Big Boys Hobbies

Minelab E-Trac Field Reports

I can definitely retry it. But I can already tell you that DEEP was already set to on. I was on channel 9 also, but I will see if I can set the channel manually on the E-Trac. While the SE and E-Trac are close to the same, they're not the same machine. ;)
 
Yes,I did catch that after I went back and reread,thanks for pointing that out.
Yes,I am also wanting to know if that a channel is in fact a frequency or now you have me thinking, a collection of frequencies.
But, like Okie, I want the ETrac because of its reputation for hunting in the nasty places and hard hit places for hunting the silver.
I am curious to know who could tell us the specifics of that or could it be a protected part of Minelabs technology?
Best,
John
 
BountyHunter said:
1- Choose manually the Noise Channel to the first three, #1 beeing the most sensitive to gold, on my Explorer SE.

Now, dear OkieDigger, could you please re-do your fine gold chain tests with the above two actions taken, applied to your E-Trac?
Click to expand...

Done and it still couldn't pick it up...

Let's face it, this detector is not made for small gold chains. If anyone ever claimed such, they were very mistaken. This machine is basically a purpose built deep silver machine.
 
Many thanks OkieDigger for having acquiesced to my demand for the re-test.

And now for a few weeps that the E-Trac hasn't been boosted compared to the Explorer in its ability on small gold :(

I guess Minelab is afraid that people would settle for it instead of their specialized gold detectors.
Maybe it makes bottom line sense down under to have it this way but here in North America I don't think it would matter.

Oh well, the Whites Spectra V3 looks even more enticing :D
 
Minelabs gold machines are a totally diffrent type machine(PI)..Etrac never even cameclose to threaten any of the gold machines..Now the V3 may ,may pick up smaller gold,but you would have to drop to 1 channel prob to get it.Also most of us are after the DEEP stuff thats why we went E-Trac/Exporer..Im a tad bummed i cant get small gold,but rings come in fine...so Atleast we have the Deepest seeking machine for MOST items..Just not tiny gold ...
 
I'd have to agree with OkieDigger. The E-Trac, and the SE, are more of a specialized detector. They find deep silver and they do it very well. Now I'm not hearing the same as the target conductivity drops. On copper, which is next in line, the E-Trac and the V3 seem to be pretty close in the depth department. As you get down to the nickle/gold range, I don't think it is as much an issue in depth ability as it is ID'ing. While we see people finding gold rings with the E-Trac, it is clearly not as many being found with the V3. If the V3's ID'ing is anything like the DFX's, that would explain why.

It's not just a matter of small gold, although that is the most testable, but you just don't see that many gold rings being found by the E-Trac. Why is that? One would think with a frequency range up to 100khz, it would be a gold killer.
 
user18 said:
If that's true, and I seriously doubt that there is such evidence, it is probably because most people who buy E-tracs do so because they want to find silver, so they don't dig the mid-tones as often.

In any event, this is supposed to be a thread dedicated to E-trac field reports.
Click to expand...

I couldn't have said it better myself Ang. Most of the locations that I hunt are not good gold producing areas so I am strictly looking for deep coins. The Etrac for me is strictly a coin shooting machine. I rarely dig many mid to low tones unless it is in the nickel range.

"While we see people finding gold rings with the E-Trac, it is clearly not as many being found with the V3. If the V3's ID'ing is anything like the DFX's, that would explain why."

Detector can you explain how the DFX or V3 are better at IDing gold items over the Etrac? Gold items ID all over the VDI range which makes it impossible to know if it is really gold or a pencil eraser top. I have owned the DFX and MXT and have found gold and they don't ID any different than trash items. Please explain.:?:
 
This sounds a lot like the "Why can't my DFX find nickels" threads that pop up from time to time at the DFXONLY site. I found more gold and nickels with my MXT than I ever did with my DFX. But that's really off topic for this thread dealing with the E-Trac.

The E-Trac finds gold rings just fine. I dare say, IMHO, that most E-Trac owners aren't looking for gold, they're looking for silver coins. If they happen to run across it, then great, if not, oh well. I think the reason V3 people might be looking at gold is this notion that the color graph is supposed to show it easier when the 22.5 KHz is the highest frequency. Problem is, that's the same whether it's gold or pulltabs. If, and that's a big if, more V3 users are finding gold rings, then I would have to use my intellect here and guess they are because they're looking for it. I bet you they're digging a hell of a lot of aluminum trash too...
 
I bet you they're digging a heck of a lot of aluminum trash too...

I'll have to agree with that for sure. You just about have to dig it all to get the gold rings. Not unless it is gold plated then who knows what one might come up as.
 
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I just grabbed the wifes jewelry box and ran 10 or 15 pieces of jewelry across the coil. All gold and 1 platinum. These are tiny small rings and several necklaces and 1 earring. The herringbone necklace had to be at 2" for it to register. All the rings came in nice and low toned and wanna guess the TID's? Every one of the rings had the exact FE # and the Co # was virtually the same with a slight variation. The only 2 items that discriminated out were a gold plated I'm guessing very small herring bone necklace and an earring. In the open air the rings were a very respectable 6 or 7 inches. I've read where an FBS machine does not do well in air tests so. What I will guarantee you is I haven't been digging any of these #'s you can bet!!!!! Guess I'll start..................Guess the TID #'s if you can, no cheating. BTW I had this exact same TID yesterday and passed it off as well, junk. I'll try and ring that one up again later this week. Anyone want to see a short video? I'll do one if so. Also the TID's are no where's near a pull tab #'s.
 
What I will guarantee you is I haven't been digging any of these #'s you can bet!!!!!

Do you suppose this is the real reason?
If that's true, and I seriously doubt that there is such evidence, it is probably because most people who buy E-tracs do so because they want to find silver, so they don't dig the mid-tones as often,quoting Epi-hunter
Click to expand...
Myself, I think that has much to do with it. Not saying this is 100% accurate but what Epi states is a very strong reference to a frame of mind to what each person has a passion or priority as to what that want to find, and along the way if they are looking for the older coins,they run across jewelry,well thats good also.
I know,I like to find the old coins. But, I sometimes go to a park with the intent of jewlery hunting, and find myself slipping back into a coin mode,totally loosing my original game plan
Jack, I would enjoy watching your video, please do it.
Want be long now, my surgery is mending, maybe 4 more weeks and I can order that ETrac. Think Im going to buy the 6x8 SEF and lower rod. What I havent decided on is a SunRay probe.
Best to all,
John
 
LaJohn said:
Do you suppose this is the real reason?
Myself, I think that has much to do with it. Not saying this is 100% accurate but what Epi states is a very strong reference to a frame of mind to what each person has a passion or priority as to what that want to find, and along the way if they are looking for the older coins,they run across jewelry,well thats good also.
I know,I like to find the old coins. But, I sometimes go to a park with the intent of jewlery hunting, and find myself slipping back into a coin mode,totally loosing my original game plan
Jack, I would enjoy watching your video, please do it.
Want be long now, my surgery is mending, maybe 4 more weeks and I can order that ETrac. Think Im going to buy the 6x8 SEF and lower rod. What I havent decided on is a SunRay probe.
Best to all,
John
Click to expand...
You add that sunray probe on and you have the perfect package..I love mine.Good luck hope you heal up real soon!
 
From First Principles

Purely from first principles, back of the napkin analysis, and without being able to offer first hand comparative data, just a mind exercise.

We know that gold items respond more strongly to higher frequencies, whereas silver responds more strongly to lower frequencies. Even then, signals from gold items are relatively small precisely because of their low conductance. As an aside, the MXT,a general purpose detector recognized as being a great machine on gold jewelry (based on White's GMT dedicated gold detector), operates at ~14 KHz single frequency.

There exists an engineering compromise between: the weight of the detector attributable to the batteries; the Ampere-hours of charge that the batteries will provide the electronics before they are used up; the amount of power available to the transmit coil versus the rest of the electronics. A market need to have detectors run for an approximately equal amount of time between battery charges (ie. if a detector depleted the batteries after 1 hour of use whereas the competitor's machine runs for 6 hours, the 1 hour machine would not be very successful).

Everything else being equal, we can take the available Ampere-hours of battery power and use it to generate a single frequency that is most sensitive to gold at maximum power, or use the maximum available power and distribute it across the large frequency spectrum claimed by the FBS technology Minelab employs.

Given that the V3 can be run in single (high frequency mode), it should also come close, or maybe even beat the MXT gold capabilities.

The E-Trac, because it is using up a significant amount of its transmit power generating frequencies that do not maximize a return signal from gold, would seem to be at a disadvantage in detecting these types of targets.

Food for thought.
 
I think the real consensus for us E-Trac users is this: We don't care! :lol: We're not looking for small gold chains! You can have 'em! I'd like to repeat, WE DON'T CARE ABOUT SMALL GOLD CHAINS! We can find everything else just fine. ;)
 
OkieDigger said:
I think the real consensus for us E-Trac users is this: We don't care! :lol: We're not looking for small gold chains! You can have 'em! I'd like to repeat, WE DON'T CARE ABOUT SMALL GOLD CHAINS! We can find everything else just fine. ;)
Click to expand...

How about diamond stud ear rings? :lol:
 
Rudy said:
How about diamond stud ear rings? :lol:
Click to expand...

:lol: We're not saying we don't like to find those things, we're saying we don't look for them. Like I said, if I ever get the desire to find some gold, I'll get my MXT out and satisfy that desire.
 
OkieDigger said:
:lol: We're not saying we don't like to find those things, we're saying we don't look for them. Like I said, if I ever get the desire to find some gold, I'll get my MXT out and satisfy that desire.
Click to expand...


Dale... I know where you are coming from... silver for me goes into my scrap bin... ;)
 
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