Jim upstate NY
New member
Took her down to the beach myself yesterday, only this beach is not quite the same as most.. this was a river boat landing/RR depot and an amusement park.. in the late 1800's thru early 1900's. It was built by using stone to jetty into the river and then topped with soil, the washed away beach is all rock..
I think they emptied the burners from the ships and trains right into the water,, there was about 200 yards of dock, and the RR tracks paralleled the docks maybe 40 feet away,
Basically there are rocks of all sizes, some clay underneath, mixed with all the iron from the now gone docks, coal and slag and just plain bad stuff all in it.. the clay has turned orange from rust seeping in..
in the early years they had over a million people come in each year, I have heard stories of the rich tossing gold coins in the water for the kids to dive for, never have found one there though..
I have hunted this spot since I have been detecting, pretty much always can get at least an indian or two and occasional barbers.
I now there is still plenty there.. I can place a dime on top of the ground in many areas and not get a peep out of it with any machine at any settings.. well to tell the truth the machine that did the best at that test was my old Tesoro sidewinder with 4 inch coil.. it did find many coins there. but it also hit on every big spike and those big clumps of slag as well, so it was kind of nerve racking using it.
Anyway on to yesterday.. I used the X5 coil and an expanded coin pattern. Had the sens setting at manual 20, get this I switched to auto and it settled in from 4 to 7. Tried the dime on top of the ground.. no signal in the worse places that I generally check them.. not all the ground is as bad as certain spots, and t comes and goes.. might be a ten foot square where you cant get a peep, and then clears out a little. and then back into the no signal land..
I ended up getting an indian and 2 wheats and a couple zinc cents, along with a few pieces of brass and melted something or other..
Each target I switched from auto to manual, didnt seem to make any difference I could hear it in both modes.. the targets are pretty much on the surface as you can t get more than a couple inches in depth in most areas anyway..
For some reason the indian read at 12-31 on the ground, and 12-34 in air.. it was under a flat rock about an inch thick just laying there after flipping the rock.. the wheats were closer to the water in somewhat better conditions..
I dug 2 crown caps that actually read in the 12 ferrous range, Dug a half dozen rusty nuts reading in the 12-46 range, it seems to like those, at least enough to make you have to dig..
all in all I got about what I ever get there.. a few coins, and some brass trash..probably the waves from the boats wash a few things around.. gotta hut slow in the thick iron like this and nothing bigger than a 6 inch coil is possible. I dig every signal as you really don't hear much anyway.. With the explorer I can use iron mask and ferrous without too much prob on the iron falsing.. etrac had to have some type of pattern or too many high tones, but all in all the 3 coins from there is about normal for these days..
I am still up in the air trying to find best settings and trying to figure out where everything reads. So much tougher than the explorer, where at least you had a good idea of the coin readings. I dont seem to have consistency in readings on any of the coins I have found other than they give a good response like they did on the explorer.. but being just about anywhere on the screen I can not help but think any patterns are going to be knocking out a few. But you can only open ferrous up maybe to the 25 range before high tones from iron make it impossible to concentrate, at least in my iron filled sites. at least in conductive.. I didn't try ferrous at this site.
So my conclusion is I dont know,
3 coins about average for a 4 hour hunt, with either machine.. I dug more junk, but probably didn't have to if I concentrated on just completely solid readings.. I do dig iffy ones with the explorer there as well.. just dont get as many that jump into the coin area.
Last night went back across the street to the 1790's house with the X8. I used the same pattern, which is the basic coin pattern opened up more to about the 20 ferrous area from 30-the end of conductive area.. I concentrated on the small front yard. I don't know whats under there but its solid null, With the explorer in one line of iron mask and ferrous it rattles off lows tones at about 20 to a swing. The strange part is I get very little conductive hits at all.. no trash nothing. I probably got a dozen coins from this area before, but only wheats and clad, not sure why not too much trash, haven't really pounded it good and slow with the explorer yet.. its prime area so only can think what ever is in there is hiding them all. So I figured I would switch over to quick mask and set it open up to 25 ferrous.. Hunted a while more, and got a faint 23-42 reading mostly repeatable but real iffy.. the readings stayed solid though with little jumping around.. at 6 inches I got a wheat.. maybe it was on edge who knows, it started raining and was close to dark so no way to tell. will have to test to see if the coins on edge increase the ferrousity or its just the ground. this is the same place I got a large cent reading 20-46 the other day, although in a different area with less iron. again that was only 6 inches deep.
These targets I get at 6 inches seem so faint I think they are much deeper. Maybe I should bump the gain.. but 24 seems like it should be enough.. I run into more falsing issues when I overdue gain on the explorer, so haven't tried that yet, have enough of that already being pretty much forced into conductive mode and running in the quick mask.
Next time I go over there since it is so close I am going to take both machines, and use each a half hour at a time. and check targets with each.. it is a pain in the butt but only way for me to get a feeling on what one does best... I do have two X8 and two pro coils so I can have them both set up the same except I will be in a pattern on the etrac and conductive, and iron mask and ferrous on the explorer.. maybe get a chance to do that tonight.. What we really need is two guys, an experienced explorer user and one of you guys that seems to do so well with the etrac to go hunt side by side and check each others targets.. other than that hunting by yourslf really proves the capabilities of one over the other..
All I need to do to be convinced is to have the etrac tell me I should dig and the explorer tell me not too and it end up being something good, but hear say not enough for me I need to see it for myself. if they both see every target then this new etrac isnt for me.. cursor jumping around or not, I never remember getting coins reading all over like I do on this.. You can almost always get a coin to jump in the right place on the explorer at least some of the time.. and if not it just reads left of where it should be.. The etrac is like this as well except it reads up or down.. the conductive mode seems pretty stable, but it seems to have issues as well. I am thinking maybe I can create a tighter pattern by just staying under the 47 conductive mode and open up ferrous under and above the 40-46 range more and increase it above the 47 range.. I need to dig a few 1-38 1-39's to see what they are before closing that up, now that I hear a few coins coming out of thta area.. I assume most nails will read farther right of 46.. hopefully tight enough to eliminate most nail falses without losing the coins coming in down there
I am sure the big change of trying to fake electronics of the the machine into reading so many targets coins as FE 12 , is causing this instability.. but that's just my guess.. I know many of you are not having this issue, but how would you know if your runnig in the coin pattern. you wont hear those 20-23 readings to know if your passing any up, and your simply getting the coins that read correctly? I do get coins that read where they do in air also.. you never know what you might miss in a pattern.. thats my main concern about not being able to use an open screen on this, at least and remain sane.. if you are running a modified pattern in iron and get some of those (23-15)-(40-46) readings that are repeatable dig a few and see what you find and let us know..
I am not trying to be negative I am just trying to figure this out.. I would love to be able to say I don't care what they changed if I could take it out to one of my pounded places and come home with a pouch full of good stuff like some of you seem to be doing
I think they emptied the burners from the ships and trains right into the water,, there was about 200 yards of dock, and the RR tracks paralleled the docks maybe 40 feet away,
Basically there are rocks of all sizes, some clay underneath, mixed with all the iron from the now gone docks, coal and slag and just plain bad stuff all in it.. the clay has turned orange from rust seeping in..
in the early years they had over a million people come in each year, I have heard stories of the rich tossing gold coins in the water for the kids to dive for, never have found one there though..
I have hunted this spot since I have been detecting, pretty much always can get at least an indian or two and occasional barbers.
I now there is still plenty there.. I can place a dime on top of the ground in many areas and not get a peep out of it with any machine at any settings.. well to tell the truth the machine that did the best at that test was my old Tesoro sidewinder with 4 inch coil.. it did find many coins there. but it also hit on every big spike and those big clumps of slag as well, so it was kind of nerve racking using it.
Anyway on to yesterday.. I used the X5 coil and an expanded coin pattern. Had the sens setting at manual 20, get this I switched to auto and it settled in from 4 to 7. Tried the dime on top of the ground.. no signal in the worse places that I generally check them.. not all the ground is as bad as certain spots, and t comes and goes.. might be a ten foot square where you cant get a peep, and then clears out a little. and then back into the no signal land..
I ended up getting an indian and 2 wheats and a couple zinc cents, along with a few pieces of brass and melted something or other..
Each target I switched from auto to manual, didnt seem to make any difference I could hear it in both modes.. the targets are pretty much on the surface as you can t get more than a couple inches in depth in most areas anyway..
For some reason the indian read at 12-31 on the ground, and 12-34 in air.. it was under a flat rock about an inch thick just laying there after flipping the rock.. the wheats were closer to the water in somewhat better conditions..
I dug 2 crown caps that actually read in the 12 ferrous range, Dug a half dozen rusty nuts reading in the 12-46 range, it seems to like those, at least enough to make you have to dig..
all in all I got about what I ever get there.. a few coins, and some brass trash..probably the waves from the boats wash a few things around.. gotta hut slow in the thick iron like this and nothing bigger than a 6 inch coil is possible. I dig every signal as you really don't hear much anyway.. With the explorer I can use iron mask and ferrous without too much prob on the iron falsing.. etrac had to have some type of pattern or too many high tones, but all in all the 3 coins from there is about normal for these days..
I am still up in the air trying to find best settings and trying to figure out where everything reads. So much tougher than the explorer, where at least you had a good idea of the coin readings. I dont seem to have consistency in readings on any of the coins I have found other than they give a good response like they did on the explorer.. but being just about anywhere on the screen I can not help but think any patterns are going to be knocking out a few. But you can only open ferrous up maybe to the 25 range before high tones from iron make it impossible to concentrate, at least in my iron filled sites. at least in conductive.. I didn't try ferrous at this site.
So my conclusion is I dont know,
3 coins about average for a 4 hour hunt, with either machine.. I dug more junk, but probably didn't have to if I concentrated on just completely solid readings.. I do dig iffy ones with the explorer there as well.. just dont get as many that jump into the coin area. Last night went back across the street to the 1790's house with the X8. I used the same pattern, which is the basic coin pattern opened up more to about the 20 ferrous area from 30-the end of conductive area.. I concentrated on the small front yard. I don't know whats under there but its solid null, With the explorer in one line of iron mask and ferrous it rattles off lows tones at about 20 to a swing. The strange part is I get very little conductive hits at all.. no trash nothing. I probably got a dozen coins from this area before, but only wheats and clad, not sure why not too much trash, haven't really pounded it good and slow with the explorer yet.. its prime area so only can think what ever is in there is hiding them all. So I figured I would switch over to quick mask and set it open up to 25 ferrous.. Hunted a while more, and got a faint 23-42 reading mostly repeatable but real iffy.. the readings stayed solid though with little jumping around.. at 6 inches I got a wheat.. maybe it was on edge who knows, it started raining and was close to dark so no way to tell. will have to test to see if the coins on edge increase the ferrousity or its just the ground. this is the same place I got a large cent reading 20-46 the other day, although in a different area with less iron. again that was only 6 inches deep.
These targets I get at 6 inches seem so faint I think they are much deeper. Maybe I should bump the gain.. but 24 seems like it should be enough.. I run into more falsing issues when I overdue gain on the explorer, so haven't tried that yet, have enough of that already being pretty much forced into conductive mode and running in the quick mask.
Next time I go over there since it is so close I am going to take both machines, and use each a half hour at a time. and check targets with each.. it is a pain in the butt but only way for me to get a feeling on what one does best... I do have two X8 and two pro coils so I can have them both set up the same except I will be in a pattern on the etrac and conductive, and iron mask and ferrous on the explorer.. maybe get a chance to do that tonight.. What we really need is two guys, an experienced explorer user and one of you guys that seems to do so well with the etrac to go hunt side by side and check each others targets.. other than that hunting by yourslf really proves the capabilities of one over the other..
All I need to do to be convinced is to have the etrac tell me I should dig and the explorer tell me not too and it end up being something good, but hear say not enough for me I need to see it for myself. if they both see every target then this new etrac isnt for me.. cursor jumping around or not, I never remember getting coins reading all over like I do on this.. You can almost always get a coin to jump in the right place on the explorer at least some of the time.. and if not it just reads left of where it should be.. The etrac is like this as well except it reads up or down.. the conductive mode seems pretty stable, but it seems to have issues as well. I am thinking maybe I can create a tighter pattern by just staying under the 47 conductive mode and open up ferrous under and above the 40-46 range more and increase it above the 47 range.. I need to dig a few 1-38 1-39's to see what they are before closing that up, now that I hear a few coins coming out of thta area.. I assume most nails will read farther right of 46.. hopefully tight enough to eliminate most nail falses without losing the coins coming in down there
I am sure the big change of trying to fake electronics of the the machine into reading so many targets coins as FE 12 , is causing this instability.. but that's just my guess.. I know many of you are not having this issue, but how would you know if your runnig in the coin pattern. you wont hear those 20-23 readings to know if your passing any up, and your simply getting the coins that read correctly? I do get coins that read where they do in air also.. you never know what you might miss in a pattern.. thats my main concern about not being able to use an open screen on this, at least and remain sane.. if you are running a modified pattern in iron and get some of those (23-15)-(40-46) readings that are repeatable dig a few and see what you find and let us know..
I am not trying to be negative I am just trying to figure this out.. I would love to be able to say I don't care what they changed if I could take it out to one of my pounded places and come home with a pouch full of good stuff like some of you seem to be doing