Minelab Etrac

I am new here but have been swinging detectors for well over twenty years. I have enjoyed reading all the posts just have never posted myself!
Have had many machines and have a CZ3D I purchased in 2004 that is a 1021. I live in north Ga and we have the dreaded red clay soil in some places. I mainly coin shoot and do a little prospecting with a detector. When I lived in middle Ga I relic hunted for CIvil War relics all the time mainly with a 1266x.
I know Tom has said on here that with the red soil a Minelab Pro or E trac is the only way to go for optimum depth. I usually dig by the sound of a target, but do like a visual also because I am getting old!!! I am thinking about an etrac but from what I am seeing the target identification is not as accurate as a lot of other detectors. Been looking at a lot of YouTube .
Am I wrong in this assumption????
Also, I have a Gold Bug Pro on the way and will let you guys know how it goes!
Thanks so much,
Al

Al --

I would totally disagree that the E-Trac has "less accurate" target ID than other types of detectors. In my experience, the ID on my Explorer (and E-Tracs are quite similar in this regard) is on par with the best detectors out there, if not superior. Probably superior (though the ID on my GOld Bug Pro is tough to beat -- as I think you will find out. )

Steve

Where I live, red clay is the dominant soil. I have owned just about every detector on the market and although I've not owned an eTrac, I have owned an Explorer II. FBS machines do NOT handle red clay well!! If you attend any of the DIV relic hunts in Culpeper, VA you will see which machines are doing the best in red dirt. I've heard some Explorer and eTrac users there make the comment that they would have been better off digging random holes rather than detecting. I did like the Explorer for coin hunting though and am interested in an eTrac for the same...coin hunting for silver. They are silver coin magnets. But in red dirt that too goes out the window. Pulse machines handle the red dirt the best but you have very limited discrimination with them. Otherwise a single frequency VLF machine with a true all metal is ideal for red dirt. Your new Gold Bug will incorporate a true all metal and will do well in red dirt.

Coins, hands down the Etrac is the king. You can use the stock program and find deep silver coins right out of the box. The unit has a lot of options and adjustments. I do not think it is a relic machine. but for coin shooting, it can not be beat. The only issue that I have is the null of the threshold when over iron targets. But when this is the issue with me then I just reduce the discrimination and go very slow ao I can pull those good targets fron the trash. Good luck

Tom in SC

Daniel Tn -- I have to respectfully disagree with you just a bit. I do not doubt you at all that in your "red clay," an E-Trac or Explorer may not do well. May be the same thing in VA as you say. HOWEVER, I live in Oklahoma with big-time "red clay," and Explorers and E-Tracs do very well here. So, it's obviously not ALL kinds of "red clay" that FBS machines might struggle with; only SOME types. And, I have read NASA-Tom specifically say that in the red clays of GA the E-Trac is, in his words, the "trump card" when compared to an F75.

So, my point is that it is too general of a statement to say that FBS machines are "no good" in "red clay." (Having said that, I ALSO was too general in MY post, saying that the FBS machines are "among the best" w.r.t. ID -- obviously, they AREN'T in some types of soil).

Steve

No problem that's what we are here for is to learn. The red clay I have hunted in is rich in natural iron content. In a lot of cases it is mixed with white quartz and you can take a magnet to the ground and it will pick up natural iron flakes. I'm only giving you my experience from hunting as far south as Dallas, GA/Paulding County and a lot in the Kingston, GA area. As far north as Culpeper and Orange counties VA and from Hamilton county TN to Knox county TN and all the counties along I75 between those two points. All have the red dirt to one degree or another.

Maybe the eTrac is different than the Explorer in how it handles the soil. I can tell you what the Explorer II does on the ground itself.....it nulls like the coil is over a piece of iron. Thus the only way to hunt with it was to open the entire disc screen to where you heard everything with zero disc...all it really done was speed the machine up but didn't help on the IDs of things because this dirt (the red dirt I've hunted in) will cause really bad skewing of ID numbers....sometimes on relatively shallow high conductive targets. Basically what I'm saying is that it would be like finding a big piece of rusty tin roofing and throwing a coin underneath it and trying to locate the coin by properly IDing it on the meter. VLF machines struggle with it. It has taken me many thousands of dollars to figure this out. I agree that the F75 and T2 aren't any better than the others for proper and consistent IDs in the dirt. Actually I've yet to find a VLF that could do that well in red dirt. Where the F75 and T2 shine is raw depth coupled by a true all metal mode. If you talk to the consistently successful hunters that live and hunt red dirt all the time...I bet 96% of them use all metal modes as primary search mode. It's a humbling experience for guys that hunt in good soil all the time and then come to play in the red stuff. They get so accustomed to using discrimination and relying on ID tones or numbers that they at first will attempt this in the red dirt. Often they will not find a thing they even considered digging and get really frustrated when people around them are digging goodies. Then once someone lets them hear what a good target sounds like and all they hear is a broken signal or nothing...and then watch as they dig a bullet at 4-5 inches deep (shallow) they start processing how many signals just like that they have walked over and not dug.

I recall one fella vividly that had just traded his Ex II for an eTrac. It was the first DIV I went on and this was in the afternoon of the first day and he hadn't found anything yet. He came up on the hill I was digging on and had a couple buddies with him. They asked me if I was doing any good (recognized me from my videos) and asked if I cared if they stayed close by. It was this guys first Civil War hunt and he hadn't even found a bullet before. They saw me getting ready to dig something and asked if this fellow could listen to the signal before I dug it. Sure why not. He comes over and nothing but a null. He said that the entire ground was doing that to his machine. He had a pattern setup just to knock out iron and everything else was opened up. I suggested him opening up everything and try so he did and all you could hear was a barrage of low iron grunts every he swept the coil...you couldn't cipher ground noise from actual signals. He would noise cancel then balance and nothing helped. I dug a bullet that was only 3-4 inches deep. He is the guy who made the previous comment I used....would be better off digging random holes than detecting. One of the guys let him hunt with their MXT after they coached him on it and he dug his first civil war relic on that hill with it. Now in better dirt locally the FBS stuff works great and has the most consistent ID on coins of any machine I've used. Particularly silver ones.

Indeed red clay is not the same in every State or for that matter from area to area but if anything will handle it would bet my boots Minelab Explorers series would do as good as any and probably better than most ought to cover it.

Daniel Tn --

Fascinating stories you shared. Thanks for that. Yes, our red clay is red due to "iron content" as well; however, I think your soil is likely MUCH "hotter," iron-wise, than mine. The red clay here DOES screw with target ID on all machines I've used -- the machines want to call any "deeper" coin "iron," ID-wise. My Explorer, however, is as good as any, if not the best -- it and my Gold Bug Pro (and the E-Tracs my partners use) are the best with ID in my soil, in my experience; they both get a good 2 to 3 inches more of "decent ID" depth than the other VLF machines I've used in my test garden (CZ-3D, F70, ID Edge, Omega).

Again, I was not doubting your experiences at all, please understand. I simply wanted to make clear that in SOME red clay, the Explorers do better than most other machines...such that if someone out here in the OK area read your post, they wouldn't be misled into thinking an FBS machine wouldn't be any good. In parts of Tennessee, Georgia, or Virginia, however? Guess it's another story, there!

The soil in your area is notorious for being extremely tough to detect in; your stories confirm that. Glad my "red clay" is nowhere NEAR as bad as yours...

Steve

Here to back up Steve for red clay here in Oklahoma. The Minelabs excel punching thru it here. Glad our soil is not as hot as yours.