  Coalescing compact binaries have been pointed out as the most promising
source of gravitational waves for kilometer-size interferometers such as LIGO.
Gravitational wave signals are extracted from the noise in the detectors by
matched filtering. This technique performs really well if an a priori
theoretical knowledge of the signal is available. The information known about
the possible sources is used to construct a model of the expected waveforms
(templates). A common assumption made when constructing templates for
coalescing compact binaries is that the companions move in a quasi-circular
orbit. Some scenarios, however, predict the existence of eccentric binaries. We
investigate the loss in signal-to-noise ratio induced by non-optimal filtering
of eccentric signals.
