etrac vs v3

[wolfenzie]

I have both machines and both are great, but each seem to have their advantages. The E-Trac appears to do better on depth, but you really have to spend alot of time with the machine to learn its nuances. The V3 is a far better machine for parks and playgrounds etc.. It really nabs the coins ( I live in Canada and our coins have the steel inserts which seem to throw off the E-Trac). The V3 is also a gold grabber. Once you know how to read the signals it really cuts down on the pulltabs and other junk you have to dig to get the gold. The E-Trac will give you a bit of an edge on some silver in that pennies tend to register in the 12-44-12-45 range, whereas I have found that there are times that the V3 will register silver rings in the penny range. Both are heavy machines, but the V3 is slightly lighter. With the E-Trac you have a better choice of coils, but the coil that comes with the V3 does a very good job.
I agree with the other posters who suggest getting a less expensive machine to start with as it does take a great deal of time and patience to become proficient with a machine and begin making better finds. I probably detected for a year and a half before I found my first gold ring. That was only because I read the forums and finally took the advice to accept pull tabs and dig the better signals. I started out with a used Eagle Spectrum, then went to a Minelab XTerra 50 and finally moved up to the E-Trac and V3.
I hope this advice helps, and whatever you decide remember to stick with it and have fun.