More depth and how to get it :)

[Beachcomber]

Managed to get in a couple of hours of beach hunting tonight. The targets tonight were all mosty deep. Very few shallow targets to I decided to try a little experimenting. I got a deep quarter signal. The sound was high pitched but somewhat broken up and the display showed 13-46 and the depth meter was at the bottom. I had dug several of these signals already and they were quarters at around 10-12". I then opened the menu and turned on "Deep" at this point both Deep and Fast had been turned off. Oh and Sensitivity was in Auto and was at 24+2. After turning on Deep and going back to detect mode I swung the coil over the target. It now read 12-46, the audio was no longer broken up it was a nice clean high pitched tone and my depth meter was only reading 3/4 of the way down. I dug the target and sure enough it was another quarter in the 10-12" range. I decided to leave the settings alone and hunt like that for awhile. If you start changing to many things at once you won't know what is doing what. Anyway I dug a few more coins that were deep and reading the same as the quarter. Then I got another high pitched slightly broken sound and again the depth meter was back at the bottom of it's range. I dug the target adn it turned out to be another quarter but deeper than any I had dug before. This one was around 14" deep. It's fairly easy for me to judge the depth of a target as the Southern NJ beaches are made up of a very very fine grained sand that is very dense and does not collapse in on itself easily and when I dig I scoop out small amounts of sand at at time until I have the target in the scoop and my scoop is 12.5 inches from the tip of the blade to the back of the footguard. I was really happy about that as that was one of the deepest targets that I have dug with the E-Trac so far. I continued hunting and finding more coins. I then got another of the slightly broken sound targets but this one had a low tone and read 13-13 on the display and again the depth meter was at the very bottom of it's range. I dug down hoping for a ring. When I got down to about 10" the target was still in the hole. I took out another scoop of sand and ti was sill in the hole. By this time my entire scoop was going down into the hole and then some....even after this scoop the target was still down there. So one more scoop this time the entire scoop and my foot were down in the hole. So I am estimating the target was at the 14" plus mark. But it was in the scoop this time. It turned out to be a nickel pretty much as the display was indicating and very deep just as the depth meter had indicated. So if the conditions you are hunting allow hunt with "Deep" turned on.

Hopefully the conditions this weekend will be the same as tonight so that I can experiment with other settings to see how they affect depth and the response of deep targets. I will take my camera so I can take pix of the display showing the response of the same target but with different detector settings.

Sorry for the long Post!

HH

Beachcomber

 

[unearth]

n/t

 

[digitrich]

My SE loved deep on the beach, didn't seem to help as much inland for me though as I was always using fast. Seems to me the ETrac is allot like the DFX in that if you turn enough knobs all at the same time, the result is less than predictable or desirable.

 

[Beachcomber]

I don't know but I hope so. I used to hunt with both Deep and Fast turned on with the Explorer as fast seemed give a harder hit when detecting smaller jewelry targets as well as helping separate targets in trashy areas. Over the weekend I am going to try adding that to the mix and see if it helps or hurts. Also going to experiment with the Ground and Trash settings to see their effect on depth.

HH

Beachcomber

 

[tmanfromtexas]

I think with the auto sens at 24 is the key here imo. The higher the sens goes the less mineralized the ground is which allows the machine to see deeper. I have used the etrac here in Northwest Indiana and the autos sens stays near 16 and the deepest coin I have dug was about 7 inches. The ground here is hot hot hot, so if youre not getting depth it may not be the machine it may be the ground you are hunting. TMAN...

 

[jeff & Maria]

n/t

 

[Jackpine Savage]

using auto vs manual. Since the etrac does not tell you the sens level of each individual channel, just a composite, you need to compare auto and manual on some weak hits with low conductive numbers say in the 13-14 fe range. It could be possible that a stable manual setting even tho lower in number may increase the "small channel" sens over auto. If that causes you to get weaker hits on those quarters... well there not your primary target anyway.

Could be the reason the book suggests using manual on the beach. (?)

Tom

 

[jbow]

They say that they are not frequencies but as ML says, "E-Trac has three dedicated sensitivity channels for small, medium, and large signals. These channels are essentially seperate hardware circuits".

I wish I understood a little better what that means. Does it see a deep aluminum can as a small signel? Anything deep could be a small signal couldn't it?

J

 

[njoutsider]

Now that is the kind of depth results I was waiting to hear you talk about Bernie. From what you were telling me last weekend I wasn't so sure if the E-trac could match the Explorer's depth on our beaches. Of course as time/use of a new machine increases you learn what works and what doesn't...all part of the process. I like running the XS with both deep and fast on when beach hunting(most cases) so it will be interesting to see what results you get if you hunt that way with the E-trac this weekend. Since you hunted with deep on this past hunt did you pull any lower conductive targets(you know those small brass and copper pieces that litter our beaches) at greater depths then what you've found in the past with the Explorer/Sov GT? I read you got a nickel at 12-14" and that's outstanding but I think what would sell me is a positive report on deeper items like I listed because of all the gold that would ID in this area. I look forward to seeing what you have to say after this weekend's hunts. Thanks for letting me take a look at "her" this past weekend. HH,Harry(NJ)

 

[jbow]

Can you try turning fast on too the next time you get a deep broken signal with deep already on?

Thanks,

Julien

 

[Jackpine Savage]

I suppose so. I took it literally and for sake of the question assumed small signals could be low conductors/rings. But you are right we don't know for sure. I know on the F70 that the slow speed is deeper but not necessarily on small low conductors. Small low conductors, larger ring excepted, are hard to get deep with anything, just not that much signal strength.

Tom

 

[Beachcomber]

IT's funny how different people read the same sentences but interpret them differently. After reading the explanation that Minelab sent that the channels were for the sensitivity to small , medium, and large targets. If this were the case it would explain why the E-Trac works better in Auto than in Manual on the beach. My thoughts were that since most single frequency detectors see the wet salt sand as one really large target that you need to use the Discrimination control to eliminate that maybe the E-Trac Channel for large targets was having it's sensitivity lowered due to the beach being a huge conductive target. Then it raised the sensitivity on the small and medium sized target channels. If that is what is happening then going to manual and trying to set it as high as Auto would cause a lot of falsing since now you would have a high level of sensitivity on the large target channel too and the beach would be overloading the detector. JMHO

HH

Beachcomber

 

[Beachcomber]

Have you tried hunting in Manual there to see if you can run it higher in Manual? I have been thinking that the E-Trac's Auto Sensitivity circuits when confronted with both High Mineralization and a High amount of trash targets tends to overcompensate by setting the Sensitivity too Low and that by changing over to Manual under those conditions may be able to successfully hunt at higher Sensitivity levels.

HH

Beachcomber

 

[Beachcomber]

I will do that this weekend as well as test how changing it from high to low trash and high to low mineralization affect the signal from a deep target. With the Explorer I always used to hunt with both Fast and Deep turned on since having fast turned on helped with detection of small targets and deep seemed to help with deep coin/ring sized targets. There is one other setting that I don't remember if I have mentioned yet. I do not hunt in Normal Audio I hunt in SMOOTH. On the Explorer I used to hunt in Audio Mode 2. The reason for this is that in normal audio small targets would only give a very short poor sounding signal that could easily be dismissed as background noise or trash. But with Audio Mode 2 on the Explorer and Smooth on the E-Trac it widens and smooths out the signal of small targets and gives you nicer clean audio tones.

HH

Beachcomber

 

[Beachcomber]

Hi Harry,

It will take a little time to find the best settings for each of our beaches as the conditions vary greatly between some of them. I did get some of the small brass sheeting as well as a couple of split shots and a small button and several stainless steel washers Over the weekend I will be testing more deep and small targets with different settings to find out what works and what doesn't as well as what combination of settings seem to work best on our beaches. Next time we run into each other out there you are welcome to give the E-Trac a try. Oh I picked up a set of Black Widow Headphones. Now I know why you like them so much. They really cut down the surf and background noise. It's hard to believe that just going from headphones with 24db of noise reduction to a set with 29db of noise reduction could make so much difference. They work great on the E-Trac!

HH

Beachcomber

 

[Jackpine Savage]

course it might not hurt to find out for sure among all your other tests BC.

 

[Beachcomber]

It's tough to do that on small targets as you never know the size of a target until you dig unless it is something really large or something really small that is shallow and gives multiple beeps as the coil sweep across it. But I will do that test on some targets that I believe are small before I dig them and see what happens.

HH

Beachcomber.

 

[jbow]

n/t

 

[jbow]

n/t

 

[Jackpine Savage]

Since they described it as small signals I was thinking more along the lines of checking it on targets with low conductive numbers. Especially those with higher fe numbers, say 13-18. What got me thinking aobut it is that on the X70 small gold will bounce iron foil... in fresh water at least. Could be all wrong on my thinking but ya never know until ya try.

Tom