Nasa Toms Etrac Test /Evaluation

[Jason in Enid]

I don't have an E-Trac yet but have been reading for years over it...

Why do people who have real experience with something feel the need to comment on it?

I can tell you from MY real world use of MY E-Trac that it will signal on coins even with a nail, or scew, or other iron object above it.

 

[Goldmanjace]

I tend to believe there is a good reason why certain detectors, like the E-Trac, are considered top machines. I believe they rise to the top because the majority of users find them better than the rest. Not just because someone posts a long indepth opinion as to why they think everyone should believe them, but because in the field use by many different people has them as proven themselves as top machines. The best rise to the top on their own and thats a fact.
.

Noone is arguing it isn't a TOP machine, yet unless I am misinterpreting this research I am reading that the unit tends to NULL over iron/iron oxide.
As from the above excerpt:

With this coin slightly tilted.....................or....................... a few small flecks of rust in close proximity to the coin (this is representative of the real world) ............and the coin is 'nulled' (Disc'd). Ironically............with nothing Disc'd out..........the cross-hairs land in a white/clear region on the LCD screen where ........... flipping over to the special 'coin' program(s).....is NOT Disc'd out; yet, the detector 'nulls' over the coin. Sooooooo...............in a nutshell: detect primarily by audio responses. Secondarily, focus your efforts on the upper right quadrant of the screen. (( The factory 'coins' program is not bad, yet, has a few flaws..... due to real-world conditions )).

Subsequently, you can "in reality" miss a good target.

Can anyone say otherwise that the unit does not perform like this? and you cannot miss a good target when it NULLS over iron/iron oxide?

Yes, if it nulls you can miss targets. But the Etrac does have excellent see through capabilities wich minimize this. Another way to keep this form happening is to run wide open with no disc and sloooowww down. I guess this goes for any detector though.

 

[earthmansurfer]

Jason - I like detectors and talking about their technology. Clearly a person can understand a technology (to a degree) and can talk about it and ask questions? You only know your E-Trac will signal on coins you have found, others have located and and those you have tested (buried), etc. There are a lot of coins we all pass over, hence finding coins in places we have previously hunted. I had frequented an XP Deus forum for over a year and those guys didn't care if I had one or not. My intention was to find it's advantages and disadvantages (for my kind of hunting, which is coins, not hammered ones.). That is why I say in the thread I don't have an E-Trac as I'm not here to criticize (though I would like to find it's weaknesses). Anyway, I'm SO IMPRESSED by the E-Trac that I'm going to get one next year. I don't have much extra $$$ and am not doing it to find flaws, I'm doing it because from all my research it is a top unit.

Southwind - Thanks for addressing my comment (I think you were). I wasn't even criticizing the E-Trac but rather bringing up a point regarding Multi Freq units. It is said that true multi frequency machines have more trouble in iron, from a technological point of view. (For the details I think Dankowski has talked about it.) I have seen all the great finds E-Tracs have pulled and don't question that. Yeah, a detector will null or signal iron over iron but a lot of that ability to actually see the coin in between is dependent on the detectors technology, really that is what I am fascinated by. Like super fast recovery speeds in iron, that is one way. But we both know that there are ways around that e.g. - Using correlate (I do wonder if the E-Trac employs a form of this technology to get past some of the multi-frequency problems in iron). You have told me that the E-Trac is somewhat better in iron than the V3i. I am open to that being true and take your comment in. But I wonder how it does that? Maybe that isn't interesting to some people, but it's interesting to quite a few of us. We don't really know what other technologies the E-Trac uses cause Minelab is pretty tightlipped about that but over the years it seems that by understanding the unit and having a good grasp of detectors in general, we can suppose how. Like it is pretty clear the E-Trac is using lower combined frequencies. Anyway, thanks for your comments and please don't be offended by mine. That is not at all my intention but I'll try to word things carefully as I know written words lack most of the nuances of spoken communication.

Thanks,
Albert

 

[Ray-Mo.]

One test report is just that one test report and valid though it may be does not make it any more valid than hundreds of other test results showing varied results.If you do not have the E-Trac set up properly it will null on a silver dollar so it is often a matter of making the proper adjustments for optimum results.
And asothers have stated I also have found many coins in the middle of solid nulls and often at very good depths.I have found many coins in areas where the threshold was nulled/silent for many square yards at a time but good targets came through and sounded off just fine.....

 

[Goldmanjace]

One test report is just that one test report and valid though it may be does not make it any more valid than hundreds of other test results showing varied results.If you do not have the E-Trac set up properly it will null on a silver dollar so it is often a matter of making the proper adjustments for optimum results.
And asothers have stated I also have found many coins in the middle of solid nulls and often at very good depths.I have found many coins in areas where the threshold was nulled/silent for many square yards at a time but good targets came through and sounded off just fine.....

Very well put and I totally agree.

 

[seahunter34]

Please explain more why E Trac/Explorers are less sensitive to gold targets? I keep hearing and reading this over and over again? Heck, I'm almost starting to repeat it myself! Are people just repeating what others or someone else said? Or is it true? In that case why? I hunt with BBS Excaliburs in the water and they love gold range targets more than any other water machine. They find the most gold jewelry for us in the sea. If something else worked better, we would use it. As a matter of fact 1 very experienced fellow in our group uses an Explorer XS in a waterproof bag with PRO Coil and he finds some tiny pieces of gold jewelry in the sea with it! So what's different about FBS? Years ago when FBS was new I compared the Explorer with Whites at a World-Wide treasure hunting dealer. Back then I knew little about detecting and even though I couldn't afford an Explorer, I disliked the balance compared to the Whites and expressed that to the dealer. I'll never forget how the dealer responded- he said the Explorer is hot on gold and the Whites on Silver! That he found more gold jewelry with the Explorer than the Whites. Today people tell me the DFX loves gold jewelry!

I was thinking about getting an E-Trac, but not if it is less sensitive to gold? I just find this difficult to believe? Seems like FBS should even be more sensitive to gold range than BBS? I wish an E-Trac user would bury a $20 gold piece 12 inches deep and video the response! Can someone please shed some light on this?

 

[Aaron]

-- moved topic --

 

[steve herschbach]

I think that may be coming from us nugget hunters. I have an E-Trac and it does just fine on the kind of gold most people hunt. However, it would never cross my mind to go nugget hunting with it. Single frequency VLF detectors running around 15 kHz or higher pack more punch for gold nuggets. For anything but salt water the same is true if dealing with very thin gold chains or post ear rings. In salt water unfortunately these hot unit pick up the salt water. To ground balance against both salt water and beach sand you are forced to go multi-frequency or PI. Sadly, there is an entire class of tiny gold targets that cannot be detected in a salt water environment because they fall into the same low conductive range as salt water.

Tom Dankowski did a great article on using a Fisher Gold Bug 2 to detect what he refers to as "micro jewelry". The article is in a couple free booklets that can be downloaded at the Fisher website. Each is called "Fisher Intelligence". A good read.

Anyway, my advice is get an E-Trac. I'm very happy with mine.

Steve Herschbach
Steve's Mining Journal

 

[grouser]

the et is in salt mode all the time,,, as stated this will not find SMALL MICRO gold items or nuggets,,,, but the regular sized jewelry we all crave the ET WILL find..... alot of people that run et's are silver coin hounds,,, they will not dig a pulltab signal to save their lives,,,, that is why you dont see alot posted about finding other items,,, not cuz the et wont find them,,, the owner wont DIG them !!!

 

[EtracTom-AdirondacksNY]

The Etracs see through ability comes from the writing of the software I would believe. They have 2 MODES and settings that Andy stated when they added them to the ETRAC near the end of all the Beta testing from the field testors it really woke this machine up and gave it it's see through capability.

You need to get Andy Sabisch's book and read it and it answers and address all these things. Basically the GROUND DIFFICULT mode is for hardpacked earth and if your sensitivity is under 22 in Auto mode to cancel out what it sees from the GROUND not just track the ground like other machines do when you set the ground ballance on them but it completely ignores the ground. If the sensitivity setting goes above 22 in Auto mode then the ground is fairly low in mineralization so you would switch to GROUND NORML for better possiable results and you have to try that out in your particular soil to see if there is a difference for you.

You run it in NORMAL ground mode for SAND and PLOWED fields as the soil has air in it and it don't like air under the coil to get maximim sensitivity and depth and reading on objects so keep the coil on the ground if at all possiable for best results. This setting changes some internals in the machine to deal with that in sand or plowed fields.

The real SEE THROUGH is in TRASH MODE you set it to HIGH and what that does is takes the bad discriminated target and ignores it and lets a good non discriminated target on through so as not to be overpowered by it like iron or nearby trash does to coins so that is why even in the middle of a NULL which is the discrimination cancelling out the sound from a bad target the good one will give a signal. Naturally really really really trashy areas you will get better results with a smaller coil like any detector would possiably do but even with the stock PRO coil the ETRAC does fantastic in finding the goodies in all that trash.

If you run it in TRASH NORMAL then that goes out the window and the bad target overpowers the good targt and you might not even hear it untill you dig up the trash target first. Also if the bad target happens to hit in the non discriminated range then that will sound off on the machine.

 

[calibil]

Hi guys, I have an etrac on the way, I would like to know how the etrac does on Monty's nail test. The older whites with Mr Bills mods and most Tesoros do well, most notably the Bandito 2 umax.

 

[Neil]

I think that may be coming from us nugget hunters. I have an E-Trac and it does just fine on the kind of gold most people hunt. However, it would never cross my mind to go nugget hunting with it. Single frequency VLF detectors running around 15 kHz or higher pack more punch for gold nuggets. For anything but salt water the same is true if dealing with very thin gold chains or post ear rings. In salt water unfortunately these hot unit pick up the salt water. To ground balance against both salt water and beach sand you are forced to go multi-frequency or PI. Sadly, there is an entire class of tiny gold targets that cannot be detected in a salt water environment because they fall into the same low conductive range as salt water.

Tom Dankowski did a great article on using a Fisher Gold Bug 2 to detect what he refers to as "micro jewelry". The article is in a couple free booklets that can be downloaded at the Fisher website. Each is called "Fisher Intelligence". A good read.

Anyway, my advice is get an E-Trac. I'm very happy with mine.

Steve Herschbach
Steve's Mining Journal

Thats a good point Steve. Ive read many times the Etrac isnt even as good as the Sov or Excal on small gold and this is not true at all. I have all three and hunt all three. Now if you compare it to the AT Gold I have, its a different story..........and that seems to be where the misconception comes from. The Etrac hits all kinds of metal very well in my opinion.

 

[EtracTom-AdirondacksNY]

What Tom stated is when you switch from a wide open quick mask screen while testing/hunting to the COINS DISCRIMINATION PATTERN even though the cursor lands in a white open area and so you should get a target sound instead it nulls out. So hunting in the wide open quick mask mode it doesn't null out and you get a target sound is my read on what he stated. He even says as much to run NO DISCRIMINATION and he always uses a gold coin for his standard for testing in the ground in a real world model which we are all hunting in. That gold coin is I think either a $1 or $2 coin and it's small and it's considered a LOW CONDUCTOR item. Silver is a HIGH CONDUCTOR item. He doesen't state it can't be detected with the Etrac because it nulls on it only that in the coins discrimination pattern mode it will instead of the wide open Quick mask mode where it won't null out. It will null on it due to iron and other trash in the ground in the coins pattern on the gold test coin standard he uses to test all machines is what he said.