E-Trac vs. F75 LTD test coming...

Congrats on the e-trac. Just remember ONCE YOU GO ETRAC, YOU CAN'T GO BACK LOL

Tom in SC

I went back. Was not a good fit for me.

After re-familiarizing myself with the menu of the E-trac, practicing with the Emulator and rereading the manual for the umpteenth time, I began playing around with the unit in my test bed. I've been submerging myself in the various E-trac forums of late to learn the effects of the various advanced menu options.

Again, here is my test bed:

Nickel @ 4"
Zinc Penny @ 4"
Silver Dime @ 6"
Silver Dime @ 7"
Silver Dime @ 8"
Nail @ 45 degree angle buried 1", 6" away from a silver dime buried @ 4"
Steel Bottle cap @ 3"

and a complex target:

I finally built the test bed described above with a few changes. I used (4) new #4 finish nails (approx 1" long, 0.090" diameter) buried 1" deep 6" in a circle with a silver dime buried 4" in the center of the circle (6" measured from the center of each nail). All nails are oriented parallel to the surface of the ground and parallel to each other. Two of the nails are pointed exactly in line with the dime.

******-******


-*****O*****- ----> "Parallel" sweep


******-******


"Perpendicular" sweep

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V

We've had rain here in SC the last few days so the test bed had a little moisture making targets a little easier to locate. I first grabbed my LTD w/11" DD, found the lowest noise channel and ground balanced the unit in clean ground. Then I set it up in my usual mode to locate my test bed targets: DISC=0, MODE=CL, SENS=0, TONE=DP. I easily relocated all simple targets and adjusted my golf tees to give a good visual indication of exactly where the centers were located. None of the two masked targets could be located but the 45 degree nail and coin would give an occasional (1:10) high pitched chirp when passing the coil either parallel to or perpendicular to the two targets. The silver coin within the 4-nail complex target was entirely masked.

The E-trac I set up with DEEP=off, FAST=on, GROUND=difficult, TRASH=high, RESPONSE=normal, TONE variability=30, conductive tones running the standard coin program. I first performed a noise cancellation and proceeded to run the unit in fully semi-automatic sensitivity. The unit settled on SENS=16. First, the 4" shallow targets were easily located. Next, the silver dime within 4-nail complex target was entirely masked. Not a high tone in any direction. Ditto with the two masked target; the silver dime would not give a response in any direction at any swing speed. The 6" dime came in clear but the ID jumped around from 10-42 to 13-47. Still, an obvious target to dig with a nice 'round' target sound. Surprisingly, the 7" and 8" dimes were completely invisible!

Next I ran AUTO SENS +1. No effect on any targets. Then AUTO SENS +2. Now the 6" dime had a 'flutier' tone but the 7" and 8" dimes were still invisible. Runnig AUTO SENS +3 resulted in no change compared to AUTO SENS +2.

Then I changed the unit to manual sensitivity and ran it up until I received significant EMI falsing and dropped it back one point to finally settle on 22 (max=30). The unit chirped occasionally but never repeatedly over the same point in the ground. Now the 7" and 8" dimes began to give pronounced flutey tones... the kind of 'warm', 'round' tone that the LTD shows on shallower coins running in CL. Sweep speed was critical, and more so than the LTD running in CL mode. Too fast a speed and the target was either lost or the audio significantly degraded. However, the E-trac's TID at higher manual sensitivities was very good and relatively consistent, certainly more consistent the the LTD running in the manner as described above. Checking the masked targets in this mode produced no improvement; both dimes were entirely 100% masked no matter what the angle of attack nor coil speed. The masked targets were still hidden when running a wide open screen.

Preliminary conclusions:

1 - In my ground, with my EMI, the E-trac must be run in the manual sensitivity mode, with some background falsing, to maximize performance, else my deeper silver targets are lost in any SEMI AUTO mode. Deeper silver dimes that remained out of range in SEMI AUTO +3 appeared as solid signals when in the manual mode running 6 points higher than recommended by the processor. In CL mode the LTD gave a good audio signal at any sensitivity (including "0"), albeit with a bouncy TID. The E-trac gave a relatively decent TID even when the target was deep, offset and having poor audio response.
2 - Both machines running the factory stock coils could not locate masked silver in my test bed.
3 - The E-trac gave a consistent TID on my buried steel bottle cap, just barely off the discrimination window. The LTD always gives an inconsistent TID reading even with a careful sweep.

More to come...

Watch your settings etrac is capable of twice the depth for more than your result. Use only manual sens. Auto and semi is your enemy .

Surprising results. In my badly mineralized ground, 7-8 inches were easy with my old Explorer SE. It was significantly deeper than the F75 LTD I had..

Quote
marxionu
Watch your settings...

What do I need to change next?

great stuff here, go-rebels...

Steve

go-rebels Wrote:
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> > Watch your settings...
>
> What do I need to change next?

Start Deep OFF Fast OFF And Ferrous sounds.

Yes, TTF (two tone ferrous) was to be an entire exercise with the masked targets.

go-rebels Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > Watch your settings...
>
> What do I need to change next?


go-rebels,

I am enjoying reading about your tests with both of these excellent machines. My experience with my e-trac, in my neck of the woods, shows that my e-trac audio responses improve greatly with deeper targets when I have Fast - OFF and Deep - ON. Using Fast - ON gives best results with midrange depth targets i.e. 4-6". This would suggest that as adjustments to settings are made, you may lose some targets while gaining others. Since I conducted my own test with these two settings on the e-trac last year, I've thought this over and haven't come to a way to get the best of both worlds.

Anyway, I typically hunt with the settings which you have already selected;

Response = Normal
Ground = Difficult
Trash = High

I am not a fan of using Auto Sensitivity unless the ground conditions change drastically and I tire from adjusting my sensitivity manually. In addition, I have seen test results from others that indicate that an Auto Sensitivity Setting of XX is not equal to a manual setting of XX, but several points lower. Admittedly, I have not tried to verify this since I use auto sensitivity infrequently. You may be able to verify / disprove this during your testing.

Also, I am wondering if there would be an advantage to both detectors by using 'rusty nails' in your test garden rather than new. (Just a thought that quickly passed thru the mind).

Good luck

Gonebeepin'

------------------------------------------------------------------

Just one more good target before I go.

After reading this and having used both the F70, F75, T2 and LTD and never using the Etrac I would bet that the deep silver may be reading iron grunts on the above fisher and Tek machines...So if hunting for deep silver dig the grunts that are deep. It may be iron or junk but also I have seen a friend do this on his CZ and he pulled out three silvers from an old park...

He dug nails and iron junk but three Merk's is worth the effort. Yeah it would be nice to have a deep machine that had a nice tone and VDI but where I live in the Gold Country these miners had to dig a lot of rock to find maybe an ounce of gold just to buy dinner and supplies and start the morning digging again.

I found three gold diamond rings this month with the G2 VDI range 43-56...Now these were at a school and a lake and a park. I started saying to myself..."I will dig that range for about two hours and then I would be to tired to dig anymore looking for gold''. It paid off! I must have about five grand in the three rings I found....I am making a video of how great the G2 is for this type of hunting...When relic hunting where again you dig it all and if you can't hear it...you can't dig it.

I did notice that everything reads higher on the G2 maybe because of the 19 KHz and coins read higher. I have found tokens and coins relic hunting but at parks the G2 suffers. My friend (T) killed me on clad....

I was watching a video on the At pro and it reminded me of some of the older CZ when it hits on a coin it locks in with a nice tone. It may be that on the video the person was not using the DD I think it was the 6x9 but it sounded different then the T2, LTD, and the G2 kind of said "this could be a nice all around machine if it lives up to the hype". I sold my LTD kept my 8000 as a loaner and the G2 is my main unit...It would be nice to see Keith and Tom do a test on this machine...,maybe compair it to the LTD and G2 on iron...from what I saw on Keith's great video he would hit an iron target mixed with a good target and you could here the iron hit first then the good target then the iron. I think the G2 is close to that but I can't repeat that on the G2...The G2 has a tone split so below the disc VDI iron grunt no matter what it sees iron and then if there is another target you will get the tone...but most of the time it is nails and no other target.....So would be cool to see if the At and the G2 and the LTD can do what the At pro does...?

Keith chime in if you want????

I know Tom has way different dirt then we do in Calif..so his tests will be different for us out here but the info will serve a lot of people and Keith says the At does real good in bad ground...We all love to hunt and a new machine is like falling in love again...For most of us if we can find history we missed or have a one time hunt coming we want to know we are going to have the best chance to find what will only rot in the ground so we can save that history....ZZZZZZZZZZ

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

[www.youtube.com]

If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

Congrats on the jewelry. Nice!!!!!!

Quote
Gonebeepin'
In addition, I have seen test results from others that indicate that an Auto Sensitivity Setting of XX is not equal to a manual setting of XX, but several points lower. Admittedly, I have not tried to verify this since I use auto sensitivity infrequently. You may be able to verify / disprove this during your testing.

The Etrac monitors three internal channels and shows the channel with the highest gain when in AUTO mode. Therfore the average gain is less than displayed. When running manual, all three channels are set equally. So no testing is required; by definition the manual mode has higher gain compared to the auto mode for identical numerical settings.

Good thread. Good reporting.
Yes, I have yet to find a purpose/function for auto or semi-auto sensitivity. Too great of a handicap......for a very capable unit.

Sounds like the same performance I get on my Explorer, so it will be interesting your thoughts on recovery speed. So far everything I've read and been told, the E-Trac didn't improve the Explorer lines enough to warrant an upgrade. (not to mention straightening the TID curves - but that's a whole different rant!).

I still have my fingers crossed for an Explorer 3 (or an ETrac2 with some type of Explorer "mode").

gman Wrote:
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> I went back. Was not a good fit for me.

So did I. Replaced with F75 LTD, and haven't regretted it one iota. The right tool for the conditions, it's just that simple.

I understand that guru Andy Sabisch runs DEEP=ON and FAST=OFF with his "coin program".

Can someone tell me his other advanced settings?

Lawrenzo,

Thanks for posting the VDI numbers for those rings. The smallest rings my wife has come in at 52, so I set my disc at 50. Digging all the foil and can slaw at schools and parks gets tedious at times, but $5,000 worth of rings is a lot of incentive to keep digging those low numbers.

Looking forward to more of your great videos. We're pulling for you LowBoy!

Bart

The big gold ring came it mid upper 40 - 57

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

[www.youtube.com]

If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

We've had some decent rain over the last two weeks and the ground is moist and in a near perfect digging condition.

I've tested the Etrac on the Type 1, $1 gold piece buried at 6" and the Etrac cannot repeatedly find it no matter what settings I try: FAST 'on' or 'off'; DEEP 'on' or 'off', GROUND 'difficult' or 'normal', TRASH DENSITY 'low' or 'high', Conductive or Ferrous sounds. Running Conductive, Coins mode, I get an occasional chirp but 50% nulling, 45% no response; running Two Tone Ferrous, Relic mode, I get an occasional response that varies across the near wide open screen... both high and low pitched. I can't find a setting that will find this coin with any confidence.

Running the F75 LTD in CL mode, SENS=10, DISC=0, multitone, I get a repeatable VID=13, from any angle of approach, using a slow, ML-like sweep speed and a loud, consistent 'round' coin tone. Running in BP mode, SENS=30 I get the exact same response with a faster sweep speed. Too fast a sweep speed in either mode results in a low iron signal. Running in MODE=DE results in a very faint repeatable signal but not a diggable signal as I usually hunt.

Tests continue...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2011 02:21AM by go-rebels.

Did you get the same ID when in Bp? If not what is the ID in Bp?

Thanks,

Tommy C.
(southernexplorer)
Deus - Etrac - GPX 5000

Yes, exact same VID=13 in BP mode. Very repeatable and clean coin response.

In addition, in CL/BP modes the Confidence bar is repeatedly pegged at 100% during each sweep.

Go-rebles, does it matter which freq the e-trac is in? I think you can manually set it from 1 to 11, not using the auto noise cancel. Correct me if I'm wrong. When it does hit on the E, what numbers come up?
13 on the f-75 yikes!!! Will have to look at the confidence meter when hitting iron at those low numbers. Thanks for the tests. I will be looking for more with your gold coin...very interesting.

Haven't tested any other frequencies as I'm running the Etrac as I would in the field. When the Etrac hits in TTF I might see 02-01, 25-28, 33-06, 04-46, 14-20 etc.

In addition, I was running in manual sensitivity 5 points higher than auto. I see no target running the Etrac in semi-auto +3.

I have no further tests planned with this gold coin.

"Running the F75 LTD in CL mode, SENS=10, DISC=0, multitone, I get a repeatable VID=13, from any angle of approach"

Why is the F75 sensitivity so low (10?). Does it have to do with being in the CL mode?

Sensitivity can be set very low in CL mode. Higher sensitivitiies only appear to amplify the audio. I like to run in CL with low SENS and high volumes.

You need a 'premium' headphone to run like this to hear deep targets. In this way you run the LTD with a perfectly silent threshold.

Am I the only one to hunt with the LTD in CL mode?

What an interesting test. And fascinating results. Yes, the F75's pique performance just happens to be exactly this gold coin. It is stunning how the boost process modes perform on the Type 1 U.S. $1.00 gold coin. Try an air-test with this coin whilst in 'cl' mode. Especially if you can get away with Disc '0' and max Sens with minimal EMI. No other detector will do this!

Keep in mind that a VDI of '13' is in the high end of the iron range............BUT......the coin only ID's as a '24' or '25' to begin with. A VERY low conductor.

Back from a 1300 mile drive north to TN, KY, IN, and WI for work, then a day in Chicago for fun. Spent half an afternoon on the 96th floor of the John Hancock building... very nice indeed!

Anyway -

Now I've put a few more hours into my test bed, especially running Andy Sabich's coin program on my Etrac w/Pro coil. I'm running conductive, with a fairly wide open screen (http://www.findmall.com/read.php?63,894336,894336#msg-894336), DEEP=OFF, FAST=ON, TONES=LONG, TRASH=HIGH, GROUND=DIFFICULT, DELTA PITCH, TONE VARIABILITY=30 (max).

My ground is in near perfect hunting conditions having much rain over the last half week.

First, some surprises.

Test #1: Running in fully AUTO I get extremely consistent IDs on my 4" zinc penny and 4" nickel but barely can I see my 6" silver dime. The 7" and 8" silver dimes are invisible. My 6" gold dollar is nowhere to be found. But I am picking up an occasional high pitched tone on my 4" deep silver dime surrounded by 4 nails! I can never see this dime with my LTD with 11" DD coil... ever, ever, ever. The Minelab Wiggle would give enough information to tell me to dig! Now I move to my single nail/coin target and I can see the dime moving across both targets slowly. Again, superior unmasking capability compared to the F75 LTD, even when moving the LTD slow in CL mode. In fact, unmasking is slightly improved in the F75 when running in BP mode and slightly improved further running in the old DE mode, but no mode compares to the Etrac running in AUTO SENS. But, remember, deep silver is nearly invisible.

Test #2: Running in SEMI-AUTO +3 I can now easily see the 6" dime but the 7" and 8" dimes still remain invisible. My shallower targets show consistent ID, albeit slightly less so compared to running in fully AUTO. However, my unmasking ability has significantly degraded; I no longer can consistently find the silver dimes next to the nails. Performance is similar to the LTD: "no dig" in a real world environment.

Test #3: Running in MANUAL +5 compared to AUTO I can now easily see the 6", 7" and 8" dimes with good tones. VID's on my deep silver jump in ferrous readings but still remain consistent with conductivity. VID's on my 4" deep targets have now degraded and are jumpy. Now the unmasking problem as turned a corner and gotten much worse when studying my masked targets. I can get a high pitched chirp on my silver (because I know exactly where it is buried) but I am getting spurious high pitched signals on my nails now! I can't tell the difference between my 4" deep silver dime and 1" deep nail. This is bad. (Sidenote: I hunted an old ball field with the Etrac and dug 27 cents (5 targets) but also dug four nails from 3"-6" showing decent VID back and forth with 30% rotation around the target. This is not a good mode to run in iron as the falsing becomes too frequent.)

Test #4: Running in MANUAL +6 compared to AUTO. No joy; too much high pitched falsing that looks like deep silver. Forget that mode. The 6" gold dollar remains invisible.

Test #5: Quick test running TTF (two tone ferrous), modified RELIC mode, ferrous=1 rejected, over my masked targets. Same mode as above running SEMI-AUTO +3. I find no improvement unmasking in my test bed compared to the CONDUCTIVE mode. I don't like this mode hunting parks because of all the high tone aluminum/foil chatter; just too much looking at the screen.

Test #6: F75 LTD running MODE=CL, SENS=10, DISC=0, 5" DD. All masked targets can be found. 4" deep Zincoln and nickel pound hard with consistent VID. 6" silver signals hards with good VID. 7" silver sounds fair with good VID. 8" silver sounds like iron at 75% sweep angles with poor VID; the remaining 25% sweep angle sounds and reads good. The 6" deep gold dollar sounds faint but VID reads consistent 13 with 100% confidence. Increasing SENS>10 does not improve performance on the 8" deep dime, tone nor VID; the iron signal only gets louder. (Sidenote: I hunted within 20 feet of a 1860's era standing brick building that was originally a dry goods store. The ground was just covered with aluminum slaw and nails. I worked this site for over an hour with each slight movement of the 5" DD coil uncovering another signal. My take: one 1976 Lincoln.

At least it was a "copper".

Interesting extensive results.

When it is all said and done, we will know that there is no one machine that will perform the best at every location. LTD here, but not over there and the same will go for the Minelabs. I've got a few places where the LTD just won't quieten down enough to hunt but the SE runs quiet. Now that is not to say the SE is deeper in these areas, but runs quieter. Sometimes it is just plain pleasant to hunt with the machine stable, after all this hobby has to be enjoyable and of course profitable at times to keep me interested.