Etrac finds

[Goldpick]

Took the Etrac out for a quick first run at a nearby park, never had much luck here on pre-decs nor many goldies in the past, but it was the easiest spot to access with threatening weather close by.

I think it's going a to take a few trips before my brain gets accustomed to the expanded ID range and the fact that most coins will be on or close to the 12 ferrous line, nevertheless, I still managed to pull some targets from a strip of previously detected ground. I must have overlooked the 1952 penny last time round, it was on edge in the hole, and most of the 1& 2c coins were sitting amongst other junk targets.

The Etrac does seem to hit well on items close to nulled out junk or iron, at least better than the Explorer does. I am guessing that is down to improved processor speed/recovery time. The religious pendant was found on a particular spot where I had waved the Explorer over a number of times and had not received any more intelligible signals from, once again I put that down to nulling on Explorer masking small targets such as this.

Meanwhile I am going to have a play around with some of the discrimination patterns, and maybe download a few to see how they perform.

 

[Heatho]

Great for the first swing with it GP. I seriously prefer using conductive audio with 4 tone on it though. Makes more sense to my ears than Ferrous audio.

 

[treasureman]

how do you find the recovery speed waving over the targets slow or quite fast?

 

[Goldpick]

Heatho, I am currently using conductive sounds on the Etrac, ferrous was used on the Explorer when running with an open screen, just made it easier and less tiresome picking up on the good high tones without having listen to high conductive iron targets chirping away in the headphones all the time. Since the Explorer has a slower processor speed vs the Etrac, personally I found it performed better with minimal or no discrimination, as I felt the nulling was simply masking too many good targets. After a while you just get used to running an open screen, and use your ears and eyes to do the job of discrimination.

Since the Etrac processing/recovery is faster than on the Explorer, this seems to be less of an issue, so I am a bit more confident of using discrimination patterns without having the issue of nulls masking good targets, or at least to a lesser degree.

For an example, out of interest last night I tried the Etrac at a particular spot where I had previously run the Explorer, being the location of a spill of two florins and a couple of other pre-decs at the base of a tree. No matter how hard I tried on changing coil orientation, settings or otherwise, I couldn't pick up any more good targets using the Explorer amongst the other ferrous and non-ferrous targets around the tree (and that was using an open screen). I scanned over the same spot with the Etrac with the default coin pattern and conductive sounds, and managed to pick out a 1921 sixpence that was sitting on a not very detector friendly angle in the ground.

Happy with that result, I moved further out from the tree base and picked up on a large target that was nulling (ie discriminated out), but it also came up with a distinct high tone and good ID at the very edge of the nulled target. Scanning in pinpoint mode, the Etrac would only pinpoint it as a large single target. Suspecting the was a coin target sitting very close to junk, I dug where I thought the high tone was roughly located, and pulled out a 1907 Brittania penny literally hard up against the larger nulled target. The Explorer had obviously missed such a large coin previously, so I was pretty chuffed with that result.

So yes, there does seem to be a distinct improvement over the Explorer in recovery speeds, as one would expect, but we are not talking about single frequency speeds like on the G2 or Deus. That's just a limiting factor of the FBS technology, though I believe the CTX has a marked improvement once again over the Etrac in this area running FBS2.

If you run on an open screen, the recovery speeds are actually quite reasonable on these detectors, it is only when you bog them down with discrimination or try and block out some of the iron in problematic sites that they sometimes struggle to recover from the nulled target. Do the same in a horrifically iron infested areas, and you will often be greeted with nothing but constant silence from nulling. These are the sorts of areas that you are better off throwing the FBS detector back in the car, and utilise a more suitable single frequency vlf detector with faster recovery speeds.

Other than that, the Etrac feels and operates very similar to the Explorer, despite being of different lineage (closer to a Safari vs Explorer).

 

[grubstake]

That's an excellent post, GP - very informative. Thank you!

 

[Heatho]

Great post GP, glad you're enjoying it. I've only just scratch the surface with settings, had to hand back the Etrac the other day as Barney took it away prospecting for a week to compliment his GPX4000, anyway I'll probably go and buy a CTX or Etrac this week, still not sure if I want to spend the extra $900 on the ctx but then again I think why not, lol. decisions are hard sometimes.......

I was getting a lot of nulling happening in my local parks but nothing too bad, I didn't have it set to fast or heavy trash either and it was behaving quite well.

 

[Ramjet]

Great post GP.

 

[Jaros]

Great reading. Very hands on.
Jaros

 

[Goldpick]

Had a great day on the Etrac with our local detecting club today, the chosen spot was a public area that had obviously been hit many times judging by all the old detector holes (not in grassed areas). Not many of the guys were having much luck, including myself with a couple of 5c, sinkers and shell casings for my efforts. I also had no idea of the age or history of this spot, hence did know what to expect age wise with any possible older coins. :|

Whilst the other guys tried elsewhere, I persisted on the grassed areas around some of the larger trees, and was rewarded with a fantastic 1873 Victorian Penny - surprisingly shallow and a boomer of a signal. Now knowing what to expect on the age of the coins, I gridded up the area and picked up an 1877 & 1942 sixpence. Investigating the base of a large tree rewarded me with a crucifix and beads, the front of an old lock (labelled with a crown & VR), an old button (yet to identify), lead hat??, and one of the best finds for the day, the cricketer leaning on his bat from an old cricket buckle. Pity the whole buckle wasn't still there, as it was one of those items on my bucket list.

Other finds included some keys, part of a pocket watch winder, lure, globs of lead, old pocket knife, and various other odds and ends.

So the moral of the story is, grid areas if you want to ensure that no good finds are missed or left in the ground. I only detected a very small area, so I reckon there will be months worth of good detecting at this particular location, and with some good quality 1870's coins lying around, it should proved interesting.

JUNK

TOTAL FINDS

 

[Ramjet]

What an interesting collection of finds.Very nice and that Vicky penny and '42 sixpence are in top condition.
Great to see your persistence paid off GP.

 

[rocketaroo]

The cricketer is still cool, very cool finds actually

 

[Goldpick]

Thanks Ramjet, we had an assortment of detectors in the field today, Minelab Sovereign, CTX 3030, x-terra 705, and a Garrett ATPro. I think all they got was mostly shell casings, sinkers and the odd bit of jewellery, though most left without showing much in the way of good finds.

I spent a while showing some interested passers-by on how the detector operates, and what actual targets sound like in the ground. That's when I found the padlock cover in a live dig for them, with oohs and aahs of fascination when I pulled out the Whites "magic wand" TRX to locate the targets.

 

[Ramjet]

Sounds like an enjoyable day out.

 

[silver]

Lead hat , that is the top end of a lead head nail,...minus the rusted away nail.

 

[silver]

great results though(two good silvers there). :lol:

 

[Goldpick]

Lead hat , that is the top end of a lead head nail,...minus the rusted away nail.

Thanks for that silver, none of us really knew what it was, looked like a bent up hat but as you say, it does appear to be from a lead headed roofing nail.

Looked it up as you can just make out "Stokes" on the rim, apparently these were made between 1887 & 1896 in Christchurch NZ for their local market. A bit of history, even with the ol nail.

 

[silver]

Same fellow banging in those nails may have lost a few old coins(old even then).

 

[Goldpick]

I also did a bit more research on the cricket "buckle" chappy, turns out he is actually a gold gilded broach, relating to the touring English cricket team of the time. It is dated from around the 1861/62 tour, and you can still clearly see the gold gild on the rear, and the two pin mounts.

I think it was Cheese that found one similar, though missing the head.

 

[silver]

Good enough to condition to have a pin added and have it reguilded,... would look immaculate and be a great keepsake from your detecting years to pass down your line.

 

[Goldpick]

It would look good refurbished, though a hard choice on whether to leave it in found condition, or the former. The head already has a bend in it, so I can see why most of these come out of the ground headless.