A sweep full of nulls and one way tones.....

[Silverbackbob]

I took my etrac out for it's maiden voyage today. Even though I'm on Dr.s orders(more like a suggestion??) not to stoop over due to a sever nosebleed on thursday that wouldn't stop(ruptured blood vessel in my nose)and a scary reaction at the ER thursday night when my bloddpressure and pulse bottomed out and they had to hook me up to oxygen, a drip and an ekg monitor. Must not have been too serious as they let me drive home after being there for 3 hours. Anyway..... the nose held up and I fought thru the heat ,humidity and mosquitoes for about 2 hrs today. It was fun but frustrating.Basically a First time with a DD coil. Thank God I chose a yard at an old apartment house that is basically weeds with no grass and lots of bare patches. I dug huge holes to find nada at the bottom. I got the sunray probe with the etrac but it didn't help much. When I left you couldn't tell I had dug, just some fresh earth and scuff marks that will disappear in a day or two, or sooner if it rains. I did manage a clad dime and two wheaties, a 1941D and a 1925. Both in rough shape. I had never found anything but some V nickels in this yard over the last 5 years with different machines so that is still a good sign.
There is a LOT of crap in this yard. The etrac was nulling with every sweep. Stayed in the factory coins mode with no tweaks. Plan was to check all high 30 on up CON signals with low FER numbers and I stuck with it. The pennies came about an hour in to the hunt as I was feeling better about the machine. All of my earlier holes were on one way high pitched squeakers that were surrounded by nuills and that I had a hard time getting to repeat.
My main question is...IS THIS NORMAL??? Will a smaller coil in this yard help? It dates back to at least 1890.
So two hours in. How many to go before I can even hope to think I know what I'm doing?? Time will tell. Good luck and HH. Bob.

 

[In2Deep]

I had one of the first explorers and only had it for a few months, was forced to sell it. That is a long story.. So I only have a couple weeks worth of experience.

I finally got my etrac a few weeks ago and I got a 6" DD eq2 along with the 18" SEF. The first few days I started out with the stock coil and no probe. I poked around in the back of the park and went there several days in a row. After like day 3 I switched to the 6" probe and it made all the difference in the world for me in that trashy part of the park.

I just got my x1 a few days ago, I actually started recovering things in a timely manner now.

At the school yard, its not overly trashy but I tried the 6" anyway. I only dug one thing last night in the 20 minutes I was there. I got a 1956 Wheat at 10" with that small coil. There was a nail and one other item which I left because it was to the side and it was getting dark. Being brand new this was the first time I encountered 3 targets in one hole, it threw me way off because it bounced from 12-34 (ish) to 1 - 34, to 12-50. The 12-50 is still in there, I will go back for it tomorrow as it got dark last night.

But when it was bouncing around, it was actually telling me there was 3 things down there and that small coil was perfect for it

 

[LilloEsquilo]

It is "normal" what you were encountering was ferrous (iron) junk such as rusty nails. These will give signals that someone new to the machine would think is good, but of course they aren't, and you will find these very difficult to pinpoint as well when new to the E-Trac.
With experience you'll learn which of these to ignore and which to go after, but generally, you want to try to "zero in" on the signal, slowing your sweep even slower than normal directly over where you think the signal is and use short sweeps on it to try to get it to repeat with a somewhat consistent signal. Try it from another sweep angle (typically say 90 degrees) and if you just get a big old null it's junk. Of course this is not 100% but only experience in the field can truly teach you how to tell what's worth your time to dig.

Also yes a smaller coil should be a huge help there it sounds like.

As far as how many hours that is really up to you - everyone is different and I don't think there is a cut and dried number of hours before you become proficient. Just get out there and use it with the intention of being successful and it will come. Sounds like you are on your way already.