Where did I go wrong?

Well the day is over and the hunt has ended. I did not have any problem controlling the EMI from the two Minelab SE's and held my ground with both of them and they are well experienced with there detectors. I was the only one to find a silver coin and a couple Wheatie's along with some trash and clad. One of my Explorer Se men found 3 wheatie's and the other one found two wheatie's a token and a small silver ring while I was going for the car. I found the dime in some trash in an area one of the guys had covered quite well. I believe the trash masked the dime from his explorer. I am a happy camper.

Had a great day detecting with my two friends and there Explorers. I was the only one to find a silver coin. One of the other guys found a token and a couple Wheaties and a small silver ring while I was going to get the car to leave. The other guy found 3 wheatie's. I also found a couple wheatie's and some clad. Thanks to Tom and the rest of you guys. I got my EMI problems solved and had a great day hunting. This forum is a great teaching program and I owe my gratitude to all of you who have responded to my questions. I found the dime behind one of the other guys who probably had the dime masked out on his Explorer.

Sounding better............. as the saga/story unfolds. NOW I like the resultant better.

"I did not have any problem controlling the EMI from the two Minelab SE's".........Coinseeker, are you saying that you had your buddies preform a 'noise cancel'?

Yes as well as me cancelling the EMI present on the sight.

TerraDigger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My E-Trac hunting buddy swears his machine doesn't
> cause interference. Just can't get him to believe
> FBS is death on other detectors. I agree with
> Cal-Cobra. Anyone that has a Trac & a Fisher/Tek,
> please do some testing, so we finally can put this
> to bed.


I quit using my F75 for our club competition hunts. We had a big two hunt day (seeded hunts for silver coins/prizes, club hunts) and the first hunt my F75 ran great. During the second hunt, my machine was rendered useless from co-machine interference. I couldn't tell 100% what machine(s) was causing the issue, but I'm pretty sure it was a ML Explorer.

I've hunted with plenty of Explorer/Etac folks, and for the most part I didn't have any issues, but the problem is that it's a silent jamming scenario and completely random (had I known more about the Etrac when I had these problems) , so you don't know how bad your F75 is running until you test some known good targets.

Cal, do you have any idea of how far away the 2 detectors need to be in order to avoid interference?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is worth a study in order to help others not to be affected by this situation.

Don't you think this exact scenario is the reason we hear so many apocryphal stories about how the Minelab's are so much deeper/better than the Fishers? Minelab user finds coin and asks F user to check out the signal. Of course, when the Fisher guy stands next to the Minelab unit and sweeps his coil over the target......voila....no signal/ junk signal. "OMG, living proof that Minelabs are deeper than Fishers". Reality is the Fisher unit is just being jammed by the Minelab frequency and by itself could readily hit the target. Thus, the reason we regularly read about Minelab's supposed superiority when Tom independent testing confirms Fisher is every bit as good if not better.

VERY 'perceptive' and WELL said.

I'll be redundant. Can anyone perform indepth tests with the Trac and a Fisher/Tek unit(s)?

Steve(MS) Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Cal, do you have any idea of how far away the 2
> detectors need to be in order to avoid
> interference?
> --------------------------------------------------
> --------------------------------------------------
> ------------------------------------------
> This is worth a study in order to help others not
> to be affected by this situation.

I'm sorry I really don't. We were hunting in close proximity when this occurred, but had done so many times in the past without incident.

limegoldconvertible68 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Don't you think this exact scenario is the reason
> we hear so many apocryphal stories about how the
> Minelab's are so much deeper/better than the
> Fishers? Minelab user finds coin and asks F user
> to check out the signal. Of course, when the
> Fisher guy stands next to the Minelab unit and
> sweeps his coil over the target......voila....no
> signal/ junk signal. "OMG, living proof that
> Minelabs are deeper than Fishers". Reality is the
> Fisher unit is just being jammed by the Minelab
> frequency and by itself could readily hit the
> target. Thus, the reason we regularly read about
> Minelab's supposed superiority when Tom
> independent testing confirms Fisher is every bit
> as good if not better.

This is why I ask them to turn their machine off when they ask me to check a signal. Unfortunately, in the case of deep silver (particularly silver dimes and smaller), the Minelab's have superior depth detection capabilities, at least in California dirt. I've been seeing this phenomenon since my the friends I hunt with started getting E-tracs a couple of years ago, but I stuck with my F75 LTD. Believe me it wasn't often that I was able to best them on deep silver (gold yes, lower conductors yes, bottle caps yes, pull-tabs that hit as high coins yes, but silver dime sized and smaller silver NO!).

After two years of beatings, I finally decided if you can't beat 'em, join 'em



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/15/2011 10:18PM by Cal_cobra.

I can't understand why your F75 can't see as deep as a Minelab SE. Mine does and on many occasions I have swept the deep targets my friend was getting ready to dig and got strong signals. I was able to get a good signal on a planted dime at a 8 inch depth, no problem. I have found signals that his Explorer SE missed near junk. I know the power of an explorer SE with the pro coil because I owned one for 4 years. I changed to the Fisher F70 because my old arthritic body was having trouble swinging the Explorer. They didn't mark anything I couldn't .One of the most significant gains I have found with the F70 is it unmasks more targets then the Explorer.

Same results here.

It has to do with ground minerals, when ground mineral count starts to screw with high freqs ability to punch
deeper....that is the difference.
Heck, keep one of each and have all the bases covered.
I do understand about ML bothering the joints.....

Coinseeker 78 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I can't understand why your F75 can't see as deep
> as a Minelab SE. Mine does and on many occasions I
> have swept the deep targets my friend was getting
> ready to dig and got strong signals. I was able to
> get a good signal on a planted dime at a 8 inch
> depth, no problem. I have found signals that his
> Explorer SE missed near junk. I know the power of
> an explorer SE with the pro coil because I owned
> one for 4 years. I changed to the Fisher F70
> because my old arthritic body was having trouble
> swinging the Explorer. They didn't mark anything I
> couldn't .One of the most significant gains I have
> found with the F70 is it unmasks more targets then
> the Explorer.


For the most part it's ground mineralization, CA has some tough dirt. EMI is also a contributor.

Cal_cobra Wrote:
> Unfortunately, in the case of deep silver
> (particularly silver dimes and smaller), the
> Minelab's have superior depth detection
> capabilities, at least in California dirt. I've
> been seeing this phenomenon since my the friends I
> hunt with started getting E-tracs a couple of
> years ago, but I stuck with my F75 LTD. Believe
> me it wasn't often that I was able to best them on
> deep silver (gold yes, lower conductors yes,
> bottle caps yes, pull-tabs that hit as high coins
> yes, but silver dime sized and smaller silver
> NO!)

Cal, what are some common GB and fe readings out your way ? where Im located, the GB runs approx 72-76 ish and the fe from 0-.1 The explorer seems to do better in urban areas, and the 75se gets the nod, when out away from the EMI.

Gotta agree with Cal. Here in Idaho, heavy mineralization like CA, my T2 would get nothing when my E-Trac hunting buddy's detected those deep silvers. Have yet to pit the Omega with 11" DD against the Trac. And these are urban areas with a good amount of EMI.