I'm Spoiled !!.....

I finally got to get to the park today with my AT Pro ......The beach that my pardner and I frequent was completely sanded in with new sand that they pumped in from the bay !!.......They did a nice job , but we now have to wait for the new group of Summer dwellers to loose their coins and jewelry !!......So off to Pounded Park !!!..... It was DRENCHED but we ended up with some clad ....My pardner had his E Trac today , and I took my AT Pro ....... This will be the last time that I bring my AT Pro to the park !!....OMG !!!!...... I never knew so many pull tabs and so many bottle caps existed in all of America !!!....... Sure , the AT Pro has the Iron Audio button , but OMG, I couidn't take one step without having to press the Iron Audio button AT LEAST 10 times !!...... Somebody give me some ASPIRIN !!!..... I have a headache from this park ....I can't discriminate any of this trash or I will miss good targets too !!...... WHAT A MESS !!!....... My pardner was laughing at me as I had to go over to a park bench and rest my head and ears for a while ..... He said " I don't hear anything " ....." What's the problem ? " .......

With the multi frequency macines , you have a matix where each target has a conductive number and a ferrous number ..... Bottlecaps and coins have the same conductiive number but the ferrous number is different ....So on a ML machine with the matrix , when you cancel out a bottle cap, your coins still ring out because they have a different ferrous number included in their ID ....On a single freqency machine , the botte cap and the coin have the same conductive number , so you can't eliminate the bottlecap without eliminating the coin !!....... I have NEVER heard so much CRAP coming out of a detector before , because I always had these items discriminated out in my ML matrix and just took it for granted ......I will NOT make that mistake again .....What a HUGE difference ....and guys complain about how expensive these multi frequency macines are ? ...... You really can't put a price on what these things can accomplish in the background !!........Jim

Jim,

One of the reasons I got an E-Trac was the conversations/PM's we had back and forth about that machine. It really is a great unit.

Just got the 8 inch Sunray coil for it, and will be adding the 5 inch as well and I should be set for awhile. I know I can beach hunt with it, but I think I am going to relegate the E-Trac to land hunting for coins/old silver and use my dedicated beach machines for the salt water. No way I want to toast the E-Trac !

I agree the ability to split up the ferrous and conductive ranges and set up an almost infinite number of matrices has major advantages.

Your gonna love those SunRay coils, I have the 8" & the 5" that I've used w my Explorer.
Both are silver slayers in the trash, especially the 5".

I have the 5" coil for both the Sovereign , and the E Trac ....They work GREAT on both machines .....Great for in between old tree roots , and in the woods !!..... I can't believe how deep those little guys can go !!.....Jim

I just tested the Sunray 8 in my test garden and it hit every target and even ID'd the deeper targets with very good accuracy. I almost always use an 8 inch coil on my CZ's so I think this coil is probably going to be my main coil on the E-Trac.

I call 8 inch coils 'Little Bear' ( you know, from Goldilocks and the Three bears !) coils...not too big, not too small...just right !

Same name I use to nick name my....NEVERMIND !!! HA !!!!!! ( hopefully that got a few laughs !).

That's a little more info than we need to know !!....... ........Jim

I really enjoyed your post, Jim. You (using that AT Pro) sound just like me, and how I feel, running my F70 in the trashy parks! It DOES give you a headache!! Further, I hunt with E-Trac guys, and I know JUST what you mean. I will hit a target that rings consistent high VDI (say, an aluminum bottle cap -- reads JUST like a coin, to me, with a DD coil -- or a flat piece of rusty iron), and I'll call one of them over to look at it, and they just look at their screen, and then look over at me like "what 'chou talkin' 'bout, Willis..." I think they think I'm just clueless -- they have no experience with a Fisher machine, and so can't understand why some bottle caps, or some flat iron pieces, sound just like coins to me. They just sit there and wonder what my problem is! There is NO WAY they dig those targets; they pass right over them and never even stop. Meanwhile, I'm running the coil over the target from ten different directions, trying to get SOME KIND OF CLUE OR HINT that it may be iron and not a coin -- they are off finding and digging the silver dimes while I am digging trash! That's not to bash the Fisher machines; those E-trac guys have nothing on my F70 with respect to depth, and there are occasions when they have a target that they are convinced is a good one that I run over, and say "no way." But more often than not, having that "ferrous" and that "conductive" number gives them SO much more information, that they consistently find the better coins (mostly because they can keep from digging much trash, and only "cherry-pick" deep silvers -- just as you described, Jim.) I am so bogged down hitting eight million high-tone targets, 95% of which are junk, while they are just passing them right by and never missing a beat! They never hit a silver coin that my machine can't "see," it's just that they can pass over so much junk without stopping that they cover the ground better/faster than I can. Maybe a new multi-frequency Fisher machine will come out that can compete? Now THAT I would buy! I just don't "feel" good about the Etracs -- they look so user un-friendly and look SO intimidating...maybe it's just because I haven't used one...

Steve



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2011 11:47PM by steveg.

Try some of these techniques:

The F75/T2 will show 'quarter' on a quarter............and 'quarter' on a steel bottlecap.....but the "Conf" bar-graph will indicate very low.
NASA Tom


DD Coil Bottlecaps
The beer caps may drive you a little nuts until you figure them out. Drag the coil toe or heel lengthwise over the target and if it's a bottlecap it will generally give you an iron tone.
Jimbog

Steel Bottlecaps T2

With my T2 I just look at the Fe3O4 graph as I continue to sweep over the target whenever I have a high coin reading.
If the graph shoots up, it's a bottle cap. If it remains where it was, it's not. Most of the bottle caps (real old) and highly corroded gave sort of a squawk with the high tone but I dug a few anyway. Once the ground was disturbed, the F-75 would not detect the cap.
SoCal Bob

With bottlecaps, on my F75, the FeO4 iron meter will spike way up when multiple sweeps are done.
Tommy

Steel Bottlecaps
The T2 responding to steel bottle caps like high coins is really the only wart the T2 has. Yes....there are a couple of unsightly moles but this is the only wart. Really been bothering me but I hadn't time to do anything about it between work, chores and church activities.
But tonight I sat down and started air testing. Those of you that know me know that I really get into my air testing nerd. I went through the tub I keep all the junk in that I keep just for testing purposes and found a steel bottle cap and started testing. I left the disc setting at the preset level of 10, raised the sensitivity to 80. I had taped the bottle cap onto the two foot wooden ruler I use just for air testing to make sure I can replicate sweep speeds and began sweeping the cap over the coil. I oriented the bottle cap both right side up and up side down. In every mode the cap would read in the zinc range with bounces up into the dime or higher range, or if I stayed close enough to the coil to stay within the large signal range, it would stay up in the dime range.
I tried various sweep speeds, edge pass sweeps etc. with out any repeatable success. Then I tried bobbing the cap over the coil. That made a significant change. While sweeping can cause the cap to read as anywhere from zinc to high coin, bobbing move the id down into the nickel and tab range. Whats this? Both right side up and upside down, bobbing the bottlecap reduced the reading down into the tab and nickel range.
Well....put the cap on the floor and bobbed the coil over the cap with the same results. Is this significant or is this normal? So I took a dime. Sweeping the dime accross the coil gives a 82 reading. Bobbing the coil over the dime resulted in different readings depending upon the distance from the coil. Within close to medium proximity to the coil, the dime stayed in the 80s. Decreasing the signal strength with distance resulted in the id dropping down to 79-78-77 readings. The dime dropped a max of 5 numbers. Bobbing the coil over the bottlecap resulted in readings down into the mid 50s to mid 60s. Consistently. The cap dropped a max of 25 numbers.All audio modes worked the same. The secret to identifying steel bottle caps is to simply take a moment to center the coil and bob the coil a time or two over the target and see how far the number drops. If it stays in the zinc range or higher...its a coin. If it drops down into the tab range, its a steel bottle cap. Do you have to do this on every high coin signal? No way... just when you are hunting in a steel bottle cap infested area.

another user states 'Many times a badly corroded bottlecap will null-out when you go to pin point'.

Aluminum screwcaps will always look like a good coin to a detector. Steel bottlecaps are a different story...... especially with a DD configuration coil. Try manually dropping your Grnd Bal 10 to 30 points BELOW where the unit will actually Grnd Bal. I remember Itasca/Chicago Grnd Bal was around 45 to 62. If this is the case for you...... drop your Grnd Bal down to around 32..... and see if this gives you better resolution with these steel bottlecaps. Try this before investing in a new coil.
NASA Tom

you are spoiled, I hunt my XLT in all metal and dig the iron with the bottle caps and the bobby pins, I guess for me it's just cherry picking when I find a good target , pull tab are a good target if you collect them and give them to Micky D's house

TerraDigger --

Yup, I've employed alot of that info (though I forgot about the "bobbing the coil up and down" one) after reading some of that info you sent me. I have learned how to usually "not dig" those rusty steel ones -- based on those tricks (heel of the coil gives an iron grunt, iron meter jumping high, the "squawk" with the high tone, etc.) The aluminum ones, though, are a HUGE challenge -- but not for those E-Trac guys. That extra "ferrous" information, I'm assuming, gives them the clue to pass them over. I NEVER see one of them dig an aluminum bottle cap. Again, this is a big part of where I can't "hang" with them -- they can much more easily filter through/ignore trash (stuff that sounds at least "somewhat" good on my machine), and thus they arrive at the silver before I do. My machine ALWAYS "sees" it, once they call me over to it; it's just that they have covered ten times the ground I have because they don't get hung up on those good-sounding trash targets that I'm spending my time interrogating -- and often digging.

Steve



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2011 01:08AM by steveg.

Well the Etrac is heavy and it will burn me out fast and digging trash will burn me out a bit slower..but in the last three weeks digging with the G2 all 45-56 targets I pulled out three diamond gold rings, one has 14 diamonds ( video to follow in a month)..Now that bling will pay for a lot of stuff. So I realize that parks and schools are a pain! I don't hunt them that much but am interested in getting back to them because of the luck I have had with the rings. I use to find a lot of silver rings but relic hunting has kept me more interested becasue of the history and being out in nature.

So yeah TEK and Fisher have to come out with the next best machine that lets is find more stuff...and helps us with the trash. There is a lot of money to be made finding all sorts of cool stuff out in the real world..I think we have come a long way with relic hunting now it is time to go back to basics and tout a new machine that will help us with trash..We are getting real close to unmasking to the point where we can now hear the target hiding in the iron but you have to have a trainded ear for that...and if you do it is so cool to pull out the masked target and see what history you have uncovered.

The At pro is touted as a detector that can do that...but I am sure it is not as easy as it sounds...But easy is not what is important we don't mind working our ### off for a look at history. The G2 doesn't miss a thing and does really well at unmasking but till someone takes an AT and a G2 or other machine out and hits the same target we can only say how good each machine is on its on user...

I know each company has it lower freq machines but we have to take that to the next level a multy freq machine you can have control of the freq so you can hit parks and schools find tiny gold and small silver and be able to tell trash over coins and it works like they say the Etrac does?

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!

Guys,
I totally understand that a lot of machines that you mention can find good targets amongst the bad, and I do realize that there are machines that can go just as deep and find targets just as deep .......There are so many different tricks that each machine has to deal with bottle caps in thiere own way .....and one is just as good as the other ....The point I am making is that with a multi frequency machine that gives you boht ferrous , and conductive numbers in a matix , you can discriminate a bottle cap completely !!....GONE , NEVER HEAR IT TO MESS WITH IT !!.....BYE BYE !!.....NONE EXISTANT !!.........It's not even there kinda thing !!!......When you guys run across the bottle cap , you are FORCED to NOT discriminate it because you will be discriminating GOOD targets along with it !!......With the matrix , you are only discriminating the cap , not the coin !!!...... The caps don't even exist anymore to have to deal with ....The only tones you are hearing with those same conductive numbers now are COINS !!.... I was in SHOCK today listenning to all those tones !!....It was mind boggling !!......This park is TRASHY !!....
I couldn't wait to get out of there .... I had many cases where the high tone rang out and when hitting the Iron button , I did NOT get a grunt , so I dug , and sure enough it was a bottle cap !!.....So that button does not work all the time ....I had my coil up on end so many times today it looked like a balerina coil !!...... YES , I agree there are tricks , but what if you did not even have to resort to those tricks because that bottle cap never even sounded off for you to have to deal with ? .......THIS is the point I am making .....THIS is why I am saying that " I AM SPOILED " ....and I'm so glad that i am !!...... I don't have to waste the time on these bottle caps when running a multi frequency machine with a matrix that will get rid of them ...... I looked at my pardner and said " where did all these bottle caps come from ? " ......He laughed !!....... Every time he talked about bottle caps , I told him " I have something on my AT Pro that will handle those " .....He said , " yeah, so did my F75, and so does a lot of other machines out there " ......" The E Trac just does NOT have to deal with them PERIOD " ...... I have hunted this same park with my E Trac and never even gave it a thought ...UNTIL TODAY !!.....I've always been happy with what my E Trac has done in the past .....Now I'm beginning to be even MORE happy with what it DOESN"T DO !!.....It DOESN"T hear bottle caps !!.......

It saddens me that the E Trac IS a heavy machine , and it can also be intimidating in the beginning .....Once you wrap your head around it , you will be amazed at what it can do , and what it can't do !!..... As far as the weight goes , if you wear a Swingy Thingy, you can swing this thing all day and not get tired ..... Jim

I hunt with a friend who uses an e-trac. A couple years ago we were in a field we call the button field. I got a deep, mid high tone between low grunts on my old f-75. He was about 10 feet away so he walked over and swung his e-trac over the spot, looked at his numbers and right away said it was trash. I'm digging it anyway. I dug down about 7-8 inches and pulled out a nice 1" flat button that had floral etchings on it....Ah Ha! I thought. He didn't say a word and neither did I,......didn't have to.
I have to admit, when I was digging it, I was praying it wasn't trash. Now that I'm thinking about the button field, I don't remember him pulling any buttons from there with the e-trac, where as I have dug several dozen or more over several trips.They read 12 / 30 air tested on the e-trac and 55ish on the 75. The place is loaded with iron and square nails. Maybe he dosen't care for buttons, maybe he can't get between the iron, but I would dig those numbers all day in a field like that. Along with all the buttons, that field also has produced for me many large and half cents, two flying eagle pennys and a bahama copper.
He let me use his e-trac for a while as I've posted before, and after hunting 40+ hours with it, I do like it and I will hate giving it back as it is a fine machine. The ferrous number is a great feature and I love the noise cancel. There is no EMI issues with the e-trac as in the areas the 75 has problems with.

Synthnut, Coming from using a ML machine to a AT or an F series has to be difficult in a high trash area. I am asuming the AT is closer to a F series machine than a ML. I know my buddy who has a SE & an E-trac wouldn't be able to use the f-75, and I wouldn't offer it for him to try for fear of having to unwrap it from around a tree. But once you get use to it (try to) you may be able to seperate goodies a bit better. How about when you use an all white screen with an e-trac in a high trash area...it sounds like an all flute orchestra tuning up before the show. With the sharper tones and faster responce on the F machines you can run with no discrim and your ears will get use to listining for the tones you want to hear. I don't think the e-trac has an advantage in a trash area over the f-75 or similar detector, it's null city with discrim and you can't hunt with out it in a high trash area... at least I can't.

Steveg, When we walk a field, we sometimes start off side by side and parallel, overlapping each others swing area. The first one to dig gets left behind, and depending how many targets are in ones path, plus recovery time of each target, plus swing speed, determines who gets to the end of the field first. My buddy with his e-trac dosen't dig as much junk as I do, but I retrieve targets quicker with the 75 and I am usually ahead of him. This is just casual detecting, not in a hurry at all. He finds a fair share of junk also. If there's silver and copper coins in your path, and the planets are aligned right, you will find them along with some nice relics to boot. Keep on pluggin with your f-70.

No doubt about it that the F75 LTD is far hotter on lower conductors. My Etrac buddies almost NEVER dig gold and I've dug a fair amount with my LTD (it's very hot on gold in BP mode), but they almost always best me in deep silver (yes crown caps suck big time!). Interestingly the last two hunts I had my 5" coil on my F75 detecting heavily hunted spots trying to eek out one more keeper, and at both spots I found a very nice silver ring, one was about 7" deep, the other was just barely under the surface and a honker of a ring, so I have no idea how it was missed, it read in the low 90's on the LTD loud and clear (although there was a ton of iron around it).

I suspect the killer arsenal is having both an Etrac AND a F75/T2 LTD.

Ozzie ,
When I hunt the parks , I'm really not looking for Gold ....I look for gold on the beach and that is where I LOVE using the AT Pro ....It's much lighter and much faster on the beach , and there is not nearly as much trash as in the parks ...........You guys can hunt all you like in the trash with your F75's and such ......I don't think that I could EVER get use to all that noise !!......Again , this is what you are use to , and this is what you are accustomed to ......If this is what you like to hunt , it's all good .....It's not for me !!...... Give me a null over that noise any day ....What you may not know is that the E Trac can STILL hear good targets THRU THE NULL !!......They don't get knocked out because of the null like on most machines ..... Make no mistake that the E Trac has no problems hearing a good target like a Barber dime with nails or any other trash around it !!..... One big problem I had with my Sovereign was because the discrimination was not wide enough to knock out the iron around a Barber dime ....The E Trac hit it like there was nothing around it .....The Soveriegn could not even hear it !!..... FROM ANY DIRECTION OR SETTING !!..... The E Trac handle iron quite well , and discriminates even better .....Let me say once again , it's not for me to listen to all the trash around the park .......It's not the way I hunt ..... I do not get penalized for discriminating with my E Trac so I have no problem using it , and I don't fear the nulling / hiding any GOOD targets !!..... I agree that the ML machines could do better on Gold , but they will hit bigger gold just fine ..... but the AT Pro hits bigger AND smaller gold just fine ...and fast too !!!...... F75 ? .....I like how light it is ....GREAT ergonomics ......The noise you can keep !!....I don't care how deep it is .....Numbers of good targets all ganged up ? .....Not for me .....I'm sure it's a great machine for those who are use to it , and have grown fond of it , but it's not the machine for me ..... Not a machine for me , but that doesn't make it a bad machine .....Just not a good machine for me ......Jim

I'm not sure how your buddy had his E Trac set up so I won't comment .....I am not a relic hunter , so I would have probably needed more direction from those of you who were into relic hunting so I would know how I wanted to run my E Trac .....Or I could have just loaded the stock "Relic " program that comes with it ....???????....... Just about any macine on the market is faster than the E Trac ..... But I don't think there is one that is any more accurate .....My beep and dig days are OVER !!..... ......Jim

Jim --

Everything you have said in this thread EXACTLY lines up with what I have witnessed when hunting with the Etrac guys. You have put into words exactly what what I have seen, but didn't totally understand. Having never run an Etrac, I hear them talking about "nulling," and "not hearing" junk targets...but you described with words exactly what I witness every time we hunt. We start hunting and they don't even STOP, flying through the park, until they have found a sweet spot that starts to produce silver coins or wheats or whatever. Me, I haven't made it 50 feet from the parking lot, trying to sort through all the noise, with eight junk targets dug and one or two clad coins.

To liken it to golf, it's like me and a friend starting on the first tee, and then him playing the ball right down the fairway, onto the green, and on to the next hole, while I am back in the deep rough, try to get out, but hit a tree branch and ricochet into the woods, now I can't find my ball; after 5 minutes of looking, I finally find it but put it into the sand trap, then FINALLY hit a good shot onto the green and putt out and head on to the next hole. By the time I finish the fifth hole, I have a couple of pars, but also two triples and a quadruple bogey, 3 lost balls...meanwhile, my friend is already headed up the 18th fairway, at eight under par, with seven birdies and an eagle on his card, and only one bogey! Without all those balls in the rough, in the sand trap, looking for lost balls in the woods, he has nothing but "rewards" on his scorecard at the end of the day. Me, a FEW rewards, but a bunch of other crap on the card, too. And oh, by the way, he finished his round four hours before I did!

Again, not to bash my machines at all. I love many things about both of them. It's just that there are many hindrances to having better, more efficient, less difficult hunts, and I'm not sure there's an easy way to overcome them, for someone who is specifically hunting for old coins, and an occasional ring. (Until Fisher comes out with their lightweight, ergonomic, easy-to-use, intuitive, top-of-the-line multi-frequency machine...)

Steve

Share a old technique I do when I think I am getting bested..........4 golf tee's........25ft of twine.........I rope off a 6 sq ft area. I hit that area from every conceivable angle....high disc first.......then low disc........the twine psychologically keeps me in one spot. Sometimes its a bust....other times quite successful. I take 5 minutes to scope the area out.......and decide where to twine off. Follow my intuition on location. I usually do worst when I am roaming around or even the slightest bit concerned on what a detector buddy is finding.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2011 02:14AM by TerraDigger.

TerraDigger --

That's a really fascinating idea. Last time we hunted, we (they! ) found several silvers on a hillside overlooking some tennis courts. Thinking is that folks lounged on the hill, watching the park/tennis courts below. I am going back there Thursday; I think I'll "mark off" a small spot like you said and really hammer it, from several angles, with both of my machines, etc. -- and try to pull out a couple more goodies.

Thanks for that tip!

Steve

One thing I learned about the E-Trac early on is, if you hit a spot that is nulling in one of the discrimination patterns, hit that area slow from EVERY angle. Certain angles may null, but there may be that one angle where the E-Trac will sniff out a silver coin or gold ring that is sitting right next to a piece of iron. This technique may slow you down, but may also produce a really nice find.

Also, a switch into Quick Mask with everything accepted can let you know what exactly is down there.

That's how my E-Trac buddy hunts......slow....working it from all angles.....but a extremely effective method......which really can be used by 'any' detector. And every once in a while.....the mighty E-Trac gets fooled by a piece of iron. It's not like a Trac is infalliable......lol

Not infallible but MIGHTY, MIGHTY close!-----Anybody wanna buy a camo F-75 LTD??? (serious)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2011 04:01AM by D&P-OR.

I'm not sure how your buddy had is E Trac set up , or how fast or slow he hunts , but if you have iron discriminated out , and you're hitting an area from every angle , what's gonna fool you ? ...... The only way that iron will fool you is if you hunt with no discrimination in Quick Mask , and the iron target is larger than your good target and overpowers it ....... There is only one target that has stumped me in the parks .....That is an OLD gold screw cap from a wine bottle ....... These are old caps that are found 8" down in hard pack dirt , that read the same Ferrous, and the same Conductive numbers as good Silver coiins , and they even SOUND LIKE THEM !!.... That's the only target that wil fool me once in a while .... It's got EVERY indication of a Silver coin right down to the size !!....Iron doen't fool me because it's discriminated out ......Jim