARTH under it all at the same time so with all those cinders and hot rocks in the ground it's difficult to do.
Think I read on here smoeone who is a real math wiz stated it's equivallent to a 5 gallon bucket of dirt it's trying to process all at once with the standard stock sized coils.
With a smaller coil like the Sunray X 5 you will still get the depth as noted by people who use it but with far less objects under the coil at one time to process it should be able to SEE some of those coins.

I have and many others report being able to run with higher sensitivity using the smaller coils too. I used a 6x8 Sef coil last time out and only got about 15-17 in Auto+3 so switched to manual and was able to run it from 25 all the way up to 30 maxed out and it worked fine.

 

[tippyhound]

Now that you have tried almost all the settings on the machine I think it's time to try a very small coil out. I think that you will have better luck with a smaller coil as remember the coil and machine is seeing and sampling an LOT of EARTH under it all at the same time so with all those cinders and hot rocks in the ground it's difficult to do.
Think I read on here smoeone who is a real math wiz stated it's equivallent to a 5 gallon bucket of dirt it's trying to process all at once with the standard stock sized coils.
With a smaller coil like the Sunray X 5 you will still get the depth as noted by people who use it but with far less objects under the coil at one time to process it should be able to SEE some of those coins.

I have and many others report being able to run with higher sensitivity using the smaller coils too. I used a 6x8 Sef coil last time out and only got about 15-17 in Auto+3 so switched to manual and was able to run it from 25 all the way up to 30 maxed out and it worked fine.

Hi - E-trac Tom in my other posts I mentioned I have used my SEF 8x6 coil and my Sun Ray X-5. I have lowered my sensitivity and also ran it in Auto + 3, I also switched over to manual and ran it up to 25. So far I haven't been able to Punch throw this highly generalized soil. I haven't given up on it yet, I will continue to try different setting to see if I can get down to those coins I know are there. Rick IL.