I'm new to the Etrac and have been hunting some local parks to get the feel for it. My probelm is that I have yet to dig anything deeper than 3 inches! Some of these parks are quite old and I know they have deeper coins in them. Todays clad count was $3.65 and it was all bassically on the surface. I am running in stock coin mode and have tried to use the "high" trash and "fast" recovery. I am sweeping real slow and am finding lots of coins but nothing old and nothing deep. I am "nulling" a ton and getting multiple tones and slowly work it untill I get a good tone in the small spot and then dig . Any help on settings that work for you in parks would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
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Need help with Etrac and park huning settings.
- Thread starter skribnod
- Start date
Skribnod, welcome to the forum. You will find plenty of help here I'm sure. There's a lot of posts here about the Etrac and settings...
Couple of basic questions to start since you are new to FBS and I'm assuming detecting in general... are you noise cancelling? Is your sensitivity running @ 24 or better in auto +3? Keeping the coil flat and close to the ground as possible?
I personally think the stock coin pattern discriminates too much and causes a lot of nulling... have you tried "airtesting" to make sure you can atleast get the coins @ decent depth "in air"? You could also try 2 tone ferrous mode with an OPEN screen...
Try lowering your volume gain to about 20 (deeper signals will be fainter)
It will come in time, you are doing the right thing by starting out in factory coins mode, but eventually you will want to adjust settings one at a time and note any changes and find what works for you.
Watching Utube videos can help too and Also reading Andy Sabisch book and the manual...
Try several different places that you know has a high probability of having old coins...
Keep an eye on this thread, many experienced etrac users here more than happy to help!
Goodluck & HH
Couple of basic questions to start since you are new to FBS and I'm assuming detecting in general... are you noise cancelling? Is your sensitivity running @ 24 or better in auto +3? Keeping the coil flat and close to the ground as possible?
I personally think the stock coin pattern discriminates too much and causes a lot of nulling... have you tried "airtesting" to make sure you can atleast get the coins @ decent depth "in air"? You could also try 2 tone ferrous mode with an OPEN screen...
Try lowering your volume gain to about 20 (deeper signals will be fainter)
It will come in time, you are doing the right thing by starting out in factory coins mode, but eventually you will want to adjust settings one at a time and note any changes and find what works for you.
Watching Utube videos can help too and Also reading Andy Sabisch book and the manual...
Try several different places that you know has a high probability of having old coins...
Keep an eye on this thread, many experienced etrac users here more than happy to help!
Goodluck & HH
everything that mcdean has said in previous post is spot on the most important thing is your level of auto sensitivity post a few of your settings up for us and see if we can tweek them in the right direction running in 2tf is a good answer and you can just go to the set relic programe and that will put you in 2tf dig the high signals ignore the grunts simple. there is a post on here somewhere and i think the guy had trouble getting depth and it was his new coil so just keep that in mind he has a new coil now and is as happy as larry hope this helps keep in touch happy hunting with this awesome machine from across the pond uk
go to page two and read etrac running smooth and deep now this guy has had same trouble in fact i will go on there and bring it to page one for you so you can read it he had all sorts of suggestions to help with his depth and in the end found out it was a bad coil hope that helps
Thanks for bringing the post forward for me. My settings were:
Minelabs stock coin mode
Sensitivity = Auto +3
Noise cancelling at start up.
Deep = off
Fast recovery = on
Ground = difficult
Trash density = high
I havent messed with any of the other settings and don't quite understand the mask technique yet so I am going to start with the basics and work my way into the advanced stuff later. It seemed the machine was nulling a lot of metal. I did catch a lot of "chirps" that I slowly scanned back over and found the coins. I did dig quite a few nails while getting the coins so i figured it was probably a ferrous problem.
I just Air tested a quarter and it picks it up at these settings at 7-8 inches but no further than that. ( is that good?)
Honestly can't tell you what the sensetivity was auto running at while in the park. Another question that I have is when it is nulling the iron material is it also nulling and non ferrous or will it pick those up and sound out while it is nulling the iron stuff out?
Thanks
Minelabs stock coin mode
Sensitivity = Auto +3
Noise cancelling at start up.
Deep = off
Fast recovery = on
Ground = difficult
Trash density = high
I havent messed with any of the other settings and don't quite understand the mask technique yet so I am going to start with the basics and work my way into the advanced stuff later. It seemed the machine was nulling a lot of metal. I did catch a lot of "chirps" that I slowly scanned back over and found the coins. I did dig quite a few nails while getting the coins so i figured it was probably a ferrous problem.
I just Air tested a quarter and it picks it up at these settings at 7-8 inches but no further than that. ( is that good?)
Honestly can't tell you what the sensetivity was auto running at while in the park. Another question that I have is when it is nulling the iron material is it also nulling and non ferrous or will it pick those up and sound out while it is nulling the iron stuff out?
Thanks
EtracTom-AdirondacksNY
New member
It should sound out durring the nulling if there is a good target under the coil that falls into the clear pattern of that coins pattern. That is why the TRASH HIGH left on all the time. Might I suggest since your sweeping slowly like 4-5 seconds each way that you turn FAST OFF if your not in a high trashy spot as it chops the signal and if your hearing quick chirps and pops you may be will miss some deeper signals which are lighter in sound especailly if your GAIN is at factory 24. I maxed mine out to 29 or 30 makes deep signals about as loud as surface signals. That is why you don't need DEEP on when your GAIN is high DEEP just adds more filters for the detector to process the signal through before sounding off and may slow it down responding some on the deeper targets.
I also maxed out VARIABILITY to 30 to give the widest range of tones.
I run in AUTO +3 and Ground Difficult with Trash High, Gain 29-30, Variability 30, But the one thing that I tried that seemed to make the tones seperate well is to turn THRESHOLD SOUND range (not the threshold volume of the hum) from factory 15 to lowest setting which I think is 1 or maybe 5 and it made the tones very spatially pronounced as it makes them have the widest range from extremely low grunt of Iron to the highs of silver in my hearing range.
Also try griding the area by going perpindicular, 90 degree angles ( # ) to the way you just detected as objects lay in the ground at all different angles and move around as the ground changes and shifts from frost and such.
Hope any of this helps. You may just not have your coil across anything real deep yet either.
Tom
I also maxed out VARIABILITY to 30 to give the widest range of tones.
I run in AUTO +3 and Ground Difficult with Trash High, Gain 29-30, Variability 30, But the one thing that I tried that seemed to make the tones seperate well is to turn THRESHOLD SOUND range (not the threshold volume of the hum) from factory 15 to lowest setting which I think is 1 or maybe 5 and it made the tones very spatially pronounced as it makes them have the widest range from extremely low grunt of Iron to the highs of silver in my hearing range.
Also try griding the area by going perpindicular, 90 degree angles ( # ) to the way you just detected as objects lay in the ground at all different angles and move around as the ground changes and shifts from frost and such.
Hope any of this helps. You may just not have your coil across anything real deep yet either.
Tom
RandyNorthridgeca
New member
If you really want to find the deeper older targets you have to stop digging the shallow clad. Concentrate on only finding targets that read almost halfway down your depth gauge. Please don't take this the wrong way. There is nothing wrong with digging clad if that is what your goal is. My goal is to find older coins. In our parks the oldies are usually 5"+ deep. I do pop out all quarter hits but I'll pass up shallow dime/copper memorial hits. Will I pass up some shallow oldies and maybe a silver ring, probably but I want most of my time spent locating and digging those deeper/iffy hits that have a good chance of being oldies. I dig a lot of 5"+ copper memorials. Nothing bums me out more than to dig a 7" or 8" plug and pull out a clad dime or copper memorial 
The best tip I can give you is to hook up with someone that knows the E-Trac well and have him call you over to listen to the target. Especially an iffy deeper hit. Once you hear and learn the tones you need to listen for you're off and running. The only other way to learn is to dig a ton of targets and pay attention to how each one sounds and what readings you were getting.
Be patient, slow way down, and have fun
The best tip I can give you is to hook up with someone that knows the E-Trac well and have him call you over to listen to the target. Especially an iffy deeper hit. Once you hear and learn the tones you need to listen for you're off and running. The only other way to learn is to dig a ton of targets and pay attention to how each one sounds and what readings you were getting.
Be patient, slow way down, and have fun
Bell-Two
Active member
If you are getting constant nulling it will be difficult to find deeper targets since the iron is probably cancelling out the signal. Two solutions use a more open coin pattern such as Andy Sabisch reccomends or go to Two Tone Ferrous in those situations when the nulling is great. Do not overly rely on just numbers a higher tone that is "smooth" rather than "crackly" is what you are listening for. Do not be afraid to dig junk...that is the way you learrn what your machine is telling you. Do not worry about digging "shallow" targets at first, I have dug Large Cents at 2" before. Concentrate on identifying what your target is and then confirm it by digging it. Digging clad sometimes is liking "batting practice" you learn what the signals are for different types of coins.
Bell-two,,,
, you said "constant nulling it will be difficult to find deeper targets since the iron is probably cancelling out the signal.",,,
but my understanding is the Etrac WILL sound out a good target THRU the nulling,,,, please set me strait on this,,, not trying to be difficult or call you out just getting conflicting info about this,,,,,thanks for your help
, you said "constant nulling it will be difficult to find deeper targets since the iron is probably cancelling out the signal.",,,
but my understanding is the Etrac WILL sound out a good target THRU the nulling,,,, please set me strait on this,,, not trying to be difficult or call you out just getting conflicting info about this,,,,,thanks for your help
Bell-Two
Active member
grouser said:
If you have a large piece of iron, right next to a small desireable target even with recovery fast on you might not pick it up. That has been my experience and some long time E-Trac users have also related that to me as well. That is why the TTF option is used in heavy iron laden sites. With TTF you can quite often pick the high tone right in the midst of low iron grunts.
You often hear the expression "The E-Trac "sees through" the iron." That is not really true it just has a fast recovery rate that picks up the high conductive target too. The nulling of course is your coil encountering something your descrimination pattern says "I don't want to hear that". So if you are encountering constant nulling your coil can be picking up iron on both sides of your sweep and mask the target.
Perhaps some master E-Tracer can explain it a bit better than this for you.