Thoughts on Etrac vs Deus and a couple of hunts

Hello there, just a very quick shout out, which I don't normally do, before we get this video started. This is for Sean from Bristol Detectors. He's a young fellow who's just set up a detecting shop, and I wish him all the best. It's a very hard market to break into, and he's trying to offer you guys decent deals on detecting gear, including metal detectors and all the relevant accessories and so on. If you mention Pond Guru, when you give him a call or visit his website, you will get a little bit extra off as well. So please check him out. Link to his website is in the video description. Hello there, welcome back. This is another metal detecting video, but this one is going to be a little bit different to ones I've done in the past. It's going to be a two or three hunt video, because I want to try and make the videos a little bit more interesting and have a little bit more variety in them as well. I'm also going to talk about the two detectors that I'm using in this video. So first up I'm going to talk about the two detectors. If you're already familiar with the e-track and the deos just skip forward a few minutes you don't need to watch this. This is for the benefit of people who are new to the hobby or are maybe thinking about getting a new detector. Okay so first up this is my weapon of choice for pasture. Quite a lot of my commissions are undisturbed pasture, they've been that way for centuries and I find the e-track really really loves deep pasture, it loves deep silver as well which is primarily what I'm looking for when I'm out detecting. I've got it fitted with a really big 18 inch by 15 inch SEF coil, this is an aftermarket coil, doesn't come with the e-track. And I find that gives me more coverage, and it also gives me a little bit more depth, maybe an inch, inch and a half, possibly two inches in very good soil. I'm not quite sure how much extra depth it gives me, but it definitely gives me stronger signals at depth. Better readings on here as well. It's got an LCD display, black and white. It's also got a backlight as well, so if I'm out in my local fields, in the dark, which I do tend to do, literally just jump over the fence at the back of here, have a few hours in the field if the X-Factor or some other god-awful reality shows on, have myself a few hours detecting, it's useful, the backlight lets me see what's going on under the ground. I've got this fitted with covers from Protectas. They're a UK-based company, they make very, very good covers, good quality, reasonable price. I would advise you get them, no matter what detector you've got, because the last thing you want is a scratched screen and a dirty, mucky stem. It doesn't do them any good, especially if you come to sell them. You want to sell something that's pretty much pristine. Very recently, my Koss UR30 headphones, which came with the E-Track, broke. I couldn't fix them, so I bought a pair of Jolly Rogers. These have got a volume button on the side, and they've also got a knockout switch as well. Which is pretty useful if you've got a target in the ground and you've got your pin pointer, you're looking for it, you can sometimes get interference on here and it goes off in your head, it makes you feel as if you're hearing voices in your head or something crazy. Flick that switch off and it kills the responses that are coming from the machine so you can just hear It's a nice touch, very comfortable, well made, the sound is very, very loud, and my ears fit inside here lovely. I can hardly hear anything. So even the faintest little knocks and squeals, I can hear them. Very good. So as I said, that is my detector for pasture, which is most of my hunting. Yes, it is heavy, but I use a harness. It's slow to use, it's not something you can blast around with, but it does hunt deep, and it does consistently find deep silver. I love it. So as far as the settings go on the E-Trac, very, very basically, Basically, I would have recovery deep on, recovery fast off, I would hunt in four-tone ferrous. That, to me, makes much more sense than hunting in conductive audio, because conductive audio splits it that way, so you could have big lumps of iron giving you the same signal as a half-crown or something, which really doesn't make sense to me. By using ferrous audio, I split the audio horizontally, so the heavier iron gives a really, really low grunt. The better targets, from kind of line 17, 18, or maybe 20 and above, They give higher tones, they're the ones I'm kind of listening for, so I can be going along, low tone, low tone, low tone, high tone, bang, into a target. There's no farting around looking at the screen and cross-checking, oh god I, you know it's a high tone but it's iron. I don't really like to waste my time when I'm using the E-Track because it is a slower machine to use. The less I look at the screen the better, so if the audio choice sorts out the bad targets from the good ones, it can only be a good thing. I'll put a link in the video description to the full settings that I use on the e-track because it is a little bit more complicated, well it's a lot more complicated than the Deus so check that out if you're really interested in what settings I use on pasture. This is the second detector that I use this is a real all-rounder in many ways it's a lot more advanced than the e-track but I find it doesn't get the depth that the e-track gets on pasture on proper hard packed undisturbed pasture. If it's been ploughed a few years ago and the ground's a little bit fluffy, this lad could possibly get just as deep as the A-TRAC. It's an excellent machine. This is the XP Deus. This is a very small coil, 9-inch, and with the machine you have a choice of either buying it with a 9-inch coil, an 11-inch coil or a 13-inch coil. I bought it with the 9 because I already had the A-TRAC. I wanted to use that for very deep pasture where there's not much contamination. This little lad, I use this where there's a lot of contamination. I also use it in woodland and areas of scrub where it's difficult to move that big coil. I could just fit a small coil on the e-track, yes, but it's easier just to lift another detector out and use a different detector. So I generally use this with the 9-inch coil. Unless I'm on pasture, then I would use my 11-inch coil for a little bit more coverage and a little bit more depth. What can I say about this? Well, it's wireless so there's no connecting wires. Between the coil and the control box, or between the coil, the control box, and the headphones. All wireless. Very, very versatile machine. Very light. Pretty expensive, but well worth it. Roughly the same price as the e-track, but I would say it's a better all-rounder. And really it looks like a toy, but it performs very, very well. Certainly not a toy. And I would say my preferred places to use this would be in areas of high contamination where there's a lot of little iron, a lot of little nails and fragments of rust and so on where the e-track might struggle with its slow recovery speed. This blasts through it. That's a little bit misleading. It doesn't blast through those signals. It allows you to go a lot faster where there's a lot of signals in the ground. So you'll get a lot of low signals and then you get a high signal. You know, whereas the e-track will struggle a little bit. You have to go a lot slower or you'd have to use a smaller coil. This lad recovers very, very fast. So areas of high contamination where there's a lot of iron and also parks as well. I don't want to give too many secrets away, but I've found more gold rings with this fella than I have with the e-track. In fact, I found two in one hunt with this when I was using a 9-inch coil in a local park. It separates the trash very, very well. It's got preset programs just like the E-Track, but I find these preset programs a lot more relevant for UK and European soils. E-Track tends to be more relevant for US soils, at least from my point of view. I had to do quite a lot of alterations to the E-Track to get it really suited to my style of hunting. In the deep, undisturbed pasture of the UK. This lad, all I do, I just put it in GM power. I knock the frequency down to either 12 kilohertz or 8 kilohertz. I think I set the ground balance to tracking, or if the ground's very good, I'll sometimes put the sensitivity up to 94, 95, and you're away. I mean, it's really, really easy to use this fella compared to the e-track. eTrack took me approximately six months before I was happy with it. This fella, straight out the box, bang, I was finding stuff. But I find it's just not as good on that deep pasture, so I still use the eTrack. I still use both machines. Just a quick word on the headphones. There's two different sorts of headphones available for the Deus. There's a WS4, which kind of fit around the back of your head. It's like a foamy sort of arrangement. I didn't really like the idea of them. I prefer a more traditional, proper headphone that's a little bit warmer. Because I'm from North East England, just west of Newcastle. Even in the summer it can be pretty cold up here, especially where I hunt, way up in the hills. It's generally windy and I don't like my ears getting cold because I haven't got any hair left to protect them. So I went for the WS5s. They are more expensive but I certainly haven't regretted buying these. You'll find 90% of people who buy a Deos will probably go with the WS4s because they're cheaper and lighter. But I really prefer these fellas. And in this video that's coming up, I'm going to be using both machines. And on the first hunt, the E-Track headphones broke, so that put it out of commission. I bought new headphones, and at the start of the second hunt, they blew. I bought them from eBay, and they were less than half the price they should have been, so I presume they were fakes. They worked for about five minutes and then gave up, so I bought the Jolly Rogers. So most of this video will be with the Deus. I think there's a little bit at the start with the e-track and the kind of round-up at the end. From a night hunt, I used the e-track then with the big coil. So that's that out of the way. That was purely just for the benefit of people who are new to the hobby, people who are considering new machines, or perhaps people who have these machines and aren't getting the full benefit from them. Okay, first hunt is a very, very new site. Well, it's an old site but it's new to me. It's never been detected before. It's below a 15th or 16th century bridge near a very old mill. It's reasonably flat. It's been used for camping for years. It's near an old battle site. It possibly was the battle site because nobody's ever nailed down exactly where the battle site was. This one has real potential. Get in. That makes two of those from that hole. And that's the first pre-decimals I've had from this site. I've been here about an hour and all I've found is one pences, two pences, ten pences and the odd twenty pence. Two pre-decimal Threepenny bits in the same hole. So I'm going to hunt this area pretty hard now. Whoa, we're not eight inches away from that last hole. We've got another signal and it's yet another Threepenny bit. Very good. And there's possibly something else there as well. There it is, yet another Threepenny bit. That's four in a row. Well, the headphones on the e-track have just gone off. And I'm not going to use it without the headphones because it'll echo right up and down this valley. I've got a few residents on the other side of the river there and I don't want them to be disturbed. It just makes an awful noise. So, in the name of professionalism, I've switched to the Deus with the 11-inch coil. Quite a deep setting on. And the very first target it finds is a ship half penny, pre-decimal coin. In great condition. And signal there, hitting in the high 80s. Be clean so it's getting due. Just had another Threepenny bit from about six feet away, which I probably won't bother showing you, but this one could be something better. Zoom in a little bit. Another modern penny. I've found loads of them. I'll do a round-up in a little bit, but there's a hell of a lot of modern coinage on here. I've hardly found any pre-decimal coins. I think maybe four or five. No silver, yet. This field just goes on forever, and I've literally just... I haven't even scratched it. I was going to say I've scratched it, but I haven't even scratched it. This could take me years to do this. It's obviously going to be another cracking coin-shooting site, so I'm just really overjoyed to have the permission here, because there's been a lot going on. This one's hitting between high 70s to early 80s. I'm in 12 kilohertz, so it may hit a little bit higher in 18 kilohertz, as the deal's on. It's giving a lovely two-way clean signal. Pound coin. Another cracking signal, reading 80 both ways. Another pound coin. This is awesome, because not only have I got permission on a site with loads of coins, they also form coin balls, which I absolutely love. It's like a double present. Ah, it's only a modern penny, but it could have been anything in there. Hey, get in. Another ship penny. Oh, that's a nice imprint as well. Still see the ship on that imprint. Excellent. Again, it's not a very old one. 1950. And that's pretty much as old as I've found today. It's been really strange. Ah, modern two pence. Pound coin. Might have a coin spill going here. Yay. Another pound coin. Oh, there's more. There's more. Half pence. Oh, there's still more. Another pound coin. Another two pence. Still more. Twenty pence. And it looks like that's it. Well, that was a decent coin spill. Three pound twenty-five. Very good. There's the trash that I had to dig for 57 coins, most of which were with the Deus because my headphones knacked on my e-track, which was a bit of a bummer because I was enjoying using the e-track. It was getting lovely, clean, deep signals. That said, the Deos still pulled up all the coins, no problem at all. Signals were probably just a little bit scratchier, not as clear, not as crisp, not as exciting, but it did find the majority of those coins. Unfortunately there was only two old half pennies and five old threepenny bits. They were the oldest coins and I was expecting to get a nation of Georgian coins from here. That still wasn't bad, still had some excitement digging up all those coins, there could have been something good every time I dug a hole, but unfortunately there was just so much modern stuff. I really don't know how I didn't manage to find any Georgian or Victorian coins because the history to this place goes way back, maybe they just sunk out of reach. I don't know, even some of these 1 pences were down to 9-10 inches, so that's a possibility that the older stuff might just be way down out of reach. It's obviously a good coin shooting site, and there will be old stuff here, so I will be back. Now this hunt was the exact opposite of my previous hunt, which I did with Tommy Turbo. I didn't even film it because it was so disastrous, but I did manage to find one coin. Sorry, I found two coins. One was battered beyond belief, and the other one... was a little silver sixpence and as I'm near an old bridge I'm going to do you guys a favour. Well here we go, George V 1929 sixpence as a lucky wish. Best of luck next time you're out. Well came away from that initially disappointed, so much modern crap but there was a little bit of old stuff, not very old though. I'm sure there will be a lot of much older stuff there, and possibly some really good finds there. There has to be. I was there for three hours, four hours maybe, and it's going to be a good coin shooting site. I will definitely be back there. Okay, second hunt. This is a site where I've had a lot of good finds over the years. And it's also been bashed by other people, I don't know what they've found because they've never really told the people who own the site what they've found, they could have had some good finds, I don't know, but I'm kind of the only one that hunts it now because it's more or less bashed out, but I decided to try a fairly tricky area of woodland which is more or less overgrown but there has been volunteers in there clearing out parts of it. There is old footpaths going through there, and it does go back to the 1700s. . . So I was very hopeful of finding something here. That's interesting. He's talking to him about the Relics of Ahsoka. . . For this one, I used this lad, Dios, with a 9-inch coil, . . . . . because I know there's a lot of contamination . . . in this particular area of woodland. . I did try going through it with the e-track, . . . and it just melted my ears. . . . It was unusable in there with that big coil. . . . I thought I might have more luck with the little lad. . . . This was reading 90 in 12 kilohertz and it's a ship half penny. . . . I'm not sure what date it is, let's have a look. 1952, so it's a very modern one. Pretty dense woodland today, it's raining on and off, it's very, very windy. Nothing spectacular, it's just an old penny. In awful condition, I'm not even going to bother showing you a close-up of that. Gave a hell of a signal, though. The ground is absolutely soaking wet because we've had about three or four days of rain. And the signals that I'm getting are really, really strong. I'll just give you a quick rundown of what I've found so far. Okay, so we've got a few coins, mostly pre-decimal. There's a couple of one-pences. The rest are pre-decimal. There's a pre-decimal Threepenny bit, penny. Oh, actually, that isn't pre-decimal. I thought that was another Threepenny bit, but it's actually a modern pound. Roughly a 50-50 split between modern and pre-decimal. I've also found a little badge, some sort of religious thing, it's got Jesus on. There's two huge Wellingtonia trees behind me, absolutely gigantic. They would have been here 100, 150 years ago, so I'm going to go around there and hopefully I'll find some more coins. And it's a ship half penny from George VI. That gave an awesome signal. Ha, ha, ha! There's yet another signal in the same place where I've already had two coins from. So there was a penny from here, a half penny from here. This one's reading 82, so I think this is a penny as well. Although I would like to think it was a bit of silver. It's another half penny, another pre-decimal one. From at least nine inches deep, and that gave an absolutely excellent signal. Combination of... High gain settings on the Deus and wet ground seems to be doing the trick. Not missing any signals at all today. A very good signal, it's reading 42, which really that's on the cusp of what I would be digging, but I'm gonna give it a take. Well I'll be a monkey's uncle, it's a coin. It's an Elizabeth II so I can only assume that's a half pence, a decimal half penny. Gave a very low signal that. This one's reading 62. Ugh. That's not what I was expecting, for ****'s sake. Popped this lad out here and it's very big. Looks a little bit bigger than an old penny. No, no, just an old penny. It's just got a lot of muck on it. I'll give it a bit of a rub and we'll try and see who's on here. Right, 1937. Yep, 1937. That's George VI. Looks like we've got a coin on end here. This was reading 80. Yep, and it's another old penny. Seems very worn, this one. Let's give it a bit of a clean up. No, that's very, very worn. Looks like an old head Victoria. Sorry, young head Victoria. So it's got a bit of age to it, but it hasn't got much detail to it. Ha, ha, ha. An absolutely gigantic signal here. We've got what I think is a log splitter. Looks like that would be driven into the log, or it would be driven into the side of a tree for felon purposes, if you wanted to tip it a certain way. Either way, it's a huge lump of iron. Another old penny, right on the top, giving a huge signal. It's another George VI penny, that'll be 30s to 40s. Just had a big old penny from the other side of this dead tree here. Looks like this tree, well you can't see it, but it looks like this tree's been here for hundreds of years. It's just, it's got new growth coming out of a really really old stump. They're always good places to try because people do sit down next to trees. Found an old penny about six feet away so this one is excellent signal 92 and that's in 12 kilohertz so to me that's reading a little bit high but it is very sweet signal and I'm hopeful. I'm going to bring this in so you can see it in situ and we're going to get it out. Here we've got a big lump of silver. Whose is it? It's a florin which is two shillings and and by the design on the back of it I would say it was George V but it's very mucky yeah George V. Very very green Not sure why it's gone green, but that's a really good find. Absolutely excellent. I was just about to head home, and I crossed over a little stream, and I thought, I'll just have a go next to this knackered old oak tree. Got an old penny, and I thought, there might be some more here. Then pulled up a florin. It's excellent, because it's been quite a while since I've found any decent-sized silver. I'll see if I can give this a bit of a clean-up and let you have a closer look. Eh, it's a little bit worn, but that's 1923 Gideon. Absolutely awesome. Hopefully there'll be some more. I didn't get any on the first trip I did to that new coin shooting field, this is an old permission I've got but a new part of it, so hopefully I'll be able to get something else on the way back to the car to show you, if not I'll see you in part three. Well, there's a few older coins on that hunt, I always find old coins on this site, I've sometimes got to hunt pretty hard for them but it always produces something. To find a big lump of silver on that site was a real bonus because it has been absolutely hammered over the years. And some areas are almost undetectable because there's so much contamination off where they've been tipping all the ashes from the fire and burning stuff from the house. Very, very pleased to get that silver because it's been a long time. And I was almost going to go home and I just saw that old oak tree with a stump and I thought... I've been there a lot of years. It's near where two streams meet. That would be a lovely place to sit. Somebody obviously has sat there and they've lost a big lump of silver. Right, if you're still watching, this is basically just a roundup of a night hunt that I did. It was one Saturday night. I think I'm a celebrity get me out of here and X Factor was on. So it was basically two or three hours of spirit crushing crap. I had to get away from. I actually did feel a little bit lucky as well and normally when I feel lucky and I go out to techno, I'll find something even if it's on a site that I've done 20-30 times. If I feel lucky, I just seem to sense there's something there and I'll find something and that was certainly the case here. I didn't get any footage of the actual hunt because rain was coming sideways and it was windy as hell. It would have just been an absolute mess but for this hunt I used the e-track with the 18-inch coil. I basically followed the path of a Roman road which runs up the side of my place and I made some pretty good finds. Have a look at that, that's what I thought That's what I thought it was, it's a little hammered coin. I don't know whose it is, but I'm going to give it a clean up, and I'll let you see if there's anything else of interest in there as well. I don't think there is. I quite like to leave the black on the coins, and just rub them with tin foil. You can see what it does there. It leaves the black in the background, and it really highlights any detail that's on it. That gives a lovely effect. It's definitely an Edward penny, and it hasn't been clipped. I put it under hot water to make it malleable, and I literally just squashed it flat. So that went from being a right angle to being pretty flat and it's in good condition so I'm very pleased with that. Obviously I've chucked the rubbishy finds away but really these can be split into what we hope to find and what we generally find and these five items demonstrate that beautifully. So we've got an Edward Penny from the 1100s or 1200s, goes way back, hammered silver coin, that's what we want to find, this is what we generally find. Predecimal pennies. Musket ball. This is a clog clasp. Shoe fastener. So that kind of represents artefacts. What we normally find in the way of coins. And this inconspicuous looking lump of coppery muck is a Scottish hammered coin. I think it's Charles I or II. It goes a long way back to the 1600s. So really that's a very good representation of what we generally find in the UK. So there you go, I must have hunted that field 30, 40 times. It's a huge field though and it still produces the goods. I had to really, really take a chance to get that hammered coin because it was 7, 8 inches deep. It was bent at a right angle and it didn't give a very good signal at all. But I took the chance, dug it up and I'm glad I did. Just shows what I always tell you, if in doubt, dig it out.