I just bought a new F75SE w/ extra 5" coil

This is my second one. I had one last spring. I wasn't really impressed with that one. I am presently using a Garrett AT Pro. Also my second one of these and I will say that THIS AT Pro, in my test garden, is a much deeper unit then my first AT Pro. I am hoping that I accidentally get a hot F75SE. My test garden is waitin on it. My AT pro hits soundly on a barber quarter at 8 inches, a Merc dime, at 7 inches, a Minie bullet at 9 inches. My heart is gonna drop to my hind-end if the F75SE just barely makes an iron grunt over these targets.
But I have studied many posts on this forum and realize that the F75 is held to be a deep seeker and I just cannot balk at y'all's experience, and at NasaTom's experimentation with the F75. I have enough confidence in this experience that I dropped I ordered another one. (I had sold my last one).
Another reason that I would prefer the F75SE over my AT Pro is that every site that I hunt has old square nails all around and I like to hear the iron while listening for the hi tone. And frankly, the Garrett Iron grunt has about finally driven me crosseyed crazy. There's just something about that electronic robotic sound of the AT Pro when your in an ferrous rich area that fatigues me quickly. It bothers me so much after an hour that I have to silence the iron and just hope that I don't miss the non ferrous targets hidden next to the iron.
I remember that the iron grunts on my previous F75SE was not at all unpleasant and unnerving to the ear even after a couple of hours of steady swinging.
My post is not meant to bash the AT Pro, as my latest one is a deep seeking fool and I have found quite a bit of good stuff with it. I look forward to re-sweeping some areas with my new F75SE as soon as it gets to me, hopefully tomorrow (friday) according to the UPS tracking page.
Happy Hunting to you all.

I hope it was Toms SE you bought, but in either case I hope it works better than the last one and happy hunting.

I've never run an F75, but my partner has , and the way he describes it in a park setting with a lot of trash is like " R2D2 on crack " ....... He now runs an E Trac in the same area's , and has never looked back !!.......I tried the AT Pro in the same trashy parks by me , and walked back to the car with a head ache after about an hour of detectting ......Brought my E Trac the next time and ran it all day, and pulled deep Silver out of the ground ...... I learned my lesson FAST !!!......Love the AT Pro on the dry sand at the beach for recent drops .....FAST and ACCURATE down to about 8 inches or so in the dry sand ...... Fun machine !!......Jim

Jim,

How's the etrac in the nails. I'm lookin' at buying one as we speak. I have struggled with the decision over the last month or so between the Etrac and the F75SE. I hunt the late 1800's parks right square in the middle of downtown Minneapolis with my CZ6a/3D and have pulled some decent old silver (barber dimes) and a couple V-Nicks, nary a quarter though but when I run the CZ in the rusty nails she just doesn't perform.

My aim is to get into a digital machine as a complement to the CZ. The problem is I spend just as much time in the old cellar holes and along the tracks in the lond grass and buckthorn hunting for anything non-ferrous. I'd really like to get the F75SE based on price, boost and speed etc. but I don't want to be EMI crippled in the city parks. If I went with the F75SE would it be absolutely unusable in a big city environment, or would I just have to back it off and settle. And on the other hand I don't want to hike a mile into the brush with an etrac only to find it can't sniff through the grass. I can't afford both. What to do?


Pete

Thanks to the guys who replied to my topic. I'll say one more thing before the thread gets sidetracked to another subject. I remember on my last F75SE that it was exceptionally deep with the 5 inch coil. And in the places I hunt, where tagets are 3 to 6 inches and mingled with alot of iron nails and other iron objects, the 5 in coiled F75 should REALLY bring new life to these area that I hunt. I should NOT have sold my last one. I get caught up in wanting the newest and the latest greatest and all of that. I would have been better off just keeping the last F75se. The batteries last forever in those rigs!!!! My first set, when I first got the unit, lasted so long that I thought the battery strength display was broken. Should be here tomorrow.

Pete ,
You should hear some of the crap that I decriminate out running the E Trac in city parks .......I agree that the F75 is a deep machine , but I haven't got the ears to listen to it .... My buddy says that it's a great machine for wide open fields with less trash .....Otherwise it will drive you nuts .......My ETrac runs smoothly thru the trashy parks ...I can pick and choose what I want to hear or not hear ..... Plenty of filters and adjustments to please even the most picky .......My machine of choice for dirt is the E Trac hands down .....For the beach it's another story ...... You need to spend time learning the E Trac and do your homework ....It's easy for a LOT of people to get intimidated by the E Trac since it has so many items to adjust , but once you get to know the machine, you can set up presets for each area that you hunt in , and just set the mechine on that preset and go ...... Again , this is NOT a machine that you will learn in a week or two and have ti down like a CZ ..... I LOVE my CZ for simplicity , but not in the dirt .....It does not do well with iron .... The CZ ia a great beach machine ......No worries about running in too much iron ..... IT's fast and deep ......In the dirt , there is a LOT more to contend with ......The E trac is the machine for that .....Jim

The E-Trac is the ultimate inner city park machine for deep silver.It also works very well out in the relic sites when set up in TTF two tone ferrous.It will high tone on all targets as a high tone except the smaller iron and rusty nails that will be a low iron grunt.
I love my F75 but it is just my backup after learning the E-Trac....

Kevin,

Sorry for the hijack.

Synth and silverhound-many thanks

No problem. I'm not worried about the hi-jack. In fact I will hi jack my own thread and say something about the E Trac. I had one for three months. In all the sites that I tried to hunt with it, I found very little. My sites are so full of square nails that, even in two tone ferrous, I could here the machine go silent for moment, until I quit swinging the coil. I learned to swing it SLOW to give the unit time to process. I AM NOT A LEARNED FELLOW when it comes to any detetcor. Just a hillbilly who loves to hunto the old sites out in the woods. I found much more stuff with my AT Pro than with the E Trac. But I accept the fact that it was due to my lack of knowledge. I sold the Etrac and got a Tek G2 and started finding stuff. Same with this newer AT Pro. Its a great unit. It didn't need replacing. I just NEEDED to buy another unit, if for no other reason, than it's a TOM proven and TIME proven unit for certain applications. Namely.....relics.

I never thought the F75 done well in iron either. It and the T2 were suited for relic hunting more so than coin hunting IMO. Even in the better soils I hunted in, the way to get the most out of them was motion all metal and ignore the meter and numbers...just go by the philosophy "if it doesn't double blip, dig". Or at the very least, hunt in 1 tone mode and very little discrimination and still ignore the IDs.

On the eTrac I keep seeing on forums that it is a better coin shooter than relic hunter. And when compared to other VLFs, it's not as good at relics as they are. So I developed this mentality as well without ever really trying it. Til a few weeks ago.

I hurt my knee and have been down and not hunting. I took a fella I go to church with for his first relic hunt and I just hobbled along with him using a shovel as a walking stick. I set him up with a Tesoro Tejon and SEF DD coil. Testing it seemed to liven it up some...but after walking with him for over an hour and listening to it false bad while "super tuned", I tried putting it back to normal tune. It sure quietened the falsing down but we still didn't get him a relic. Mean while my buddy Jeff was hunting with his T2 and had several minie balls. Jeff came to see how we were doing and said he was pretty sure he had a bullet he hadn't dug yet. We head that way...ran the Tesoro over the spot...click...click...just clicks. I put it back super tuned to try it...same thing. Jeff digs a minie ball at about 8-9 inches. Well all I had left was the eTrac. We took the Tesoro to the truck and I said to the guy from church "I don't know if this one will do good here either....hot ground and its a coin machine and they say its not good for relics".

I turned it on, select the factory relic pattern and changed a few audio things and let him take off. He made it 4 steps. Good audio. Pinpoint...and minie ball. He ended up with a couple more minies, cannonball frags, and a bormann fuse. Some of the stuff was pretty deep....12-13 inches. It made me go hmmm.

We got out Tuesday this week. Same site except he just got a T2 since he saw how well Jeff done with his. I set it up for him and started on my first hunt of 2012. Not wanting to hurt my knee...we didn't stay long but I found 8 minies in about an HR and a half and did more playing than hunting as I was experimenting with settings and tweaking a disc pattern to the bare minimum. I've now got the eTrac going down to 12-13 inches on bullets and not just shell frags in red dirt. That's pretty good...impressive actually. I still don't think it will handle Culpeper, VA dirt that well though but I was wrong about it not being a good relic hunter too so I'm open to possibilities lol

lol, well this thread was hijacked. But since you are talking about the E-Trac. I just got one recently and have been finding a few bullets, buttons with it. But, man, you hit the nails and Im lost. Glad to see this thread hijacked, sorry, Kevin. Im like Kevin, just a country boy. But really no one around me to help out on detectors;do have a couple buddies but they are pretty much like me.
Im low on cash for now, but I do want to find a machine that will work in these heavy nail spots. Later this summer maybe.
I read so much on TTF. But I have tried it, with a nail rejection pattern, just to many high tones for me. I put more disc in, and its a constant null with a sweep speed thats slower than slow, stop and sweep, stop and sweep, slowly.
I know, Im still learning, but for now it seems this machine is for trashy parks or city lots. Out in the fields if the iron is scattered is where Ive done OK with it, or a very old home where the house is still standing.
Anyway, thanks for touching on the E-Trac.
I didnt realize the F 75 wasnt good for spots with heavy nails.
Thanks,
John

F75 SE w/5" coil is unsurpassed in heavy nail-infested areas. (((Otherwise ... I would be using something different))).

Not only the 5" but the stock dd eliptical coil on the 75 does very well in high nail/trash sites...ya do have to slow way down for your brain to register all the signals though.

My LTD SE w 5" coil is 1st choice when hunting in heavy iron/nails.

Well, I got my F75SE unboxed and put together with 11 inch coil and headed to a nail infested old homeplace out in the country that I had already scanned with the AT Pro. Found several good keepers including two wheaties, and a Herbert Hoover Engineer token. Also, an old boot heel tap. A couple of harmornica reeds. I'm hitting it with the 5 inch coil tomorrow. I have high hopes. The at pro is a great machine, but for me, it is SO fatiguing in iron infestation. It just wears me out. The F75SE is SO much more easy for my nervous system to handle and I can hunt relaxed and actually enjoy the pasttime instead of wearing a constant grimace from ciphering through the obnoxious iron audio if the ATP. I have no regrets at buying my F75SE. And what NasaTom posted about three posts ago built my confidence. I have Tom's inland DVD and I set store by what that man has to say. That's just the how and why of it. But thanks for all replies. Even the hijacks, heck, I don't care about the hijacking as long as you at least keep the topic on metal detectors. LOL Happy Hunting everyone.

If you go over the exact same area (that you just did with the 11" coil)..... but,,,, this time with the 5" coil..... you are in for a surprise. The 'size' of the surprise is dictated by the volume of nails that are in your specific hunt site. The more nails...... the more differential between the 11" vs the 5" DD coil.