I WANT to get used to manual sensitivity, BUT...

[TrpnBils]

holy cow is it chattery. I've tried on numerous occasions in clean(er) ground to switch over and given manual a shot because of the added depth I've read it can get, but I spend so much time chasing false signals it's not productive at all. If I turn the sensitivity down to the point where the majority of the falses go away I'm within the +3 range where I might as well go back to Auto.

How do you get past this? Is it worth the hassle?

 

[moonshine]

i havent been detecting much lately due to personal problems but heres my advice from when i used to detect a lot.

make sure to noise cancel, sometimes manual really needs to be on the quietest channel. and that can change at any site. especially if youre near buildings or wires.

also its normal for manual to be more chatty/noisy. thats kind of the idea. a little bit of overload/slamming the gas pedal down. sometimes if it gets to be too much id switch back to auto 3 also. usually use manual 24 and tweak up/down from there.

 

[ironsight]

One thing to keep in mind is that the Auto sens. reading and the Manual sens. reading might be the same but there is a notable difference in performance.
The eTRAC calculates Auto and Manual sensitivity different which i won't go into right now.
Manual will typically be the deeper seeking setting all things being equal. The tradeoff of course is a little more chatter and possibly having to manually change sensitivity levels on the fly depending on changing soil or other conditions at the search site.
Don't believe this? Try an experiment, with Manual and a deep target solidly detected say 8"+ then switch to Auto. Theres a good chance it won't or barely detect that same target in Auto.

What i do when first search a site with manual is to first crank it up and rachet it down to a level where i'll a false or two every few sweeps.

 

[moonshine]

i wont go into it either, this is correct, manual 24 (for example) is running all three channels on 24, while auto 24 is not.

(manual 24 is not the same as auto 24)

on the other hand, the etrac is a strong machine, very sensitive, auto +3 is fine if you dont want to hear chatter and too much falsing. its not like theres anything wrong with it.

 

[TrpnBils]

Sounds reasonable. I tried it again today but had to switch off after about 10 minutes!

 

[sprchng]

I have always felt I got the maximum depth by noise canceling over clean ground with the coil ON THE GROUND , not in the air--try it , you'll like it!!

 

[TrpnBils]

I have noticed that too - not sure why that isn't discussed more!

 

[roadapple]

Also, some other coils handle cranking the manual sensitivity up better than the stock coil, such as the 13 inch Ultimate. JMO

 

[ironsight]

I have noticed that too - not sure why that isn't discussed more!

Noise cancelling should be a given akin to ground balancing which is absolutely essential for most other metal detectors.
But you're right, it should be stressed more for the newbies among us.

I will say this, in quiet EMI areas, auto noise cancelling don't mean squat. In fact in those areas you can pick and choose the noise channel as some claim some channels are deeper seeking than others.

 

[sprchng]

It sounds like you're approaching the sensitivity issue correctly by allowing the ground to dictate what the etrac can do. I have never found cranking things up to max to be that productive . I can confirm that number for number , manual seems to be more sensitive and therefore it follows , a little deeper . Coil size is also a big factor but the dirt itself is the biggest. I read somewhere that the etrac always starts up at 19 and adjusts from there in auto---seems reasonable to me. My dirt usually runs at 12 to 15 in auto 3 and pushing beyond about 10 over that is seldom possible. With a larger than stock coil , including the Ultimate , +3 is about the max for a stable machine but I can run in manual at that recommended sensitivity reading with reasonable success. Smaller coils do allow you to crank it up alot higher at the expense of coverage of course. If you have mild soil which gives you detecting levels in the mid 20's in auto 3 , you should be able to run in the same level in manual but you may not gain much depth by pushing it past that level. Supposedly there is a "boost" at sensitivities above 26 but I have never been able to confirm that as those levels are difficult to achieve in the dirt around here.

 

[TrpnBils]

It's encouraging to hear that equal numbers don't necessarily mean equal sensitivity between the two modes. I have the stock coil and a 6" Coiltek that I use for high trash areas...I'll work at this a little more this week on a couple of new permissions I know there's deep stuff at. I've been hunting a house adjacent to these ones that was built at the same time and was hitting coins at 8-9" with the stock coil on Auto+3. Wouldn't surprise me if there was deeper stuff that I was missing because those were real sketchy signals.

 

[Prep1957]

If you are in a bunch of small iron you might want to try instead of noise canceling on clean ground,noise cancel right on a small iron object,noise cancel sets your set of frequencies this will trick your Etrac to think it is in heavy iron ground even though it is not, you will be able to work heavy iron trash better to a point.Kinda like a back door small iron discriminator with no nulling.Coil should be on ground.