Found 2 more silvers tonight up in the shallow find area. 1929 Mercury and a 1962 Roosevelt. Both were less than 2 inches down. 12/46's loud and clear. I have a busy weekend but may get time to try a spot in the park that should have some deep or on edge stuff. I will try to put some video together if possible. It will be Sunday before I get to hunt again. I will keep following this post and enjoy the comments. I shall return. Photo attached.
Find's Treasure Forums
Welcome to Find's Treasure Forums, Guests!
You are viewing this forums as a guest which limits you to read only status.
Only registered members may post stories, questions, classifieds, reply to other posts, contact other members using built in messaging and use many other features found on these forums.
Why not register and join us today? It's free! (We don't share your email addresses with anyone.) We keep email addresses of our users to protect them and others from bad people posting things they shouldn't.
Click here to register!
Need Support Help?
Cannot log in?, click here to have new password emailed to you
Pulling Out The Deep Stuff
- Thread starter DWild
- Start date
kt said:
I was going to ask this exact thing....glad I found this thread.
DWild - when you use the QuickMask screen are you using it with conductive tones? I use it when I'm in multi-conductive I use it (although not to the extent this thread suggests I should) but I hardly ever see anything different when using ferrous tones versus the QM.
I am using Andy's coin pattern opened for gold, sounds multi conductive, Auto +3, variability 29, audio limits 30, threshold pitch 15, threshold level 26, volume limit 29, gain 24, deep off, recovery fast on, trash high, ground difficult, pinpoint sizing, response normal and switching to the quick mask wide open no discrimination to watch the cursor while pinpointing. Kind of interesting that you can't XCHANGE mode and universal settings files on an Etrac forum. I'm sure there is a good reason why they are not valid files for posting.
I'm so glad I read this thread before heading out today. Had a great day at a monster new permission that landed me some cool stuff and two additional adjacent houses I will hit this week sometime. Thank you guys for discussing this because it made the difference on at least one of my silvers today!
Great explanation. Stopped at a park near the interstate today and used your "cursor bounce" technique and found three wheats (32D, 44D and 49D) at measured 8 and 9 inches. The numbers were all over the place, but the curser stayed primarily where it should for a coin. May have passed them up by had you not posted this thread.
Thanks.
Thanks.
EtracTom-AdirondacksNY
New member
Turn up the VOLUME GAIN to 29 or 30 so you can hear the really, really deep ones. A guy who was a moderator on the Explorer section who did the coil tests also tested out lower and higher VOLUME GAIN settings as it makes the deep targets sing out like shallower targets. He found that once he went lower than about 28 he lost the sound on really really deep targets it would just drop out so you couldn't hear them. SO I leave mine at 29 all the time because I don't care that shallow sounds loud and deep ones don't I just want to hear them all so as not to miss them.
Also I reported on a phenomenon I found besides the cursor bounce or bottom corner sticking that if sometimes a target is really, really deep and the depth gauge is close to being buried the target will give off a thunk thunk sound as you sweep over it instead of the conductive sound. I got an Indian head penny once that had to be 10-11 inches deep as the depth gauge was completely buried on the Etrac and I was digging and digging down through roots and was about to give up but the pin pointer said something was there so I kept at it. I have had this happen a few times to me that thunk, thunk sound and it was a always a deep coin.
Also I reported on a phenomenon I found besides the cursor bounce or bottom corner sticking that if sometimes a target is really, really deep and the depth gauge is close to being buried the target will give off a thunk thunk sound as you sweep over it instead of the conductive sound. I got an Indian head penny once that had to be 10-11 inches deep as the depth gauge was completely buried on the Etrac and I was digging and digging down through roots and was about to give up but the pin pointer said something was there so I kept at it. I have had this happen a few times to me that thunk, thunk sound and it was a always a deep coin.
Just posted a short video showing the cursor bounce on an 1882 Indian Head that was 6 inches down and on edge. I have another post going about help with ideas hunting in tall grass. I was at the tall grass site when I took this video Sunday. Because of the tall grass I did not take my video set up that I planned to use for showing the cursor bounce. When I hit this signal I decided to video what I could with my phone.This is not an example of the deep coin bounce but on edge coins pretty much do the same thing but tend to bounce to the good spot more often. Deep coins tend start out at the bottom right but jump up to the good spot 10% of the time. The deeper they get the higher the ferrous tends to go driving the cursor down. The Etrac somehow catches a good ferrous reading on the sweeps and causes the cursor to bounce up. The on edge coins tend to be on the high side of the screen as much as the low side but bounce to the good spot and park there more often than the deep coins do. Picture attached of the Indian. The grass pretty much made it impossible to hunt.
https://youtu.be/OtxAEB5vkW4
https://youtu.be/OtxAEB5vkW4
earthmansurfer
Active member
kt said:
From memory it was a fairly easy thing to spot. It is only the Fe number that is really changing. So you are going to see a "jump" from low down to high up, repeat, repeat, etc. It is fairly consistent. I only experienced that around the 8" and beyond mark, with 10" being max in my ground and extremely jumpy.
I think for the time, and even still, it is an extremely good machine, actually great. But you can jump to my thread to complain about things. (Is there a New E-Trac coming out?) or something like that.
DWild said:
Well, for one, I usually hunt home sites in 2-tone ferrous. That day I hunted in multi-conductive because I feel like the quickmask tells me more in conductive than ferrous (which may or may not be true, but I feel more confident with it). Any time I got a reasonably interesting hit I'd use quickmask (often times I don't use it much at all) and keep an eye out for a jump. The one I said it made the difference on was a barber dime and I normally don't think I would have dug it because it wasn't a real solid hit. I used quickmask and saw an occasional jump, but even then (and when I would pinpoint) it wasn't real convincing. I went to walk away about 3 times and figured by the time I made up my mind I could have already had whatever it was dug up. I guarantee I've been passing over good coins because I was expecting a better signal.
Here is my best find from that day, using the techniques discussed here:
TrpnBils said:
I also like TTF and use it a lot. I've been using conductive more lately because I've been hunting more on the public ground and as you know most the coins on public are deeper. The problem with TTF is the 17fe break point will cause you to miss some of the deepies that often carry a higher fe.....
Wouldn't that be killer if we could just set that break point to where we want it.....????? 4TF would be the other option but I'm not quite ready to tackle that just yet..........
E-Trac-Ohio
Well-known member
Congrats on the great finds ! 
A good thread with some different opinions here !
A good thread with some different opinions here !
The "cursor bounce" is a definite thing to watch for. Especially when that target is being masked by iron just off to one side. If the cursor is locked in the lower half of the screen while pinpointing its usually iron halo you're picking up. However, if you see that little cursor jump up and stay while you're not moving you should dig. Won't always be a coin, but in those "hunted out" parks its part of what makes the etrac so adept at sniffing those coins out. I dug a wheat penny under a nail the other day, on edge. It was about 8 inches down and the nail was just over and to the right. I only got the coin one way, but it was the cursor that told me during pinpointing that it was worth digging. Funny how learning your machine will allow you to use it to its potential.
If you watch the video link I posted under "Cursor Bounce Video" you can see if you hit the target just right that cursor goes to that 12 area line. That first coin, the seated dime was a tough signal. I was working real slow and just picked up on it in a sweep and went back for another listen. The signal was not that good in one direction but was repeatable. Flipped to quick mask and it was obvious it was a deep coin and most likely a silver dime. It would flash some pretty good numbers on some sweeps. One sweep direction sent a lot of 30's out in the ferrous. I actually pulled the coin out of the hole digging so I am not sure of it's orientation. I would bet it was on edge and that was what caused the poor signals & numbers. This place has been hunted a lot even by me. It has taken a year to really learn the Etrac. Once you get it and know how to use all the info it gives you I don't see how a good target could get past it unless it's over 12 inches deep. I know it can hit dimes & pennies at 12 inches. I found a 1 inch buckle 12 inches deep that a friend ran his AT Pro over before the dig and he couldn't get anything, even in all metal. Another friend's Tesoro Tejon couldn't hit a 5 inch Indian Head on edge. I told him it was most likely an Indian Head and was right. That' s pretty good when you can tell the other guy what coin it is and he can't even hear it. With the Etrac you don't FIND coins you HUNT Coins.