Well, I broke down and bought another new toy, a Nox 800.  I always planned to stick with the E-Trac, but the exact same forum member who sold me my E-Trac used 11 years ago offered a used Nox 800 up for sale, and I could not resist.

They say the Nox is better, but I certainly intend to keep the E-Trac.  I intend to compare them side by side and make up my own mind which is better.  Always be open minded.  And, besides, buying it used, the financial risk is low as I can always sell it used.

All I have done so far is put it together, and read the manual.  Here are my thoughts so far re the E-Trac.

Negative:  Apparently no sizing pinpointing or response long setting.  These settings are crucial for getting the most out of the E-Trac.  These settings allow you to run the machine hotter than you should, and still dig mostly deep coin targets and avoid alot of noise.  Most negative, however, is the reduced TID range, from 50 to 40 in the conductive zone.  It appears this would compromise the E-Trac’s ability to distinguish clad from silver, and identify wheaties with certainty.  This is the most crucial ability of the E-Trac, as who wants to dig clad and wheaties when looking for silver?  It is crucial for efficiency.

Positive:  Waterproof.  I can’t use my E-Trac even in the lightest drizzle, as it gets weird for some reason.  Speed.  I expect the Nox to be faster, as the processor is 15 years newer technology.  People talk about this benefit, and I’m hoping it plays out, tho the E-Trac is damn fast.  Also, the sweep speed is recommended at 3 seconds rather than 4 seconds.  That is a 25% improvement.  Maybe I can gain some efficiency there.  Difficult ground.  More options for dealing with difficult ground — manual ground balancing and more noise cancel channels.  The ground is variable around here; perhaps this will open up some sites.  Depth?  Everyone claims it is deeper than the E-Trac; I have my doubts, but we’ll see.  Beach.  I rarely go the beach, but the E-Trac isn’t that good in wet sand, is not waterproof.  I am not an underwater detectorist, but accidents can happen in the wet sand.

Well, I guess I have to reserve judgment until I do some testing.  The putative inability to discriminate out clad and wheaties looks like the biggest show stopper.  As I see it now, it will be a backup machine, or a specialty machine for rainy days, the beach, real trashy old sites without tons of clad (old farmhouses where you dig everything anyway), and we’ll see if we get better performance in difficult dirt.

Back to last weekend’s site which produced 11 silvers.  Who wouldn’t?

First hour, not a single coin, but grind it out for a total of nearly 4 hours, and managed to get 4 silvers.  2 quarters were in the same hole.  Site has now given up 23 silvers, which isn’t bad as these things go, but I’ve completed the major section.  Now there are some other fringe sections, but they will be harder to detect.

Weird that this site has given 10 quarters and 13 dimes.  I don’t think I’ve seen a ratio like that before.  I think alot of the dimes are just out of reach.

What an amazing hunt this morning.  Haven’t been out much lately due to the heat and life, but got out today before the crack of 8 AM, and first target, in about 10 minutes, was a barber dime, up against a big low conductor target that made pinpointing and TID awkward.  Soon another barber with a merc in the same hole, and then 2 quarters, all in under an hour.  Unbelievable.  I haven’t had a six pack in forever, and I wanted one today.

Next keeper dig was my 3rd quarter in a row, giving me the six pack, and then things slowed down somewhat; a few wheats then a slam dunk rosie putting me at 7.

My goal was to hunt for three hours this morning, and at about the three hour mark, I hit another deep iffy signal which is iron most of the time, but it was the 1897 barber, maybe 8 inches down.

Once I was at 8 silvers for the day, I was going for 10, even tho it was time to go home.  Just something in the air today, very little EMI for some reason, and the deep iffys which always seem to be iron were silvers this time.

Hit a rosie then another deep iffy, which was the really thin barber (1899), giving me my first double digit day since 1/31/13.

I wanted to finish out the whole section I was working, but I was shot; stupid me, I forgot my water.  So I just gridded out the last rank I was working and hit another deep merc on the way out.

I’ve been really thinking about getting a Nox lately, but the way this trusty E-Trac is treating me, I’m not sure.  I think she is jealous 🙂

Total hunt time 3:45.  I don’t think I’ve ever hit 3 silvers per hour, but I was close today.

This was about my 6th or 7th hunt at this site, usually somewhat stingy giving a silver at 1 per 1-2 hours, but one day it gave me 5 silvers.  I’ll never figure this hobby out.