F70 settings

I detected today with my new F70 along with my buddy who bought my Minelab SE. He ran circles around me finding silver. All I could find was a few wheaties and bottle caps and pull tabs. My settings were Sensitivity 75
threshold minus 2 and minus 3
Number of tones 3
Discrimination 25
Def setting.
11 inch F75 coil

The park was trashy and the ground phase was 75 My detector would ring out loud and true with a dime on the ground but was scratchy when I swung my coil over the hole holding one of the dimes he found.

Can anyone give me some better advice for finding coins in these conditions. There was little if any electrical interference.

I have found silver dimes and a seated 1854 dime with this machine and dug one clad dime at 8 inches,
Any suggestions would be welcome. Except getting my Explorer back. I got rid of it because it was getting to heavy for trhis 78 year old mans arms wracked with arthritis.

Thanks in advance,
Coinseeker 78

Are you using the stock concentric coil on the F70?

I am using the stock 11 inch double D coil used on the F75

Hmmmmmm...... What you may want to try is...... when your friend finds (what he believes) is a fairly deep coin........................... have him call you over........ and test your F70 on this target. Make adjustments so as to maximize its ability to acquire this target. I do recommend using a Disc of '6'....... or ... better yet ... a Disc setting of '4'. You may need to perform a Freq check.....finding the best channel/frequency that mitigates the most EMI (ElectroMagneticInterference).

Don't forget to have him do a noise cancel next to your machine. You will hear the SE through your headphones selecting a freq. You may want to push the pinpoint while he is canceling. Can't hurt.

Yep I am getting there myself agewise...buy an Explorer SE pro....that new 11 inch DD coil make a lot of difference weightwise and above alll ergonomically.

F series works well for many but myself and other club members went the lightweight route and lets just say the unit is not our cup of tea in our neck of the woods...

Another suggestion buy a CZ3D and chest or hipmount to ease the pain of the arms...

I guess I have been fortunate with my F-70. I have an old fairgrounds (1860's) near me and I run into a slew of guys using Etrac's and Explorers there. As of yet, they have not been able to outperform me. Out there its a rural setting so I can really crank it up and run it hot. The settings you are using are similiar to the 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 or 6. In 0, I hear everything, 6 I knock out small nails. 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.

I know what you mean as far as weight and balance of Explorer. I have an E-trac which is a little bit better balanced,But to guy like me with a bad shoulder from swinging a hammer at work it still gets heavy. Last year I got the sunray 8'' coil that helped alot. But this year even that began to bother mean so I got another CZ-3D,figuring I would probally have to chest/hip mount it. And to my suprise I have been leaving the control housing on the rod and my shoulder doesn't bother mean when I swing it and feels better afterwards. I hope I am not jinxing myself,But so far so good.

Thanks for all the info. I set my settings as you suggested and what a difference. I picked up a dime I buried at 9 inches today like it was on top the ground. Had to lower the threshold to minus 3 to get rid of the Electrical Interference. Thanks very much.

Coinseeker 78