Here is some additional info. I posted this earlier in another thread on this forum actually.
Alright, first I don't how much you know, so you may already know some of this.
Look at your Etrac screen. Going left to right, lower conductors report in on the left, the higher conductors on the right. So small gold, lead,pewter--on the left.
And copper/silver on the right.
In the middle you will see things like shotgun shells, medium sized bullets, Indian Head Cents to name a few.
Nickels like to report at/around 13 Conductive---watch the war nickel----it likes to report higher like 17 at times.
Going from top to bottom, top is lowest ferrous readout, bottom is highest ferrous readout. The most important thing about the ferrous is 28 and higher to 35 is iron/ferrous.
The shaded portions (Disc) on your screen is to reject both ferrous and nonferrous. And where this shading is, is why the Etrac rejects certain targets---based on the info I provided above.
I highly recommend you get you some of the targets you said you dug above and along with these get you some dimes/quarters/zincolns/copper pennies/silver ring/gold ring--small and larger and some nails.
Before you sweep all these targets, I HIGHLY Recommend you go into your settings and adjust your variability setting to max.
This turning this setting to max, will add more tone nuance between higher and lower conductors.
Sweep the items in open screen---no shading so you can see where they show up on the screen.
You with a little practice with the variability setting set to max----be able to hunt with your detector more by ear.
Gain setting--This setting when maxxed has the tendency to make both shallow and deeper targets have a better chance of having louder-same volume audio.
With the gain setting turned down some--your detector will still detect (provide tone) on the deeper targets, but the tone will have less volume, and shallower targets louder--so another way besides depth meter to differentiate deep vs shallower targets.
I like my gain maxxed.
Remember not all target hit textbook with target ID, colocated nonferrous target/ferrous/ground minerals/depth/worn or chipped/partial coins can make a target's ID not textbook.
Recovery fast setting turned ON, speeds up your detectors recovery, making it separate better and can allow for a slightly faster swing speed. In trashy areas, areas loaded with iron---turn recovery fast to ON.
Something else---always do a noise cancel on a site before you start. If even in the same site your detector gets noisy, do another noise cancel; especially if a bud shows up with their detector, try to do noise cancel while their detector is turned on.
Sensitivity---auto sens lacks depth compared to manual.
Manual sens of 25 or higher---Etrac starts to punch deeper.
You will have to learn iron falses---and higher sens settings, these falses can become more numerous---but make no mistake, higher man sens is what gets the deeper targets.
Pinpoint--there are 2 settings available--I like normal.
In trashy areas---you'll find pinpoint difficult or useless----better to just dig the spot where the tone is being produced.
Screen readability--some folks run backlight on all the time--it helps a little.
Does pull on the battery more.
RNB aftermarket battery is top notch---long hours of hunting before charge.
Sweep speed--you can't go too slow---can go too fast though--this can cause falses too.
Remember tone first and foremost.
Conductive #S are the ones to watch---ferrous numbers really unimportant unless they are in the 28-35 range (ferrous)
Auto sens # displayed--low number can indicate high EMI or high ground minerals
Ground setting- I've never run an etrac on inert or low mineral ground so, I always use Ground=difficult
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Some info I posted a few days ago to help another person out:
If you are sweeping too fast you may still hear a deeper say coin, but tone or tone duration may not be so textbook-hence when you hear something---resweep with varying sweep speeds and consider pivoting around the target.
User can be fooled with deep iron.
Some things to watch/listen for. Let's say you are running some real high sens while sweeping and you hear a high tone glint. Deep iron can cause this.
What to do??
First sweep the spot with varying speeds (slowly) and listen. Does the high tone seem consistent---coming from the exact (to near exact) spot on the ground as the coil is moved across??? And with multiple sweeps. Consistency in the tone is key- no matter how bad. If yes, this is a good sign for a nonferrous target. What does the cursor do when you get this consistent tone coming from this spot???? Is the cursor trying to stay in the nonferrous range---now it can move around but does it ever try to go to the iron range and hang there??? If not---another good sign of nonferrous.
Next pivot around the target and sweep. Does the tone again sound off when the coil passes the same spot earlier??? If yes, very good sign of nonferrous.
If when pivoting, let's say you get no tone or a null??? You can not IMO eliminate the possibility of a nonferrous target existing based on this, in itself.
Now what if when pivoting let's say the tone seems to come from a substantial different spot vs the original spot of detection???? This is generally one of the best clues for iron using minelabs. But if some or all of the above apply, this different spot of detection could be caused by adjacent iron, or possibly other adjacent nonferrous targets.
There are no absolutes---but the above when used will many times help/identify/differentiate ferrous and nonferrous and help when having to make Dig/No Dig decisions.
All new metered Minelabs users can/may benefit from this info. It's not in the manuals. Should be IMO.
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Two tone ferrous is good for areas with abundant iron, but it has disadvantages:
I read where folks use this to hunt with their Etrac detectors. It is somewhat flawed though and a person could infact be missing some detectable targets.
Two tone ferrous has the tone break assigned to 17 on the ferrous scale.
So anything reading a higher ferrous number than 17 will report low tone, not higher tone.
I have had many instances of digging coins where this ferrous number would never read/report lower than 17 on any sweeps of the coil over coins. (In Conductive mode). So these particular targets would have never yielded a high tone if I would have been in 2TF..
This higher ferrous number based on my experiences was caused by higher levels of minerals in the soil, an overall deeper target, or targets (coins) colocated with iron/nails, or a combination.
I have dug 2 targets with etrac w/ 10x12 sef coil that read 27 on the ferrous line. One a silver ring the other a seated dime. The site where these 2 targets were exhumed was not higher mineral ground, but the site was part of a old town since been moved. (circa1800). A lot of nails and rust noted in the soil when even digging other targets. This possible 27 ferrous reading on a good nonferrous target is talked about in Mr Sabisch's explorer /etrac book.
Granted hunting in areas with lots of nails 2TF may help a person hear some good targets better.
Just be mindful using 2 tone ferrous, you may not hear some of the deeper good targets.
What about 4 tone ferrous???
If a person can learn to decipher the lowest tone from the next higher 4TF has a better chance to provide tone on some of the targets in areas like I described above. It's hard for me to decipher so I don't like 4TF. And with the tone break level set at 30, bigger iron can produce higher tone than the lowest tone.
Remember hunting in areas with lower soil mineralization you may in fact be able to run 2TF and still get the higher tone, even on the deeper targets.
You may even while in 2TF get a high tone on one sweep and a low on another sweep. Users will notice the ferrous # does windshield wipe at times when sweeping targets.
If Minelab would have set the 2TF tone break to around 25/27 would have been nice.
This is where the CTX shines over the Etrac. The tone break on CTX is adjustable for ferrous as well as conductive.
I do favor the conductive tones on the Etrac vs CTX though.
