EMI?

[Ground-Fisher]

Went to a friends house and started in the front yard and the E-Trac went nuts. What happened was the ID numbers were bouncing all over and constant chatter of high tones. I changed the auto sen. from +3 through -3 and that didnt help. I did not go to manual and go to a very low sen. maybe that would have helped. I have had VLF machines do that but never a FBS. Thoughts?

 

[TrpnBils]

I'll be following this because I have an area that I really can't hunt because of this sort of thing. I was told by a friend of mine, who is a MD dealer, that he's run into this if there is a fault in a nearby transformer. In my case, it's been the same way at this one place for about 3 months now. Either way, sensitivity settings, noise cancel, and even factory reset didn't help.

Does yours get better or worse if you raise the coil up over your head?

 

[sprchng]

You could try going through the channels by hand versus noise canceling.
EMI may make it undetectable with a low frequency machine like a Minelab but doable with a different machine at different frequency. I detected a spot today which gave me a good deal of EMI near some powerlines with both the etrac and the Deus at 4khz but the Deus could run cleanly at 12 and 18.

 

[madforclad]

Was there a heat pump nearby? My Etrac acts up whenever I get near my heat pump outside. My X-Terra does this as well. I just lower the sensitivity and it goes away.

 

[ironsight]

Intense EMI sites can be productive in 'pounded' historic areas where a lot of people have gathered in the past. Most detectorists shy away from these areas.

A few months ago i started a thread where hi-voltage towers crossed an old park. Since then i found a total of; 2 seated's, 3 barbers, 2 mercs, 4 Indians and a bunch of wheats under or near those hi-voltage wires.

First Auto noise cancel at the sensitivity level thats going to be used. Somethimes in hi-EMI areas keeping the coil near the ground works better.
And once in a while manully going throught the noise channels works also. Just got to play with the noise settings to find the quietest channel.

Try using a small coil if the targets aren't deep. Being a receive antenna, a small coil will pick up a little less EMI.
But small coils won't find the deep stuff especially in hi-EMI areas. For that reason i used my large Tornado coil in that area.

Using a tight pattern can also filter out some of the EMI chatter.

The sensitivity setting is probably the most important.
If Auto -3 is still producing untolerable chatter, there is no choice but to go manual and reduce the sensitivity to where the chatter is tolerable. Look for repeatable conductive two ways among the chatter. If it pinpoints, dig.
This coupled with my large Tornado coil has allowed me to find deep silver under those hi-voltage lines.

Good Luck.