Looking for some advice

Back when I was an E-Trac user I had many modes of hunting, which depended on where I was and what I was doing.

A few things to remember - the E-Trac needs to be swung low and slow - investigate every beep from every direction. Look up TTF (two-tone ferrous) and try it out. Also, manual sensitivity cranked all the way up, in good ground, will find deeper targets than auto mode.

Do some internet searches... this machine has been around for a long time and there is tonssssss of info out there about it.

Oh and digging junk is part of the game. If you don't want to ever dig junk, then you are in the wrong hobby!

GL!

Everybody digs junk and FBS users are no exception. After some time with the machine you will know "zinc penny" "coin" "high coin" "nickel" "tab" and know immediately during your wide search swing if that blip of a tone was clean or not, and stop to investigate the ones you want. It will get easier and easier.

When investigating think of the transmission field as a knife blade shape running down the center of the coil. You might be able to get a good repeatable signal one way by doing 1-2 inch wiggle swings, but when you turn 90 degrees a piece of junk is under the coil at the same time as your coin and it's garbled.
Unfortunately, this is also the behavior you see in a lot of iron falsing scenarios. You will get a lot better at knowing a good tone with those 1-2 inch wiggle swings next to trash. A pure falsing signal won't sound as clean even with nearly perfect Fe Co numbers.
I've pulled silver this way, but also dug a bucket of rusty iron learning.

I'm picking up a Sunray X-5 sniper coil to help with trash, breaking off $200 to upgrade an E-Trac hurts but the fact is CTX suffers from the same problem. All detectors do.