minelab e trac question

[RyanLacy]

hello everyone,

I have just purchased the minelab e trac and have spent about 10 hours with it with very little luck. I live in California in Tulare county where we have been in a drought forever. the ground is like cement, I dig my holes with a small pick axe. no kidding. even then it is hard to get past a six inch depth. anyway, the only things I have been able to find are clad and pull tabs to around 3 or 4 inches deep. I have not been able to get any signals past that. I know there are some down there because my previous machine was a garrett at pro and had no problems in this dirt getting at least six inches of depth. does anyone have any input on this subject that might get me to the deeper stuff? I have been hunting in coin mode with auto sensitivity and everything that was factory preset.

thanks,
ryan

 

[bigjon]

Go with the manual sensitivity,it has more depth.Dont have the e trac but have the SE Pro,thats how i get more depth.Hope that this helps.

 

[ironsight]

I agree with bigjon. Use manual sensitivity, crank it up until it starts falsing then back off a little. Don't forget to noise cance before starting.
It could be the soil out there might require other than stock settings. I'd dig an 8" hole in that soil, bury a coin and experiment.
Minelab detectors also need to be swept slower than Garretts.
If you're looking for deep coins, you might want to open up your discrim. pattern. Deep coins usually don't ring up with typical coin IDs and the ID could be jumpy. Listen to the tones rather than relying solely on the digital ID.
One other thing that helped me when i first started to use the eTRAC, discriminate out the nickel/gold area to prevent the nuisance of digging up pull tabs for the first few hunts. Yeah, you'll miss nickels and gold rings but it'll help learn the eTRAC faster.

 

[RyanLacy]

Thanks guys, getting ready to go out as we speak, i will try manual sensitivity. Also thats how i had my at pro setup with only the good stuff not discriminated.

 

[ironsight]

Ryan, let us know how it went!

 

[RyanLacy]

Clad, clad and clad, nothing past four inches.

 

[ironsight]

Clad, clad and clad, nothing past four inches.

I sense you're frustrated. It could be in that area, shallow clad is the only thing left. Don't dismiss this possibility.

Did you take my recommendation on burying a coin 8 inches in that soil and experiment with settings?
This is an important step to learn the eTRAC and gain any kind of confidence in the machine.
Let us know those test results.

The eTRAC is capable of recovering extremely deep coins. Trust me.

 

[RyanLacy]

Thanks thats what i need to do

 

[RyanLacy]

went out to a local park, very old, has been pounded for years. reason I went there was because the soil is saturated with water and is easy to dig and I thought I could get the best depth. hunted for about hour and a half with nothing but targets 2 to four inches. then on my way back to the truck hit a solid 12-44 at 6 inches. I dug down to the bottom of my spade which is six inches long and had to dig another 1 or two inches. as you probably could guess I was elated. out popped my deepest coin with the e trac. a 1990 dime. wah wah wah. still going to create a garden for the hard dirt.