Fisher F70

[Milspec6]

i am new to this and have only been working with my Nokta Simplex for a couple of weeks now, but when I was researching detectors I was really interested in the Fisher F75...except for the price as a new guy to the hobby. I found myself keeping my eye out for a deal on a used F75 for future considerations and found that I see deals on the F70 far more often. When I researched them, I really didn't find anything about the F75 that was essential over the F70 for my needs so I started checking prices on a used F70.

Well, last night I found a deal on a F70 that ended up falling into my lap for a price that I couldn't pass up. It was an online auction deal that included 3 coils and headphones, and apparently never even made it out of the house for usage. It was only a few months old and had many watchers yet nobody bid on it except me. The final price after shipping makes it a very good deal....unless I am missing something about the F70 that I will regret later.

So, what am I missing about the Fisher F70? Is it actually a poor detector or something? Seems to be based on all the same design as the F75, uses the same coils, and seems to get plenty deep enough over say the F44. It is a little late to ask since it looks like I just bought it, but I really would like to hear from owners out there as to what did I just buy?

Heck, the seller might even be on here...if so, hello.

 

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[Loco-Digger]

The F70 is a good machine. You wont regret it.

 

[Milspec6]

Thanks, happy to hear that....only ran me $325 for everything including the extra 2 coils, headphones, and a hand digger. Couldn't walk away from that.

 

[digger27]

So, what am I missing about the Fisher F70? Is it actually a poor detector or something? Seems to be based on all the same design as the F75, uses the same coils, and seems to get plenty deep enough over say the F44. It is a little late to ask since it looks like I just bought it, but I really would like to hear from owners out there as to what did I just buy?

Heck, the seller might even be on here...if so, hello.

Go to Findmall and use the search option, plug REVIER into the member box and hit search.
Scroll back about 5 pages to Feb 2018 and start there then just go back 5 years to November 2013 which is when I got my F70.
I have posted a ton here so search this great forum too but I got way more technical and specific in the Fisher forum over there.
Every helpful fact, setting and insight I learned about the F70 I posted somewhere on more than one forum in an effort to pay it forward for all I have learned in this hobby from others.
Since I am a huge and curious experimentor and dedicated tweaker in my several thousands of hours standing behind mine I have tried and used more setting combinations than probably most other owners combined, what worked I shared, what didn't work I usually shared too but you won't find many posts like that because just about all settings work on this this thing from factory to some very strange outside the box settings that other owners literary called me crazy that I ever thought of using them to insane when they realized I actually used them with such great success.
Despite the good natured name calling nobody denied how well they worked for me or the shockingly great things I found in just about every site and situation I used it at from extreme EMI, beautiful black dirt out west in Kansas and Missouri, massive iron infested sites, massive trash infested sites to extremely mineralized devil dirt I hunt in now after I moved back home to red clay iron infested Albama with my F70 and eventually found how well it could work here and how deep it could go even though I hunt in some of the most challenging soil you could ever imagine.
I paid for mine in about 4 months in just the clad, old coins and silver and gold jewelry I found, as time went on I paid for it again and again including all 5 coils I own and use on it...4 DD types and the very misunderstood elliptical concentric which is one of my very favorites and the actual coil designed by the engineers to be used on the F70 from the beginning.

I have a Nox now and I spend most of my time learning it but my F70 is still here and not going anywhere.
I pull it out from time to time and still my jaw drops as much as it did from the first hunt I ever had with it.
Out of all my detectors my time spent with my F70 is still the most fun and productive I ever had and I won't give that up because it still is.

Also Google "Digger27's F70 log"
A log I started on a different forum from day one and continued for the first six months while hunting in heavenly western dirt where I put down everything I learned as I learned it up until the day I finally settled down with some favorite settings and just went hunting, but the learning never stopped...my skill set expanded way beyond that as time went on and continued when I moved back to the southeast.

The only place I never used it was at a saltwater beach so I can't help you there but anywhere else my posts seemed to have helped many get through the initial learning curve in short order and find some great treasure...or so say the many F70/Patriot owners that have publicly thanked me for the million words I have written about this fantastic, jaw dropping tool.
Notice the 3060 thumbs up I happen to have under my name to the left...a huge amount of them are directly related to what I have posted here about the F70.

Learn it well and learn to understand what it is telling you...really telling you, using most any settings and you won't be missing much.
I promise you.

 

[Milspec6]

Thanks Digger, looks like I have some very useful reading ahead of me...like the sound of that as it is often easier to follow the wagon leader than to be the leader.

It is coming with 3 coils (10" concentric, 11", and 5") so I have some experimenting to do. Out here in the Midwest, I am not going to see any beach time, so mostly a field shooter for me.

 

[digger27]

I have the small round Fisher coil, I used that the most since for some reason I tend to hunt the most trash infested sites I can find usually looking for jewelry.
Shockingly deep despite it's small size.
I retired it after I got a Nel Sharpshooter but the Fisher one found me a ton for years.
I have a million hours on the 11" DD too, I have used it everywhere and it dropped my jaw including in extreme trash where a sniper made more sense but I was too lazy to change over so I just learned to use the big one and set the F70 to mimic sniper like hunting abilities with the big coil onboard.
Turn the sense down to about 30 with the bigger coil mounted sometime in heavy trash or iron and you will see what I mean.
You will swear you magically turned that big coil into a laser-like scalpel sniper coil.
Don't worry about depth on low settings either, the sense settings from 1-99 are not what they seem and once you learn about the relationship between different sense and thresh combinations you will never worry about depth again.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KaJG8ohPbjE&t=3s

Now the concentric is all I had for the first several months and I got to know that one really well.
It is a premier jewelry hunting coil, it is different than the DD's in how it acts and definitely how it sounds and once you swing over gold or silver...anything, after using both this and the DD for awhile you will understand what I mean.
Tones are more pure and for lack of a better word "sweeter" sounding, but it takes some hours using both types to really notice the difference most of the time.
Every time I mount mine on the very first signal I get I hear that sweet tone and can't help but smile.
It is no slouch in finding old coins, either, in any way shape or form.
I am not the only one that has found this out, either.
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/t...g-out-new-search-coil-brings-home-silver.html

 

[aaroncr]

I've been out for a while,...got rained out all last winter which is when I do the majority of my hunting. Getting geared back up for this year,....I have the "Patriot" same as f70,..and the f75 plus. The machines have been around for a while,...folks tend to get bored and move on etc,..but they are awesome. diggger27 is the resident expert in multiple forums,..look up some of his past post. I have used other machines,..not going to get into all of that,..but here are some things I like. The tones are great,..and have a ton of choices,..machines are super sensitive,..huge coil selection...settings and bells and whistles go on forever......or you can just turn on and go. They are no joke.
If you decide you don't like it let me know,..I wouldn't mind having a spare and on lazy days to not switch coils Fisher got these machines right. HH -Aaron

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

I found myself keeping my eye out for a deal on a used F75 for future considerations and found that I see deals on the F70 far more often.

Here's why there may be more F70's available. It lacks:

• Double-Filter Discrimination Modes— For searching in Trashy Areas
• Magnetic Mineralization Bar Graph and Readout
• Ability to Activate and Deactivate DST Mode (Digital Shielding Technology) — For the ultimate in EMI Suppression
• FA (Fast Process) — Improved Target Separation
• Three New Levels of FeTone® - Iron Audio Off, Low or Medium
• Adjustable Audio Pitch — Now available in Discrimination Mode
• Embedded Serial Number — Serial number now stored electronically
• Trigger-Actuated FASTGRAB™ Ground Balance
• Non-Volatile Memory Saves Settings
• Backlight — For Low Light Hunting Condition

Is it worth the difference? I sure like the FASTGRAB. And I rely on the mineralization graph all the time for ruling out old iron trash.

 

[digger27]

Actually, the first two items on that list are on the F70, also.
All the rest nice is nice to have but I never found any of this stuff necessary and most of it I would never use, but that is just me, personally, because of how and the way I hunt, although for newbies to this platform many of them would be excellent time saving features/options to have.
Some of them would definitely make learning languages and finding targets easier especially in difficult and challenging situations.
I have still done pretty well despite lacking all these features and I never missed what I never had on my rat-rod, primitive F70.
I have done way more than pretty well, actually, in massive iron, heavy trash, bad mineralization, insane EMI and everywhere else once I figured out how to set it correctly for each situation and learning the language and some admittedly odd behavior patterns better than just well.

Actually, the one thing I would have always liked to have had is the F75's ability to notch out only half of a given range instead of the entire thing.
If I want to knock out tabs the whole thing goes, it would be nice at some insane tab infested sites to keep in sta-tabs for instance and just get rid of the bigger, slightly higher beaver tail tabs or do the opposite...but it is what it is so I deal with it.
Most of the time I hunt in all metal with sense and thresh maxed out and in boost or in disc way down to between 0-4 and let my ears, eyes and brain do most of my discriminating according to repeatable behavior patterns I noticed, anyway.
Took some time to learn to do it this way efficiently and successfully but it was a joy to do and all worth it once I did.

I believe the main reason people get an F70 or a Patriot, or even the older pre-DST F75's, and dump them pretty quickly is for the same reason it has always been for many years now...they don't realize how powerful these things are, even at factory settings, and then turn them up so high they get very jumpy and unstable because on most other detectors they always believed, or were told, you have to turn up the sense/gain to get the best depth.
Not true on this platform at all, the DST that was added to the flagship helped sales, mitigated this problem a lot and led to many keeping them longer because before they did there was just as many owners complaining about too much noise and jumping and ended up dumping their F75s and complaining about them forever more on the forums...just like they did in the F70.
We who actually understood what was actually happening loved this on both models, we just bought these horrible noisy detectors at fire sale prices, adjusted them to manageable levels and hunted happily ever after.
I suspect Fisher can easily add DST to the F70/Patriot units if they wanted to, always could from the second they rolled this feature out, but they never will because the marketing guys were never happy how close the F70 actually was to the F75 at hundreds of dollars less...horrifed, actually.
This marketing insight is according to woof, Dave Johnson himself who stated this exact fact in one of his posts years ago.
If DST was added to the F70 that would level the playing field way too much for comfort and maybe kill sales, at least some, on the more expensive flagship model and probably still would to some extent so don't expect that to ever happen.

As it stands the F70/Patriot is still one the most unsung sleeper units in the industry despite us living in such a brave new world with all the whiz-bang new tech including all that are, or already have, come out with multi-freak technology....and many at such surprisingly low prices.
I always believed that, still do.
I have a Nox so I know how well multi can work especially in sites with some very challenging issues because I am lucky enough to have to deal with that at pretty much every site I hunt.
Still, older single frequency technology can still be very productive and successful technology for those that are willing to take their time to learn it well.
The F70 found me a shocking amount of silver and gold jewelry and tons of old coins including buffs, V's, Indians, silver dimes and quarters galore, even silver halves and a Peace dollar at some sites so difficult it sent other hunters using many other detectors screaming into the night after one visit vowing never to return.
I chalk that up to my pure stubborness, mostly, and the patience to tweak and experiment with different settings because I love that part of that hobby too...maybe more than most.
Never give up, never surrender is my motto, learned that from Toy Story but it still applies.
Lots of those sites drove me crazy at first, too, but I kept revisiting them until I figured out how to unlock the secrets of each site with more than one different challenges until I got successful.
Most times more successful than I had ever dreamed but love conquers all, as they say, and I sure do love hunting with that F70 to this day.
I took mine out this weekend as a matter of fact with the elliptical concentric mounted and I smiled every time I listened to almost every signal...the good and the bad.
I have used the Nox for about two years now and did well but I realized I sure do miss standing behind the Fisher so I think I will be taking it out a little more now on future hunts.
As much as I like hunting with my Nox, and I do, I love using the Fisher also for not only what it can find but the sheer joy of swinging and listening to it because over the years we became one.
We had too many great times and experiences to sell it or make it a closet queen because you just can't get that stuff out of your system once you experience all the shockingly great things I have with mine.

Things are what they are in the industry now, american companies are still coming out with different and sometimes upgraded products and the foreign companies entered the world market in a big way a few years ago and found their place with many fans all over the world and here in this country.

With all these choices it's a very good time to be in this hobby, both veterans and newbies, alike.