The Etrac was delivered. I had expected last Friday but there were no delvieries to the base. I was running around most of Monday taking care of various network issues and cam back about 1530 or 3:30 for you civilian types. Checked the office were it was supposed to be delivered at, quick look around; nothing. And headed back down the hall torward my office. Down the hall I see the FedEx guy with a two wheeler heading my way. Perfect timing! Headed home shortly thereafter with the box tucked under my arm. Didn't actually crack the box open till later. Put the unit together while inspecting it while I went. Thinking to myself, this could be a problem are with the cable rubbing. Also thinking I need to get a spare bolt that locks the coil to the shaft and rubber cap that goes over the battery pack; that can definietly work its way off the small screw over time. Also making a mental note to get some padding for the arm rest and wondering whether to use the strap that came with it. Got some nice swag from it; nice Minelab ball cap, and book Andy Sabich called "The Minelab". The black scoop went to the garage, no use for that except that it might make litter scope for the cat box. Set the batteries to charge and let it rest for the night.

Tuesday, got home and got a quick bite to eat. Put the Etrac on the couch, inserted the charge battery and turned it on. Air tested wheat cent, merc dime and a nickel. Pretty much what I expected. Fiddled with the buttons a little. Tossed the coins on the carpet; joking with Christine that maybe I should put the coins under the carpet or bury them in the litter box. Interesting.....just need to get out and do some digg'n. Practiced pinointing a bit with Etrac bullseye at the top of the screen. We'll see on that later, maybe I'm to used to my old way of pinpointing. Grounds frooze up now. So too much here until Spring but might have a go at nugget hunting in AZ in Jan.

One of the three things I wanted after my return from Iraq were new golf clubs, new gps, and a new metal detector. The metal detector is the third wish being fullfilled. After take a nearly 20 year sabbatical from digg'n, it took some time to get back up to speed on what was available. The youtube videos by vidslayer played a HUGE part in making my decision with going with the ETrac. Being from the midwest I do a lot of coin shooting and have done really well over the years. I dug all my old metal detectors out which included my Teknetics Mark I and fired it up; still worked. Even went out digg'n a couple of times with it but was plagued by my Depthmaste Headphones falling apart and a loose headphone jack on the unit. But did find a 1919 dime at an old abandoned house Sout of Fremont, NE. I hunted that Saturday morning with my sweet little wife Christine sitting in her KIA Soul reading her bible. And the dime was the only coin I found there. The lack of good solid targets lead me to believe that the site had been hunted before; however, per conversations with the owner, it had never been hunted. One can draw their own conclusions from that.

Ther Etrac should be here Monday. Was hoping that it would have arrived on Friday but the FeDex driver didn't deliver on base that day; so Monday it will be here. And just in time for the ground to freeze up. I picked up the Etrac from Rod's Detector Sales in Suprise, AZ and will continue to do my buisness with him since I'll be looking at the Minelab GPX 5000 to do some nugget hunting in AZ in the coming years. Having been accustomed to the mid 80's technology, I am thinking that I will have a slight jump start on the Etrac beacuse I hunted with my ears before, now I have two sets of numbers to digest as well. So I'll be eventually hitting my old sites where I've dug some nice coins to see what I've missed. It's nice to get out digg'n again.