THE E-TRAC..THE CTX 3030 AND THE WHITES PRO XL

[jhen999]

Just some thoughts on metal detectors, I started out with whites back in the 80,s, got back into the hobby over the last two years with the E-trac....after using it for awhile , I thought I might as well try the dirty 30...Longhair told me awhile back the only real difference between the two was the 3030 had more Disc. and a few more bells and whistles..after using it awhile I found for the extra money that it cost , its not really any better than the E-trac if your not hunting in water or using the GPS..and I couldn't justifie having that much money tied up for things you don't use, sold it and went back to the E-trac...where does the Whites Pro XL come into this...FOR ME I find the old analog machines to be a lot of fun to use, there easy to learn, easy to set up and for the most part I can find as much with it as I can the E-trac, maybe not get the depth with it as I can with the E-trac, but lets face it on the average most coins you find today all fall into 4" to 8" range and the Whites will do that pretty easy...don't get me wrong I like my E-trac...I just have more fun not having to deal with menus and programs and multi tones with the old Whites analog....what can I say...I am old school....

 

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[pescadore]

Just some thoughts on metal detectors, I started out with whites back in the 80,s, got back into the hobby over the last two years with the E-trac....after using it for awhile , I thought I might as well try the dirty 30...Longhair told me awhile back the only real difference between the two was the 3030 had more Disc. and a few more bells and whistles..after using it awhile I found for the extra money that it cost , its not really any better than the E-trac if your not hunting in water or using the GPS..and I couldn't justifie having that much money tied up for things you don't use, sold it and went back to the E-trac...where does the Whites Pro XL come into this...FOR ME I find the old analog machines to be a lot of fun to use, there easy to learn, easy to set up and for the most part I can find as much with it as I can the E-trac, maybe not get the depth with it as I can with the E-trac, but lets face it on the average most coins you find today all fall into 4" to 8" range and the Whites will do that pretty easy...don't get me wrong I like my E-trac...I just have more fun not having to deal with menus and programs and multi tones with the old Whites analog....what can I say...I am old school....

I know what you mean !! I recently came back to Whites machines after owning Minelab, Deus, Fisher, etc. I just picked up a MXT off Craigslist and enjoyed just turning it on and hunting without all the settings and bells and whistles. I had a 6000 Di Pro XL and loved the analog machine. I am old school too and think that I will probably be using the MXT with no tone ID and numerous settings alot more. Happy Hunting ... Pesc

 

[dirtscratcher]

Just some thoughts on metal detectors, I started out with whites back in the 80,s, got back into the hobby over the last two years with the E-trac....after using it for awhile , I thought I might as well try the dirty 30...Longhair told me awhile back the only real difference between the two was the 3030 had more Disc. and a few more bells and whistles..after using it awhile I found for the extra money that it cost , its not really any better than the E-trac if your not hunting in water or using the GPS..and I couldn't justifie having that much money tied up for things you don't use, sold it and went back to the E-trac...where does the Whites Pro XL come into this...FOR ME I find the old analog machines to be a lot of fun to use, there easy to learn, easy to set up and for the most part I can find as much with it as I can the E-trac, maybe not get the depth with it as I can with the E-trac, but lets face it on the average most coins you find today all fall into 4" to 8" range and the Whites will do that pretty easy...don't get me wrong I like my E-trac...I just have more fun not having to deal with menus and programs and multi tones with the old Whites analog....what can I say...I am old school....

I have just the opposite problem coins in the 4 to 8 inch range are clad and silver is deeper where fbs kills all others at least in these parts. I would love to be finding old coins shallow but not happening around here.

 

[jhen999]

Where I live silver coins are not something you can go out and find, other than knocking on doors, and where I live people are not to friendly about someone in there yard...but that's California for you.. so dirtscratcher do you pass up the clad to find the sliver coins?? I have found silver coins here and v nickels going back to the early 1900,s , I don't think any of them were any deeper than 5"....back in the 80,s we were finding a lot of silver in parks and school yards, even then they were never much deeper than 8"...now and then everyone digs a coin 8" or deeper but I don't think that's the morm....on avg. most all coins fall in that 4" to 8" range..IMO

 

[dirtscratcher]

Where I live silver coins are not something you can go out and find, other than knocking on doors, and where I live people are not to friendly about someone in there yard...but that's California for you.. so dirtscratcher do you pass up the clad to find the sliver coins?? I have found silver coins here and v nickels going back to the early 1900,s , I don't think any of them were any deeper than 5"....back in the 80,s we were finding a lot of silver in parks and school yards, even then they were never much deeper than 8"...now and then everyone digs a coin 8" or deeper but I don't think that's the morm....on avg. most all coins fall in that 4" to 8" range..IMO

Most people that detect around here don't find silver either, they will tell you it's all gone. I'll just keep digging it with my explorer and let them believe just that. I dig 80 to 100 a year and maybe 5 or 6 are less than 6 inches.

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Hello Dirtscratcher,

When people tell me a place is "hunted out" I politely thank them and continue to detect and pull out the goodies. The real truth is no place is 100% cleaned out.

Regards,

 

[dirtscratcher]

Where I live silver coins are not something you can go out and find, other than knocking on doors, and where I live people are not to friendly about someone in there yard...but that's California for you.. so dirtscratcher do you pass up the clad to find the sliver coins?? I have found silver coins here and v nickels going back to the early 1900,s , I don't think any of them were any deeper than 5"....back in the 80,s we were finding a lot of silver in parks and school yards, even then they were never much deeper than 8"...now and then everyone digs a coin 8" or deeper but I don't think that's the morm....on avg. most all coins fall in that 4" to 8" range..IMO

You ask about passing on clad and on public property that has,been hunted hard yes I do. Here's why, I spent a year and a half with a popular beep and dig that is highly recommended. I dug a lot of coins but buckets full of junk and maybe 5 silver coin. Then I got an explorer and started digging more silver in a day than a year and a half with the other detector. So do I miss a couple, maybe but I usually find what I'm after.

 

[Sharecropper]

I've been MDing for 35 years. Started with Fishers and then progressed through the Garrett models. Changed over to the Etrac right after it came out, and then upgraded to the CTX3030 when it was introduced. I have dug almost everything CW related including 48 artillery shells. I have dug a couple thousand coins including hundreds of silver coins. I will have to state that the CTX3030 is the best machine I have ever used. Bullets and coins at 10"-12" ring in loud and clear, especially when the ground is wet and saturated. I have developed a program which I use for everything except the beach. I use NO discrimination, I want to hear everything in the ground. I run in a combined mode with a wide open screen. Every signal below the 20 line is ferrous, so I set that tone at 100hrtz. Then above the 20 line the signals are divided into 4 separate high tones going from left to right. I set the far left tone section to start at 1 and go to 15 and at 350hrtz. Then the next tone section going to the right I set from 15 to 30 and at 550hrtz. Then the next section from 30 to 44 at 750hrtz. Then the last section on the top right runs from 45 to 50 at 1000hrtz, which is the highest tone available on the machine.

Then I hunt slow and low and listen to everything in the ground. All ferrous targets ring in at 100hrtz. At an old home site with lots of iron and nails, these low tones sound like a machine gun way off in the distance. Aggravating at first for sure, but once I got used to them and started plucking the silver from among the nails, it was easy to ignore the low signals. Above the 20 line are the non-ferrous tones. The lowest tone, 0 to 15, will ring on all gold and nickles. The next highest tone, 15 to 30, tells me where all the pull tabs, bottle caps, and junk is. The next highest tone, 30 to 44, rings on all bullets, buttons, and non-silver coins. And of course the highest tone, from 45-50, rings on nothing but silver.

So I can actually hunt at night without the backlight on and know exactly where the target is hitting on my screen without looking at it. When hunting in town, I run automatic sensitivity +3. When hunting way out in the woods away from all EMI I run in manual sensitivity as high as possible and still be stable.

If you use discrimination, a deep non-ferrous target will be masked by a ferrous target above it or beside it. With no discrimination you will hear both tones, the low tone for the ferrous and the high tone for the non-ferrous. And if that non-ferrous signal rings in the 1000hrtz tone, it will indeed be a piece of silver without question. It took me 30 years to finally learn how to pluck the good targets from below or among the bad targets.

I hope this helps.

 

[jhen999]

Sharecropper..the 3030 is a vary good machine, no dought...after I bought it and used it for awhile I really didn't fined it all that much better than the e-trac..for my kind of metal detecting, and even with the e-trac I find myself digging a lot of junk...I know the old saying about digging everything if you want to find the good stuff, but for me the old body has a hard time digging everything I was hearing on those machines, so I went back to what I learned on back in the 80,s, the older Whites analogs, I am able to dig a lot less junk just by knowing what I hear in that one sound, if its at all broken or a rough sound you can pretty much take it to the bank its trash...not always thou, still dig a few pull tabs, those square ones always fool you, so I sold my 3030, went back to the whites Di Pro SL and the Pro XL and still have the e-trac and use it know and then, but I just enjoy using the older whites. I,ll probable never find a lot of old coins just because of the places I hunt in, but for me its just the enjoyment of metal detecting and trying to keep it simple and easy and for the health benefits of it.

 

[Brierfield]

I've been MDing for 35 years. Started with Fishers and then progressed through the Garrett models. Changed over to the Etrac right after it came out, and then upgraded to the CTX3030 when it was introduced. I have dug almost everything CW related including 48 artillery shells. I have dug a couple thousand coins including hundreds of silver coins. I will have to state that the CTX3030 is the best machine I have ever used. Bullets and coins at 10"-12" ring in loud and clear, especially when the ground is wet and saturated. I have developed a program which I use for everything except the beach. I use NO discrimination, I want to hear everything in the ground. I run in a combined mode with a wide open screen. Every signal below the 20 line is ferrous, so I set that tone at 100hrtz. Then above the 20 line the signals are divided into 4 separate high tones going from left to right. I set the far left tone section to start at 1 and go to 15 and at 350hrtz. Then the next tone section going to the right I set from 15 to 30 and at 550hrtz. Then the next section from 30 to 44 at 750hrtz. Then the last section on the top right runs from 45 to 50 at 1000hrtz, which is the highest tone available on the machine.

Then I hunt slow and low and listen to everything in the ground. All ferrous targets ring in at 100hrtz. At an old home site with lots of iron and nails, these low tones sound like a machine gun way off in the distance. Aggravating at first for sure, but once I got used to them and started plucking the silver from among the nails, it was easy to ignore the low signals. Above the 20 line are the non-ferrous tones. The lowest tone, 0 to 15, will ring on all gold and nickles. The next highest tone, 15 to 30, tells me where all the pull tabs, bottle caps, and junk is. The next highest tone, 30 to 44, rings on all bullets, buttons, and non-silver coins. And of course the highest tone, from 45-50, rings on nothing but silver.

So I can actually hunt at night without the backlight on and know exactly where the target is hitting on my screen without looking at it. When hunting in town, I run automatic sensitivity +3. When hunting way out in the woods away from all EMI I run in manual sensitivity as high as possible and still be stable.

If you use discrimination, a deep non-ferrous target will be masked by a ferrous target above it or beside it. With no discrimination you will hear both tones, the low tone for the ferrous and the high tone for the non-ferrous. And if that non-ferrous signal rings in the 1000hrtz tone, ill indeed be a piece of silver without question. It took me 30 years to finally learn how to pluck the good targets from below or among the bad targets.

I hope this helps.

Sharecropper,

I really like the system you have programmed into your CTX3030. Can the Etrac be programmed in the same/similar way you have done your CTX3030?

I am currently using an old, borrowed Whites, so know very little about Minelab detectors.

Thanks!

 

[RustyGold]

I've been MDing for 35 years. Started with Fishers and then progressed through the Garrett models. Changed over to the Etrac right after it came out, and then upgraded to the CTX3030 when it was introduced. I have dug almost everything CW related including 48 artillery shells. I have dug a couple thousand coins including hundreds of silver coins. I will have to state that the CTX3030 is the best machine I have ever used. Bullets and coins at 10"-12" ring in loud and clear, especially when the ground is wet and saturated. I have developed a program which I use for everything except the beach. I use NO discrimination, I want to hear everything in the ground. I run in a combined mode with a wide open screen. Every signal below the 20 line is ferrous, so I set that tone at 100hrtz. Then above the 20 line the signals are divided into 4 separate high tones going from left to right. I set the far left tone section to start at 1 and go to 15 and at 350hrtz. Then the next tone section going to the right I set from 15 to 30 and at 550hrtz. Then the next section from 30 to 44 at 750hrtz. Then the last section on the top right runs from 45 to 50 at 1000hrtz, which is the highest tone available on the machine.

Then I hunt slow and low and listen to everything in the ground. All ferrous targets ring in at 100hrtz. At an old home site with lots of iron and nails, these low tones sound like a machine gun way off in the distance. Aggravating at first for sure, but once I got used to them and started plucking the silver from among the nails, it was easy to ignore the low signals. Above the 20 line are the non-ferrous tones. The lowest tone, 0 to 15, will ring on all gold and nickles. The next highest tone, 15 to 30, tells me where all the pull tabs, bottle caps, and junk is. The next highest tone, 30 to 44, rings on all bullets, buttons, and non-silver coins. And of course the highest tone, from 45-50, rings on nothing but silver.

So I can actually hunt at night without the backlight on and know exactly where the target is hitting on my screen without looking at it. When hunting in town, I run automatic sensitivity +3. When hunting way out in the woods away from all EMI I run in manual sensitivity as high as possible and still be stable.

If you use discrimination, a deep non-ferrous target will be masked by a ferrous target above it or beside it. With no discrimination you will hear both tones, the low tone for the ferrous and the high tone for the non-ferrous. And if that non-ferrous signal rings in the 1000hrtz tone, it will indeed be a piece of silver without question. It took me 30 years to finally learn how to pluck the good targets from below or among the bad targets.

I hope this helps.

Thanks for posting the info about your CTX settings. Very helpful!

 

[Sharecropper]

Reply to Brierfield - I apologize for taking so long. I had knee replacement surgery on February 23 and just now getting back into the swing of things.

The Etrac can only be hunted in the 2-tone ferrous (high + low) mode, as it does not have the capability built into it to bust up the non-ferrous signals into four (4) separate high tones. Hunting with the Etrac in TTF, a low tone is ferrous and a high tone is non-ferrous. You still have to set the dividing line between the 2 tones, which I found to be around 20.

Having said this however, I can say that before I got my CTX3030 I used my Etrac in TTF in areas which I had previously hunted with discrimination and recovered many nice silver coins and artifacts. TTF requires patience, concentration, and a willingness to put up with the machine-gun non-ferrous signals. But once you can master this, you will be recovering good targets that others have walked over.

Hope this helps.

 

[Brierfield]

Sharecropper,

The info on the E-Trac is valuable, almost as valuable as that contained in your earlier post on your CTX-3030 settings. My cousin recently got a CTX. I'm using two other detectors, but am still considering getting a CTX, too. If I do, your CTX settings sound like the way I'd like to go.

Thanks a bunch!

 

[Bart@Big Boys Hobbies]

Sharecropper,

The info on the E-Trac is valuable, almost as valuable as that contained in your earlier post on your CTX-3030 settings. My cousin recently got a CTX. I'm using two other detectors, but am still considering getting a CTX, too. If I do, your CTX settings sound like the way I'd like to go.

Thanks a bunch!

Remember to swing slow on the Minelabs. AUDIO AUDIO AUDIO!