Question for all Etrac users

[Jim upstate NY]

can you all post a response to this..
Did you use an explorer before getting the etrac, or what other machine was it you came from using
And whether you like/love the Etrac so far, are disappointed in it so far, or are still undecided.

I think that most explorer users, at least ones that used it for years, will give undecided
I think most users coming from other machines, will love it..
I do think its too early for disappointment. But I myself am leaning that way not because its not a good machine, I just expected something different than it is..its capabilty to out perform my explorer is way up in the air to me

I still need to get out to some more of my pounded sites and see what it can do.. I just hate going to those sites now as I can not even eeek out a 22 shell anymore after pounding them for 15 years.. gets mighty boring, but the stuff that was at them was great, and I know more is hiding in the iron and down deep in it... I am talking about 4-6 square nails per trowel scoop of dirt or more along with every type of rusty flat iron, rusty tin and barbed wire etc.. the clean areas away from the foundation is usually not a problem for any machine.. stuff is generally less than 8 inches deep and iron fades out to about nothing after 50 or 60 feet from the holes.. this type of testing puts a damper on my time I could spend at sites with targets, especially with hunting season fast approaching, but its the only way for me to know for sure

I think that many people don't understand my moaning about the ferrous mode so much, and trying to hunt these sites without high toned nails coming through...so just wonder what machine they used mainly before the switch...
Some day after a month or so to give them more time on it, I will get an experienced etrac user near by to hunt with me and my SE to do side by sides. the really only true way to tell..

Hey maybe Bob could come down here when he thinks he has it more understood? Not sure how far away Bob is.. I am about 60 miles south of Albany NY.. I have one or more coils of each type up to the X12 so both could use same coils etc..got lots of places with the picked clean signs up

 

[Erik in NJ]

I'm not too far from you Jim - an I've been using an Explorer since 2000 or so. Give me about a month to get up to speed with the E-Trac - I have one, but haven't had the time to power it up yet. I'd come up and do a side-by-side and I have a bunch of coils myself. Though I currently don't have a lot of rich sites at my disposal - I do consider myself pretty good with the Explorer SE. LMK.

 

[mham2]

I like the ETrac though I certainly haven't mastered it yet.prior to getting the ETrac I had a Garrett gti1500 and I like the ETrac better.The gti 1500 was much easier to use but I don't think it had the depth of the ETrac.I have had the ETrac out 4or five times to old sites that may be picked clean or I just don't know what I'm doing yet.I have not come up with any good deep and old targets yet.I am using the different suggested settings and still working with it .Today I came home a little disappointed so I took several old coins out to the back yard and buried them at 10 " and they all read just fine.The numbers do jump around a little bit but I can deal with that. I played with different sensitivity settings and was able to get it solid.I just think the sites I have been at are just clean at least to my expertise.I am going to try some different sites.I also have an Excalibur and mostly water hunt and I love that excal.

 

[Jason in TN]

I have used many types of detectors and have owned about every top of the line machine out there DFX, F75, Explorer SE, Garret 2500gti. You get the Idea. I have had Explorers from the Xs through the SE with a pro coil. I traded my SE in on the E Track and have no regrets. It is a different detector for sure but works great. Do not worry about the ferrous thing just get out and hunt with it. I have found the ferrous # move a good bit on targets in the ground but the Conductive #'s always seem to come in close to what the target is even in bad ground and Iron. It finds targets different than the Explorer but as long as you find them that is all that matters. Pulled some relics the other day in a spot loaded with iron that has been hunted for years. It is different than the Explorer but I do like mine better than any of the explorers that I have had. It is just so much more stable and just as deep.

Jason

 

[jimpugh]

I had one of the first sovereigns in the USA,

Wilma the American importer paid me to show Van Fossen's club down in Texas the Sovereign...

.I tested one of Gary Storms first Excalbers for Minelab ... Thank God they fixed 2 of the three problems we noted together...

.I still have an original Sovereign.....two Sea Search Excalibers .....one can only wade it can not dive anymore....+..One red headphone Excal +one 1000 blue headphone Excal .....the xs I have built into a garrett 500 case with WOT..

..I used an explorer XS 14 months HARD..

..I have 2 Barracuda pulse units , and Aqua Star by Foster,

Four Red Heats 2 Tornado's and one big box XD17 one microXD17,

used just about every fisher....... was repair center south east Fisher research Labs.....

. I have a original silver sabre,silver sabre plus,Sting Ray 2 modified,a Toltec 2 ,

Whites XLT, Whites TDI, Garret VLF/TR Seahunter....

.. And have had the privilege of being a Multi-Line dealer 22 years ...

....So depends i am sure i left a few out of my arsenal ......Land... water... dive .....

.the meter on land I liked best and just sold Xterra 70 this is a very easy unit to slide right in to the saddle of the E-trac on...........

.I have seen it for years hardest people to teach a minelab to are people that are entrenched in thier ways and carry bad habits from thier last machine into a NEW UNIT.......

.No easy way..... forget what you think you know.......... and GO dig

leave your OTHER Toys AT home for 6 months if you are bright................. in 6 moths you will be half way there...

..the only way to grow is reach over your head....

.Try to learn something New every time you hunt....

. I do not care how many books you've read or how much you think you know .......

.the guys and gals that do not heed my advise are setting them self's up for a huge awakening

.....some guy or gal will hand you your butt .....after he or she cleans your clock......... and walks away with your DREAM FINDS.....I aint talk'n no mercury Dime either...

any way time for me to forget what i know and go kick some shovel

Oh Yea LOVE MY E-TRAC and i hope to be one of the guys I warned you about

Happy Trails
JimPugh

 

[Beachcomber]

as it was my primary hunt mode on the Explorer for the past 8 years. The loss of target resolution is disappointing. It's like losing a best friend!!!! I totally understand where you are coming from Jim!!!!! I have been detecting now for over 25 years so I come from many many machines but the last 15 have been primarily Minelab (Sov and Explorer). The Explorer with it's 2D TID was the best TID ever created. The new E-Trac Conductive ID a step backwards. But that seems to be pretty much just the way a few of us feel. Overall I am still undecided. This weekend will be my first full weekend of hunting with the E-Trac so by Monday I should have a better idea of how I feel about it.

HH

Beachcomber

 

[Jim upstate NY]

I am pretty sure that Minelab changed a lot of the things on the etrac to make it easier for the folks that fear the complexity of the smart screen of the explorer. Thinking this way people can get the FBS technology an not worry about remembering where on the screen each item shows up or reads ferrously.. Kind of what they thought by the quattro.. I just think that with a machine this high end and costly, that it might be another backfire, and some or most explorer users are disappointed with some of the changes at least.. Explorer users that learn it well are pretty die hard and wanted something that gives at least the same info..

One of my buddies uses an old blue box Musky and is good with it.. had him whip my butt quite a few times with that 20 year old machine.. and only a few times have I shown him targets he would not dig.. it has a few downfalls but he knows it well and does great with it.. The explorer has a few downfalls as well it is simply not the fastest in iron and for small items in iron it may well ignore them, This is why we need a faster explorer, with all the explorer features and a few of the ones they added on the etrac..

A lot of times butt whippin is just getting over the right ground first as well.. and its possible the cheapest machine in the world will outgun the so called best, even with the best user behind one

I love the quick mask.. it would make a fine edition to an explorer..
The accept mode and edit screen is also a big improvement, . multiple pinpoint modes great idea, especially if they added a sovereign/explorer XS type of motion pinpoint.. saving patterns to share another great idea. but for the most part, once you get one where it reads all the good targets in most conditions would only require a few on the etrac, where on an explorer you could have all kinds of options, much easier to knock out most trash items and still keep most coins and other good items, as long as they did something about target averaging.. other than that you run in iron mask . Trash density and ground is another thing that is a good addition.. we could use on the explorer.. knowing where the auto sens is running is also a good thing to know etc etc

Besides the variable ferrous audio, which I really dont know why they took away, doesn't make any sense at all to me, even with most good stuff reading 12, at least you could tune your ear to that tone.. lumping them into 2 or 4 adds in signals from all the trash that doesn't happen to fall in that 12 area.. I would think everyone would be happier with that simple addition to the etrac... then even the high or low tone falsing wouldn't bother you as much as the 12 area tone would be much different anyway

I dont like what happened to crown caps on the etrac, on the explorer they read bottom right. thats it, hardly anything would ever be good that read there.. no problem notching them out and worrying about missing most anything good.. occasionally deep nickles read over there generally bouncing back and forth.. but if it read solid bottom right you could bet your bottom dollar it was a crown cap and be right 99.9 percent of the time.. now they actually go all over and fall on that coin range occasionally

Same goes for those old type rusty tin cans, far right but below half way, again nothing good hardly ever reads there.. I am still not sure where they tend to read most on the etrac and so far seem to be falling into the top left of right, where your large silver coins may read.

22 shells almost always left of nickels off bottom of the screen.. danger of passing them up is missing a nickel three cent piece, and thats a fairly rare coin to find anyway, maybe some small gold rings read in that area also.. but if you do get over one they sound much better than 22 shells and 22 shells are such a small footprint even in disc you pretty much know thats what they are gonna be..

all those small pieces of tin foil would almost always read off the bottom and left of any of the coins, as well but again easily a bad sounding target.. now a ball of it would read pretty good in the nickel and tab area.. but thats standable and there are still tabs and stuff that do fall with some coins, but much more of an option to notch on the explorer and get rid of lots of trash types at least, without affecting as many good targets

Besides the ferrous audio, this kind of stuff not really important when hunting relics in the fields, cellar holes with little modern trash or beaches where mostly you dig everything , but helps if you just don't want to dig as much trash and there are enough good targets left to be able to take the chance and ignore some of it.. but its important for yards and parks.. I try and be very choosy what I dig in someones yards and public parks, just cant dig up the whole place .. I find so far with the etrac I am mainly concentrating on the higher conductive readings thus not digging many tabs, but I am taking the chance of missing other stuff.. I am thinking from the things I see dug so far is that is what many etrac users are doing right now.. Haven't seen many nickels or small buttons... just indian heads and higher reading coins

Anyway I just hope Minelab has it in the plans to build another one keeping the explorer attributes and mixing on the features the etrac has.. maybe its impossible to change with what they have done with the electronics I dont know, but it is what I and many people would love I am sure

 

[digitrich]

Well, I think everyone knows my answer. One thing I am thinking though is at my best fairground site, there is a 50' x 30' patch of soil that they dumped allot of coal slag on. I have gone over it pretty thoroughly with my SE's and pulled a bunch of silver seated, shield nickels, my only cu 3 cent, and 3 two centers out of that area. None were really deep as the SE calls the coal slag sometimey repeating silver. I am hoping that the ET will deal with the slag better and maybe pull some of what's left. Doesn't take a whole lot of those coins I listed to pay for an ETrac. I have to wait for the corn and beans to be cut. The other deal is maybe for all I know the ETrac might deal with the farmer's fertilizer (chemicals mostly) better in the field itself. Since there is no junk in the center of the field, anything that isn't an iron nail or a shotgun shell is a keeper, so I could easily hunt it all metal regardless of tones. So I haven't counted out this ET yet. My concern is the lack of depth issue. If I am not getting deeper than 4-5 inches in "old" soil, what's it going to do in plowed soil?

 

[D&P-OR]

digitrich----I can't for the life of me see why you are only getting 4 or 5 inches with the E Trac.---You must have a bad machine (or coil).--I get better depth than that with it no matter where I have been hunting with it (in OR).---I know you have tried various things--maybe it's time to consider haveing the machine (or coil) checked by Minelab.--------Del

 

[digitrich]

But when I called ML, Dick told me that my machine is probably fine. That "we" know about as much as they do at this point, that they have no diagnostic testing available for it at this point, that Andy's book would help explain things and that if I sent it to them and it could pick up a coin in an air test at about 6 inches, which is the only test they would do at this point, they would just be sending it back to me saying it checked out fine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He also said the USB port could not be used for updating or repair issues. The last time I talked to him, I had yet to see someone post getting depths beyond 5 or so inches, but now seeing some real guys, getting real results that my machine can't seem to achieve and running my SE side by side with the ETrac choking past four inches, I am calling him back and if Vegas can't test and fix it, well then it's going to Australia if need be or being replaced. I am two - three weeks from corn and beans being cut here and I will be swinging this thing in it, heck or high water. Know what I mean To be fair to Dick, he gets fifty "my machine is not working the way I think it should be working", ETrac owner phone calls a day. What I didn't like was that I pretty much got the impression that Vegas at this point, is not set up to diagnose or repair yet. I don't know if that is 110% accurate but that was definitely the impression Dick gave me and that was disturbing to me........ the guy believing his unit was in need of repair.

 

[John - Maryland]

I agree. He could be doing something wrong, but I doubt that seeing he has a lot of experience. It's got to be the machine.

 

[coinnut]

I'm finding the same 5-6" barrier. But I'm now wondering if it is a mineralisation issue. In my yard which is not as mineralised, I was getting a semi signal on a freshly buried Roosevelt at 9". At my favorite spot (which is extremely natural iron hot), I've gotten a Barber at around 5". But I see lots of guys that have gotten the 9" mark at their sites. But I also notice that those same guys have some beautiful looking Indians and Wheats come out of their ground. I am assuming that their ground is more like my back yard and is tamer than my highly mineralised sites. So far I have to conclude that it's a mineralisation problem that is cutting our depth and not a coil or machine issue (although being a new machine, I'm not completely ruling anything out!). Wonder if anyone is getting deep silver in highly mineralised ground??? My biggest mistake may be that I want to crank that manual sensitivity, as I'm afraid with the auto sens, I'm only getting 3 - 4". Maybe I'm shooting myself in the foot by cranking it up, and I should lower it and see what happens? Any comments are appreciated. Let's figure this thing out!!!

 

[grumpyolman]

I have an SE and an E-Trac. I can't run the SE very well. Using the E-trac in the same areas as the SE I am getting the same depth I did with the SE. Sometimes I am recovering a penny at almost the full length of the Predator tool before I finally get to it. Lately it's been so darn dry,I have been just looking for surface stuff while getting a better feel for the machine. I have seen targets half way down the depth scale but chose not to dig them as I didn't want to ruin the grass and leave a brown patch. In summary, I think my E-trac is going just as deep as I got with the SE but it's a lot more stable. Now somebody who is an expert operator may experience different results. Digitrich...Is their somebody near you who would let you use their E-Trac for a few hours to see if it behaves the same? Might be a faster way for you to personally check out if it's the machine. If you were around here I'd loan you mine...Jim

 

[aliensr]

n/t

 

[jbow]

I strated detecting about 6 years ago I guess. My first machine was a SovereignGT and I used it for about a year, I really liked it and still have it. My only gripe with it was I dug too much "can slaw" with it. It is a very good machine though and i will always have it, I hope.

Next I bought a Tejon and a 5.75 coil to go with it. I used it a lot and still have it. I like it better than the SovGT in most cases. It is very sensitive and with practice I can tell what I am digging. The dual 180 discrimination is awesome and as I said in another post, I can disc out nickels on the alt disc and still hit pulltabs with it. That makes it easy to tell a nickel... It is hot on buttons.

Then when they first came out I got a T2 and the Tejon took a back seat. I used it almost exclusively for about a year. It nearly drove me nuts with all the tones. Coming from a Sovereign and a Tejon the T2 was like using a falty machine, but it wasn't.

Then I went to an F75 and found it to be a great machine. I used it for about a year.

Then... last year, around this time, I got an Explorer SE. I really struggled with it and was mostly frustrated for a year. I had a real hard time understanding the multi tones and it falsed a lot. Finally a couple of months ago I switched to all-metal and ferrous tones and it finally began to make sense to me. I like hearing everything and the ID information is second to none. No need to disc out a nickel... nickels are 10-05/06 and pulltabs are mostly 10-07/08. Dimes 03-28... you know the numbers and hte tones are great in ferrous.

So, then they come out with the E-TRAC and I had to see for myself. There are more things I like better than the SE about it than I like less. It is more intuitive. The menu is easy to operate, the screen is clear. It is an great machine.

The only thing that I like less about the ET, (than the SE), so far is theway the tones are in all-metal. They have the multi-tone option but there aren't as many tones as on the SE and even if there were I still probably wouldn't use it that way because it seem's to false more with more tones.

So right now I like it and am using either relic mode, ferrous, 2 tone, fast, high trash difficult ground... or... coins mode, conductive, mulit tone, fast ondeep off or deep on/fasr off according to where I am, high trash, difficult ground.

I keep my QM wide open usually and switch over to double check some targets. I pinpoint in normal and always switch to digital when I pinpoint... it seems to ID iron better that way.

So, that's where I come from and what I think right now. I really don't see myself going back to the SE even though it is a FINE detector.


Julien

 

[Hungry]

Another thought on the subject, is it possible that you have cleaned out the site with your previous Explorer and there is nothing deeper left, or, that something was done to the site some time ago, and that is the reason that there is nothing deeper, hence, there is nothing wrong with the ET at all, Just a thought. Bob

 

[Rigit]

Previous machines in order that they where used and how long they stayed:

1. C-Scope Beachcomber loved this first machine also had disc (Owned 1970s 2 years)
2. Garrett Groundhog very different from my first machine tuck a while to lean but produced some excellent finds (Owned Late 1970s early 1980s 7 years)

(Had a break while raising a family)

3. Garrett 2500i Had a real problems getting used to my first motion machine and it turned out to be unsuitable for detecting small UK hammered so it had to go (Owned 1990s 12 months)
4. Fisher Quick Silver 5 early late Not sure why I purchased this second hand machine but it was not for me (Owned 1990s 6 Months)
5. Explorer XS I liked the 2D ID but disliked the continuous falsing on iron targets and could not cope with the weight (Owned early 2000s 12 Months)
6. Whites XLT Loved this machine from the word go and continued to find many good coins and artifacts, however depth is very poor on beaches and unrealised ground (Owned 2002 6 Years to present)
7. Loaned an Explorer SE Great machine and a lot more stable than the original EX XS but still a little slow on recovery, would have purchased this machine but the E-Track got launched (Used 2088 2 Months)
8. E-Track Early days yet, but so far I am liking even better than the EX SE not really bothered about the FE grouping as I dig everything that sounds good above FE 25 (Owned 2008 4 weeks)


As I only used the SE for a couple of months I didn't get to rely totally on the ferrous tones, so the transition to the E-Track was a easy for me.

 

[Joe of South Jersey]

I have been using the Explorer's since 2000,

I am still working to make the E-trac best fit my need, But Feel I am getting Close.

I have over 40 hrs on the E-trac and it is growing on me.

I have not post much as I have been spending my spare time out hunting.

 

[digitrich]

It was raining and I didn't want to use my new ETrac because I didn't have a rain cover with me. So I grabbed my F-75 and their 3x5 coil, at the same site, in an hour and a half I dug 11 Indians, 2 buttons and (1) 3 ringer bullet. Then the audio went out on my machine and I have to send it in for repair. The Etrac got one Indian on the same day at 4 inches with the SR 8, if I use smaller coils on the ETrac it can't get down to the depth of the average coin at this particular site, I go to bigger coils and can't get the separation necessary. That 3x5 coil was getting the separation on the F-75 and also getting the 6 inches necessary at the same time.

 

[Beachcomber]

n/t