im still new to the etrac i got out yesterday for about a hour i was hunting the oldest baseball park in town that has been pounded to death and did manege to get a few coins the deepest was a wheat at 7 to 8 inches i was running in my mode 3 with just the bottom 20 percent of the screen blacked out and digging just about everthing that gave good tones with deep on, fast off, trash low, sense manual at 25 thought i would ask if there is other settings that i should use to get the best depth thanks hh
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how to get the best depth with the etrac
- Thread starter ez4sure
- Start date
Southwind
Well-known member
Really hard to say without hunting the site myself. My suggestion would be a a new site, new to the E-Trac, to run in Auto +3 and listen for the threshold to null a lot indicating high iron. Be sure to Noise Cancel and if you've cleaned out the shallow stuff and only the deep stiff is left listen for the THUG. Often really deep stuff on the detecting edge with give a broken chirps with THUG on the end.
It could also be nothing is there. Me and my buddies clean out an old carnival ground and our city park with our DFX's. We were able to go back with the E-Tracs to the city park and find a lot of nice keepers out of the range of the DFX, but we've been back many times to the old carnival grounds with our E-Tracs and found not a single missed coin.
It could also be nothing is there. Me and my buddies clean out an old carnival ground and our city park with our DFX's. We were able to go back with the E-Tracs to the city park and find a lot of nice keepers out of the range of the DFX, but we've been back many times to the old carnival grounds with our E-Tracs and found not a single missed coin.
My personal best is 11 inch IH. The tone caught my attention and its consistency, Fe numbers were up in the 20's, like 23-34 and such. My advice it to plant coins at different depths and play with your swing speed. That will go a long ways in optimizing your depth. I know a lot of guys run very high Sensitivity. Whenever I do that, I just do a lot of chasing. In Auto +3, in descent soil, 10" shouldn't be a problem for your machine....with stock coil.
Others with the bigger coil, get even better depth.
NebTrac
Others with the bigger coil, get even better depth.
NebTrac
Surfinsafari
New member
You want maximum depth, hunt all metal and use a bigger coil. When you scrim you neuter your machine. All metal or relic and slow....maximum depth.
ChicagoJohn
New member
I notice that best deep is slow and take time! Maybe 100 ft by 100 ft in whole morning. I went to small park few times and nothing much just few clad coins. This park is heavy metal detecting in the past. After rain in morning , I went there and swing slow. I found my first Barber dime at about 8 to 9 inch deep. Large coil might help but problem at heavy junk metal park like Chicago! Maybe smaller open in whole black in E-Trac box and ignore many junk at park. More open for deeper coins and you don't mind to digging all!
Coin garden is help me a lot that I test my machine to see if able to contact a mercury dime at 8 inch deep before I go hunt! I will plan to plant one at 10 inch deep then work on it!
Coin garden is help me a lot that I test my machine to see if able to contact a mercury dime at 8 inch deep before I go hunt! I will plan to plant one at 10 inch deep then work on it!
Maybe some of the seasoned E-Trac hunters will add to this?
Was out in my back yard yesterday evening (keeping one eye some mighty fine chops on the grill) checking the test garden and made a discovery on an 8" silver dime.
Stock coil, pattern similar to relic (mostly an open screen), and volume limit was set at 30 for the following:
With the volume gain at 10, I had to rub the ground tightly to hear the dime.
With the volume gain at 17, faint signal. I could raise the coil about 1 1/2" from the ground and the signal was gone.
With the volume gain at 30, loud signal. I could raise the coil about 6" from the ground before losing the signal.
Hope there is nothing wrong with my E-Trac as I prefer a soft signal for deeper/further from the coil signals.
I just charged the battery and will check the 8" dime with a volume gain of 1 to see if the dime can be detected.
Robert...
Was out in my back yard yesterday evening (keeping one eye some mighty fine chops on the grill) checking the test garden and made a discovery on an 8" silver dime.
Stock coil, pattern similar to relic (mostly an open screen), and volume limit was set at 30 for the following:
With the volume gain at 10, I had to rub the ground tightly to hear the dime.
With the volume gain at 17, faint signal. I could raise the coil about 1 1/2" from the ground and the signal was gone.
With the volume gain at 30, loud signal. I could raise the coil about 6" from the ground before losing the signal.
Hope there is nothing wrong with my E-Trac as I prefer a soft signal for deeper/further from the coil signals.
I just charged the battery and will check the 8" dime with a volume gain of 1 to see if the dime can be detected.
Robert...
Just came in from the 8" silver dime with volume gain of 1 and was able to hear a faint signal on the dime even with the coil 2" above the ground. Wonder if the fresh charge enabled me to detect the dime without having to keep the coil touching the ground with this low volume gain setting. Yesterday evening, my battery had one bar left and I had to keep the coil touching the ground with the volume gain at 10 to detect the dime.
Robert...
Robert...
surfchunker
New member
battery doesn't suppose to have any effect on it
FWIW, here's whats worked for me:
-Manual sensitivity a must, set as high as you can tolerate.
-Keep the coil as close to the ground as possible without causing falsing. Where i can get away with it, i sweep with the coil on the ground.
-Always noise cancel at the site before detecting.
-Sweep slow and methodical.
-Clean the coil before a detecting session especially any debris between the coil and the coil cover to keep falsing down. In pure grassy areas with no stones, i detect with the cover off.
-Use ferrous tones at iron infested areas.
-'Smooth' for areas infested with dense junk. Don't always use it but it has found some keepers.
-Open or minimal discrimination pattern.
-Pay close attention to that depth indicator. Dig ALL deep targets no matter the ID, tone, or one way sweeps. Yeah you might dig a lot of deep nails but usually where there's nails there's deep coins, especially applies to park or fairground type areas.
-Be prepared to dig deep holes. Think twice before abandoning a deep hole if the pinpointer can't find metal. Can't count the times i was ready to abandon a deep hole, then decided to dig another couple inches deeper and Bingo! Another Barber!
-Always re-sweep the hole if you find junk in it. It could of been masking a coin. Found many a coin after pulling a nail out of the hole.
-Deep non-ferrous targets will typically lose ferrous ID accuracy. In other words, don't always expect a ferrous 12 for really deep coins.
-Go with your instinct. Its more often right than wrong.
-Last maybe the most important, use a bigger coil.
My deepest record for a coin was found with my NEL Tornado, a merc at around 15 inches maybe more if the grass height is factored in.
This was one where my elbow was in the hole and i was ready to abandon with no pinpointer action. Decided to dig another couple inches before abandoning. Then there it was in a clump stuck at the bottom of the hole, a shiny silver disc. Very iffy, wildly swinging, made no sense ID with the depth indicator bottomed out with no other nearby targets.
Why a merc so deep? Found out a few weeks later from a city worker that this area of the park (next to a swamp) was filled in a few decades ago to prevent flooding from heavy rains. The reason a merc could be so deep.
-Manual sensitivity a must, set as high as you can tolerate.
-Keep the coil as close to the ground as possible without causing falsing. Where i can get away with it, i sweep with the coil on the ground.
-Always noise cancel at the site before detecting.
-Sweep slow and methodical.
-Clean the coil before a detecting session especially any debris between the coil and the coil cover to keep falsing down. In pure grassy areas with no stones, i detect with the cover off.
-Use ferrous tones at iron infested areas.
-'Smooth' for areas infested with dense junk. Don't always use it but it has found some keepers.
-Open or minimal discrimination pattern.
-Pay close attention to that depth indicator. Dig ALL deep targets no matter the ID, tone, or one way sweeps. Yeah you might dig a lot of deep nails but usually where there's nails there's deep coins, especially applies to park or fairground type areas.
-Be prepared to dig deep holes. Think twice before abandoning a deep hole if the pinpointer can't find metal. Can't count the times i was ready to abandon a deep hole, then decided to dig another couple inches deeper and Bingo! Another Barber!
-Always re-sweep the hole if you find junk in it. It could of been masking a coin. Found many a coin after pulling a nail out of the hole.
-Deep non-ferrous targets will typically lose ferrous ID accuracy. In other words, don't always expect a ferrous 12 for really deep coins.
-Go with your instinct. Its more often right than wrong.
-Last maybe the most important, use a bigger coil.
My deepest record for a coin was found with my NEL Tornado, a merc at around 15 inches maybe more if the grass height is factored in.
This was one where my elbow was in the hole and i was ready to abandon with no pinpointer action. Decided to dig another couple inches before abandoning. Then there it was in a clump stuck at the bottom of the hole, a shiny silver disc. Very iffy, wildly swinging, made no sense ID with the depth indicator bottomed out with no other nearby targets.
Why a merc so deep? Found out a few weeks later from a city worker that this area of the park (next to a swamp) was filled in a few decades ago to prevent flooding from heavy rains. The reason a merc could be so deep.
ChicagoJohn
New member
Even I found few 1970's coins at 7 inch deep..... park added some new soil and grass! Forget that park that no way to find deeper older coins!
ChicagoJohn said:
You never know whats buried and how deep in those old 'turn of the Century' parks. For an area to have potentially deep coins, it has to have a rich history.
This site has been pounded over the years. Even met a few detectorists while i was out there.
I've searched this site off and on for two years. Pulled over 50 silver coins and a few silver rings out of it including a bunch of Barbers. The first year i searched it (2012), i pulled out 39 silvers including a bunch of Barber Quarters, dimes and a Barber Half. A lot of mercs also. So many wheats, i quit counting them.
Most of those coins were found in the higher ground of the park and were relatively shallow with an average depth of around 7-10 inches.
After a few detecting sessions towards the end of that first Season, i walked away with only a few clads and sometimes with nothing at all but junk.
I declared that park finally hunted out.
Fast forward to last year. I had a gut feeling there had to be more in that park with such a rich history.
Up to that point i only lightly searched the area of the park which tapers off to a swampy area. Lightly because of the iron junk density. An iron target just about every square foot sometimes more forced me to use a small coil.
The soil was also extremely heavily compacted hard to dig. I was sure the iron and compacted soil scared off a lot of detectorists from that area. At that time i only found shallow clads down to around 5 inches.
Decided on a different strategy. Went back with my NEL Tornado coil for depth, TTF and open mask. Long story short, pulled out another 15 silvers, a few Indians and a couple Barber dimes and one cool Model T type key fob medallion. Just about all those coins were anywhere from 10 to over a foot deep. The old auto key fob medallion was around 14 inches.
Here's the clincher, there were shallower clads back to 80's and then there was a 10+ inch deeper layer coins going back to the WWII era and earlier with
nothing in between. No 50's, 60's or 70's dated coins found.
One layer of shallow clads down to 5 inches, then nothing until around a foot deep can only mean one thing, the area was heavily filled in at one time in the past. The fill also confirmed by the city worker i ran into while detecting there. That fill area also just happens to be the infield to the outfield of a baseball diamond still used today for little league practice.
Once in a while a lot of research, talking to city/park workers, trying different strategies, gut feelings and dogged persistence does pay off.
Now after two years searching that site, after pulling out many hundreds of keepers, i can finally say that site is now hunted out!
Naah! NEL BIG, another new coil, 4TF, MTF, smooth on/off, recovery fast on/off, deep off/on, trash/no trash, etc. etc.
