Looking for advice about my F70

[packfan_1982]

Well after about a week with my F70 I've started to figure things out. The only problem is that the guys I'm hunting with have Minelabs (explorer II and an etrac) and they are kicking my butt. We are hitting very old parks that have been pounded and pounded for years.

Yesterday for example the etrac pulled a barber dime, SLQ, and an indian head, the exp II pulled a barber, merc, and an indian. My haul for the day a 1941 wheatie... Everything that we found was in close proximity to trash and at varying depths from 4-8". Now I got the F70 because I was looking for something that had good target separation. Now I know that my mid range detector just isn't going to be in the same league as the etrac but was kind of hoping that I could hold my own against the exp II.

So my questions for some of the more experienced F70 users are.

1. When hunting in a trashy area (pounded or not) what kind of set up do you use. I tried running it in All Metal and I was digging deep targets but they all ended up being trash (15 steel bottle caps). Then I tried discrimination out iron, then iron and foil. Obviously it quieted down ALOT after that, and I covered more ground alot faster, but I wasn't locking on to anything that wasn't completely isolated.

2. Pinpointing - I'm using the 11" DD coil and I've got the pinpointing down. The problem I'm having is when I have a questionable signal and I'm sure that there is trash mixed in or within a couple of inches. Any tips or tricks for keying in on what I want to dig and not the trash?

3. Probe - I've got the sunray probe and for the most part I love it. I'm just a little curious how much I can trust what it is telling me as far as VDI goes. Thus far every coin I have found came up right when I was using the probe, but there have been several instances where I am getting a decent deep signal and after digging 6-8-10 inches or whatever and still finding nothing can I trust the probe when it gives me the 9,10,11,12 VDI.

4. Bounce - This is probably more the fact that I wasn't over solid targets, but I was having a big problem with targets never locking on to a solid VDI (I would consider solid being in about a 6 number range) and more often than not would bounce from the 30's to 80's. Really the only targets I found that didn't do that were shallow clad. Found a couple of deep wheaties and an IH that locked on in a range of about 60-77.

5. Bottle caps - Nearly every one of the bottle caps I dug I would have sworn was a coin. They locked on in a narrow range usually mid to high 60's. Is there anything I can do to keep from digging these?

6. Program. Downloaded the manual and figured this one out.

I appreciate any help that you guys can give me. After yesterday I've started saving my clad to upgrade to a minelab, so here is the chance for somebody to convince me to stay with Fisher.

 

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[limegoldconvertible68]

I notice you bought your F70 a little more than one month ago. How long have your Minelab friends had their machines? Also what did you have your SENS and THRES settings at?

 

[packfan_1982]

Sens 70 thresh -2. And I see what you are saying about knowing your machine, which is part of why I posted these questions. I would like to get this machine figured out, and really know if I can find the same coins as the minelabs.

And another question. I read in somebody else's post that the tone and the VDI are independent of each other. If I am hunting in dp, which according to the manual varies WITH VDI, then I'm just guessing but they aren't different.

 

[limegoldconvertible68]

The settings you are using are the same settings I use when I hunt in yards. Sometimes I can use THRES -1 but anything higher gives my machine EMI fits that can't be calmed. Its a good machine using those settings but it probably won't compete against your friends Minelabs set up like that. When I get into the parks and fairgrounds, however, I am usually able to crank it up to SENS 99, THRES +9. I stay in DE mode for program 1 and hunt with the disc in either 0, 6 or 21(0 I hear everything, 6 I knock out small nails, 21 all iron and most foil are gone)depending on how much trash I can tolerate. Set up like that you should be able to go head to head with your friends and the winner should be in doubt every time. The secret is in really knowing what the F70 is telling you. One thing that has really helped me is that I ignore just about every target in the first 3" of soil. I use 2F tone and the shallow targets have a different sound to them (louder, longer, fatter and more zip)so I don't even need to look at the VDI. I concentrate on those deeper sounds(sweet, faster and shorter is how I would describe them). I like 2F because on the really deep coins the VDI will sometimes degrade(much lower # than it should be) and any of the 3 or 4 tones will report as junk.

Set up with this much SENS and THRES will at first seem very noisy but with practice you will not even notice the noise. You are looking for the definite hits. Repeatable every sweep as you rotate around the target. Many, many times I have pulled silver coins that are rusted because large nails were directly over them. The VDI bounced all over the place but there was continued 60-80 VDI from all sides even though many sweeps gave the iron buzz. It takes practice to learn those targets. With the machine cranked this high it will sometimes give what I thought were ghost signals. I would get a good sound, dig my plug and then nothing. Now I run program 2 as AT, 99, +9 and SL. Turns out those ghost signal are very small targets and once the plug is cut the signal would degrade enough to be disced out. With program 2 you will find those targets and they are very interesting. Many times they are small bullets, brass from starter pistols, broken gold chains, necklace clasps, etc. Program 2 set this way is also good to test some of those deep targets that seem too good. Sometimes deep iron will false and AT mode is better at giving you an accurate picture.

Hopefully this will help you get started.

 

[packfan_1982]

Yeah that is alot of help. I will give that a shot next time I get out.

I did have my threshold at -2 because anything higher would cause the probe to go nuts anytime you moved it. Will see if I can get further away from those minelabs and hopefully that will help.

 

[limegoldconvertible68]

Your biggest problem will be that there just aren't that many good deep coins that give classic good target signals left out there anymore. If your friends will work with you they should call you over when they find something they feel is a deep coin and let you swing your F70 over the target. If they don't mind spend a little time on those signals and notice closely the sounds and how the VDI reacts.

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

Not a surprise guys who are familiar with their detectors are kicking your butt. They know their machines.

Does the F70 have a bottlecap mode ("bC") like the F75? That helps in trashy spots by giving bottlecaps a broken click or squeek in the audio.

 

[Willy]

Here's something you can try.. put it in SL mode and run it as hot as you can. Yup, you'll probably have to sweep slower, but those Minelabs are ALSO slow sweep detectors. Another thing to consider is coil size.. how big are the coils on the ML detectors vs your F70? You also have to take into account that the effective size/depth of an elliptical coil is (width+length)/2. ..Willy.

 

[packfan_1982]

Not a surprise guys who are familiar with their detectors are kicking your butt. They know their machines.

Does the F70 have a bottlecap mode ("bC") like the F75? That helps in trashy spots by giving bottlecaps a broken click or squeek in the audio.

Yeah I get that knowing your machine is a big factor, thats why I'm posting my questions. And the F70 does not have a BC mode.

Here's something you can try.. put it in SL mode and run it as hot as you can. Yup, you'll probably have to sweep slower, but those Minelabs are ALSO slow sweep detectors. Another thing to consider is coil size.. how big are the coils on the ML detectors vs your F70? You also have to take into account that the effective size/depth of an elliptical coil is (width+length)/2. ..Willy.

The issue that I think I am having has nothing to do with depth, and everything to do with target separation and iron masking. The etrac is really killing it in this park having pulled 3 seated 5 barber 3 mercs and a SLQ in the week since I posted this topic. THe best advice I have read so far is to crank it up as high as I can and run 2F tones, basically digging anything that comes in higher than 20. I tried this and well I just dug alot of trash. Once again if I'm not over the silver then I'm not going to find it but at this point I just don't think that Fisher compares.

My buddy let me listen to his etrac for awhile and he can hear the difference in his targets. He gets a VDI as well but rarely rely's on it instead just going by how the targets sound. He let me listen to a bottle cap and it sound very different than a coin. At the end of the day I have a mid range detector that just isn't going to stack up against an upper level detector. However everything that I had read led me to believe that the fisher F70 and F75's had such amazing target separation. Everything that I've seen thus far is that is has OK target separation but lacks the ability to consistently tell you what is in the ground. Even if it did have good separation what use is that when the VDI bounces around all day?

I had read about people being quickly frustrated by the "chatter" from these machines, personally I'm more frustrated that it won't give me a good idea of what is in the ground. I compared some targets with my ace 250, and the ace could tell me alot better what I was looking at. Granted it only has like 18 notches but the targets would be in a 2 notch range. The F70 is all over the place. The only thing that I haven't done is to try the stock or sniper coils. All the research led me to believe that putting the 11" DD coil on would take this machine to a new level. At this point it is a clad killing machine, but I already have an Ace 250 for that.

Ok this is starting to sound like whinning so I will bring it to an end.

Limegold you were a big help and I appreciate the inputs.

Are there no other F70 users that have overcome these issues?

 

[Willy]

Sweep speed has a LOT to do with target separation, it goes hand in hand with recovery speed. By putting the F70 in SL mode you're effectively increasing the time it takes to analyze the target and have to slow down to do so. It should also give better depth. ..Willy.

 

[packfan_1982]

Based on other posts, a faster sweep speed will give you better target separation and better depth. The sl mode just gives it a bit more time to process what its seeing which would necessitate a slower swing speed, just to get the separation that you get in dE mode. Honestly I've tried the sl mode but its almost like in sl mode the machine gets more confused as to what it is seeing, unless you are CRAWILING with it, in which case you have to be loosing alot of depth.

 

[rc2125]

I'd give the stock coil a shot, if you haven't tried that yet, and see how it does for ya!

 

[Lowbatts]

I can get my coil kicked around all day by someone using a lesser machine. No problem, it's in where I put my coil so far as I know. I've hunted with guys using several different machines including ETracs and so far I've not seen a target signal they would dig that I would not dig had I rolled my coil over it first.

The only exception so far that I've noted is depth. But you mentioned 4-8 inches, that is a breeze for the F70. I am missing targets better than 8 inches, perhaps because their read is not solid enough and I'm not interested in digging too many targets that have a number bounce greater than X per category level, where X ( the amount of numeric bounce in id number) seems to great to be a good target.

I'd call bottlecaps easy to overlook also, because they definitely bounce far too much to represent a good target, but I dig them anyway because if they are there, they may be hiding something else.

Haven't used the SL mode enough either, so I am confident when I start using that regularly, I'll be getting better depth. So far though I have a fine time swinging that thing. Here's one for you I got a couple weeks ago, amid a lot of .22 short shells at 5 inches+ angled into some roots, a '57 seated and it was clear as a bell reading a solid 78 if I remember.

Thing is once I heard that high note I slowed down that coil until I was just hitting this target and the machine pinpointed it under the coil at the spot fo the signal. The '02 was easier, flat and 5" down, no trash around and the same, solid read.

Gotta get the coil over it too read it, and gotta swing slow to find it, especially if there's trash around. For these two, I had sense 95, thresh 0, 3H tones and they were in ground that FG'ed around 75-80.

 

[limegoldconvertible68]

"The etrac is really killing it in this park having pulled 3 seated 5 barber 3 mercs and a SLQ in the week since I posted this topic."

With a public park that good I'm on my way to give you a private lesson! Just give me directions to the park. All kidding aside you mentioned that your friend let you listen to some good targets. Did you sweep your F70 coil over those good targets? If so can you describe your settings and what you heard as well as what your VDI did. Here in the part of Indiana and Illinois that I regularly hunt in, public parks are by far the hardest places to do well at. That makes them a bad place to try and learn a new machine at. There are so many junk targets and the only good targets are co-located with trash that it makes for a very frustrating experience. For a beginner the Etrac probably is easier to do well with out of the box than the F70 but it should be at near double the price. Do you have any friends or relatives that own older homes, preferably something from the '30's or earlier. If so try and talk them into letting you detect their yards. Start with your settings at DISC 21 DE SENS 65 THRES -2 and 3 tone. Make sure to use good detecting skills. Grid the yard(I use sticks or leafs) and go back and forth with a tight overlap of the coil on each sweep. No smiley face arcs just nice parallel sweeps. There should be some nice high tones and when you do drop back to 2F and notice the different modulations you hear. Use your park experience and try to guess what the target is before digging. Take your time and build some confidence in the machine.

 

[packfan_1982]

The final straw so to speak. I have a house that was built in 1910. With my ace 250 I cleaned out pretty much every target that wasn't in the iron/foil range. I found 2 silver dimes and 5 IH's with a handful of wheats. Most of my time with the F 70 has been gridding out my yard again. It did find some stuff that I missed with the Ace, mainly because it does have better separation. At the end of the day all I had really found was a handfull of clad and a 1898 IH. I had also spend the last 10 days or so in 2f with sens and thresh cranked as high as I could digging just about everything that came in over 20. Got ALOT of trash and a couple of nickels. After I was pretty convinced that I had cleared out every possible target I called the etrac in to see what it could do. In about 6 hours he recovered 2 barbers, 4 mercs, and 1 IH. I checked out the spots and every time I would get a peep or two but mostly just low tones and nothing that was ever repeatable enough to dig.

Oh well, just not the detector for me I guess.

 

[Keppy]

Well i hate to tell you this but if it was me i would sell the Fisher and buy a Minelab. I GUESS MY ADVICE WAS TO LATE I SEE YOU PUT IT UP FOR SALE YESTERDAY AND A VERY GOOD DEAL FOR SOME ONE. I bought detectors that a lot liked then i did not care for them and sold them we probably all have at one time or another.

 

[toddsant]

I like to use disc 6, de , sen 70, thresh at -2, monotone, notch 1. I go pretty slow with little sweeps inside my shoulders then do the wiggle slowly over a suspect target,then 90 degrees and wiggle the coil somemore.I am amazed at how well the 11" dd will seperate targets in clouds of iron doing this.
One big difference is that iron when masking a good coin target can and will degrade the vdi numbers,I dug a .69 minnie ball yesterday that was in a bunch of nails and the vdi was all over the place from 8 up to 78.but it sounded great from both directions on the sweep.now the nails where next to the bullet very rusty horse shoe nails I am assuming that the rusty halo was the culprit causing the fluxuation in vdi.
go slow and dig those signals that sound off in both directions but dont give vdi numbers you'll be at the fringe and you will surprise yourself

 

[gleaner1]

toddsant, with any machine, avoid the vdi numbers, unless you are clad grabbin'. Learn the machine and its sounds.

 

[ozbach]

Not trying to be a butt head here but there is a reason the f-70 could not perform as well as the E-trac...I owned a F-70 and for the money it does pretty good!...but at half the cost of a E-trac do you think it will do as good?.......I do own a E-trac now, and yes it cost a arm and a leg!...but believe me I got what I paid for.... but if you want to cover ground fast, and go for coins and or jewlry, The F-70 kicks butt, The E-trac is more of a go slow get DEEP machine.... so each machine kind of has its purpose, I use my F-2 in soccer fields for jewlry and clad hunting. nice and light, and you can swing that sucker fast and still hit good targets!....but if your goal is to find the oldest deepst coins and such, then thats when the E-trac comes in.... What you needed to do was hunt with others that were using the F-70 That would have been more fair!!!

 

[DEK1]

My prediction is that he'll have the same problems with whatever he buys next as well. Sounds to me like he's not willing to put in the time it takes to learn a new machine and is expecting way too much out of a detector that he knows nothing about nor properly knows how to operate. Just my opinion.