Breaking free of the cz

[gleaner1]

Any Fisher to Minelab converts out there? After 14 years of excellent performance with a cz20 in Upstate NY, I have to retire the old dog because it finally crapped out on me, and I have decided that only top-end will do for my next machine. I'm thinking Etrac.

Any advice going from cz platform to Etrac?? My main concern is trying to forget the silent search, 3-tone response of the cz and learning the Etrac sounds fairly easily and without relying on the display too much. What can I do to keep the frustration to a minimum while I learn the Etrac? Since I do not buy the latest and greatest all the time, I do not have a test garden. Can I use a "fresh" test garden with good results or does the halo effect cause much difference in the field? Or can I just "go for it" and learn the ropes the hard way?

 

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[LuckyLarry]

Gleaner after being involved in the R&D, technical, and detector repairing for many years - here is the correct answer to your questions;

Using "test gardens" and/or plastic or clay pots to test discrimination abilities, recovery speed, depth, or metalic type differences, etc is a complete waste of your time. It's a pish-poor way to test a metal detector.

Once soil has been disturbed or moved, the "matrix" (AKA soil stratum linearity and magnetic flux, direction, etc) is completely in void. It changes, meaning that the molecules, electrons, and stratum are completely at random, and unable to conduct both electricity and magnetism as well as in undisturbed soil. In other words it is no longer going to give you a real-life true rendition of what you would normally find in the field. In most cases soil moved from one place to another will more often than not give you complete opposite readings than you would get in undisturbed soil.

Additionally, the myth of coins giving off a "halo effect" is a complete misnomer and mischaracterisation too, meaning that the "halo effect only applies to FE, meaning iron, steel, and other concentrated iron ores such as pure hematite, etc. Copper to some degree does leach a bit of ionic and/or covalent bonding (ions and/or electrons) with other elements in some certain soils, but that is so negligible that for one thing it would not register any sooner than more than a hundred years, save for when found in soils which have an emense amount of salt in them. And no, even sea water seldom has this much salt, but the Bonneville salt flat does - and in short order it could actually vaporize a copper coin, but the same can't be said for brass or bronze coins.

When a coin has eroded to the extent of it starting to fall apart and break up and scatter about, it's not experiencing the so-called erroneous "halo effect" that people speak of, but even THAT behavior takes decades and decades (100 years+) to accomplish. In some EXTREME CASES some copper or (remotely possibly) brass coins begin to break up in just 30 or so + years but that is so rare that it is nearly a miracle when it happens. If someone had lost a coin in some extreme saline or exteme high acid soil this could happen, but that is extremely rare.

When it comes to the real life world of metal detectors the real truth is that I have metal detectors sitting right here almost 30 years old that compete with those that are brand new on the market, especially as far as discrimination. The in-ground depth varies - - from the same depth in highly mineralized soils to only 2" max in salt beaches and scarcely 1-2" better in mildly-mineralized soils.

Good luck if you buy the Etrac. My gut feelings are that at first you may shortly wonder why you paid the big bucks for it, but in the end you may be like most Minelab users and have to love the thing anyway, since the resale is roughly little more than half what you paid for the thing. Or you may wind up actually almost worshipping it because what else could you do? This phenomenen is akin to the derangement of electing a "popular" or well-liked person as President when he really doesn't have a clue as to what he is doing. Get my drift?

"Try before you buy" is the best way to chose a metal detector, even if you have to drive 800 miles to do it.

Just the thoughts of this old battle relic of an detector engineer, technician, and repairman.

I hope I helped

LL

 

[Lowbatts]

You could throw a shot in the dark and get the CZ rehabbed with FT. It may come back like mine, a hybrid CZ-20/21. But my experience with FT was poor to horrible.

Liike you I want to upgrade also, to something with a DD coil. My CZ's have found coins at comparable depths to all the Etrack finds I know of from guys who I know. But they are finding the silver at sites now seemingly out reach to me due to masking and or co-located targets. More an advantage from the coil as anything.

So they are getting the advantage, it seems, of being able to cherry pick targets the way I could when I started using the CZ's I've owned since the introduction of the series. Back in the early 90's the CZ's opened up a lot of old, then "hunted out" ground and now the DD coils are re-opening some of these sites.

Most surprising are the depths of some of the targets I've seen, I'm not talking about deep, but seemingly shallow. Nice silver coinage under 8 inches that comes out where the old concentric coils have a hard time separating the targets in that depth range. And believe me I am one of the faithful who has relied upon the original praise of the CZ's capabilities to spearate targets in my hunt areas.

Good luck!

 

[gleaner1]

Been thinking about new detector for about 2 years. Did the Emulator. Still cant decide what to buy. Love Fisher. E-trac looks good. Too worried about Fisher problems. Minelab has good aftermarket coils. Wont let the price difference sway my decision. Must think.....think......Alright!, ........I still cant decide.

Thanks for the comments gents.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Gleaner, I had a similar situation to yours: Going from using Whites for 20 yrs, then switching to the Explorer (after seeing how Exp. guys were getting more depth on flagged turf targets than my Whites was). At first, I hated it. As you surmise, the sounds, swing speeds, etc... are completely different than other brands of machine.

Here's the way I eventually made the transition: Get with someone who's proficient with the Exp. (not just a sandbox hunter, but someone who's actually coming in with the oldies, and knows what the deeeep coins sound like). Go out hunting with them, have them flag some good and bad targets. Each of you take turns swinging over them, while he tells you why he would or would not chase them. Watch how he swings, listen to what he's listening to, etc.... A headphone splitter chord helps in this.

After watching him dig a few 8"+ coins, and the "lights will go on" That's the way it worked for me. Prior to that, going out on my own, everything sounded indistinguishable, like a flock of sick geese No amount of printed instruction can describe a "sound" that you are supposed to be honing in on. By hooking up and hearing in-the-ground undisturbed targets, is the best way.

 

[gleaner1]

Thanks guy's. That's how I learned when I started in 93, the guy I bought my used machine from trained me and it was easy. Found 20+ silver coin that summer. Totally hooked. Bought a new CZ20 early winter 94. Then in mid-January got a very warm thaw for a few days (very rare in upper NY). Went out to an old abandoned park in the woods, turn it on and in 5 minutes had my very first coin with my new machine, an EF barber dime. Seemed easy but learning all of the machine's capability was pretty tough. But the sounds on targets were a no-brainer.....low, med and high.

Right now, I don't hunt with anyone with a new machine, including me. That's my problem. Not too much competition around here. Gonna take LL's advise soon.