So what detecotor is the best for schools and parks

We are talking TRASH....crown caps pulltabs...I want to hunt mostly clad..Tom said that the CZ are the best..so why are they the best. It has been a long time since I owned a CZ3 so I forget even no my buddy has one he never talks trash. The V3 sounds tempting but cost a lot and I know that at some point Fisher and Tek will come out with the next best coin shooter but when is the question. I think the AT for what it cost and the problems it has had is on the right track and maybe a Flagship unit will come out soon and we will see some improvements that will take it to the next level...I love the G2 but would like more depth...I just know that there are a lot of coins that are too deep. And it is a rush to dig a deep hole and find a silver coin at the bottom. I miss that rush...

LowBoy

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E-trac is supposedly the best park hunter at the moment if you want deep silver. If you are looking for clad, I would think that the Omega would be a good detector. Fast recovery speed, good in trash.

I have spent the last couple of days tweaking my brothers V3i and I am pretty impressed with it. By changing the recovery rate, filters, disc. and sweep speed I have been able to duplicate the "Fisher Gold Bug SE separation test" I saw on youtube using the stock 10" coil.
I need to experiment imore to determine the best combination of settings required to reach an optimal balance of recovery speed, sweep speed and depth.
I have not done a depth comparison between it and my F75 LTD but so far I believe that the V3i, when properly set up, does separate targets better and will be a killer school and park machine.

Chris

Lets break it down are you talking old or new....new you need a fast unit with an accurate meter and a good notch system and prefer one that likes gold jewelry as along with the clad there are gold jewelry to be found as lost everyday in local parks and of course a good pinpointing unit is a plus..

If your talking old parks you need depth and units that like silver coins along with a longer digger...

Lots of units out there to pick from and of course acc. coils is a plus..Do your research as we all have our favorites
and talk to five guys and might get five different answers but gave you my opinon as what to look for and at your next club meeting pose the same question to see what works in your neck of the woods as areas do vary...

If you after deep silver in trash there is just one word E-trac! I love CZs ,But as far as target I.D. at depth the E-trac is the best machine I have used. Now as far as pure raw depth coil for coil an original CZ-3D. But if you want to be able to tell a 10'' silver dime from a 10'' silver quarter or half it has to be the E-trac,or at least in my area nothing can touch it as far as I.D. at depth! The only down side is weight and balance if you have any type of shoulder or elbow problems. But you can get a sunray x-8 coil which is a full 8'' and lighter than the minelab 8'' coil which is actually 7.25''. It is almost as deep as the pro coil and a lot lighter. I dug a paper thin barber dime friday 9.5'' on edge using the x-8!

I just wish the CZ's had a DD coil. I feel like I would miss a lot using a concentric coil in a park...

Etrac, is tops for deep silver. V3i in my opinion is second, Tek Omega is third.

LCPM......I answered your PM on this question. You may also want to clarify which unit is capable of handling/ID'ing steel bottle caps the best...........as common parks/school grounds are littered with these steel crown caps. In general.........DD coils are not the best for proper ID of steel caps.

I have owned and used the AT Pro, CZ3D,f75,V3,EXplorer II,Explorer se and the E-Trac.I hunt old hammered city parks 90% of the time and the E-Trac is by far the best for me at hitting very deep silver and Indians and loves on edge coins.It will hit and ID coins in heavy trash with great accuracy as well.The E-Trac is amazing and easy to use out of the box in preset coins mode as well.

I should also mention it is great at handling steel bottlecaps. In the stock coins mode you don't even hear them and it will find silver coins in the same hole with them! I know because I have found many rusty steel bottle caps in the same hole with a silver coin. And just for the heck of it one time when I dug the rusty steel bottle cap out of the ground with the silver coin I put the coin on top of the bottle cap and picked up the coin with perfect I.D. ,and removed the coin and got no signal on the bottle cap! That impressed the hell out of me! I'm not a big test guy I just tryed it out in the feild to see what would happen. It will do the same thing with rusty nails. It pains me to say this because I am and old school american made guy,But I have to give credit where credit is do. The E-trac is awesome!

From what I have witnessed from my many hunts with a group that uses mainly Minelab Etracs, and the Whites V3 they are the best, with the Etrac besting the V3 on deep silver, and the V3 taking the gold. Both are able to noodle through steel bottle caps and pull-tabs, something FT is unable to do thus far without a lot of hit and miss (mostly miss) operator guess work.

I've been contemplating purchasing an Etrac for a while, but as need to sell off a few machines before I make the jump, I'm king of dragging my feet in hopes that some newer machines would come out, like an Etrac2 and a higher end AT Pro

To answer your question about clad hunting the V3i is the best I've ever used.My experience is with the CZ 70,CZ3D,F75,F70,F5,F2,Garetts GTI 2500,GTI 1500,1350,Ace 250,Minelab Sov.GT,SE Pro,Etrac,Whites M6,DFX,MXT PRO and the V3i.You can change the individual VDI tones to any tone you want to make certain targets stand out.This helps in heavy trash.The analyze in pinpoint tells you which frequency the target hits in.Example if you get a VDI 83(quarter) and it doesn't hit strongest in 2.5 Khz it has not been a quarter(it's a bottlecap).In heavy trash I have eliminated bottlecaps and aluminum screwcaps.I still have the beavertail part of old pulltabs fool me sometimes thinking their deep old nickels.I have a 3X6 DD shooter coil that is thet best in super heavy trash,is it a real deep coil,no just surgical in trash.The V3i is sensitive to small targets also.It is great on gold jewelry.Bill

That's quite a resume on detector usage

Who am I to argue with all you guys and all those great machines you use & have used? All I'll say is I spent 20+ years in the parks & schoolyards & pulled out 10's of thousands of coins & other goodies with mostly OLDER Whites units. The 6000 Di Pro SL was the best I've ever used (XLT a very close second!) & if I can ever find a lighter weight machine that locks in on the ID like the 6000 did, I'd buy it in a heartbeat! It was great in the caps too. YEARS of hearing that ONE tone can really train the ears to hear the subtle differences from coins to crap. I hear the MXT Pro, with it's great coil selection gives the 6000 & the XLT a solid run for the money, thus, it will be my next 'tector! Not ridiculously priced either!! I will add that I like to detect, get a signal & discover the target. NOT "Program" machines. Yep, simple guy here but it's worked for me! The MXT Pro seems to be a very simple machine to operate! Good luck LowBoy!!

Been swingin' a White's since the 70's - 5 machines, Currently an XLT & Fisher F75 LE - 50,000 finds, 30,000 (or so) keepers. Published in the White's catalog. Always looking for good/decent hunting buds! Get in touch!

Bill, I totally agree with you on the V3i. I dont think it can be beat on land for gold jewelry, it just has sooo much information.

What make the V3 so much better on gold from what I have read the pull tabs come in at the same freq as gold.

LowBoy

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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!

What an interesting thread...I have learned some things -- and I keep hearing good things about the CZ-3Ds, and more and more good comments with time about the V3i...

Steve

Cal_cobra Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> From what I have witnessed from my many hunts with
> a group that uses mainly Minelab Etracs, and the
> Whites V3 they are the best, with the Etrac
> besting the V3 on deep silver, and the V3 taking
> the gold. Both are able to noodle through steel
> bottle caps and pull-tabs, something FT is unable
> to do thus far without a lot of hit and miss
> (mostly miss) operator guess work.
>
> I've been contemplating purchasing an Etrac for a
> while, but as need to sell off a few machines
> before I make the jump, I'm king of dragging my
> feet in hopes that some newer machines would come
> out, like an Etrac2 and a higher end AT Pro


i'm in agreement with your feelings !..i have been sitting on the fence for awhile,not totally convinced the e-trac is the better detector at doing what i want to do!.."nail"
the olde silver in "butchered" parks.i keep reading the same testimonials from 'tons" of people who own e-tracs!..i'm convinced "finally" that it IS the only game in town
for trashy old parks,and that is "precisely" where i live!..time to "jump" has arrived!..just sayin!

(h.h.!)
j.t.

I think the V3i may be more programable to be on level with the Etrac but how do you do that. I would say if you have an Etrac and a V3 you find a nice deep silver target and then see what the V3 can do to match the Etrac. But you have to be a seasoned V3 programer or tweeker. So anyone that can do a shoot out with the two units may get close to the Etrac but I know that you won't have the same coils and there are a lot of reasons this won't work but you can get close...don't you think? The other thing to do is if anyone has one close to me lets see what the G2 can do...I am sure it won't be a match on depth but on targets that are about 9" I have hit silver and copper hard in the gold country dirt.

LowBoy

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

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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!

All the people I hunt with own Trac's (5)..........have to 'tweak' their Trac's for max performance. From what I have seen.....it's not a 'turn on & go' detector'. It's performance is stellar in high mineralization (Idaho)............but to fault? the V3i for requiring programming in order to achieve max performance, when a Trac requires the same.....seem's a little unfair. Just because it's programming differs from a Trac.........does not make it less than. Achieving a particular result in the industry requires different methodologies, so as not to incur patent infringement.
As I said in a earlier post, my 19 y/o White's Silver Eagle will walk all over my T2 in iron discrimination. Dave Johnson worked for White's. And I am sure he can replicate White's technology in this area, yet for patent issues. First Texas detectors, probably have to use a different iron disc technology. Just as White's can't copy Minelab. Different methods, but basically the same efficent results betwwen the Trac & V3i. Personally, I think the V3i is more advanced if the user is willing to learn the programming. Learning new programming has always been a gripe with detectorists, as we have put in so much time learning the preceding technology. Also, people initially complained about the Trac's programming complexity, until they found out how effective the machine is when the 'complex' programming was mastered. Just my opinion.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2011 03:23AM by TerraDigger.

what you state may very well be true in regards to the "programming"
however, i am reading that the "track" IS awesome in the factory modes too!
WITHOUT "learning" the custom programming options!..this was/is a real
"eye opener" to me!..just sayin!..anyone else care to comment?

(h.h.!)
j.t.

You are quite correct. The Trac's are excellent. Even in default modes. But, to get the Trac to the point of being the 'Deep Silver Turf King', still requires user tweaking. This being above & beyond the normal default adjustments that one normally does with a detector. The V3i accomplishes the same, possibly better results, with it's tweaking. In fact, out of the 5 Trac buddies I hunt with, only one really knows how to tweak the unit, and his silver ratio is about 4x more than the others. He is constantly adjusting the unit as he hunts. I would call that tweaking.
My opinion is that the Trac enjoys a well deserved reputation, yet, most detectorists have a mindset that Trac's cannot be matched or exceeded in performance. No matter how much time passes since the Trac's were introduced. Detector engineers are a busy lot. And E-Trac technology, while incredibly innovative at the time it was introduced, is getting long in the tooth. E-Trac technology has not had any major improvements since it's introduction. Not say'in change for changes sake is automatically better. But V3i users that master the newer White's technology, say it exceeds the E-Trac. The one's that complain about the V3i, seem to have the same complaint "Too hard to learn". That tells me alot.

Again I think anyone that wants to push a machine has to have that machine ready to be pushed and I think the Etrac has proven itself with the user that understands the machine. The V3 may be the same like a race car that needs to be puhsed and tuned. It doesn't always mean it is going to win the race to finding silver. For some of us a turn on and go machine like the G2, Gold Bug and even the LTD have a lot of power to start with.

But yeah it is getting harder to find the older coins and I know that a lot of good targets are masked so we still need to go deeper and also be able to work through iron and trash. We also need to find more gold and need more help. From reading about the V3i you would think that having a way to see more with the help of seeing the screen and the freq...gold still shows up as pulltabs. We are getting closer and the Etrac and the V3 may even be closer if you can master them. It takes a lot of brain power to understand how something works to get it right and for me sometimes I just want to go out and have fun and hope for the best. It is getting to be hard on the body doing 200 squats for a three hour hunt.

LowBoy

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

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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!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2011 07:30PM by Lawrenzo.

In all fairness, I would be most happy if someone gave me either one of these machines as a gift.

LowBoY -- hang in there. I am convinced that those 200 squats are helping you stay healthy and strong, as is keeping your mind busy and having fun -- and ultimately will help you in your battle.

So, you say the V3i is still, even with the different responses at different frequencies, still unable to give any clues as to gold ring vs. pull tab or foil?

This is a most interesting thread.

Steve

I can only say that with the higher freq 22.5? It will hit smaller gold but no one has really said if you can use all the programing to see if you can see more of the size of the target and analize it better then pull tabs or trash. It has a Polarplot that may come in handy but I still think it would be cool to try it and see what it can do. I am sure and I hope that Fisher and Tek are reading how some of us want more info and are willing to spend the money to have it. It may be a trend that with all the smart phones and computers and all the things we have to learn to get by today that Fisher and Tek may do the new best thing and give us a lot more in a new machine. We will have to see what the future holds and Fisher and Tek are not known for fancy color machines more nuts and bolts. They don't want to copy they want to lead and White's will take ten years till they introduce a new higher end unit then the V3i? Minelab I have read that their customer service sucks so my money is with Fieher and Tek but I love to try out new machines and see if they can preform the G2 is so easy to use and so great at relic hunting.

LowBoy

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

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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!

Okay I hunt with my CZ-3D (1021) and hit on every target that my buddy uses on his E-trac.... If you learn the CZ-3D you can tell..... What I don't like about the Etrac is it's just a screen with no words... or pictures.....just numbers... and a chart.........maybe I need to learn the Etrac more.... but for now I love the CZ-3D its my go to machine! Find what you like and learn the machine.......... good luck

Are both of the detectors using the same basic settings when doing the target checks? Also, what is the level of mineralization where your are hunting. Reason I ask, is if a CZ-3D can match a Trac in nasty ground, its a much less expensive solution than a Trac.

I have read the Tom says that Etrac is better in bad dirt but we are talking real bad dirt like clay and dirt of that nature.

LowBoy

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

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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!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2011 07:55AM by Lawrenzo.

fisher cz-3d said it best... you need to learn your machine. I'm still learning my V. I have been off from hunting due to back surgery and dieing to get back at it. I wish I had more experience at finding gold to help you out Lawrenzo... I haven't found any gold yet.

Some of the guys are setting their V's to accept all VDI numbers but setting the "tones" of the VDI's you would normally reject to "0". This will give you zero discrimination (for max depth and unmasking capabilities) and will not "null" over trash. It just gives you no tone. You can set your desired target tones to any number you want... ie a high tone. I have yet to try this but it sounds like it could be a winner! I currently have all my target tones set to a 243 which is a high quarter tone, then I only have to deal with one tone and I know it's a keeper. I am mostly a coin shooter but with gold prices climbing, I will be digging more pull tabs this summer!!!