Taking Etrac on is maiden voyage! any tips

Duckhunter811

Elite Member
Joined
Jun 7, 2013
Messages
2,361
Location
Moyock, NC
Finally got my Etrac! had to drive 2 hours one way for it but it came with 2 coils, extra pro find pin pointer (now i have two), Andy Sabatch's etrac book, 3 battery packs, and best of all it costed me nothing in a straight trade for some fly fishing gear i never use! Any way I'm taking her out on her maiden voyage to an older park in a upscale neighborhood I just happen to be working 1 block from all this week and next week. I'm coming from a 705 that i know like the back of my hand. Should i be expecting a huge learning curve? any tips and/or tricks you guys may have?
 
Max variability setting or set to 29.
This will broaden range of tone making higher conductors sing better.

Slower sweep.

Good luck.

Will sniff coins!!! No doubt about it.
 
Thanks guys! Today’s the day I try her out for the first time. Feel a little guilty not taking the 705 out with me after all the time we spent together.
 
What Rattlehead said is quite important when looking for deep and potentially older coins...”listen small”. The signal DURATION will be very SHORT but REPEATABLE...the signal keeps doing the same thing,or VERY similar. Having DEEP on will help to lengthen that signal a bit so it’s easier to hear. Don’t overthink things...in other words, don’t try to “wish” a signal that by all signs is junk into a coin. TN has it right about going slow...sweep “deliberately”,really cover the ground thoroughly,work “slow”. For a new user,over using the Sensitivity WILL be counter-productive...it will make iron falses sound more like a “somewhat repeating” coin. LOOK at the Smart Screen and where that cursor wants to go...the upper right quadrant of the screen is where you want it to gravitate to for copper and silver. Iron falsing will have a HIGHER tone than you want...a true coin signal will be a couple of “notes” lower than that,but still very high. A super high signal that sounds “flat” is iron falsing,a coin will sound “musical”...
Clear as mud? Just K.I.S.S. and keep us posted!
 
One good key to always keep in mind when using Etrac.
Or even CTX.

Iron can sound off. And fool you.
Some things to do.
See where cursor in screen reports.
Sweep and try to sweep consistently with coil height and speed.
Does Etrac play close to the SAME music on sweeps.
Say 3 or 4 out of 5 sweeps.
If not likely iron.
Iron will generally sound off a bit different with each sweep.
Pivot on suspect target and redo above.
Just because you pivot and get no signal dooesn’t mean good coin isn’t present.
Pinpoint suspect target area.
Does pinpoint show the same or real close spot where actual suspect target tones in??? If so good clue of actual nonferrous - not iron.
If you see pinpoint off say 3-5” vs where target sounds off in detect mode= high chance of ferrous.
Cursor position, watch it especially on shorter tones provided targets, and targets where depth meter is showing deeper. Like pegged to near pegged.
If when sweeping the cursor stays buried beneath the 27 line ferrous good chance it’s ferrous. But if you see the cursor all of a sudden jump above the line 28 ferrous it could be nonferrous. The cursor behavior is really telling. The cursor and its behavior has alllowed some DEEP azz silver to be dug using fbs detectors.
Good trained ear using Etrac can provide rewards.
Getting to differentiate falses from actual suspect targets(areas) , once you learn this you are over half way there in becoming a grand detectorist using etrac.
 
Last edited:
Another thing to keep in mind with the etrac is that the ID is not dead on despite what many people will tell you especially at depth or in rough soil.
I have many targets start off as say a 2 38 and then after removing some soil all of a sudden they are a nice 12 38. Notice that the conductivity number did not change, keep your eye on THAT number much more than the first number...
Even eyeballing the second number only you will see it is way deeper than the xterra 705 and the conductivity number is consistent.
I made the same switch from the 705 to the etrac...
 
Keep your volume gain about 20. Increasing that to max as some suggest will amplify deep targets. However faint signals help differentiate deep from shallow targets.

Also the high gain 25 or more, increase falsing dramatically
 
Back
Top Bottom