I can't exactly compare...
But I can kind of try...
I just recently got back into detecting a couple of months ago after a lay-off of a couple of years...
In 2000 I got an Explorer XS...hunted with that for awhile & then made the mistake of collecting detectors...
Many good detectors out there, but that FBS voice is like none other...
I ended up watering down my learning curve...
Then divorce & job-shifting & place-changes made detecting wait too long & it became on & off with too many detectors...
Now I know that FBS is the flagship & everything else is a cool toy...
My buddy got an Explorer 2 at the end of last year & we started talking on the phone...me in Texas & him in southwest MO...
So I got the bug again...
& he had been out of the game for years, having last hunted with a Whites 6000D!
& this dude found hundreds & hundreds of silver coins in the 80's...even a 1916 D Mercury that he sold for $3600 a few years ago...
Anyway, he's back in the game after meeting an exceptional Explorer 2 user & buying one & following him around for awhile before the guy moved...
So I'm getting ready to move back to my buddy's neck of the woods & start lookin' for a used Explorer 2 so we can hunt together & compare targets
but, instead, find a good deal on an E-Trac & so do the deal & then don't get to really use it until I move back...which was a little over a month ago...
Now he's a cool weather hunter & we've only been able to hunt a couple of times so far together...but we talk hunting all the time...& we did get the chance to compare
a few target notes when we hunted...I can't wait 'til this fall when we can really put it to the test...
Okay...so now my new E-Trac just broke down...I bet I put 2 forty-hour work weeks on that thing in my month-plus of using it...& much of it frustrating...
The guy my buddy was learning from said this was the most scoured place he had ever hunted...I may have thrown that thing on ebay if I hadn't heard those words a couple of weeks before it tanked...
& if I hadn't seen the phone pictures he was sending my buddy from Washington state of what he was finding with his Explorer 2...
Well I hunted until my back was killing me & right hand was like a claw for fruitless hours & hours & finally...silver & indians & deep wheat started to come...
from parks with so much deep & mid-range iron & profuse tab & can-slaw trash that it almost wasn't worth it & so much new change that I wanted to give up...
4 or 5 hours with a wheat penny or nothing...& then it came...
It was starting to happen...
& then, just as quickly, my E-Trac was dead...my expensive brand-new used detector was a paper weight...
I just sent it off to Minelab for a 30 workday delay in my learning curve...
So be it...
Dragged the XS out into the slaw & iron...
Loaded it with Bryce Brown's set-up in Andy's book &, you know what?
I haven't used that detector in years, don't think I ever learned it well...
But I started pulling stuff out of that crud...an indian & a few deep older wheats...no silver, but I don't feel bad considering...
Just two night hunts of a few hours into it...
So I can't quite make a comparison between the Explorer 2 & the E-trac...not quite...
I'm like a proffesional novice that's just getting down to brass tacks...
I think the Explorer/FBS platform is a language that can read between the crud lines once you start to learn it...no matter what the model...
My brain had to do a flip to go from the handy little fe/co numbers & mapping to the "old school" XS mapping...
But once it started to get there...2 night's worth anyway...dang...seems like it's starting to work as well as the latest & greatest...
Sorry for the long wind...
But if I knew then what I know now, I would ask...do I need an E-Trac?
To heck with it, I own one & I love what I've learned about it so far....hurry up & fix it, Minelab!
But as far as the Explorer 2 or any other Explorer model goes, learn the FBS language & reap the fruits...
Tall cotton is yours, my friend...
I think I might just get there myself
