Cumbrian Fox
New member
My 2nd trip out with the E-trac in the UK and I was planning on trying a local beach, I drove down and the sand was way up shore line with no cuts anywhere so decided to retry the field I was on yesterday, remember the one that I mentioned in my first post on this forum, the one that has been hunted on for the last 20 years with a wide range of machines and search coil sizes.. It turned out to be a good decision in the end as I will explain what happened. Last night I came across an Andy Sabisch post in which he made available his coin shooting mode, so I downloaded it and added it to my E-trac hoping to be able to try it sometime during the week. I am so glad I had the foresight to do this last night now as the sand was far to deep to hunt on the beach.
I drove back cursing the English weather wishing we could have the odd Hurricane Sandra or Katrina or even a Torquil would be nice so that all the sand would disappear out towards our Irish friends and leave the beaches full of Gold at detectable depths. Never mind I thought as I was closing in on a car park close to the field I was now going to hunt. I remembered I had downloaded and added Andys Mode to my new machine so thought I would give it a try. To be really honest I was not expecting to be finding very much at all as I had already battered one area of the field the day before and finds really are getting scarce, or so I thought
I parked up and took my E-trac from the car and proceeded towards the field, two dog walkers with children were heading towards me and I just knew they would stop me and start asking the usual questions, " Have you found owt" "Whats it worth" "How deep does it go" and yes they did ask all these and more! Now I dont mind explain things about our hobby and love encouraging people to go out and find things but it would be nice if at some point the questions you are asked changed a little. We do a great deal of research into the area that we are searching and it would be great if they took an interest in where things like there was a 15th century mill situated here and they buried the people who died of the plague up on that hill, oh and up on that hillside they hung criminals for stealing a chicken. Any way after about 10 minutes of meaningless gossip I managed to escape from the dog walkers and get into the field.
I walked to the far end of the field, this was an area which usually had all the ice cream vans and food stales when fairs are held here, good place to start even though it had been hunted by many before, but I was confident in my machine and that it could winkle out what others had missed. I had already proved this yesterday by finding things in an area that really had been given a good going over. Now this field has a massive coke problem (Hot Rocks) bit like an aged rock star, and many detectorist soon gave up due to the amount of the stuff thats lying round in the depths of the soil. This is never a problem for the Minelab products which on the main make coke invisible, only problem for me in the past when using the Sovereign was that anything close to iron or coke would get masked out and I never did get to sort the problem out. I think the recovery rate was pretty bad in them days (early 80`s).
I loaded in Andys mode and off I went, I dont know what it is about the E-trac but it never makes me feel like I want to swing the living daylights out of it, I noticed this from the first day I used it, would it be because of the weight? I know I can run round like a headless chicken with the Goldmax and it still finds me things, but the E-trac is so different it makes you feel as though you are holding onto Hidalgo and need to pull on the reigns for it to get them deep signals back up to the search coil, I love this about the E-trac. I also think my body has now got over the initial shock of weight difference between the 2 machines I choose to use, it didn't feel as heavy today.
Back to the search, I marked an area about 20yds square using gate posts and tree stumps as make shift markers and began searching, When I search I use a methodical approach by imagining straight lines and following them in a grid like pattern overlapping sweeps as I go, I then turn round at the end of each line and go back along the same line, It might take along time to cover the area of one line but if its there to be found I will find it. I do this going North to South then after finishing the 20yd square I do it again going East to West. Its unreal how many people just wander round all willy nilly and they must miss absolutely loads of buried items. Heres a good test for you I did it once when I first started detecting, wait for a morning with due on the ground and then detect, look back at your foot prints in the due, for most it will resemble that of a snails trail, thats why I never worry when every man and his dog tells me a field has been hunted out, because I know the way 75% of people hunt is like I just mentioned so there will be plenty left, and there usually is. So I have now explained where I went and how I detected with what Mode I used, so here are the finds I made with the E-trac today and I am totally gobsmacked with whats come up especially with the two hammered coins one is from the 1300`s a penny of Edward 3rd and the other a Silver shilling of Elizabeth 1st from the 1500`s all of these targets were deep so I am a very happy bunny today, Thank you Andy for taking the time to share your program, I did find a couple of hot rocks but its never a problem, the main thing is I was finding coins in very close proximity to the stuff Thank you all who read this for taking the time to do so.
Todays Finds
Top left circular item is a lead spindle whorl probably from the 1500`s and green object far right of center looks to be a sword or dagger chape which could be of any age.
Thought this was gold at 1st but it looks like an award for show jumping
4 Silver. 1 x Elizabeth 1st shilling 1 x Edward Penny 1 x Victorian sixpence and a George 5th Sixpence.
I drove back cursing the English weather wishing we could have the odd Hurricane Sandra or Katrina or even a Torquil would be nice so that all the sand would disappear out towards our Irish friends and leave the beaches full of Gold at detectable depths. Never mind I thought as I was closing in on a car park close to the field I was now going to hunt. I remembered I had downloaded and added Andys Mode to my new machine so thought I would give it a try. To be really honest I was not expecting to be finding very much at all as I had already battered one area of the field the day before and finds really are getting scarce, or so I thought
I parked up and took my E-trac from the car and proceeded towards the field, two dog walkers with children were heading towards me and I just knew they would stop me and start asking the usual questions, " Have you found owt" "Whats it worth" "How deep does it go" and yes they did ask all these and more! Now I dont mind explain things about our hobby and love encouraging people to go out and find things but it would be nice if at some point the questions you are asked changed a little. We do a great deal of research into the area that we are searching and it would be great if they took an interest in where things like there was a 15th century mill situated here and they buried the people who died of the plague up on that hill, oh and up on that hillside they hung criminals for stealing a chicken. Any way after about 10 minutes of meaningless gossip I managed to escape from the dog walkers and get into the field.I walked to the far end of the field, this was an area which usually had all the ice cream vans and food stales when fairs are held here, good place to start even though it had been hunted by many before, but I was confident in my machine and that it could winkle out what others had missed. I had already proved this yesterday by finding things in an area that really had been given a good going over. Now this field has a massive coke problem (Hot Rocks) bit like an aged rock star, and many detectorist soon gave up due to the amount of the stuff thats lying round in the depths of the soil. This is never a problem for the Minelab products which on the main make coke invisible, only problem for me in the past when using the Sovereign was that anything close to iron or coke would get masked out and I never did get to sort the problem out. I think the recovery rate was pretty bad in them days (early 80`s).
I loaded in Andys mode and off I went, I dont know what it is about the E-trac but it never makes me feel like I want to swing the living daylights out of it, I noticed this from the first day I used it, would it be because of the weight? I know I can run round like a headless chicken with the Goldmax and it still finds me things, but the E-trac is so different it makes you feel as though you are holding onto Hidalgo and need to pull on the reigns for it to get them deep signals back up to the search coil, I love this about the E-trac. I also think my body has now got over the initial shock of weight difference between the 2 machines I choose to use, it didn't feel as heavy today.
Back to the search, I marked an area about 20yds square using gate posts and tree stumps as make shift markers and began searching, When I search I use a methodical approach by imagining straight lines and following them in a grid like pattern overlapping sweeps as I go, I then turn round at the end of each line and go back along the same line, It might take along time to cover the area of one line but if its there to be found I will find it. I do this going North to South then after finishing the 20yd square I do it again going East to West. Its unreal how many people just wander round all willy nilly and they must miss absolutely loads of buried items. Heres a good test for you I did it once when I first started detecting, wait for a morning with due on the ground and then detect, look back at your foot prints in the due, for most it will resemble that of a snails trail, thats why I never worry when every man and his dog tells me a field has been hunted out, because I know the way 75% of people hunt is like I just mentioned so there will be plenty left, and there usually is. So I have now explained where I went and how I detected with what Mode I used, so here are the finds I made with the E-trac today and I am totally gobsmacked with whats come up especially with the two hammered coins one is from the 1300`s a penny of Edward 3rd and the other a Silver shilling of Elizabeth 1st from the 1500`s all of these targets were deep so I am a very happy bunny today, Thank you Andy for taking the time to share your program, I did find a couple of hot rocks but its never a problem, the main thing is I was finding coins in very close proximity to the stuff Thank you all who read this for taking the time to do so.
Todays Finds
Top left circular item is a lead spindle whorl probably from the 1500`s and green object far right of center looks to be a sword or dagger chape which could be of any age.
Thought this was gold at 1st but it looks like an award for show jumping
4 Silver. 1 x Elizabeth 1st shilling 1 x Edward Penny 1 x Victorian sixpence and a George 5th Sixpence.
