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Im gonna get in trouble for this...here goes.

One of the great misconceptions about the V3i is that you have to program/tweak it to get it to work. (These nasty rumors are usually started by other brand owners) :poke:

The V3i has 19 preset programs, the first 10 are visible on the main screen, the others are stored in the library. All you have to do is select a program, GB and start hunting. Pretty simple to me.

You don't have to tweak unless you want to, but, if you feel the need to tweak....You have the option to do so.
 
I was the "other forum member" hunting with Bill that day. Bill tried everything to bring in good responses to most of my etrac deeper hits. It seemed that each and every target needed different "tweaks" to bring out any kind of repeatable "dig responses" from the V3i. What worked on one target didn't work on the next. Most of the shallow 6 inch coins I was finding would have been easily passed on with the V3i. He only found them because I pointed them out. Then he would work that coin for several minutes. He used his custom programs and the stock coin and deep silver programs with no success. Most any machine's stock coin program will hit a 6 inch coin. I'm not saying there wasn't a signal. It may have been scratchy, one way and with bouncing ID #'s. All the while my etrac sang it's song. I wouldn't have believed it either. I can see through thousands of different combinations of adjustments you could get a V3i out of wack. But he reset the machine and used the stock coin and silver program as far as I can remeber. The etrac has a lot fewer adjustments and is simpler to use.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Now let's go back in time to last January 2012. I was hunting with Bill with my modified M6 and AtPro. I had a ton of hours on each machine. Both are no slouches in finding the goods. I still think they are both "top of the line" machines.
OK - So we're hunting along and Bill get's what he calls a pretty deep coin signal. He waves me over to see what my machines say. Well on this target he's telling me that it's a coin at 8 inches. So I sweep with my M6/stock coil and nothing. I crank my sens all the way and I get a squeak of iron. Nothing I would ever dig. In fact I thought it was some deep rusty iron. So I get my Atpro/stock coil out and with full sens - it grunts iron. Again nothing I would ever dig. In fact both of my machines wouldn't have heard it except for the fact I knew where the target was and I cranked my sens to max. Anyway Bill tells me it's a coin and I KNOW he's wrong. So he digs and digs and digs. He's 8 plus inches and I still believe he's digging iron. Out pops a BARBER DIME!!.. I thought " how could this be?" I'm pretty darn good with my machines and almost 30 years of hunting. It has to be just luck. Right? Wrong.... A few minutes later he has a deeper coin and both my machines no matter what I did was silent. I mean sens at max and disc at minimum. He digs a 10 inch wheatie. I knew from then on I was out gunned by a large margin. Two weeks later I had an etrac and took to the adjustments, tones etc with ease. It's not a complicated machine like some say. I don't think it's possible to set it up and NOT find coins. My silver finds are 10 times what I was finding even with super high discrimination. I have dug a lot of coins so deep I almost give up - but there's a coin! My deep Civil War bullets sing through as well. I wish I was a Minelab dealer.....
 
Other than having a V3i bashing, I just don't understand the purpose of this thread. The only thing this post proves is that the V3i is not for everyone. If you guys are trying to convince us that the V3i is not a good detector, there are many of us who know better. I suppose there is the possibility that the V3i might have had a bad coil or some other problem. I do have to agree though, a six inch coin should have been a routine solid hit.

I will let this "mine is better than yours" thread go on for a while longer until I get tired of it and it will be closed.
 
Ha I've dug dimes at 9 inches with the vx3. With solid 81 every time. Learn your machine, the e trac tones sound like nails on a chalkboard to me. Just sayin
 
I just called it the way I saw it. Maybe I should have said it this way?- With the type of soil we were hunting in. With the various EMI floating around. With the huge amount of trash targets on the surface we could see with our eyes. The amount of iron crap in the ground. With all the various settings and depth of the good targets the etrac was the better machine at these sites on that day. It's very possible the V3i on another day at a different site could have easily picked those deep targets seamlessly?
FYI: If you would like to see some deep silver digs just email me.
 
You can change the etrac tones to 1,2 and 4 tones to sound closer to what your used to. No need to run multi tones if you don't like the sound. We run two tone ferrous quite a bit. You will hear the iron as a low tone but the good high tone will pop through.
 
Thanks for the offer but I am very familiar with deep silver digs Kenny......:biggrin:
 
No, I will only by a whites machine. Call me crazy but that little sticker that says made in the USA. Can't go wrong
 
Larry,
Side by side does your Etrac and/or 3030 consistantly hit deep silver better than your V3i in your soil? Or is it the other way around?
 
I fully understand about being made in the USA. For 28 years I swung White's mostly, Garrett, Old Fisher and Tesoro's. But I had to buy an Etrac after seeing it with my eyes. I wish it was American made.
 
My bad Larry. I didn't see that you own a Minelab CTX3030, V3i, M6 and a modified Cibola. All fine machines for sure. But if you were in a deep silver contest where all targets were burried 10 to 12 inches deep. All you had to do was find one coin for 100 Million dollars after taxes with only one detector you own. What machine would you choose?
 
The CTX is the king of deep silver IMHO and a close second was my SE W/12X10. The V3i W/12X10 saw every deep target the SE did but the the SE had better audio and target ID at depth. I never connected with the ETrac so I sold it and went back to the SE.

You didn't ask about other hunting modes but in all fairness, not everyone hunts just for deep silver. For relic hunting I use the CTX and V3i depending on the ground conditions. For compact ground, the CTX is fantastic but in plowed ground the V3i proves far superior and almost an equal in compact ground with the CTX.

For jewelry hunters, it is the V3i hands down on target ID and depth on the lower conductor targets and the V3i sees small gold that does not even make a peep on the Minelabs in AM.

The V3i is also a serious detector for prospecting where the CTX, Explorers and ET's don't have a ghost of a chance.
 
Larry (IL) said:
The CTX is the king of deep silver IMHO and a close second was my SE W/12X10. The V3i W/12X10 saw every deep target the SE did but the the SE had better audio and target ID at depth. I never connected with the ETrac so I sold it and went back to the SE.
It's true we were hunting for deep silver and copper coins. But we never said we were hunting for low conductors. I've heard the SE is hard to be as well.

You didn't ask about other hunting modes but in all fairness, not everyone hunts just for deep silver. For relic hunting I use the CTX and V3i depending on the ground conditions. For compact ground, the CTX is fantastic but in plowed ground the V3i proves far superior and almost an equal in compact ground with the CTX.
I have "heard" that in plowed ground the FBS machines are not as deep


For jewelry hunters, it is the V3i hands down on target ID and depth on the lower conductor targets and the V3i sees small gold that does not even make a peep on the Minelabs in AM.
I have gotten great depth on connected jewelry ie rings. But as with a lot of machines the smallest gold studs and such are hard for the FBS machines to see. But I have found several gold rings with the etrac.

The V3i is also a serious detector for prospecting where the CTX, Explorers and ET's don't have a ghost of a chance.
Click to expand...
I do know the FBS machines have a hard time with medium and smaller nuggets. But again we were talking about deep silver.
I personally think that the Etrac and ATpro cover a lot of the different types of hunting very well. This will be my combination until something else tickles my fancy. Also as far as medium conductors goes - the etrac has proven to me to be the absolute Nickel machine hands down. Even beating my CZ5.
 
If there was only one manufacturer how boring would it be? We couldn't "stir it up" once in a while!
 
It's my opinion that the MXT/MXTpro "IS" Whites top of the line machines. The M6 is a close second for coinshooting.
 
For the all around hunter this is true. But even on the etrac if you use the factory coin program you'll miss some deep targets and get hit with a lot of junk signals as well. So for me some simple adjustments were made then I left them alone. Likewise the V3i can be done the same...
 
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