Threshold and hunt speed.

[KurtB]

I went out today for the third time with the Etrac armed with the 8" stealth coil. I had obtained permission from the owner to hunt a vacant lot that used to have a small shack on it that was used as an ice cream stand for a few years back in the 30's. After a frustrating hour went by a neighbor stopped buy and told me the previous owner used to disassemble junk cars on the lot which explained the uncommonly heavy amount of trash. Having never used an Explorer and being new to the Etrac this hunt brings me to a question about the threshold. I had the detector set for high trash and fast response but I would encounter large areas where the threshold would disappear and not reset until I stopped moving the coil. I would occasionally get an audio response but the screen would not register a target until I stopped and the threshold came back. Even at an extremely slow sweep speed the threshold would disappear. So, can you only hunt as fast as the threshold will allow you to or do you just hunt slow with the threshold nulled out and trust that the machine will alert you to a desired target? I opened up the coins program to accept FE down to 27 and it helped a little but not much. Any advice from experienced users?

Thanks a bunch

Kurt

 

[NiagracountyNY]

Hi Kurt,The reason your Detector was nulling out was due to Targets Under the coil that you have discrimated out.The threshold will go silent whenever the coil is over a target in the blackend area on the smartfind.You will still get a signal from a good target thru the Nulling IF the target causing the Nulling isnt so large that it over powers the signal from the Target u desire..I hope that isnt to confusing,Im not the best at explaing this .Sounds like that lot has alot of metal in the ground,some sites are just super hard over impossible to hunt sometimes.If you go real slow you will sqeak out the good targets depending on what i just printed.I would go to a school or park to learn your machine..Somewhere that is sure to have alot of coins,,It doesnt matter if they are old or real deep..You just need to get used to the sounds and where they are hitting..Then go back and try that site..You are starting out in a place that will take alot of work.I like schools to teach people ...Alot of milk money and not as much trash as parks..Alot of very smart/nice folks here that will be glad to Give you help.Good luck

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

Kurt,

Niagracounty explained it pretty well. In many places we hunt you will ALWAYS have junk under your coil, often multiple junk targets. If you have those target disc'd out you will get a null. In many places even a small amount of iron discrimination will mean a constant null. You will not get a threshhold back or a screen update until you stop moving or get into a clean area. Generally a strong or shallow good target will break through a null; you don't have to slow to a crawl, although in many instances this does help. This is why many of us hunt with little or no discrimination, and listen to all the targets sounds instead of just silence. There is also feeling among many, myself included, that the nulling process takes longer than no discrimination and gives a slower response. Whether this is true, and true across the newer models...... Not sure.

Basically hunting very junky areas is difficult no matter what settings you use. The good thing is that junk is what keeps any site from ever being completely hunted out. It is amazing how many coins you will find in a "worked out" area once a bit of topsoil has been removed.

Chris

 

[KurtB]

Thanks for your responses guys. That makes sense to me.

Kurt

 

[kered]

If its so overladen with iron that you are getting constant nulling you could try a completely clear screen in quickmask. (When i do this i also change to ferous sounds) It will no longer null but sound off on everything, a low growl for the iron, anything else could be something interesting. You will have to go slow.
Having said that i think going to this site you have jumped in at the deep end and maybe another area might be better till you get the hang of the machine, although it should have some good targets due to all the junk as others have mentioned

 

[ken-ks]

If you have a place that the threshold completely nulls, try lowwer the sensitivity. Run in auto sensitivity and go as low as -3 and you should see that you get the threshold back fairly fast with fast on. You may give up some depth but if it's a carpet of iron you're not going to get much depth through it anyway, at least this way you can have a chance to get through some of it. Put something on the ground and crank the sensitivity way up and you'll see that you pick it up before you get over it, I think folks running high sensitivity is why there are still good targets in trashy areas. The old saying, running high sensitivity is like running high beams on the car in fog, not only applys to ground minerals but also trash. Try it and hope this helps. ken-ks.