Okay, out mowing the grass today, and picked up a hornet sting. So, while I'm sitting around with the leg up waiting for the pain to ease up a little, I have a question. I have been to several locations where I can not run in manual due to chatter, unless my sens is down to like six or so. I do live in new England, which is basically synonymous with crap iron, and I'm wondering, if I turn down my sensitivity that low, am I missing things? I have tried these areas in both TTF and multi conductive, multi is definitely worse for all kinds of noise and " false signals". I know that one of these sites is definitely loaded with iron, just wondering what the best way to hunt it may be? I am running the stock coil right now, I do have an 8x6 sef coil I can throw on there as well if anybody feels it would help. Thanks everybody!
Find's Treasure Forums
Welcome to Find's Treasure Forums, Guests!
You are viewing this forums as a guest which limits you to read only status.
Only registered members may post stories, questions, classifieds, reply to other posts, contact other members using built in messaging and use many other features found on these forums.
Why not register and join us today? It's free! (We don't share your email addresses with anyone.) We keep email addresses of our users to protect them and others from bad people posting things they shouldn't.
Click here to register!
Need Support Help?
Cannot log in?, click here to have new password emailed to you
Sensitivity settings...
- Thread starter Shawnbo42
- Start date
E-TREC-Virginia
New member
Sounds like to me it may be more then just iron, sounds like you may have some EM interference as well. Have your tried switching channels to see if any them work better? The 6 X 8 would definitely help with less targets under the coil. With the sens set a 6, you're most likely going to be getting surface finds down to 1 to 2 inches. What the sens that I use when I'm looking for just dropped rings laying on the surface.
I have tried switching channels, usually if I let the machine pick, it'll end up on 2,3,or 6. I also forgot to mention that I get a LOT of nulling with a higher sensitivity. I'm just curious to find out whether or not most other folks here get the same when hunting? If I take my Excalibur out on the beach, I get a nice smooth threshold that will pretty much stay consistent, I rarely get that on my etrac. Could be I'm just hunting really trashy areas, I suppose.
HaroldILL.
Active member
I was wondering when you are in auto +3 where is your sens. running at? I run +3 auto on mine and it runs around 26-27 as my ground is mild. But I do have area's I hunt the have little bits of rusty iron in the ground and I don't know why? At these spots it doesn't matter how low I run the sens. I get a lot of short like falsing and nulling. The funny thing though I can run my CZ-3D in the area with little or no falsing? I guess newer is not always better.
mntnflyr4fun
Active member
I also have the 6x8 SEF and I can tell you that in my ground (highly mineralized West Coast) I can run the 6x8 much hotter with very smooth operation, it pinpoints great, and sings out loud and clear on the goodies, and as it has a smaller footprint than the stock coil there is much less opportunity for multiple targets to be under the coil at the same time and it is seeing less of the mineralization too.
I switch my machine back and forth between auto +3 and manual sens while hunting. I use the auto+3 if I can (sometimes I need to back it down as well if the ground is bad) as it picks up deep targets (6"+ with the little SEF) and if I get something I feel I need a little better look at I will switch over to manual and see if I can run it a little hotter to get it to come in cleaner. I do find that in general, I can run manual up a few notches over auto+3 before it starts to chatter/null, but its noisier overall because the ground tracking is being disabled, so I like Auto+3 unless the ground is really uniform.
I have tested the manual sens. on targets in the ground and determined that when things start getting noisy and the threshold starts blanking alot that the higher sens. will lose the target and that backing it down brings the target in more solidly.
There is no "right" answer to sensitivity in the broad sense, it is just another "tool" provided by the Etrac to be manipulated to assist in getting the most out of the machine in each instance...
Personally, unless the area I am hunting is pretty darn open and clean, the little SEF is on my Etrac 90% of the time and I don't feel like I am missing a thing...love that little coil, If you have one, you have been blessed
I switch my machine back and forth between auto +3 and manual sens while hunting. I use the auto+3 if I can (sometimes I need to back it down as well if the ground is bad) as it picks up deep targets (6"+ with the little SEF) and if I get something I feel I need a little better look at I will switch over to manual and see if I can run it a little hotter to get it to come in cleaner. I do find that in general, I can run manual up a few notches over auto+3 before it starts to chatter/null, but its noisier overall because the ground tracking is being disabled, so I like Auto+3 unless the ground is really uniform.
I have tested the manual sens. on targets in the ground and determined that when things start getting noisy and the threshold starts blanking alot that the higher sens. will lose the target and that backing it down brings the target in more solidly.
There is no "right" answer to sensitivity in the broad sense, it is just another "tool" provided by the Etrac to be manipulated to assist in getting the most out of the machine in each instance...
Personally, unless the area I am hunting is pretty darn open and clean, the little SEF is on my Etrac 90% of the time and I don't feel like I am missing a thing...love that little coil, If you have one, you have been blessed
Great! Thanks for the info, guys. I will throw the sef back on it, and I will try one of my known high-iron spots. I will turn up the manual sens. until I get the blanking and mulling, then back it down a step or two, and see where that gets me. I was getting the feeling that hunting in high sens. was not always necessarily the answer, but it seemed like having it that low wasn't working for me either. As to what Harold was asking, in auto I've seen it as low as 9 and probably no higher than 21 or so. In my high iron sites, it's usually around 9 or 10 auto. I have gotten spotty signals in auto +3, and switching to manual usually gives me a more solid signal, but the problem I was having was that I am not able to hunt in as high a sensitivity as I would have liked. I will try all this great advice, and hopefully find some keepers!
Big Boys Hobbies
Well-known member
If your having to turn down sensitivity that low you must me in HORRIBLE ground or really bad EMI situation. Not really a good way to fight that.