First day with E-Trac.... Trying to stay positive.

[Saddle Up]

So, today was the first day I hunted with the used E-Trac I purchased. I have been reading a lot on this forum and felt prepared when I ventured out today. I first went back to an old homesite that has previously produced one 1952 wheatie and a couple 1961 pennies. I thought it would be good to see what the E-Trac could do that my White's ID couldn't. No luck. I hunted for two hours. Couldn't pull a cent. I pulled a large wing off an old metal toy plane. Still has a little red paint on it. I was using both the Minelab Coin mode and TTF. It was nulling pretty good there. I tried different sensitivity and other settings. I moved on to a park that isn't that old, I think it became a park in 1954. Picked up some clad, so I was doing something right. Then I thought I had a perfect place where some pretty old buildings once stood. I think someone had already been there, because I saw a few plug holes with the plugs off to the site. Lame. Anyway, it was so trashy I couldn't make much out. Pulled some scrap copper clippings/tubing. My next place was an old pump station down by a river. When I got there the fire department had taken the place over to practice swift water rescue. I moved on to the woods behind a home site that had been occupied in 1840. The original house is gone and a senior center now stands there. So, into the woods I went. Hoping to find anything old. Well, I did find a very cool part of an old cast iron stove with the inscription of the maker. But it was lying on top of the ground, as someone had found it and thrown it there. I seriously spent from 9am to 6pm hunting today, and ended up with hardly anything to show for it. I'm still learning, but I was really hoping to get something more that what I did. I have a few older homes in mind, built in 1905 and 1906. I believe I can get permission to hunt the front and back yards. Hopefully, they will produce. Any tips for me since I really believe the first site should have produced? I was trying to go very slow and learn what the machine was trying to tell me.

-Saddle Up

 

[Bill_S]

Even the people who know their Etrac real well dont find a bunch of good stuff on every trip. I have had days just like the one you described but then other days you seem to hit the jackpot. I have had the Whites V3, V3i, MXT, MXT Pro, M6 to name a few. The Etrac outperformed all of them in my area and in my ground. Just keep using it and learning it and it will produce...............;o)

 

[Damar2003]

Welcome to the e-trac family! Just give it some time and you will love this machine. Time on the e-trac is critical, but it is really not that hard to learn. Before you know it you will be hunting in two tone ferrous mode finding good stuff where other detectors can't. Stay patient and persistant and it will all come together. I got my e-trac a year ago and I would not use anything else. I have found 5 times the silver compared to my other machines. Good luck on your future hunts.

 

[sprchng]

I thought mine was possessed first time---especially using the dd coil first time also.
It's a language you learn and I seriously believe you will learn it fastest digging clad where the digging is easy and quick. Find a spot that plugs or flaps easily and dig those 11 to 13 numbers and remember what comes out. Don't worry about or try TTF until you find a site relatively free of modern (alum) trash and you won't find silver unless you put it under your coil. Remember, there may have been dozens of detectors over your "undiscovered" area ahead of you and the finds you see here are only from a small number of the detectorists that are swinging away out there without silver or real goods for days on end. Most of the public hunting areas here were built after the mid 50's and silver coins are rare but the jewelery shines nicely.

 

[BH_Landstar_]

It will come, just take your time, I was in the same boat when I got my E-Trac in 2011.

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

Be patient ... the E-Trac - is a secret weapon once you learn it's language !

It took me 100 hrs. to really get the feel of mine - at 500 to1000 hrs. the deep old finds really started jumping out of the ground - now with over 2000 hours in the field - it feels like part of me.

I've gone back to several dozen old sites that I hunted when I first got my machine over 3 years ago and made great finds at over 90% of these locations.

Example - I spent 4 hrs. hunting the site of a 1800's church in the woods three years ago - found one Wheat Cent.
I went back to the same site last Fall and found ( 12 ) 1800's dated coins including a 1837 Capped Bust Half Dime.
The site was the same as the first time that I hunted it - I was just much more tuned into my machine !

For me, I learned the most from ...

( 1 ) - Just being in the field swinging - even digging junk targets helps you learn the machine!
( 2 ) - Reading all the posts and posting every question I could think of in this forum - there's great bunch of people here that know what it's like to go through the learning curve.
( 3 ) - Reading Andy's book on the Minelab Explorer & E-Trac - this book goes way beyond the factory manual.

Good luck !

 

[moonshine]

i'm no dummy and it took me about a year to get a good feel for my etrac. i was so in tune with my old detector that i had used for over 25 years it was like an extension of myself. i assumed a new detector would be the same but it isnt. the etrac was completely different for me. the etrac is not a magic wand but it is a great tool and its worth your patience and investment of time. be patient and go back over those same sites again someday.

 

[khouse]

In those trashy sites run your sensitivity at Auto - A. Don't try to over drive the machine especially at first.
Also make sure your machine is set to High trash and ground Difficult for starters. If the tones have your head spinning set it to 4 tone mode.

 

[amc rulz]

The more time you put in, the better! It took me a good 5 or 6 hours to get the Etrac down, the first time out I dug silver, but also a bunch of nails. Thanks to some helpful advice on here, the next time out I dug silver, and only one nail. I've found silver almost each time out on a half-dozen hunts, but I'd used an old Explorer for 3 years before that, so that really helped.