Greater E-trac Depth

Nearly 2 years ago, I attempted to find out what was causing the 01-50 readings that occurred when using Noise Cancel (NC) #11 with a high manual sensitivity level. The 1st find was a large ironstone rock, and the next few finds were thumb size magnetite rocks (highly magnetic). More recently, the latest source appeared to be small pockets of mineralization. What a mistake! It was not mineralization, but targets that were beyond target ID depth. For some reason, when using NC #11 along with a high manual sensitivity level, as detection target ID depth is exceeded, the target ID starts to blend with 01-50 (sounds trashy). Beyond that point, only 01-50 will register. Depending on the size of the target, you can get more depth, but you lose target ID capabilities. If a target was detected as 01-50 with some iron discrimination, then it would appear that iron can be discriminated beyond target ID depth. If so, this may be a useful feature.

A few months ago, got a dime-size stainless steel wash (non-ferrous type) that was in the small gold ring ID range. Dug out about 6” of damp sand, and rescanned the hole (with 01-50 discriminated out). No signal, so guessed that the damp sand was needed to detect the very low conductive target. To be sure, rescanned the hole again with an all-metal pattern. Got a strong 01-50 repeatable signal, and could still get a signal at about 4” above the hole! Using the Sunray target probe, located the target about 1” below the bottom of the hole. That’s about 11” below the coil. I replaced the washer with a small gold ring I had found earlier that day, and got the same results. Refilled the hole with the gold ring at the bottom of the hole, and got the very low tone gold signal. Although this 01-50 signal with increased detection depth was very interesting, couldn’t think of a practical way of using it, since it appeared to need sand to be excavated above the target.

Recently, I decided to duplicate the results with a dime, a nickel, and a tape measurer. Using NC #11 with manual sensitivity = 24, dug out a measured 9.5” hole at a saltw@ter beach. The dime could be detected 2.5” above the hole (12 inches), and the nickel at 4.5” (14 inches). Both were 01-50. The next day, went to an area on the beach that produced over a dozen small gold jewelry items (called “the patch), and detected there with 01-50 unmasked. Dug about 10 repeatable 01-50 signals, all were non-ferrous, most were small, deep pieces of lead. What I thought was pockets of mineralization or deep magnetite rocks, was actually non-ferrous targets that were beyond target ID depth!

After finding deep lead, found 2 personal uses for the 01-50 “function”.
1) Checking an excavated hole for a target (more depth).
2) This one is based on the difficulty of detecting a thin broken gold ring or a thin chain (not too thin). Such targets might only give a single (non-repeatable) very low tone (conductivity from 01 to 03) signal. Since it’s non-repeatable, it might be a low tone false signal, or might be a tiny piece of very conductive metal (like copper), or might be small gold. The 2nd use is to use 01-50 (all-metal pattern) to determine if it is an E-trac locatable target. If the 01-50 repeats, then it’s probably a tiny piece of metal, or hopefully a small gold jewelry item.
That day, got a few single (non-repeatable), very low tone signals. Using 01-50, recovered some tiny pieces of metal, and a very thin broken ring (unfortunately, not silver or gold).

Great information, keep us posted and I'll try to remember your tips next time out.

Interesting info, thanks