E-trac - nails giving good numbers - scratchy sound?

bonesquat said:

So walk normal speed and let the coil go at a nice 'clip'? I'm not swinging fast by any means - but maybe 2 seconds per full 5 feet swings. Kind of hard to explain. I just had much much better results as soon as I started to go a little quick. I started picking out better signals. I've never had success going snail slow with any machine. Besides if I go too slow with the e-trac my arm starts to really hurt.

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What you describe is how to hunt in clean areas where there is little iron and not much of anything else. If you swing like that in heavy iron or trashy ground you're not getting all you could. That's probably why so many new Minelab users are so caught up with the recovery speed because they're counting on the detector to do the work instead of adapting their swing in target congested areas. The length of my sweep depends on where I hunt and there's the full sweep, half sweep, and wiggle sweep.. If you always take the full sweep you would not hear some of the targets I dig. (because I have to wiggle the coil over them many times to decide and a full sweep doesn't catch anywhere close to all these types of sounds in trashy ground, iron infested areas in my case) The type of site you hunt and what you want to find also makes a difference, and the above I wrote is for my hunting... early home sites fields where I dig anything that isn't iron, and some big iron as well as long as the site is old enough.

Iron Patch said:

What you describe is how to hunt in clean areas where there is little iron and not much of anything else. If you swing like that in heavy iron or trashy ground you're not getting all you could. That's probably why so many new Minelab users are so caught up with the recovery speed because they're counting on the detector to do the work instead of adapting their swing in target congested areas. The length of my sweep depends on where I hunt and there's the full sweep, half sweep, and wiggle sweep.. If you always take the full sweep you would not hear some of the targets I dig. (because I have to wiggle the coil over them many times to decide and a full sweep doesn't catch anywhere close to all these types of sounds in trashy ground, iron infested areas in my case) The type of site you hunt and what you want to find also makes a difference, and the above I wrote is for my hunting... early home sites fields where I dig anything that isn't iron, and some big iron as well as long as the site is old enough.

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Thanks iron. Here's my issue now. I was using TTF and going EXTREMELY snail like slow and doing the wiggle etc and got some extremely iffy non ferrous targets hitting almost always at 01-35 to 01-37. What does this mean? It'd indicate depth down to almost the lowest. I'd dig and dig but never seemed to find the target. I also couldn't go too far since I was on an old church lawn and there were TONS of roots in the way. Not sure what to do.

MOST of the time, that is your wrap around false.

NebTrac

How do I know when to dig in extremely iron riddled areas that have produced many excellent finds in the past? I found NOTHING in 3 hours with the E-trac yesterday. It was quite frustrating.

Quote: How do I know when to dig in extremely iron riddled areas that have produced many excellent finds in the past.

You really won't not unless you get that classic signal you are looking for. A lot of language to learn and not enough time to learn it yet. The big thing is don't get super frustrated. Get out of those iron laden trashy places and get to a relatively clean park, dig those good signals and some of the almost as good ones.

Quote: How do I know when to dig in extremely iron riddled areas.

You were getting way to many good sounding signals for sure sounds like. Did you apply the disc pattern I sent you a link to..... It just about kills the wrap around effect per all of the 50 and most of the 01 are discriminated out. Not unless you like to dig a lot which TTF requires, multi co to me is the way to go. Keep in mind this is just my preference. A lot of good things being found using TTF, just I do not like digging that much when I have a tool that will virtually tell me when it has been accomplished by the user what I'm gonna be digging a lot of the time. Yesterday I visited the place I made the video I posted. Spent a couple of hours there and dug about 25 coins. The ground there has so much trash it skews my TID most of the time with blending I guess. The coins still sounded great but were off on TID and very scratchy, garbled, but they still had the same pitch letting me know they were there. I dug 3 pieces of trash, other metals which happened to be copper and pewter. That was the fooling the detector sound wise. High pitched. You'll be OK just it will take a while. Can't push the machine, let it teach you what it can do.

bonesquat said:

Thanks iron. Here's my issue now. I was using TTF and going EXTREMELY snail like slow and doing the wiggle etc and got some extremely iffy non ferrous targets hitting almost always at 01-35 to 01-37. What does this mean? It'd indicate depth down to almost the lowest. I'd dig and dig but never seemed to find the target. I also couldn't go too far since I was on an old church lawn and there were TONS of roots in the way. Not sure what to do.

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I'm not a screen or pattern type guy so the most I can offer is to say keep at it, experience is king. I believe looking at the screen just holds you back and you will never learn the detector as well as you could, or it will take a lot longer, but that is just my opinion.

bonesquat- I appreciate the questions you're asking our local experts! I'm in the exact same boat as you are with the E-trac. I've read the manual, read Andy Sabisch's book a few times, but have only logged about 5 hours with it. Trying not to let the frustration get the better of me as well.

Went to an old park today that had been hit pretty hard and I was using settings that some of the "pros" use (multi-tone conductive, manual 28 sensitivity, pretty minimal discrimination pattern, etc). The parks crew decided to fix the sprinklers today, so they chased me off after only an hour and a half or so (was planning to hunt all morning and then some ) and I only dug about 10 targets. Tried for a couple of "nickels" (12-13 or so) but they were pull tabs. I was excited that I was able to pinpoint well though. Only found one actual coin (clad dime) and dug one big rusted nail because it had a high tone, but would only ring up as 11-44 or so about once ever 25 wiggles. Most high tone signals seemed to read at 27-45 or higher. I still have a lot to learn. I think I need to hit a few more places with easy, "low hanging fruit" targets before I head out to a park that will require expert hunting to find what's left.

I guess my main frustration is learning to listen to the tones. At that park, the sounds in my headphones reminded me of walking into a casino- high and low tones from slot machines ringing everywhere. I was going SLOW as well, per advice from all of the pros. Just need more practice.

Thanks for the help!

Old Prospector said:

bonesquat- I appreciate the questions you're asking our local experts! I'm in the exact same boat as you are with the E-trac. I've read the manual, read Andy Sabisch's book a few times, but have only logged about 5 hours with it. Trying not to let the frustration get the better of me as well.

Went to an old park today that had been hit pretty hard and I was using settings that some of the "pros" use (multi-tone conductive, manual 28 sensitivity, pretty minimal discrimination pattern, etc). The parks crew decided to fix the sprinklers today, so they chased me off after only an hour and a half or so (was planning to hunt all morning and then some ) and I only dug about 10 targets. Tried for a couple of "nickels" (12-13 or so) but they were pull tabs. I was excited that I was able to pinpoint well though. Only found one actual coin (clad dime) and dug one big rusted nail because it had a high tone, but would only ring up as 11-44 or so about once ever 25 wiggles. Most high tone signals seemed to read at 27-45 or higher. I still have a lot to learn. I think I need to hit a few more places with easy, "low hanging fruit" targets before I head out to a park that will require expert hunting to find what's left.

I guess my main frustration is learning to listen to the tones. At that park, the sounds in my headphones reminded me of walking into a casino- high and low tones from slot machines ringing everywhere. I was going SLOW as well, per advice from all of the pros. Just need more practice.

Thanks for the help!

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When I fist started my explorer it literally gave me a headaches. One piece of advice, don't use your Garrett anymore. They are very different and you can't use both the same way, so if you keep your mind set on the Garrett style of hunting which you are obviously used to, you'll continue to be frustrated with the E-trac.

I'm sure that in a sense, I'm trying to understand calculus before even being able to do long division, in terms of trying to learn the E-trac with all of the top of the line settings already applied. I guess I should use 2 or 4 tone for awhile with auto sensitivity and the factory coin setting. Probably bit off more than I can chew, but I still feel like I just need A LOT more practice.

Iron Patch said:

When I fist started my explorer it literally gave me a headaches. One piece of advice, don't use your Garrett anymore. They are very different and you can't use both the same way, so if you keep your mind set on the Garrett style of hunting which you are obviously used to, you'll continue to be frustrated with the E-trac.

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IP that does bring to light for me anyway why I personally don't like to use TTF on the E Trac. I absolutely hate to look at the screen that much and prefer hunting by sound. I get that rush from hearing an orchestra saying dig me and not as much as the drum beating of TTF. It's just my preference..........