GOOD GRIEF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:surrender::rage::rant:

[amberjack]

no worries sunraysux, happy to help if I can

its sort of hard not being where you are but I can try so feel free to PM me.

I remember my 1st minelab xterra 705 and I had been using Tesoro's and fishers so this thing was speaking a whole new language that made me feel just like you do now and the etrac sounds very similar so I had little problems making the switch.

but yep help if I can

AJ

 

[sunraysux]

appreciate that Amber J
not sure what time zone you are in....but i am a bit fried....need some Zzzzzs
so i will shoot a few ??s your way tomorrow if thats good....
and not to worry, these are generic thoughts//observations/questions that i'm sure an experienced user can address without alot of teeth//tooth nashing
have a good night and i will hit you tomorrow sometime

 

[HighPlainsHunter]

appreciate that Amber J
not sure what time zone you are in....but i am a bit fried....need some Zzzzzs
so i will shoot a few ??s your way tomorrow if thats good....
and not to worry, these are generic thoughts//observations/questions that i'm sure an experienced user can address without alot of teeth//tooth nashing
have a good night and i will hit you tomorrow sometime

Why not post them here with the thought that the answers might help all of us? It may also prevent the same question being asked over again...

 

[amberjack]

that's up to sunraysux,

sure there are people out there that know more than me

but maybe he needs to ask something personal?

anyways I am here if I can help sunraysux.

AJ

 

[sunraysux]

not a problem....certainly was not trying to exclude anyone
just didn't want to rant in public ....AGAIN
and bore everyone with my newbie questions that you all have probably worked through already

so for general order and sanity, i will fire them off one at a time
giving everyone an opportunity to chime in and add their 2 cent piece to the discussion

###1)....so far i have used my Etrac maybe 7 or 8 times
the first several times i used the freshly installed Bill S program because thats ALL i read about before buying my machine
it was the "end all//be all" program to have.....so i dutifully installed it and out into the world i went
well to say the least, i was completely overwhelmed by this Etrac....coming over from WHITE'S my whole life
this darn machine was like a drunken pachinko machine on meth....i had no earthly idea how to begin to decipher the digital garble and barrage of sound...holy hell it was aggravating and unsettling and extremely frustrating to a person with a super short fuse to start with....so i posted a HELP thread here, and you good folks kindly offered me some salient and sage advise
good guys like IDX and Adirondack smartly suggested to dumb things down newbie!!
....learn to crawl before entering the 6 lane super highway of Etrac detecting
so we boxed out the top right corner of the grid and ONLY dug//responded to clean clear smooth repeatable sounds to get a handle on the beginning nuances and subtleties of this Etrac monster....and in the subsequent 5 usages, i have become somewhat more familiar with her....but am still quite bemused with all the quirky unstable chatter and noise//my whites machines NEVER ever did any of that stuff
i have 6 silvers thus far....including a 1913 Barber dime yesterday//my first with Etrac
but i absolutely know i am missing tons of stuff; and i still walk away from EVERY usage feeling frustrated and belittled
wondering WHY all these other guys who post on YOUTUBE get all these clean clear deep 11/45s and 12/47s that turn out to be barber quarters and seated halves and such.....i get virtually NO clean signals, i am constantly trying to isolate a bit of good sound from all the digital background pablum....and i have dialed back the manual sensitivity to like 14-15 at this point after starting at say 19-20 and being completely blown away by the Etrac martian chatter!!!!!
i know i am a rookie to this but clearly i am lost in the Etrac woods....literally half of the time my machine is on the ground, it goes silent//nulls out!!
i set up with the coil one foot of the ground at every site...press the noise cancel and wit the full 60 seconds
i begin hunting in the minelabs COIN program.....resetting the noise cancel a few times during a 3-4 hour hunt
i have invested in a 6 inch sniper coil from COILTEK because the 11 inch stock coil was waaaay to big for my liking at this juncture....so no matter what site i am on....and i have tried 3 different states already!!
the machine nulls out//blanks out literally half of the time
and my understanding is you cannot detect targets that may actually be there when the machine is nulling like that?!!?
so any help with settings and techniques that might mitigate some of this nulling would be most appreciated
sorry for the long post here but i feel it is necessary to clarify that i am doing things properly so you guys don't think i am a complete yutz...even though this rant may sound that way!haha

 

[Indotguy]

Try setting it on auto sensitivity and four tones. That should calm it down a little.

 

[EtracTom-AdirondacksNY]

Your still learning the machine and are recommended to run it in AUTO. It will smooth the machine out compared to manual which makes it run hotter. Let the machine decide where it's best to run as it reads the ground and run GROUND DIFFICULT unless at the beach.

Stay at just plain AUTO for now raise it to +1 ,+2, +3 as time goes buy and you get better for max depth in AUTO by those amounts in maybe more inches if your soil can handle it without making the machine way more noisier

Nulling is the machine's reaction to discriminated targets so more dis. like Bill's trashy pattern will give way more nulling than the factory coins program because you have disced out way more black area on the screen.

Running in TRASH HIGH you WILL hear a good target through the Nulling not missing much so don't know where you got that understanding from.

Place coins on the ground and see what the conductive number reads and then in the field I don't really pay attention to the FERROUS number just the CONDUCTIVE number first when I get a signal. IF the FERROUS number is ridiculous like 25-32 then usually it's trash and with one click on the Quick Mask Screen which is a wide open screen I look at the cursor and if it's way low on the screen or in the bottom right corner of the screen it's a dead give away it's iron. If the cursor stays up in the middle or above on the screen it is maybe a good target so dig it. When in the Coins Pattern you may see the cursor in those black areas when you get a signal and it is probably a bad target if it is way down in the black but if the cursor stays in the clear area near the 12 line middle opened area on the Coins pattern it's dig time. Nickles here hit 12-13-14 Conductive 15-16-17-18-19- pull tabs. 11-10-9-8 and lower conductive foil. Rings it's a different story if in an area suspected then you got to dig those other numbers to see if it is a ring.

The cacophony of sounds is minerals, hot rocks, iron, foil, pull tabs, pop caps, beer caps etc. rusting zink pennies and other such stuff in the ground and running in Manual over what the machine would pick to run at in AUTO just exacerbates this and is driving you batty. Switch to Plain AUTO run COINS pattern, Fast on, Trash High, Ground Difficult and sweep slowly listen for a solid hit resweeps from different 90 degree directions and look at readings the Conductive number then the Ferrous number and Cursor position and decide to Dig or go to Quick Mask screen and have a look see then rule it out or not.

You got to crawl then walk then you can run. Keep it simple and slowly add on and raise power as you get better at the machine don't worry if your missing anything no one gets it all the first time you can always go back sometime later running it way hotter and bigger coil and other such things to see what may have been overlooked. I usually unless really really sure it's iron will dig just about everything then I know I'm not missing anything and am in no hurry to have to go find another site to detect so I come at it from different direction with different settings and coils and see what's hiding that is the fun of this hobby.

 

[sunraysux]

...in which program InDot??
COINS?

 

[sunraysux]

as before Adirondack Tom....you are an officer and a gentleman!
much appreciated and i will revert back to AUTO on the Disc side
didn't know it made that big a difference

 

[sunraysux]

....and just to let you know InDot....i actually set up the RELIC pre-program to be a TTF mode...
and holy hell....i could not bear it for more than 2 seconds!!!
it was perpetual digital diarrhea!!!....whining/squeeling/shreiking
i have no idea what was going on
i have watched a bunch of youtube videos on TTF and i NEVER heard anything even close to that crap.....

 

[amberjack]

people may disagree with me I know my mate does but I always run in auto +3 if I suspect deep coin I will switch to manual but there's never anything there, as I explained to him I paid top $ for this thing to think for me in sensitivity regards.

from my experimentation running the same sens number in auto then manual , manual is always noiser at the same number , so my deduction is that auto is better and its why I paid for the Cadillac and not the what ever

I am sure some people like running their etrac "hot" as some call it but I have other detectors for that, I want to out chill out go slow and listen for some squeakers, I also have experimented with a lot of coils and chose ones that run at high rev's in auto not all coils are created equal.

as for the tones I would recommend starting in the tones you want to use all the time..

as a final thought not every detector fits us I have used some that I was just never going to get on with and so do not discount that as an option.

so as always take what you need and leave the rest

AJ

 

[sunraysux]

hmmm....well i sure hope thats not the case with this Etrac Amber J
it costs too much to decide it was a failed experiment....would never hear the end of it from the ol' lady!!
i bought the COILTEK 6 inch sniper....do you find that to be a good type to run in AUTO + with Etrac?
i actually like the smaller coil...makes me go slower and more precisely...feels like i am being more surgical

 

[IDXMonster]

If the place is SUPER CLEAN and the dirt has low mineralization,I will run Manual for the extra depth. ANYWHERE else is Auto plus 3,and as AJ said,listen for the squeakers....very short,sometimes soft REPEATABLE signals that are in your disc pattern. Pay attention to the depth meter,it's a great tool-use it! For YOU....RIGHT NOW....you need Auto Sens.
Just MHO! Don't give up just yet,once you get it,you will GET it!

 

[amberjack]

I have spent that much sunraysux on a set up and discovered it wasn't for me ...but that's always the last option I am sure.

if you have heavy iron its a tough gig on any detector especially if its bigger than nails the thing about the FBS platform is you only just have to move the coil, I will plant my feet and do a very slow swing if I know there is stuff there, so yeah slow is good list to every noise investigate it from a few angles for the most part the etrac is for pulling deep silver/copper and its not fast like a fisher etc..so auto and go super slow in the spots you know there is coins.

6" round coil is a good choice as it will get pretty deep and it has a small area of ground to see.

I wouldn't expect someone new to any detector to use it better than someone who has several hundred hrs on one , my point is if I have to go real slow then you probably do to

let us know how you get on and best not to compare your detecting to anyone else's especially the YouTube shows of which a lot are staged.

AJ

 

[J.D]

Hi AJ always love reading your tips .. (he is very advanced master in the hobby) ... anyhow sunraysux listen carefully to AJ and his friends you will learn a lot from them ...thanx AJ for all the input you put in the forum your a great guy

 

[amberjack]

that's right I am a great guy I been Hypnotised https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXmTEyq5nXc

sorry just had to share listening to this helps learning the etrac and I get zero royalties from Coldplay or Minelab so I have been hyp Hypnotised

AJ

 

[Davethejunky]

Come on....Sunray X1 probe and your set!!!

All this is why I am no longer a Minelab user. Bad design + weight + the nickel and dime customers to death = NOPE!

 

[kt]

The Etrac... unstable? Cacaphony of noise?

Heck, go run an F70 for a season. The Etrac is a pussycat compared to the hotrod FTP machines before DST.

I've never tried a Whites machine but they must be quiet as a churchmouse if the Etrac is a big increase in noise compared to them.

 

[J.D]

you know when poeple start writing things like that it really makes me wonder...any experienced and i mean pro level will know which detectors are the good ones and which are rubbish ...and the minelab etrac and ctx are miles ahead of their opponents some will discover this and some never will ...just my 2 cents worth

 

[Mark kus]

Try this flip the coil and shaft upside down with cable started in the end an give it a upside down shake cable should fly out the end.
It works for me..