Numbers More Reliable than Sound?

[BryanM362]

I know a lot of folks swear the sound is more important than the numbers. I have to disagree. Maybe with a Tesoro, or older detectors, but not with the e-trac.

I got out for about a 2.5 hour hunt yesterday, and thought I'd try digging more targets with good sounds, but with iron numbers. Every time, it was a nail! 100% of the time.

Now I've had jumpy numbers that ended up being a good target, but never a solid 30-35:40-48, that didn't end up being iron (usually nails). For me the numbers are way more accurate than the sounds.

I'm sure occasionally the numbers are wrong, and I may miss a few good targets, but it's not worth it for 1 in a 1,000 holes.

Your thoughts?

 

[etrachunter]

I would agree, with the exception of when I am using ttf, I sometimes get an iron sound and a good high sound. The number sometimes give in the 30 range for fe, but sometimes find iron and coin together.

 

[moonshine]

Now I've had jumpy numbers that ended up being a good target, but never a solid 30-35:40-48, that didn't end up being iron (usually nails).

i agree

a solid, repeatable, 34-48 (for example) is not an "iffy" reading. its junk. (normally)

i think when they say "go by sound" (at least imo) its for those jumpy numbers that bounce around.....not a solid 35-48 (for example) iron reading.

at least in my understanding, "go by sound" implies that you are discriminating iron out....

 

[Charles(Sabre)(Tx)]

I haven't had my etrac that long but I am finding out the same as Bryan...the higher fees #"s seem to always turn out to be iron...even with the good sweet sound saying telling me otherwise. It is still a learning tool for me...but has confused me often. With other units of a different make this does not usually apply...but with the etrac it does for me.
Charles

 

[ironsight]

I always look at the ID after the tone. Its one more piece of info on whether to dig or not. The digital ID is there, i paid for it, so i'm gonna use it.

One thing though is that for real deep targets, the ferrous component of the ID is less accurate and not as reliable as the conductive component. For those deep targets that produce jumpy ferrous readings especially in known iron infested areas, i'll usually switch to QuickMask and somewhat disregard the ferrous number and go strictly by the two way tones on whether to dig.

Sometimes when using a tight iron discrim. coin pattern with multi-conductive for deeper targets, there's a seemingly good high coin tone albeit slightly intermittent. But when switched over to open Quick Mask, its a solid iron ID reading and sometimes in both directions. This usually works to filter out those false iron coin tones but its another step in the dig decision. Lately i only use multi-conductive in areas with little to no iron junk.

In iron infested areas, using ferrous tones with iron open solves the problem. 4 or multi ferrous settings are the best of both worlds IMO as a high conductive target will produce a high(er) tone allowing to hunt more by tones in those ferrous settings. Again though, for the real deep iffy targets, all bets are off and i'll use the method described above.

Gotta like all those eTRAC options!

 

[duggr]

I always look at the ID after the tone. Its one more piece of info on whether to dig or not. The digital ID is there, i paid for it, so i'm gonna use it.

One thing though is that for real deep targets, the ferrous component of the ID is less accurate and not as reliable as the conductive component. For those deep targets that produce jumpy ferrous readings especially in known iron infested areas, i'll usually switch to QuickMask and somewhat disregard the ferrous number and go strictly by the two way tones on whether to dig.

Sometimes when using a tight iron discrim. coin pattern with multi-conductive for deeper targets, there's a seemingly good high coin tone albeit slightly intermittent. But when switched over to open Quick Mask, its a solid iron ID reading and sometimes in both directions. This usually works to filter out those false iron coin tones but its another step in the dig decision. Lately i only use multi-conductive in areas with little to no iron junk.

In iron infested areas, using ferrous tones with iron open solves the problem. 4 or multi ferrous settings are the best of both worlds IMO as a high conductive target will produce a high(er) tone allowing to hunt more by tones in those ferrous settings. Again though, for the real deep iffy targets, all bets are off and i'll use the method described above.

Gotta like all those eTRAC options!

Well that helps me on my question I just posted above...Thank You