hunted out parks?

Ok, I am curious as I do not live in a large city/metropolis area,we only have one large park and it dates back to 1920s. Sorry if this is a dumb question. Are the parks in the larger cities cleaned out of all metals,not just the coins? Have they been hit so much,that to a Certain Extent, a good deal of the trash has been removed, I know its probably impossible to clean it all out. Hope someone knows what Im trying to ask. My park isnt that way, its so full of iron and modern junk,its no fun to hunt.
The reason I ask. As some of you know,I bought an E-Trac couple months back and trying to make my way with it. I see and read on different forums, where there are many park hunters in the larger cities using the Explorers and E-Trac with great success. I admit, Im not much of a park hunter but I have hit mine on several occasions now and just like with other machines Ive used, its tons of trash in the ground.
I think,to hunt this park,I need a 5 inch coil and months and months of time.
Thanks,
John

Might hunt out a small yard but not a large park, heck read somewhere it would takes years to completely hunt a football field, every year I get silver out of areas that have been gone over with hundreds if not thousands of detectors with CZ's and Explorers but indeed a challenge. Small coils sure help with the trash and masking and mastering your unit is a plus also.Next time out don't hunt the obvious areas but go into the woods adjacent to the park and certainly a early map helps as woodlands may have at one time been a busy area of the park. I think what you are reading about is old parks in large cities that where busy way back when. Surely there are other areas to hunt and find a virgin one and your unit will turn into a magic wand as research pays off. I know gas is out of site but travel to the countryside to old ball diamonds, fairgrounds and such is a plus also. Will I get a heck of a lot of old silver this upcoming season...I think not but I will get a few and have a lot of fun trying as I don't travel anymore as the old bod isn't what it used to be and silly to drive an hour for short hunts and gone are the 8 hours days. Only got out one day this winter but started with a 14kt gold ring and as I always say...who knows what is over the next hill.
Good luck in your ventures and do branch out and expand your options and it will pay off and if not the fresh air and exercise is great..

Your right Dan, gas prices hurt, and I hear rumors, by the end of this summer, we will paying 5.00 plus per gallon.
I was guessing, it was older parks, maybe not used anymore. No woods around my local park. I know when the area was first put into use, it had a small zoo for a few years,later moved to another location in the city, and a swimming pool built by the CWA,pool is still there. This park is full of trash, I know its been hit hard over the years. I dont have the time to hunt it, I guess thats why I look for the old farm sites or old home sites in town.
Yes Dan, Im getting older, how did ya guess,lol. I had a heart scare couple years back,Doc said LOOSE some LBS,lol. I bought a mountain bike (scared of a road bike, well, scared of cars hitting me) and ride it hard during the summer months,its really made a difference,lot easier on the knees.
I do look and research, my problem here locally, all the old areas are built over with offices or paved as parking areas. Its really disheartening for someone with a hobby like us, to look at old platt maps or pictures, getting a location and drive to it or use Google Earth, then find a sprawling office building or parking lot on top of it. I guess, thats another reason I venture out into the farm fields.
BUT, as I said, I was just curious about such parks in big cities and the detecting thats been performed on them for many years.
Thanks,
John

Sort of one on one conversation but I know forum members have the same circumstances and yep asphalt and concrete jungles hide a lot of old coins..

Heck we have a high school built over an old amusement park and one wonders how much silvers lurks under it.
Well its 45 and sun shining so time for some fresh air and exercise and hope for a super goodie amoung the clad
as one nevers knows...hunting in Feb...unheard of in my neck of the woods for sure so no deepies this time around as the ground has to be frozen and digging shallow at best....

No park is hunted out and todays machines are way deeper. I would use a small coil and just work an area and maybe even cherry pick for silver. I don't know how the Etrac is set up but you need a fast recovery. The trash will mask good targets and the good targets may be deep.

Maybe they redid the whole park and planted a new lawn and scraped off the dirt where the coins were. You may look for an area where people may have gone to drink or smoke some place a bit off the beaten path? You may be better off going on a day after a rain. And of course you never know but the small coil will help you.

LowBoy

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I have a park in town, same as you describe, I hunt it regularly. Some areas I use high disc. to trashed out with tabs(hundreds in a 10 x 10 area). Other areas of the park aren't so bad and can give up good targets. So as Dan said, check out different sections of the park before you write it off. Be systematic and go slow.

I got a local 1920's park like Beach describes, only its aluminum can slaw instead of tabs. My E-Trac buddies still find wheats and occasional silver. Not alot of oldies, but they still pull them out. I do to with my Omega, but in in less severe areas. The Trac's are quite phenomenal in high mineralization trashy parks with a experienced user at the helm. I forgot to add, this park has been hit hard over the years by detectorists, detetctor clubs and you see someone there almost every day.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2012 10:10PM by TerraDigger.

I have not come across an old park that had all of the coins AND trash removed. Seems a lot more detectorists cherry pick for silver than dig trash. Can't blame them in areas with a tone of trash. It also seems like littering is becoming more common. I have gotten weird looks for picking up a piece of trash on the sidewalk and depositing it in a garbage can nearby. Community pride in some areas is on the decline. This makes detecting a little more challenging at places, but there are still goodies to be found.

I will say this, if your park is full of trash/iron, it has coins. If you are using the stock procoil that makes it more difficult as opposed to a good 8x6 or 10x12 sef coil. Yes, a sunray x5 would help too. The trick to using the procoil in an iron/trash patch is don't run high manual sensiviry, try running your etrac in auto plus(0) and see what it says in the area you plan to hunt. Whatever setting is runs at, switch to manual and run your etrac at that setting. Go slow and any high pitch you hear, double check and move around the spot if you have to. It will be a slow process. While your hunting try to periodally monitor your etrac's auto sensivity setting and make adjustments as necessary. You can run your etrac 1,2 or maybe 3 points higher than the recommended auto setting. Any more than that, will be a nightmare to your ears and I believe your detector's depth/unmasking ability will be degraded. Something else that may help you in your park is try and just open the right side of your disc screen, meaning just look for the high conductors-pennies/silver and forget about (blacken)the left side where pulltabs/nickels/gold come in. It will make your ears/brain less busy. Next, and some may disagree with me on this, but it's been my experience. I think the etrac does a better job in iron patches with hidden treasure when it's more dry(less iron falsing). On the other hand I think a typical VLF detector has a better chance of pulling a deepie in iron patch when it's more wet. Lastly, your etrac's tone setup is very important, meaning no matter how you have yours setup, learn it. It will take practice picking the correct tone out of a bunch of falsing. If the etrac isn't falsing, it's not hunting IMO. Good luck

ps I recommend Andy Sabisch's Book entitled "The Minelab Explorer and e-Trac Handbook". It will help you out a great deal.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2012 04:17AM by tnsharpshooter.

tnsharpshooter - I enjoyed your post and thanks for all the info. Well, I enjoyed the other posts too, but wanted to ask you a few things in particular!

I have found the 6X8SEF to do better in iron than the stock coil, just falses less and has better separation of course. That said, I am curious about the 13" Detech I have and what was just said about it in that other thread - That it's better in iron and has better separation! I have to see that.

I like running the E-Trac hot in iron. I think this is a carry over from me having had the T2 and Omega - they both perform well when run hot. Now, I have heard others say not to run too hot in iron and I imagined this would be due to falsing. But to me, fringe or co-located targets can be lit up more (or rather received better) if the sensitivity is hotter. I also think the falses will increase. But once you start learning the language, it isn't a big deal (depending on your ground). Do you think depth/unmasking will be degraded from running too hot because of audio fatigue or is it rather other things/combinations?

My E-Trac would run with auto(0) at 25 or 26 in most places where I hunt and I run manual 30 there, which is actually a big difference when you consider I am running 3 channels at 30 where as in auto the 25 setting is an average or just the top channel (I forget).

By the way, I like running my E-Trac in soil that is 1 or 2 days past a good rain. It hits harder on the deep coins. But that said, I haven't hunted with it yet in dry ground, so maybe my depth will increase more. But I did notice that as the ground was draining I picked up deeper targets, so was just extrapolating out.

I AGREE COMPLETELY regarding having a consistent tone set up. Wherever you set it you have to stick there and learn it well. I think it is much harder to move things around and adapt to the nuances in sound. The V3i had so many settings and I just stuck with something I liked (similar to the E-Trac actually, but in blocks of 10 VDI numbers) to keep me in touch with it.

Thanks,
Albert

Albert
First a little story. I have this site that just littered with iron and nails, so much so you have to get(outside) the site to ground balance either a f75se or v3i. It has seen human activity (dwellings) since around 1780 with no one living there since 1965. The house, jail and associated structures are since gone. I hunted this site hard 5 times using the etrac with 10x12 sef coil. In the five hunts I retrieved 23 coins, 1 silver wedding ring, 1 locket, and one Andew Jackson medallion. I hit this site from every conceivable angle, walked in circles, semicircles, back tracked, etc. Four of the hunts were in conductive mutli tone audio setup, the last with TTF. I only found one coin out of the 23 using TTF- a v nickle and this is understandable since it's a low tone target in CO mode and the TTF made it stand out with the higher tone. Next, I hunted the site twice with the 6x8 sef coil. I retrieved one additional coin. Next, I hunted the site 1 time with the sunray x-5 coil, and found nothing. So, I then hunted the site with the V3i using a multitude of different settings ie fast recovery delay, single frequency 2,5 and 7.5 khz. I found one additional coin. I received a new f75se this week and I like it (ergonomics). I hunted the site with it twice and found no coins and jewelry but did retrieve some very small bits of copper and part of what look like a light bulb fixture. So it would seem the etrac with 10x12 coil was pretty efficient in cleaning out the site. Now my hunts at this site were not a (walk in the park). They were painstaking with the etrac popping, clicking, humming etc. I had to move real slow in places stopping countless times. Even though the 6x8 coil is smaller, I believe I could have hunted this site just as fast if not faster with very similar results especially since only 4 of the targets were past the 9 inch mark. It is fascinating to watch the etrac work in a naily/iron site with such a big coil and get results. To move on to further discussion:
it sounds like you have some good soil to hunt in based on your etrac auto tracking sensivity numbers. Last summer is when I saw my highest sens tracking numbers and that was 29 one time with 27 being the norm. I notice my etrac won't track as high with wet ground versus dry ground. In fact, I retrieved my deepest coins last September, an 2 IHs 1 at 11 and 1 at 12 inches and 3 wheats at 11 or so inches. And these were recovered using the procoil. The ground was bone dry. You may be wondering, why did I hunt the site above so many times? I think that's the best way to learn a machine. sure anyone can go to another site and find coins (cherrypick) so speak, but what have you learned? The etrac can make a novice t-hunter look like a pro in short order if they can get the right tone on the ear/brain (so to speak). If one can tolerate running substantially higher sensivity than suggested is OK, but if one hits a lot of iron/trash in say a spot one may want to back off on the sensivity and don't forget about the auto - minus settings. Most folks worry about the iron beside or over their targets, but what about the iron under your targets? That's where the auto/auto-1,-2-3 come in to play. I have had some success with them as well. Something else is EMI. It doesn't get mentioned as much with etrac post, but remember it does exist and noise cancel doesn't get rid of all of it all the time. I like the etrac for coins silver jewelry. I like it's ground balance and it seems one can change settings on the fly with no ill effects. Not sure if this applies to V3i. It seems most feel a reground balance is necessary after changing settings. I don't know. I keyholed(still have) my $1400 plus V3i in lieu of etrac. To me the three biggest differences between the V3i and etrac is ground balance, TID at depth, and this one little thing although probably the most important -to trigger on a target while running in discrimination. It seems the v3i has more trouble triggering a tone while running in disc mode compared to etrac. As far as the etrac goes there is not much to change to maybe give better overall performance. A few things I would like to see in coming models is: and adjustable ferrous cutoff line in TTF mode, emi meter/iron meter, and maybe some higher frequency and a pinpoint trigger switch like on fisher and white's units.. The lcd readout is the only way to go IMO, simpler and more power efficient. I like performance and ergonomics not looks.
ps I'm no English teacher so please excuse my grammar and punctuation errors. I'm just a retired USAF 49 year old vet with a background in aircraft avionics, and yes I love to hunt too. I have 37 years experience at shooting/hunting, rifles mainly. I got hooked on metal detecting in the beginning of last year and have just about quit the gun scene and been into metal detecting. I only hunt when it's raining because I can't metal detect. Cheers David



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/19/2012 03:33PM by tnsharpshooter.