Not sold on 2 tone ferrous!

[Gaz]

Southwind......I STILL can't understand why you keep saying that you have to constantly check the numbers in 2 tone ferrous??
They don't need checking at all.
A high tone indicates a non-ferrous target. Are you saying that you choose to ignore certain non-ferrous targets???
If you are then you must be missing loads of goodies mate!! The sheer amount of good targets out there that give the same numbers and tones as non-ferrous targets is huge.
I know the ETrac is a great piece of kit but it still can't tell you if a target is a ring or a ringpull.

 

[captn_se]

You bet we do!! It's a whole different ballgame out here in the States, Gaz!! I'm pretty sure if you detected out here in one of our super trashy 100 year old parks, you'd be cherry picking through the sea of trashy non-ferrous targets just like many of us do. The results of doing this are actually more old coppers and silvers in our pouches, and less trash. A lot of us hunt exclusively just for older coins/relics/silver jewelry at these trashy parks. We don't have any tiny hammered coins here in the States that would sound low like a pulltab would. If we were to dig every non-ferrous object in the ground at these parks, I'm not sure why we would even need an Explorer/E-Trac to do this....we could use any detector that goes "beep", set it to all-metal mode and just dig away!! Not only do I find this super un-challenging, it just doesn't make any sense. The true power of the Explorer/E-Tracs are their abilities to "pick" through trash, and be able to identify partially masked, deeper coppers/silvers amongst the deeper lower conductors(foil, pull-tabs, ring-tabs, aluminum slaw, etc...). You cannot relic hunt very effectively in these types of parks. Strip mining is not the recommended/preferable hunting mode for a park. At beaches, demolitions, and abandoned houses, and farm fields, this would be the preferable hunting mode.

So, that's why if we're in 2TF at trashy parks filled with non-ferrous aluminum scraps, it wouldn't make much sense because we're cherry picking the deeper coppers/silvers, with an occasional deeper lower conductor dig (to get US nickels, or hopes for a possible piece of gold). We use our ears to decipher what we want to dig or pass up, and without the ability to "audibly" tell the difference between non-ferrous targets in 2TF mode, we're left with having to constantly look at our smartscreens to tell us what type of non-ferrous signal is under our coils at any given time....this is just a complete waste of time.

I know guys who go to parks specifically to find "Gold". To me, it's just pure luck to find the gold in trashy turf.....after digging 100's of lower conductors, you may end up with a piece of gold....it's just a factor of probabilities. You're right...no machine can tell the difference between an ringtab or a nice gold ring....you have to dig them all to get the gold.

In conclusion, there is a big difference when hunting a trashy, aluminum-filled park and hunting a beach/farm field/abandoned house, or demolitions. For trashy parks, using the power of multi-tones and the Explorer/E-Trac's amazing ability to separate deeper higher conductors from iron and/or lower conductors is the key to success for more coppers/silvers in your pouch with fewer pieces of scrap metal to dump in the trash!!

HH,
CAPTN SE
Dan

 

[Southwind]

Well said captn_se. You know the odd part is I used to be the one to preach about digging it all because you might be missing stuff, but over the years my view has changed. That change in view is partly from patients not being a strong suit, but mostly from a lack of proof that I'm missing anything when I'm selectively hunting. Sounds better than cherry pickin doesn't it? I've gone back to those places I selectively hunted and tried the "if it peeps I dig" concept, but what I found was I really hadn't missed a thing of value to me. Lots and lots of trash and virtually nothing I couldn't have done without to begin with. Now you've got to have a detector with very reliable VDI, and know how to read that VDI, but you can be quite good with practice.

I'm about to find out as I have invited Hombre down to hunt some of my favorite sites with his non-display detectors, and he should be here tomorrow. Our city park has some very very deep coins and I've selectively hunted it for years. I'm curious to see what I've missed. I also have a nice carnival ground where I've pulled lots of old coins that I'm curious to see if he can squeeze anything out. I'm sure I have missed a few and passed up a few goodies during my selective hunting, but I really don't think it is enough to warrant digging all the trash. And all these places are loaded with years of trash.

 

[Gaz]

.....guys.....I do forget sometimes that the places you hunt differ from places we hunt. I will take that one on the chin!!

Calming this down slightly......I am genuinely interested and intrigued in how you determine a target is worth digging?? What's the process you go through?
Tones first and then VDI??
What do you do for a ring and a ringpull? On a VDI scale, they are so close........

 

[JohnTN]

Gaz most focus on just the high conductors. The really accomplished detectorist search 90% tone and 10% ( a guess ) VDI. Since most are seeking old valuable coins that register in the upper range. 12-35 .. 12-48 that is the sounds most a looking for if you are searching in the parks. Now your relic hunters are searching more for lead bullets, brass items and coins gold or silver and large iron items. So a relic hunter would dig any solid repeatable tone that did not indicate small iron. While there are those who search solely for gold they would leave after a daily outing to the park with a pouch full of aluminum foil or chopped up bits of aluminum cans.

 

[Goes4ever]

normally I use TTF at old farm houses where I hunt 98% oif the time and old farms do not have aluminum scrap but TONS of iron

 

[JohnTN]

Goes4ever I know you are a great detectorist. I have watched your post for a good while and you find some very nice stuff.
I hope I didn't get you to upset by saying the 2TF does not work well for me, it is obvious it works awesome for you. I tried again yesterday around an old home site and my machine was going bonkers with tons of high falses while the Multi/cond was super stable. I am convinced minelab must have made some improvements on the ferrous side of the later Etracs.

 

[Goes4ever]

John, mine will false if I go too fast, but in TTF you must go EXTREMELY slow. I don't get it, because the hunting partners I have showed TTF too, constantly keep pulling old coins out of iron infested farm areas where in conductive we get nothing but a solid null.........and no I am not upset, I just do not understand how you can tell a 35-45 signal from a 12-45 signal running an open screen in conductive sounds. As far as I know the CO # is what determines the tone correct? so how does a 35-45 (iron) sound any different from a 12-45 (silver) signal? all 45's sound exactly the same on my etrac

 

[JohnTN]

Drop your threshold tone two 1 and you will be able to tell the difference. The pitch of the signal is the same as the nail but the way the signal reacts and the flutieness is totaly different especially in SMOOTH. At least it sounds different on my machine. I mostly use this in areas where the iron is thin looking for silver. BUT I use it all the time around real old homesteads looking for low and mid conductors. I can pull the iron back overall buttons and tin back civil war buttons from the iron with ease.

 

[utahshovelhead]

Just want to say something on account of GAZ asking about rings with the Etrac on this TTF thread.
I'm certain you know this but I want to compare it to how you are finding gold.

If you take a majority of IDs of all the gold things you have found you will see that there is an area where the bulk of them will ID on your scale (screen). When hunting for rings I first put myself in a place where there is the best chance of one being lost...lets say a small beach. I don't use much discrimination but I know the area of the screen they come in at and check all targets carefully then dig all that hit in that area that means pull tabs and any junk as well.
If On a nice lawn where I would get kicked out if I dug that much then I have to use more discrimination and luck becomes more necessary; If I find certain bits of similar trash I will disc it out of the majority area. I am sure you know this in relation to the items you are digging when you see a certain number and depth you recognize it as being junk or being good before you dig...and it usually is but all the better when your experience tells you it might be good so you check it and it is. When I hunt those really old sites ( not as old as yours) I will dig every conductor if its easy to dig but its altogether different when you have to be careful with the lawns you have to use discrimination..
Hunting for gold in this way I have found rings that others have actually dug up and left behind in the pile they dug out and left because there was so many other targets of stuff around but I recognized that one was in the numbers I am looking for. (very nice Garnet pinky ring and one small thin 10K ring with a citraean stone)
Large enough Gold rings will hit in the high conductor range and will usually be found in the US if detected. But it is the small bands with the diamonds that become harder to ID if not impossible other than to dig all targets in that group of similar rings.
In TTF I do not here the difference in the lower quadrant that I am watching for. I still swear that my original XS actually sounded different for every Karat and size of ring but with the E trac they tend to sound more similar but with a nice solid tone as opposed to a warbling tone on the XS.
I would welcome any reply as to how you find Gold rings with the E. I am only using TTF after I use multi tone conduct first in this situation just to see if I am able to find any targets that I have missed. So far I have found only a few good targets and not enough to make me think It is an advantage.

Thanks for any reply,
utahshovelhead ( not much older than 1800s around here)

 

[Digger]

This has been a lively discussion. Those who make the effort to at least try some of the things discussed in this string will benefit from having tried them.

As to target sounds......to my ears, a 35/45 will sound the same as a 12/45 when using conductive mode. The conductive side you are listening to (45 in this example) is the same pitch for both targets. Similarly, when running ferrous tones, a 12/02 will sound the same as a 12/36. You're listening to the ferrous tone, which in both examples is a 12. I won't argue that there are some "clips, chirps, clacks and burps" when multiple targets are in range. But there is good news! No matter which target property (ferrous or conductive) you are tuned in to, the "opposite" target value is visually represented by the numeric display. And to take full advantage of the benefits of having an FBS detector, looking at the visual properties can be just as important in discerning targets as the audio signal is at getting your attention.

The way I see it........Ferrous guys will listen to the ferrous tone and have the capability of verifying the target with the conductive number. Conductive guys will listen for the conductive tone and have the capability of verifying the target with the ferrous number. Ferrous tone provides an audio response for the ferrous properties and conductive tone provides an audio response for the conductive properties. If the screen is "open" for both modes, there should be no "null" in either. Simply put, nulling is the E-TRAC software silencing the Threshold on targets set to be rejected. (target blanking) If there is no rejection established, there should be no nulling.

I have some sites that I run ferrous with two tones. I have other sites that I prefer conductive with multiple tones. Depending on the site, some require minimal discrimination while others just hunt better (for me) with a bit of additional discrimination. And it is reassuring to have the Quick Mask just a click away! Simply put, different sites require different skills. It is up to each of us to learn the functionality, and determine what works best for us in any given situation.

With that said, I find John's suggestion of lowering the Threshold and running with smooth tones to be an interesting concept. That's one combination I don't believe I've tried yet. I'll admit that I haven't enjoyed the time I've spent with the smooth tones. But I'll have to lower the Threshold and give that a shot myself. JMHO HH Randy

 

[Goes4ever]

ok some people here say they would not want to continually look at the screen when using TTF, but if your using an open screen in conductive you ALSO would have to continually LOOK at the screen to see if the high tone was a 12-45 or a 35-45 as the sound is the same. Am I correct here? Or am I not understanding something?

 

[Ray-Mo.]

Was fooling with some settings today and found 4 tone ferrous was much better at helping identifying targets than multi-tone ferrous.I find just the opposite with conductive tones......
On another note,I think many worry entirely to much about nulling in conductive tones.I have done a lot of testing with rusty cut nails and old coins and do not see much difference in the separation/unmasking abilities between 2 tone ferrous nearly wide open screen and conductive multi-tones in the preset coins mode.
Nearly open conductive does get about 3/4 inch more depth on a silver dime in clean soil over the preset coins in my tests in mild soil.

 

[utahshovelhead]

Hey Goes,
I believe what they are saying isn't that they don't want to look at the screen all the time for the high conductors but that they don't want to look at it for the lower scale or to the left. In other words everything to the left of center they would have to look to see if its a dig worthy target because it has the same tone as the right side of the screen which they are used to thinking is a high conductor. I think that statement is from those who are used to discriminating out part of the screen and an open TTF means the left side screen will have more trash targets mixed in that they will have to use their brains for a discriminator. ( I think) . I think the whole thread about TTF is basically about the specific area hunting style you are in. If in open ground where you can dig all the TTF high conductors then that is a good way to go. But if you are on a nice lawn you need to discriminate carefully if you will dig. You just cant dig the heck out of a nice lawn without paying a price.
I would use the TTF on nice lawns after first going over it with my regular program with disc in it. Then I spend allot of time looking at the screen and deciding to dig or not. I have not been too excited about it as I have found some coins on the second round but none to convince me.

I am not sure if that what they mean just that I read it that way and thought Id take a shot at the answer.

Ive seen your posts and whatever your doing is working real well for you,

good luck,
utahshovelhead

 

[Digger]

You are corrrect, No matter which tone you listen to, you'll have to look at the TID for the other target value. For the sites I hunt, I set up in the mode that will allow me to do most of my hunting "by ear" and requires the least amount of looking at the display. Just as you have found, using two tone ferrous in an area that is full of trashy ferrous targets allows you to ignore those with the low and concentrate on the high tones. In sites with an abundance of "modern trash", I prefer multiple conductive tones as each tone represents a specific conductivity value. When I hear a pitch that I've learned to pay attention to, all I have to look for is a ferrous number in the neighborhood of 12. The main difference in hunting for coins in ferrous vs conductive is that the E-TRAC was designed to "flatten out" the ferrous line at or near 12, for US coins, compared to the Explorer series. And that fact might represent more than meets the eye. It would be interesting to see how many people who previously used an Explorer are using conductive tones, compared to the number of people who are new to the FBS series that prefer ferrous??????

My point in mentioning the open screen was in response to your comments about nulling in conductive tones. The threshold will only null when the coil passes over a target whose properties have been set to reject. Every target, as well as the setting to reject it,includes both a ferrous value and a conductive value. If I recall, you hunt with a relatively open screen while in TTF. If you used the same rejection settings in conductive mode, nulling should be a minimum.

Again, this string of posts is chocked full of good questions and great discussion. HH Randy

 

[Goes4ever]

Randy I agree with all of that, I change how I hunt according to the site, there is not one magically setting that will work on all sites. And my point I was trying to make was if your hunting with an open screen in conductive at a site with a lot of iron you will spend a LOT of time constantly looking at the screen because all the iron #45 signals are going to be so abundant, it would be like using TTF in a park filled with aluminum.

But if you use TTF in an iron filled farm yard you won't have to look constantly because you might walk 30-40 feet before you even get a non ferrous target to produce a high tone.

Both these methods are site specific. I have used TTF in a park, but only in small areas I already cleared out wih conductive mode first and was littered with heavy iron. No way I would just walk into a park and start hunting with TTF.

 

[Southwind]

No that is not correct. A 35-45 does not sound the same as a 12-45. The E-Trac is said to have 1750 tones so I'm quite sure tones are not just determined by the CO numbers. I run with my tone variance at max(30) and it's quite easy to hear the high TINK sound of iron wraparound. Most of the time my short hunts, I get about an hour after work, are spent being very selective on what I choose to recover. I don't look at my display until I hear that very distinctive tone of silver or copper. My first look at the display when I do hear the tone I'm after is at the depth meter.

Just because some of us have had no luck with TTF does not mean we just "didn't give it a try." I have tried many times and given it every chance to prove of value to me, it just didn't deliver. Could be my location conditions, the way my ET is set or that I'm just an idiot, but don't just assume it's from not trying it.

I've said it before I just don't understand the principal of TTF other than the open discrimination actually revealing a few extra coins near junk. I've noticed those who have tried TTF and found more coins they had missed were using a more restrictive pattern to begin with. Like myself, those who use a pretty much open pattern to begin with are not seeing any new finds and in fact find it less friendly. I mean if a false iron causes wraparound, that wraparound is going to come in as a false good signal whether you're using 2 tones or multi tones.

 

[captn_se]

If you're hunting in Conductive mode, any metal with the same conductive number, regardless what its Ferrous reading is, will have the same tone. In other words, any target while hunting in Conductive that ID's on the same vertical Conductive line on an E-Trac will have the same tone.

Conversely, any metal with the same Ferrous number, regardless what its Conductive reading is, will have the same tone. In other words, any target while hunting in Ferrous that ID's on the same horizontal Ferrous line on an E-Trac will have the same tone.

Now that specific tone may sound different from one E-Trac to another depending on your settings, such as # of tones, Variability, Limits, threshold pitch, etc...

HH,
CAPTN SE
Dan

 

[Digger]

The display screen on the E-TRAC has 35 horizontal ferrous lines and 50 vertical conductive lines. If you view the E-TRAC screen as a sheet of graph paper, the 35 ferrous lines run from 01 - 35, top to bottom. And the 50 conductive lines run 01 - 50, left to right. If you multiple 35 ferrous grid lines times 50 conductive grid lines, you get 1750 little squares, each representing a different target value. This target value is grid based in that it represents a combination of both the ferrous value and the conductive value. Since the E-TRAC cannot provide both a ferrous tone and a conductive tone at the same time, we will either hear the ferrous tone OR the conductive tone, depending on how we set our E-TRAC. Granted, there are 1750 different target "notches". But there are only 35 ferrous tones OR 50 conductive tones. Not both simultaneously. The combination (which we can't hear) is represented by the numbers displayed on the TID which does have the capabillity of doing both ferrous and conductive at the same time.

Variability does not create more tones. Variability increases the spacing between the number of available tones so there is more separation in pitch between adjacent TID numbers. Not more tones. Just an increase in the pitch difference. This is intended to make it easier to decipher the difference between (for example) a conductive 44 and a conductive 45. JMHO HH Randy

 

[Southwind]

My mistake. The E-Trac has 1750 target ID segments not tones. Only 30 tones.

Point still remains that in multi tone you don't need to look at the meter to tell a piece of foil from a quarter, where you do on 2 tone.