am I understanding the noise cancell correct,,,

[grouser]

you do this at the beginning of your hunt to find a channel that is least effected by the EMI in the area,, the unit still uses all the 27 frequencies for detection, and the ground balance is done by the machine automatically and has nothing to do with the noise cancel so there is no need to re-do the NC if you think the ground has changed during your hunt,,,,, Sorry for the very long sentence LOL

 

[Myownwings]

Grouser,
You understand it correctly. You should only need to re-noise cancel if the unit starts falsing which can happen as you move towards sources of emi.
Gary

 

[Goes4ever]

I rarely ever noise cancel, bout the only time I do is when I am hunting with another etrac user and we interfere with each other

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

Noise cancel shifts the transmitted frequencies slightly in ten steps and and tries to find the frequency least affected by local EMI conditions. Ground cancel is done automatically by the machine. As you move around when you are detecting you may move into an area with different EMI sources, and noise canceling again may help. I've pretty much found if you are in a noisy area, i.e. close to power lines, that the noise is fairly broad band and noise canceling doesn't do much. It can make a pretty big difference if you are operating near another detector.

Chris

 

[grouser]

thanks gents HH

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

Noise cancel shifts the transmitted frequencies slightly in ten steps and and tries to find the frequency least affected by local EMI conditions. Ground cancel is done automatically by the machine. As you move around when you are detecting you may move into an area with different EMI sources, and noise canceling again may help. I've pretty much found if you are in a noisy area, i.e. close to power lines, that the noise is fairly broad band and noise canceling doesn't do much. It can make a pretty big difference if you are operating near another detector.

Chris

Yep! Good answer Chris. I do it several times a hunt. Specially if lots of emi is present.

 

[Prep1957]

What a mess, everyone should read Andy's book more carefully! No Minelab product to date uses all 28 frequencies while you are hunting and that includes the E-Trac period! True- ground balance is separate from noise cancel.Read pages 10 and 11 in Andy's book.Out of the 28 frequencies they are converted to 11 sets or channels if you prefer.You at any one time are hunting with only one set.That set is determined by noise cancel(Very Important).Noise cancel is the only thing that makes Minelab products different than any other detector out there.Noise cancel does 2 things the main and most important thing it does is read the ground.When you find a spot that is clean and you have your coil laying on the ground and press noise cancel the ETrac is identify the ground you are in. Instead of COMPENSATING for the ground like all other brands it reads the ground and IGNORES the ground like it was not even there, like hunting in air,basically it is Disc. the ground like you would a pull tab and selects the best set of the 11 channels to hunt in you are never hunting with anymore than 3 frequencies at one time..The second thing noise cancel will do is if you are in an area of high EMI you could raise your coil 1 foot off the ground and it will pick the best channel for you to hunt in that condition.You in most cases lose depth I would find a better place to hunt.If you are hunting the same area,town ,small park and the ground does not change you may not have to noise cancel.If you are hunting a park and noise canceled at the base of a hill with rich black dirt and then decide to hunt on top of hill which has turned to something like gravel and clay you need to noise cancel again you could be losing real depth.That is why so many Etrac users are so shocked to find a nice coin in an area they all ready hunted most times they did not have noise cancel set properly.As you dig ,look at the ground has it changed?you need to noise cancel.Are the more nails in that area because of an old house being there you need to noise cancel.The good thing is that if you do nothing you will still find coins to 7 inches with ETrac just let me know where you hunted so I can take care of area between 7 and 10 inches you left.

 

[Myownwings]

"Noise cancel does 2 things the main and most important thing it does is read the ground.When you find a spot that is clean and you have your coil laying on the ground and press noise cancel the ETrac is identify the ground you are in. Instead of COMPENSATING for the ground like all other brands it reads the ground and IGNORES the ground like it was not even there, like hunting in air,basically it is Disc"

Interesting post Prep1957. Perhaps I don't understand Noise Cancel as well as I thought, or I do it wrong. I always noise cancel at a distance of approximately 12" above the ground and never by laying the coil directly on the ground. I believe the two circuits are entirely different (ground balance and noise cancel). I believe the E-Trac is constantly monitoring the ground and adjusting as you move along and has nothing to do with emi. The 12" distance from ground for setting noise cancel I always believed was just to pick up emi without any ground effect and selecting the most stable channel to greatly reduce falsing from emi. Am I reading your post correctly Prep1957?

 

[Prep1957]

Ground balance is different from Noise Cancel.Ground balance is in auto forget about it.You should be Noise canceling with coil on the ground in clean ground.To find clean ground go to all metal sweep your coil until you find an area with no signals and then noise cancel with coil on the ground or at the height you think you will be sweeping at if grass is too high.I have only encountered one spot that I had any problem with EMI in last 2 years and I would rather suffer with a little back ground noise than losing depth if you have to operate or hunt in that kind of condition your best bet would be to raise your coil one foot above the ground and noise cancel over a clean spot to get rid of EMI so Etrac picks usable channel to get rid of EMI may not be best channel to get deep coins.You can also raise coil to 6 inches and it may switch to a channel that will give you half noise,better depth I would still find better place to hunt.If you can get Andy Sabisch book on Etrac, I hunt with a Minelab Safari most of the time use to have Etrac went to help a friend of friend with his Etrac took me while to remember how to set up again he had a great old house with 2 acres and had hunted his yard twice with one silver coin to show for it.He was noise canceling 1 foot above ground also and digging too much turn up his Disc. so he would cherry pick his yard has now 9 silver coins and several Indian Heads that was since last Wednesday, the people on this board can help you on programs better than I can but do not be afraid to use Disc.that's what makes FBS technology so great.

 

[grouser]

no where in the manual or Andy's book do I see that you are supposed to put the coil on the ground during NC,,,, I see the part about 11 sets of channels ( although 11 does not divide into 28 very well, so the "sets" must not be all the same number of channels ?) now I'm confused !!!

 

[Myownwings]

Grouser,
I know. I spent a couple hours trying to track down some obscure comment supposedly made by Andy about ground balancing with the coil on the ground. Never found it. Andy's book does not go into the specifics about how to actually perform a ground balance only about why he thinks it is important. The Minelab manual is very specific, although it does not provide any reasoning for the 12". That being said, something about Prep57's post sounds like it's at least worth trying, so that's what I'm gonna do tomorrow. I know a perfect site to try it out, although I struggle with the idea of adding more discrimination. The more I hunt the less and less I use discrimination. Last week I pulled up a SLQ at 9" that started off at 30-44 and after circling and repeated signals all over the place I decided to dig. Nice silver quarter down there that I'm positive I would have missed with more discrimination.

 

[Bell-Two]

This is what the manual says about noise cancel and ground balance on page 74

What Noise cancel does is to find a channel where there is no EMI interference, from electric wires, microwave towers, other machines etc. that is why you hold it up 12" above ground. This is the proceedure, it would not make sense for Minelab to tell you how to do it one way if it would be better to do it another.


To initiate an Automatic Noise Cancel:
1 Hold the detector 30cm (12

 

[Prep1957]

Sorry about that guys, I keep forgetting that the Safari is a newer detector put out by Minelab than the Etrac. It is on page 23 of Andy's new book the Quattro and Safari Handbook Andy explains that all FBS should be noise canceled with coil on the ground.

 

[Bell-Two]

Sorry about that guys, I keep forgetting that the Safari is a newer detector put out by Minelab than the Etrac. It is on page 23 of Andy's new book the Quattro and Safari Handbook Andy explains that all FBS should be noise canceled with coil on the ground.

I believe they both came out in late 2008 so they are relatively the same age. The Safari manual says this about noise cancel on page 27. Basically the same instructions as for the E-Trac


Noise Cancel
In many locations where you will be
detecting there maybe electromagnetic
interference (EMI) which can make your
detector unstable. This instability will manifest
as erratic false signals from the detector,
which makes detecting actual targets very
difficult. To eliminate the effects of EMI you
will need to perform a Noise Cancel by either
selecting it in the menu or by simply pressing
the Noise Cancel button on the control panel
(p. 15).
Whilst holding the detector still, press the
Noise Cancel button on the control panel.
Safari will automatically scan and select the
quietest operating frequency and should run
smoothly once complete. This process takes
approximately 20 seconds.

(The manual has a picture showing the Safari being held 30cm above the ground during this process)

30cm (12

 

[Myownwings]

Bell-Two,
Thanks for taking the time to clear this up. We kind of really got derailed there.

 

[Prep1957]

You guys are making a big mistake if you are noise canceling in the air why don't you ask your fellow Etrac users where they have there coil position on the ground or in the air when they noise cancel in this forum.I should also point out all minelab manuals and advertising lead you to believe you are using 28 frequencies while you are hunting and we all know that is not totally true.I will try one more time you bought the FBS detector to find deep coins and goodies not to spend your entire metal detecting career getting rid of EMI which does not exist 99% of the time.They put this in the manual so your detector will run smoothly so you will be happy with your purchase and will not return it I would to if I was selling detectors but I am trying to find deep coins not hear a pleasurable hum.Like I have said in other post minelabs real genius is in there advertising and sales team that is why they brought out Safari after the Etrac because the the Etracs were not selling that good they had to make a cheaper Etrac but keep the meat and bones if you know what I mean introducing the Safari.A cheaper gold machine the 705(they still get your money by selling you coils).May your hunting improve.

 

[grouser]

well I like to try things myself and see/feel/hear/dig the difference,,,,,, worth a try

 

[lomoch]

This thread is very interesting to me, and I would assume, interesting to anyone running an ET with interest in using a correct setup procedure. I've read Andy's book and read the manual and have taken away much as the rest of you have, and that was to always run NC to choose a low EMI affected channel. What is very interesting to me is that this NC operation based on Prep's comments seems to offer two achievable states, but only one method of doing so, thus potentially giving the user one or the other desired setting, but not both, unless all planets align... It would seem to me that in this case, ML would have put two separate controls on the machine to achieve either and separate two distinct settings, but that would suggest that Auto ground reading would no longer be automatic, at least at first blush. I've pointed Andy to this thread in hopes he can provide some input if he has the time.

Randy Kight
Richmond, VA

 

[Andy Sabisch]

It seems that some questions tend to pop up on a somewhat regular basis and the question about how to conduct the Noise Cancel option on Minelab FBS machines has been around since the first Explorer S & XS were introduced more than a decade ago. Over the years, Minelab has produced several FBS detectors including the Explorer S,XS, II, SE and SE Pro, the Quattro, the Safari and the E-Trac. While different options are found on each, the basic

 

[Ray-Mo.]

n/t