etrac falsing on oxwich beach

[oldhenlys]

hello. i am new to this site. been detecting since 1976 with a big gap. started obsessively in 1994 , ended up doing 2 hours or more per night every day on way home from work till had kids. on weekends would take 8 cans stella out with me or a wadge of gange and get totalled while doing a 12 hour detector stint. bloody great at the time and loads of good stuff. i am now sensible and boring. still have 6 detectors most of my good stuff was found with explorer xs which i have had since 1998. mine was the 4th explorer to the uk so i am told but died within 2 months and they replaced it . this has been rebuilt 3 times. all that is original is the chip so minelab tell me. the only issue i ever had with this machine was its tempermental falsing in the wet early morning grass which you really do not need at all when you are listening for very deep whispers on pasture. you end up turning it off then back on etc etc.irrelevant of noise cancels etc. and no it wasnt water getting in the coil. so i thought hmmmm etrac.... very very skint but thought stuff it. interest free 2 year job. deeper blah blah blah. more stable blah blah blah. well let me tell you i do not know. it is less stable by far on the beach than the xs with alot of falsing (and i thought the xs was bad) .i know the machine backwards so nothing makes any difference on this beach at least (auto sensitivity/difficult etc etc). on this beach in 2004, during 3v mornings in a row i pullled 186 coins ,one gold ring,one silver ring and a silver bracelet with the xs. all bloomin deep maybe a previous storm i dont know. today 20/11 £6 , a 1936 penny and 2 fishing weights - but very hard going through the falsing and doesnt seem to lock on as well as the explorer xs to a good signal. theres NOTHING on the net on this other than the minelab blurb about difficult setting reduces beach falsing. hmmm so a known issue then ? THAT SAID the tide came in so i went in the sand above high tide. OH MY GOD. i have to say i have never been so astonished in my life (detecting wise that is) . i had a can sitting IN the rocks 3 feet under the soft sand . i had a 2£ at i would say an easy 24 INCHES. i was using a sunray stealth x12 coil instead of the stock coil . i am not joking i was staggered. next time i go i am going to just do the soft sand above high tide. last summer there was thousands on this beach at the top. this machine as far as i can see will actually get to the stuff that no way anything else onearth will get near. my only issue is the very very bad falsing.,ps i DO NOT GET ANY FALSING ON FIELDS. it is spectacularly deep on them (pasture)
sorry to ramble and bore you. just wondered if anybody else had had bad falsing with etrac on beach ?
gilbert

[Chef Geoff]

Hi Gilbert and welcome to the site. OK well I think your problem is more down to coils than machines as machines in themselves don't "false" only coils do. A few years ago I fitted a Sovereign with a Sunray X-12 Intruder (Sov version of the Stealth) and was quite happy with it on clean pasture, but although this coil is DD it has a very wide search footprint and so covers a larger area with each pass, while this feature is great in the States where this coil is designed to be used, they only have 400 years of iron contamination (in places) where we have 2000, and on the beach it reduced what is generally accepted as the best beach machine down to a useless piece of junk.
If you slow you swing speed down it helps, but it still has a habit of falsing at the end of each swing. Your best bet is to refit the Pro coil if you still have it or get yourself an a new Pro or SEF if not.
Similarly with the XS, the original slimline coil is renowned for falsing on dewy grass so once again a change of coil will usually sort this out.
Hope this helps sort your problem.......Chef

[dances with badgers]

hello gilbert i get the same problem on the beaches with the etrac that i recently got.i just turn the sensivity down,happened today at barry island and was driving me nuts.i have a 15 x 12 sef coil.on a positive note my cousin buried a gold ring down at 12'' deep in the dry sand and my etrac picked it up but his sovereign did'nt.i think its going to take me a long time to learn how to use it.welcome to the site.let me know how you get on,good luck .mike 

[dances with badgers]

had a titful of beaches for a mo so i went out last night and tryied the etrac on some pasture .it was awsome i was getting goegion and edwardian pennies at 12 to 14 inches with the factory coin settings 

[oldhenlys]

hello all again. well i took your advice and tried the stock etrac coil on auto sensitivity etc - on oxwich beach last saturday in the rain ! lovely - nobody else on the beach except for 2 dog walkers later on. bit tricky roads road shut due to car on roof just before oxwich turn ! nothing stops a detectorist on heat.the stock coil was worse by a long way than the stealth x12. this isnt a bad beach to do - my old sovereign and explorer xs ran better - the explorer falsed a bit but thats why i went for the etrac - which is worse on the beach for falsing. pain in the arse. found 1917 penny and £6-20 in the dry sand at the top- falsing not so bad there. i expect you will say reduce the sensitivity but that was the excuse on the xs falsing. not impressed sorry. flippin great the etrac inland(but so was the xs - STILL to find a signal as deep as my trusty XS has found on pasture with the etrac) but rubbish as far as i can see on the beach.same old minelab falsing problem as far as i can see wrapped up in gimmickery which most people dont use anyway i.e. use all metal and dig the goodstuff so why all the dumb preprograms etc ?. the sovereign was nver wrong and didnt have all this rubbish that hikes the price up! help me out on the falsing ? or just stick to inland ?
GILBERT

[Chef Geoff]

I'm sorry to hear your still having the same problem Gilbert. By the sound of it you know your way around Minelabs so I'm guessing you have tried altering this and that. I would agree with you that the Sovereign was and still is better on the beach. In your first post you say how deep the Etrac will go so you know the power the machine has and if you are running "wide open" then this in its self could be the problem. I would never even try to max out the settings on the Etrac on a beach (or a Sov for that matter). I would run it Auto +3 with an accepted good beach program just to get the goodies, If you haven't got one then PM me your email address and I'll send you one.
It's frustrating that I am so far away and can't just go through your settings to see if there is something obvious that strikes me but as I have said you are no newby.
Do you know anyone over there who has an etrac and who can do a side by side comparison just to rule out any problems with your machine? If not then maybe some of the members on here may be available to do such a test. Come on lads help out a fellow member.
Are these "false" signals repeatable? and are they definitely coming through with a "good" tone? (Display will lie so you can only go by tones). Looking forward to your reply.

[dances with badgers]

hello gilbert as i have said before i am a complete newbie to using the etrac .i am going to hit a beach on sunday if i get back from welshpool in time or might even call at aberystwyth beach on the way so i will let you know what happens.i did get a lot of falsing with mine the last couple of times i went.geoff has recently emailed me a beach program so will give it a go.one question ,does yours seem to love brass three penies? i seem to get one nearly everytime i go out

[oldhenlys]

hi all. tides are wrong time tomorrow so off inland early tomorrow to a duff farm near cardiff but at least it gets me out. at least i wont get falsing as per the beach and can run open.... regarding the beach settings. i was running on auto +3 . iron mask bout 1/3rd way up screen.gain max. trash high.ground difficult. deep on. response slow. falsing was not repeatable signals.it was exactly like the old xs on a cold damp grass type morning - all over the place and listening in through the chatter to get the signals. i noise cancelled about 4 times. no better ( same as i used to do with the xs) judging by other posts on other forums round the world then this detector is as bad as the previous explorers on the beach and falses off , but like the previous explorers is great and unbeatable inland. its a shame - signal depth with the etrac on the beach were staggering depth and werent a case of you think its 2 feet deep but the coin fell down the hole. the coins were stuck IN  the stones under a good 2 feet of sand on a couple of occasions - mindblowing.its just the bloo#y falsing as usual ! i dont see how any 'beach programme' will make a differnce to what i've already run with ? youre just fiddling with knocking out the top and bottom right of the screen .
cheers all ....sorry to be a moan. will chipper up tomorrow if i find a roman (only ever found 3  and only one of those in wales !)
gilbert