E-Trac is not an Explorer. Enjoy your new machine.

[NH Bob]

Well, I've tried just about every setup you can do with the ET and have come to one conclusion.
If you want the ET to mimic the SE in the tone ID then you have to alter your mind set on the whole all metal thing.
I have it set up in quickmask ferrous 18 and conductive sounds. I have set my mind to the fact that this is the way I have o hunt and it's working out OK so far. With the Iron seethrough system that is Incorporated into the new machine.
Took it out today and am learning where things fall in the digital readout. With the discrimination at 18, I am still digging all good targets, below that is iron.
You just have to understand that it is not an Explorer. So stop complaining and start enjoying.
Quickmask 18
Conductive sounds
Deep on
Variability 25 - quarters and big coppers sound sweet.
Ground Difficult
Trash density high
Sens. auto +1
Read the manual again and read it like it's a new machine. It's NOT an Explorer.
Open your mind and enjoy something new.
[attachment 104681 EThunt.jpg]
[attachment 104682 EThunt1.jpg]

 

[DukeOBass]

n/t

 

[RONC(OR)]

Bob
I will try your setting tonight I went out last night for an hour. and found a merc next to a piece of iron I was hunting con 2 fe 22 manual sens 22 pitch hold- deep on variability max Tonight going to hunt in auto . My? is did you change your gain HH RonC

 

[jbow]

Today I was using relic mode, ferrous sounds, two tones, auto +3, difficult ground, high trash... and most of the time the sens was on 24. I didn't have a problem. Whenever I got a false it was quickly exposed by pinpointing in digital.

Once in the woods it was really stable. I only found three shotgun brasses but my friend found a couple of shot minnies. He was using my SE. I would check with the ET before he dug them and I was hitting them too. The ET pinpointed them better than the SE, it was spot on with bith position and depth.

For hunting lawns or parks I like coin mode or quickmask 25, conductive sounds, four tones or multi tones. I haven't used it much in a lawn or park yet, just about an hour yesterday. I found a 1919 wheat and a 1890 V nickel with those settings. Again, pinpoint and digital seems to expose iron for what it really is... iron, but when I switch back out of pinpoint it is once more an iffy TID.

I like the E-TRAC a lot. More every day... now I just need to move up to New England... you guys really are blessed with great sites.

J

 

[NH Bob]

No I did not change the gain.
I want to add that I was in multi tones and set the variability to sound the same as an explorer over a quarter. You gotta have a little SE in your ET.

 

[bfodnes]

Or even good old England....

They are really blessed,,,,,,,

 

[NH Bob]

The auto + 1-3 is a good feature. I just bump it up 1.
The manual recomends auto and not just for beginners.
I used to max my sens on the SE. But with the ET, I think I'm going to let it work the way it was designed to. And take it from there.

 

[DukeOBass]

n/t

 

[NH Bob]

You know me, can't keep my mouth shut most of the time anyway.
I'm sure i'll have more to say.

 

[John - Maryland]

n/t

 

[RONC(OR)]

n/t

 

[jeff & Maria]

Since we both have or had them it's a bit of an easier transition. Dontcha' think?

 

[Ray-Mo.]

I to used auto sens. at first but found the depth to be much better in manual and raised 8 to 10 numbers above auto in my soil and conditions.As a matter of fact depth was kinda pitiful in auto for me.I am curious to here if you or others gain much depth at your sites with higher sens.It may just be the soil I am in but I can run sens. maxed out most places and still run smooth and quiet.

 

[NH Bob]

That was one of the first things I thought of. I knew learning the basic coin digits was going to be a snap.
Today I was calling rifle casings before I dug them.

 

[digitrich]

I have got the tones and stuff worked out even picking up some tricks with it. But even with us having 4.5 inches of rain here yesterday, I am not getting coins deeper than 4 or 5 inches. The only stuff I am digging deeper is soda can tops which are hitting 12-40 and 12-42, and large iron relics, that come up about there as well. My coins have all been shallow. I was running auto, +2 and +3 today. Funny thing is, two days ago in the exact same spot, my auto sensitivity was running at 10 in auto +3, and after the rain It was hovering right around 20-23 in auto +3 Even with it running that high, I couldn't get any coins deeper than 4 inches today. My F-75 hit a civil war coat button and an Indian with the 3x5 coil at 6 inches and 7 inches in the same spot yesterday, in the rain, couldn't use the ETrac because I don't have a rain jacket and didn't want to tear it up. What kind of depth are you getting??

 

[NH Bob]

You know, it's strange you'd say the. I used to hunt my SE maxed out and lways thought I was getting the best depth that way.
Well after reading about the E Trac and the auto sens. I started thinking more on the sensitivity settings on all mchines. Sometimes what we do is not always the best thing to do. Even if we think it is. With the E Trac, you can bump up the auto sens higher than the machine suggests. This feature is easy to do and can be set so if the machine starts to false just bump it down one. The system is going to keep the sen. as high as programed of the soil conditions. You can tweak it higher. Too much mineralization will cause loss of depth with a high manual sens.

 

[NH Bob]

It's a little early to say but 2 things I did notice was, soda can tops come in just like a quarter.
The second thing is the depth gadge is screwy for the first half of it. Targets read deeper than they are. the gadge seems to corret itself as you reach the half way point.

 

[Jim upstate NY]

just different software.. still FBS and basically the same setup with some changes to how the signals are processed... .. like the explorer was not a sovereign, it was a whole different thing... BBS to FBS.. you couldn't even use the same coils

Just because the etrac has different Hardware circuitry, doesn't necessarily mean its different in the way it could be run, electronics improves gets smaller everyday, so what require three boards 8 years ago, can easily fit on one or two today.. you can run the same version of windows on more than one kind of PC and with more than one type of processor, the faster the processor the faster it should run in theory anyway..


If you mean it wasn't meant to be like the explorer than I agree with you, but the basics are in there, they could have kept an explorer ferrous ID and audio mode through the software, and still made the machine as different as it is with all its other settings and kept everyone happy, as it is indeed FBS technology.. otherwise what are you really getting for the extra dollars over the explorer? capability to download patterns that are more or less useless, as almost everything good pretty much falls in the same plane.. so 2 or 3 patterns would about cover it..

where some would need the extra patterns would be in a machine that reads the targets ferrousity like an explorer.. and if its unmasking capability is truly enhanced heck you could do an accept patten and actually only dig coins and get most of them in the trash as well..impossible to do with the etrac as there are too many trash targets overlapping into where coins fall

then they added the features we asked for in an improved explorer.. threshold volume changes, expanded ID capabilties, two pinpoint modes etc etc.. then they go and change the basic thing that makes FBS different than all the other ID machines out there.. why bother with the ferrous at all if most all the good stuff is gonna come in the same plane as most all the bad stuff?.. might as well have just put a big conductive number on the screen like the sovereign had and forget the ferrous number.. Why because they know that target masking is affected by the amount of ferrous and conductivity that are disced out.. but if you have to run with half the screen blacked out to run stable in iron they may as well just add the old fashioned disc knob you just turn up when it gets overwhelming.
.

Sorry but thats just how I feel about it.. I wouldn't be surprised if Minelab rethinks this and comes out with another etrac II. with the old ferrous type values and audio, that will just make me more upset as I have "upgraded" twice in the last two years already and each time the price gets higher.. I am sure my Explorer II was capable of finding anything I found with the SE or Etrac so far as well..

Please do the same test they did in that video.. do the reset and change nothing but putting it into relic mode and tell me you can repeat that response they got using real rusty nails.. then if you still have an explorer do the same test with same coil and put the explorer in at lowest setting iron mask in ferrous, see what one give best response and easiest to tell a coin.. Maybe I do have a faulty machine, because I can come no where close to what they showed in that video, or maybe my nails are just nastier

In any event I feel like that was a setup, they show a video of an explorer two weeks before the etrac announcement failing miserably even when inching the coil, then show us the etrac video whipping the coil like it was an old whites and hitting the coin every time.. magic of audio editing I guess.. I should have tested the explorer myself, and even known just from the amount of good targets retrieved in iron with them.. but they made it look like wow, if I can do this good with the explorer and the etrac can do that then just think of all the stuff I left behind!

There are those that shell out the cash and talk themselves into thinking somethings better to justify the cost to themselves, I am just not one of them.. Sure the Etrac is a fine machine, but if not better or give more info why does it cost more.. top of the line is usually considered best of breed

 

[jbow]

dependant on.... most good targets being around 12 on the ferrous scale. That would be my guess... then the machine can be told by the "zeros and the ones" to ignore targets that hit in other ferrous ranges and grab hold of targets in the 12 range. Maybe Explorer technology reached it's limit and this idea was a way to improve un-masking. If that is the case, and I think it is, then the two machines, the Explorer and the E-TRAC will truly complement each other rather than one replacing the other.

Like someone said... E-Trac is not an Explorer.

Just saying....

Julien

 

[NH Bob]

You take me too literally. But I wasn't talking about looks. I was talking about approaching this new machine with a different attitude. By not trying to compare the E Trac to the SE would make learning it a little easier. Subconsciously we know we have the advantage with explorer background.