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E-Trac problem maybe

WV62

WV62

Well-known member
Last week while hunting in a really trashy area I noticed that on several targets I was getting a fairly good high tone and the ID numbers didn’t seem right for the tone. Also the on screen cursor was locked in the nickel area.
To get things to match up I would have to move off target and then come back and then things seem to come close to a match.
Is this a machine problem or just too much trash under the coil and screwed everything up?
Ron in WV
 
I use an Exp II and do get multiple numbers or crazy display that doesn't jive with the numbers. Sometimes there are multiple coins and sometimes there not.
So did you dig or pass it up?
 
I did dig but I can't remember what came up, but I can say none were coins.

Mostly I was just checking out here in forum land to see if I may have a detector problem. I know that the next time I am out I will try to hunt in an area with less trash and see if it goes back to acting like it did when I first started.

Ron in WV
 
Ron....just overall,the chances of a machine being messed up (especially when being used by a newer operator) are pretty slim. Hunting in heavy trash is NOT recommended,BY ME,for the new FBS user. Crawl,walk,run. The easiest way for that machine to wind up for sale is for you to get fed up with it. The easiest way for you to get fed up with it is to hunt the worst places there are. If you don't hunt a place that has silver coins,you'll never know what they sound like,at least on a regular basis. Get out of that area and give yourself a chance,even if you're just digging 6" clad. Knowing SOMETHING is better than knowing NOTHING, at least you can build on SOMETHING.
Before you leave that horrible place, black out your screen,and then open 40-49 Conductive and 0-20 Ferrous. Grid an area to see how it responds. Don't even fiddle around with the other settings,just Auto plus 3. Keep it stable and look for anything within that pattern that repeats at 90 degrees. This is just to see if you can come away with ANYTHING.
 
IDXMonster said:
Ron....just overall,the chances of a machine being messed up (especially when being used by a newer operator) are pretty slim. Hunting in heavy trash is NOT recommended,BY ME,for the new FBS user. Crawl,walk,run. The easiest way for that machine to wind up for sale is for you to get fed up with it. The easiest way for you to get fed up with it is to hunt the worst places there are. If you don't hunt a place that has silver coins,you'll never know what they sound like,at least on a regular basis. Get out of that area and give yourself a chance,even if you're just digging 6" clad. Knowing SOMETHING is better than knowing NOTHING, at least you can build on SOMETHING.
Before you leave that horrible place, black out your screen,and then open 40-49 Conductive and 0-20 Ferrous. Grid an area to see how it responds. Don't even fiddle around with the other settings,just Auto plus 3. Keep it stable and look for anything within that pattern that repeats at 90 degrees. This is just to see if you can come away with ANYTHING.
Click to expand...

I don't have an E-Trac but it is probably similar in some ways to the Explorer.
I know if I run my Iron Mask up too much and am in an iron infested place, sometimes
it slows the recovery of the ID way down. If I open up the screen so it is in All Metal, the machine
is super quick in recovering from iron to a good target.
 
IDXMonster said:
Ron....just overall,the chances of a machine being messed up (especially when being used by a newer operator) are pretty slim. Hunting in heavy trash is NOT recommended,BY ME,for the new FBS user. Crawl,walk,run. The easiest way for that machine to wind up for sale is for you to get fed up with it. The easiest way for you to get fed up with it is to hunt the worst places there are. If you don't hunt a place that has silver coins,you'll never know what they sound like,at least on a regular basis. Get out of that area and give yourself a chance,even if you're just digging 6" clad. Knowing SOMETHING is better than knowing NOTHING, at least you can build on SOMETHING.
Before you leave that horrible place, black out your screen,and then open 40-49 Conductive and 0-20 Ferrous. Grid an area to see how it responds. Don't even fiddle around with the other settings,just Auto plus 3. Keep it stable and look for anything within that pattern that repeats at 90 degrees. This is just to see if you can come away with ANYTHING.
Click to expand...

Well, that's a problem in that were he was trying to hunt is an area of EXTREME TRASH! but it produce SEVERAL silver coins in the past could of years and four of them were silver half dollars!! So, we keep going back there in hopes of dragging more silver out of the area. How much can be gained from the E-Trac in trashy areas by going to a smaller coil?

Mark
 
I don't have an E-Trac but it is probably similar in some ways to the Explorer.
I know if I run my Iron Mask up too much and am in an iron infested place, sometimes
it slows the recovery of the ID way down. If I open up the screen so it is in All Metal, the machine
is super quick in recovering from iron to a good target.[/quote]

Tony, you may have hit the nail on the head. I started off that day running the it with a lot of the screen blacked out and only opening up some sizeable boxes around where the silver coins come in at. Later in the day I changed patterns with a lot more opened up area and also had a hole opened up for nickels and it was running better but still kind of locking up.

Now I kind of understand why the Andy S pattern is so popular, it has has a lot of open area and I couldn't understand that until now.

I can't wait to get the training wheels off this machine.

IDXMonster, your pattern 40 to 49 across and 0 to 20 down. Your training box would accept all silver coins that may be in the ground. The area we were hunting was along a road through the park, the farther you get from the curb the thinner the trash.

Ron in WV
 
Okay just used your link and checked it out.

Thanks

Ron in WV
 
Mark,I do recall Ron saying that the area was a past "hotspot". I also recall him saying that you find quite a few silvers per year while he finds just a a few. I guess my idea was to help him move along at a pace that is constructive to his ongoing success with the etrac...and that's going to include starting small and working UP. I sometimes find myself giving advice to a new user based on my current skill level,and not considering what it was like to be a beginner with a Minelab. It wasn't always fun. Some days it downright sucked. Having ALL the signals coming at me,especially when there was Conductive trash such as pulltabs,canslaw,etc. really set me back a bunch until I learned that I had to learn the machine in an area that wasn't so contaminated. It worked very well,now I have all the confidence in the world with the Explorer and the CTX,because I didn't try to learn trigonometry before I knew algebra,so to speak. Not digging here...even at 49 I find myself being slower to be receptive of new ideas,especially when I'm eager to skip "right to the chase". Learning what the machine is saying and how it says it will make or break him. I wouldn't try to learn Russian from a Russian auctioneer....it's TOO MUCH at once.
 
IDXMonster,

You got the story right but you got my brothers mixed up, Mark only gets to hunt with us maybe a couple of times a year now, he stays pretty busy with making a living these days. My other brother Greg (forum name Still Looking 52) and his F5 is the one that brings home the most silver.

Ron in WV
 
WV62 said:
IDXMonster,

You got the story right but you got my brothers mixed up, Mark only gets to hunt with us maybe a couple of times a year now, he stays pretty busy with making a living these days. My other brother Greg (forum name Still Looking 52) and his F5 is the one that brings home the most silver.

Ron in WV
Click to expand...

That was funny, Big brother I thought he did pretty good, heck I get us mixed up. Are there any other forum members that have two or more brothers into metal detecting?
The area in question is at local park, but its an area that has been shut down for MANY YEARS and now unless you know its there its just a wooded area in the park. In its day it was a very active picnic area, but its trashy, especially around the old fire pits :stars:
You can walk around in it and still find not the beaver tail tabs, but the cans they came off from laying around, crown cap bottles and not the screw cap crowns either!

In the pictures below you can see steps coming down from an access road that has been LONG close off.
Free stand columns where a picnic table once was.
One picture shows a little bit of the leaf cover cracked up road.
Beaver tail beverage can,
And one of several fir pits.

Mark
 
Picture added to the above post!
Mark
 
Wow!!!! I'd be on that place like white on rice! Those pictures REEK of old coins,that's a great spot!
Ok,for Ron...on the etrac how about auto plus 3 and the stock Coins mode? Been there done that? How about if I just fly on over there and take a crack at that place! Gotta love the MOSS! I don't have any places that look like that...not even close. Everything around here has been turned and filled and graded and dinked around with. Rarely will I come upon a site and be able to immediately "read" it. It takes digging to see what age coins are at what depth. It's frustrating somewhat,but because I won't give up no matter what,I have very good results most of the time. MOST of the time I said...:lol:
Thanks for the eye candy Mark!
 
I took the pictures in January of 2016.
Here are some more, there is several sets of steps that lead down from the old black top road into the picnic area,
there is also several fire pits spread about on two hill sides that face one another with foot trails that lead back down to the flat lands of the park. In the days there wasn't any of the brush or small tree, it was mowed and maintained like the rest of the park, so only the VERY large trees were there when it was in use.
Along the foot trails there is some small sections of flats, there is a small creek in the valley between the row of fire pits.
In places you can see where the park had 55 gallon trash barrels bolted to two steel post and the rusted barrel totally falling apart.
The picnic area was in use around 1930 until maybe the mid 1960's to possibly 1970.
The litter around those fire pits is DENSE to say the lest. Its a pretty easy area to get into, but when the sap is up and everything is green its pretty brushy to hunt, but doable. The ratio of silver coins verse none silver is uncanny??? and we have yet to make sense of the amount of silver halves compared to the smaller silver coins??? and then the silver all but played out! I mean Ron goes in and hunts for a few hours and doesn't find any coins, then maybe on the next trip he'll find a single coil and it may be a silver one. We know that target masking is a MAJOR player here, but those 4 halves is still a puzzling.

I believe Ron has a Sun-Ray 5" coil coming of course with the idea of having less trash under the coil and maybe snagging a few more pieces of silver.
Mark
 
Nice descriptions Mark,that would be a dream to hunt,just knowing good coins must still be there! Ron made a really good choice in the X-5" if that's what he is getting. It takes a confusing situation and makes total sense of it. The trade off is a slower coverage of ground,you know. He will really like it as most everyone does. I love tiny coils but never hardly use them because my sites don't warrant it for the most part. I need depth!
Keep us posted...
 
That area Mark has been showing you, the silver coins have been within the 3 inch deep range, with a couple of exceptions that brother Greg found at about 6".

Ron in WV
 
The numbers are not changing because you are running too hot. Back off just a little and the Machine will settle down. You must return to Threshold before the numbers will display/
 
Well that explains why I could move off target a few feet and come back and get numbers more in line with the target.

Thanks,

Ron in WV
 
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