If your happy with your E-trac give it a thumbs up in the subject line!! I am extremely happy with mine..:thumbup: Let the potential buyers know your

[ky digger]

I detect with one buddy that still uses the SE while waiting to review my results with the E Trac. I have 100 hours on it in the UK and now about 40 hours in the USA. We both went and searched a site in central KY that each of us had searched with SE's on 2 previous occasions and found very little. We returned to the site to see what the E Trac would do. The site dates back to prior to the Civil War so we felt there must be things there we had missed. I found a bust half, 1 seated dime, 1 seated half dime, a shield nickel, 2 buttons, and a V nickel. My buddy only got one 2 cent piece and and early indian. What we discovered was that we had been running the SE at sensitivity 28 manual. Since there was no static noise or constant interference at 28 manual our assumption was that we were covering decent ground. After a short while with the E Trac I noticed the recommended sensitivity was at 10. This is the worst ground reading I've ever encountered in Central KY. My theory is that the sensitivity on our SE's was too high to pick up the silver that the E Trac gobbled up at every turn. All of the finds were in the 6 to 7 inch range excepting one cuff button at around 9 inches. It seems the E Trac will simply not run on 28 manual there so I reluctantly set it on automatic plus 3. The bottom line is the E Trac forced me to learn a valuable lesson about sensitivity and SE's. Just because it sounds fine at high settings doesn't mean it is performing all out. The E Trac provided far superior results on this site and in fact everywhere I have used it, including the UK. There were 10 guys on my UK trip and I ended a 10 day trip with the most finds, and voted the best finds of the week. The finds there included a silver Celtic unit about the size of a pencil eraser.

All I can say is that my results have been really great and as I learn more about the machine they appear to be improving. What can I say? My buddy will end up with one soon if I keep excelling against him.

 

[Hard Nosed Dave]

In the interview with Neil Jones, apart from some other settings, he shows that he has bumped up the Volume Limit to 30 and Volume Gain starting at 26 and says he's "working up to full maximum". You're right about the volume being controlled and what we hear, through a microphone in his headphones, is what Niel Jones is hearing but all audio volumes are controlled at the last point of exit into the separate volume control on his headphones. .
Neil has brought the volume down to what he can bear. He is asked why he has his settings like this and he then likens it to being in a restaurant(more a nightclub, if I were to compare it) where one becomes used to the background music and after a few minutes you will here the outstanding differences from the "confusion" of that music.................that's basically the sound with the aid of what he sees on his screen( be it cursor position or digital read out) that he stops to investigate, while he hunts.

It basically all comes down to being able to manage the volume of all of those many sounds( unless you can manage them with such control...I can't) and when you do use headphones, you are listening out for a "good tone"................but not being bludgeoned with all of the very many constant sounds that are usually "false" signals(along with the positive signals in amongst all of that) that come from the audio output, when the E-trac it is being used in this way.

The thing here is to pick out ans sort what may probably a positive signal, be it repeatable or not , of a particular tone that is not the same as the majority of ones in all that confusion and will probably be worth investigating. It doesn't mean that you have found a target that is not a piece of junk/trash BUT it's most like going to be a solid piece of metal that is not one of those "ghost" signals that are included amongst that confusion.

Personally, I feel it's basically like trying to listen to a radio that picks up all signals as distantly as it can tune into and then realizing that one of those signals you hear in the confusion is the station you desire to listen to because it's probably worth listening to and has stood out form all the spurious background noise that your antenna has picked up while pointed in that direction. I am not suggesting that a detector is anything like a radio receiver .
Just for the record, I can only compare a metal detector to being a metal detector not anything else.

So it means basically running the E-trac (or the Explorer or maybe some other metal detector) as "wild" as possible and right up in most cases BUT knowing which signal is possibly one worth digging and NOT loosing your hearing or your mind while doing this......

It's NOT the way many of us want to hunt , as it's beyond what some of us would expect , but it's another option that we may wish to pursue.

When I believe the situation is called for and needed, I've been using the E-trac in a very similar method to this. Basically everything full BLAST without headphones. This I usually do, when no one else is about and usually in an open field. I haven't used a volume control on the headphones(except for when I was supplied with the original Clarions that came with my Explorer XS). I have used all the other Explorer's that followed on like this but after the volume controlled Clarion headphones had "the bomb", I have resorted to using the master volume control on the detectors. I will be getting or probably make an inline adaptable hardwired master control for Koss UR30's or maybe getting an adjustable volume controlled set of good quality headphones to achieve this same level of lets call it scrutiny of all of those the signals that are being detected........or not usually notable during a hunt in place's that will require me to keep the detectors "strange and embarrassing" behavior ......"contained" within the realm of my headphones.....what the heck, as long as it finds me what others can't, I'll do this.

HH


David Di

http://www.mlotv.com/view/440/neil-jones-etrac-program-explained-settings/

 

[Hard Nosed Dave]

Hi Mick,

you say:

" I'm interested how the E-trac goes with the screw caps and gold coins." By this , I take it you mean Aussie $1 and $2 gold coins.

This is my interpretation thus far.
It's close to perfect. You'll dig less screw caps but initially you you should stay within recommended ranges and defaults if you want it to be closer to perfection and not fall into the "wrap this thing around a pole or tree " or "through it like a javelin gets thrown" category.

The E-trac does, within a depth range and a trashy environment , have a more rock solid digital number definition for the Au1 and 2 but can still not give a 100% definition, even though the pattern can be made tighter.

In an All Metal setting I used on a beach a while back, I dug a signal, one of sooo many( good and bad), that was down to about 12 inches. It was indicating that the target was beyond what the E-trac's depth gauge(another improved refinement for deep target definition) was showing.
I was expecting something substantial as it was a rock solid repeatable signal and was by all accounts, supposed to be a gold ring......turned out to be a VERY corroded almost indistinguishable, bar for those notched grouped line cuts on the sides of it, Aussie $2 coin.

My god, the salt, sand, time and whatever else had reduce this coin to almost nothing. What and encrustation it had!

To me , the E-trac is more stable and can be a "lap dog"-of-detector, but if you unleash it, you really need to be ready and expect to dig lot's of junk if you aren't prepared and maybe expect it to bite ya on the bum, like it did me and has done to others.

Just thought I'd mention, while I'm here, that I know Ray H. "pinpointa" had a try at the E-trac that he got to demo, but he's stuck to his xterra 70. "pinpointa" Ray H. is usually quite capable with detectors but reckons he was going to stick with what he has for now. I mention him because he seems to have the same criteria for coin hunting(mostly Au 1 and 2's) over the old aluminum bottle caps and felt that the X70 did it just perfectly. Personally, I haven't tried the X70 , so I wouldn't know.

Maybe hungry(bob) or Snowy or anyone else in Aus. using the E-trac might want to add or say more. You're all welcomed to.

Hope I've helped you with this answer.

David Di

 

[EZrider]

David in a round about way says it all. It's a super easy machine to pick up and go. The quick start on the first page of the manual says to turn it on, noise cancel and go. That's it. But on the other hand you can really open it up and tweak it to high heaven.

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

Thanks for such a good account Dave.
It sounds like Ray and I have similar interests. My first impression of the E-Trac, was less than I thought it would be. The one I played around with, was not assembled. it was the first week that they had come out, and the guys in the shop were nervous about assembling it. It was the only one they had, so wanted it to be sold as a new unit. I was able to test it out with various targets that I took with me though. In the end, I bought another detector. I guess that if I like it on a second check out, then I could save a few pennies a sell off a couple of detectors to fund the purchase. It will be the last detector that I buy for quite some time as I think I'll be over the buying bug and just use a couple of detectors for my hunting needs. I've got 5 at the moment, and find that it's 3 too many.
The X-Terra is also a great little machine. Very light too. I've had a 30 since they were released 3 years back. It doesn't give up too much ground on the 70 either.
Mick Evans.

 

[Kal]

I will use it over my SE as the SE has become a backup!

 

[jbow]

n/t

 

[JBM]

So far it shows great promise.Yes Iam Happy.Jerry.

 

[hoarder]

my mate and i are more than happy with our etracs.

it is the best detector i have owned in 20 years and i have had them all.

here is just a sample of what this baby can pick out from the rubbish,these were found this afternoon on a corn stubble field

the copper coin is an english 1 pence for size comparison ,it is 12mm across

the tiny hammered silver coins are wafer thin,but the etrac just winkles them out

 

[Rick(ND)]

n/t

 

[Jason in TN]

n/t