The power of the F70...

Greetings all!
I love this place, been lurking for ahile but I have thousands of posts on other forums.
I got an F70 last December and it is amazing, found silver, gold and a mess of coins right away, but such a total newb with this thing still even after about 50 hours or so.
Tom's stuff is bookmarked and read over and over, along with all other great and technical comments and opinions plus everything else I can find using the F70/F75 for optimum depth and ID of my finds in the dirt.

I am anal about learning to get the best out of my detectors, considering all of the possible settings on the F70, and the fact that I am messing around with just about each and every signal trying to see exactly what effect the thresh, sensitivity, speed, and disc changes will do, it will probably be awhile before I settle down with the right settings for me for every situation, set the thing and just go hunt, but I can't tell you how much fun doing it this way is for me.
Learning a new detector an trying to get the absolute best out of it is just about as fun for me as digging the great finds.

I have a log I started on another forum the day I first hunted with this thing, I like to do that to to watch my progression and just to help anyone else out that might read it so they might be able to use something I have discovered without putting in the time and effort I have to do it.
Like I said, experimentation is a labor of love for me, but I know others just want to get to the good stuff and go.

I had a short hunt the other day and even though most everyone here probably knows way more than me about the technical stuff, I will post this kinda long story about depth and the F70.
One of my goals right now is to determine how deep I can go in disc, what settings to have to hit those deeper targets without needing to max out the thing and deal with a super ton of noise...even though I can and no amount of noise will bother me as long as I hear that good tone that triggers me to dig and find that great stuff no matter how deep.
I need to have confidence in some lower sense settings, don't want to miss anything in case I am not maxed out in disc or all metal, and on this hunt on this particular target I got a very good idea about just how amazingly powerful this detector really is.


I can be verbose, but if reading this helps just one other person understand or gain more confidence in their detector it is worth it to me to spend the time writing these experiences up in this way.

My soil is unusually good.
I usually GB in numbers from the high 40's into the 50's...a few sites in the low 60's but mid 50's is common.
One bar on my dirt meter is common, zero bars happens a lot of times too.
This hunt was with the 11" F75 DD coil mounted.


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Last week I had chance to hunt a few hours one evening night before it got dark.
A Jr. College right near my house.
Been here a million times, took a ton of clad when I first came here but not a whole lot left, 3 gold rings from different areas so far too.
Just wanted to see if I cold still find clad I left behind in the past.
All settings were where I left them from the last hunt.
Disc was lowered to 4 because I still want to find the tiniest chains, everything else was left alone except thresh was lowered to -3, DE, sense at 30, 4H tones, notch always at 1.
These are my coin hunting settings in extreme trash because they have the effect of shrinking the scanning field on my coil, even my 11" coil, and it enables me to recognize and pluck the better coin signals out of a massive sea of trash.
Still not exactly sure how deep that 30 sense will get me at this point, but I have picked up a few coins at the 5-6" mark set this way in the past.
Also these seem to be some extremely quiet settings to hunt with, even in high EMI sites not much falsing going on at all.
I swung away and ding, ding, ding, found some coins pretty easily, a few pieces of trash, avoided most other trash that was jumpy and so on...a nice short but productive hunt.
These settings are excellent for shallow coin and jewelry hunting, I will probably keep them around but again, still not sure on the depth they will go.

Near the end of this hunt I came across a dime signal.
Solid 78, no jumpy numbers at all, solid tone and numbers from every direction, the depth reading said 5" deep and there was no trash or other signal near it.
Wish it was a bit deeper but this was the one I could do a little trial and error on.
I knew it was a dime with every fiber of my being, hoped for a silver ring but 99.9999% sure I had a dime under my coil.
I stopped and played with this awhile with every setting I could think of to figure out a little more about depth on low settings.

The sense was still on 30, I started lowering down the sense while swinging in short passes over this thing.
When I got down to about 23 it started breaking up a bit, at about 21 it became a signal I would not dig anymore.
Also something weird happened when I got to about 24 while it was still a solid signal I would dig, the high tone in 4H changed and became weird sounding.
Very weird sounding.
Still solid, still repeated, but it was not full sounding at all like half of the tonal qualities just went away.
Hard to explain but I didn't like it.
At that point I started adjusting the thresh and moved it from -3 to -2.
The tone got a bit louder but still sounded weird.
Then I went to 20 on the sense and I lost the signal completely.
It was gone.
I moved the thresh up one notch to -1 and it came back again, solid and repeating but still weird sounding.
Thresh back to -2 gone, up to -1 back...I did this several times.
No breaking up or iffy signal at any time during this, it was just like a wall went up at -2 and went down where I got a signal again at -1.
Strange.
I moved it up one more notch to 0 and it was a bit louder and I left it there.
Then I switched from DE to SL at this point and the signal came back, sounded clear and full, and everything was all right with the world again.
The 78 number stayed solid and stable throughout all of this except when the tone went away completely and then the number did too.
One more thing to do.
I lowered the sense one more number to 19 and the signal was still there in all its glory, one more move down to 18 and it was totally gone again.

Ok, lets take stock of what we have at this point.
Thresh on 0, 4H, SL, Sense at 19, Disc on 4, dead quiet, no falsing or extra noise at all and by scraping the coil on the ground I was picking up a for sure dig me dime at a supposedly 5".
Impressive!
Now these are the kind of things I need to know to give me confidence in hunting at really quiet settings at or even below the factory start up 60 and still feel I can find deeper coins at 7-8" or maybe a bit more if I had to.
Not sure I will ever do this but it is nice to know I could if needed.

At that point I picked up the coil 1" off the ground, swung and the signal was gone.
If this thing really was at 5" this was the limit in my ground at these settings.
I turned the sense back up to 30 and I could raise the coil another 2 inches or so and still get the signal solid.
That would be 7" on 30 sense.
I turned up the sense to 40 and I could raise the coil 2 more inches and still get that solid signal every time I passed the coil over it.
9" on 40 sense.
Up to 50 on the sense, two more inches on the coil upwards, 11" on 50 sense with 6" air and 5" in the ground and that was all I needed to know.
Talk about confidence building!

All that was left now was to dig the coin.
I opened a hole, dug down slowly, got to the coin which of course was a dime and I took out a small plastic 8" ruler that I carry in my pocket which I get free from my bank and stuck it in the hole and put it right where the dime was laying.
Looking sideways across the top of the hole at the very edge of the grass where I was scraping my coil I saw the number 5 on the ruler.

Alrighty then...this is data that I can use to my advantage!

Hunting in lower quieter settings and still expecting to go deep with confidence, I think so.
I will do this test again, maybe on the next deeper target I come across to make sure this is not a fluke but it looks good.

Maybe I don't need to hunt on maxed out crazy settings to find the deep ones.
I don't mind doing it, but why do it and put up with a lot of extra noise if I don't have to?

More experimenting to do, but this was a very good day in the life of me.

Remember, your mileage may be different.
My soil is unusually great, I GB at the mid 40's to mid 50's most of the time, 1 bar on the dirt meter is common but a lot of times I don't even see 1.

All of this was done while using the 11" DD F75 coil.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2014 04:37PM by diggwr27.

Hi,,,,That was a very good book report, I actually finished a coffee reading it..LoL...This is the type of data/information gathering that is needed to eventually put you at the top of your game....I will caution you that given another area the same rules/settings may not apply....Also an increase or decrease in the soil moisture content will make you fluctuate your settings..You at least now have a very good starting point and spent your time wisely....Thanks for sharing.....JJ

I think it is time for you to move up to the F75 LTD

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

[www.youtube.com]

If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

LOL!

It took me awhile but I got so good with the F2 it freaks people out when they see what I have found...10 gold targets just in 2013 alone with that one among other great treasure.
Only a couple of settings on the F2, the F70 has what, about a million more possible?
My mind is already blown, I think I will just spend time with this and get as good as I can before I add the even more adjustments possible on the F75 to blow my mind even further.
I have the 5" DD sniper coil and the standard elliptical to play with, found silver on my first hunt and gold with the concentric coil at about hour 8 after I got it, and I have the 11"DD that is currently living on the bottom of my rod for now for so far unbelievable depth.
I am finding great targets shallow and up to 10" with the elliptical, those depths and further easily with the big DD, and a few times I have acquired, identified and have gone down to 15" and dug targets so depth is not even close to being any kind of an issue.
I have seen pinpoint depth numbers up to 18" on a few targets a few times, haven't dug any yet but I am getting curiouser and curiouser about those.
The F75 has boost, but I have SL speed and it seems to work fantastically well in my almost perfect soil.
I think I am cool for now...but someday.
All those extra cool little adjustments on the F75 are neat, but I got me a lean and mean deep hitter on my hands and this is going to be a great and I hope surprising season that is just starting for me.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2014 05:14PM by diggwr27.

The f-70 is a great unit, my buddy uses one. I lent him the 11" dd and it stays on his machine, I think he likes it.

ozzie Wrote:
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> The f-70 is a great unit, my buddy uses one. I
> lent him the 11" dd and it stays on his machine, I
> think he likes it.


It seems amazing and surprises me on almost every hunt.
Like it...if I didn't already have a wife, and this thing could cook, I think I could marry it.

I think the Whites V3i can cook.....and do laundry!

Your 'technical' learning intent is exacting/proper.....diggwr27. Even if you switch over to different detectors/brands....... your knowledge & 'dirt feel' will transition. Really no need to switch detectors; yet, some year... you may. F70 in SL mode..... with 11" DD coil .... is nearly a standard F75.
Very good documentation/thread.

NASA-Tom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Your 'technical' learning intent is
> exacting/proper.....diggwr27. Even if you switch
> over to different detectors/brands....... your
> knowledge & 'dirt feel' will transition. Really no
> need to switch detectors; yet, some year... you
> may. F70 in SL mode..... with 11" DD coil .... is
> nearly a standard F75.
> Very good documentation/thread.


Thanks Tom!
I am just a curious kind of guy and enjoy the process of discovering and learning everything I possibly can about what I swing.
I own and use 5 different detectors and all have their little quirks and language, found great things with all of them from the beginning, but all seemed to become even more fun to use and even more productive as I learned about how they really work.
Kinda like life.
You are my role model in this, the F70 is most advance detector I own so far and what you do, what you write about and how you delve into the technical aspects so deep is so entertaining and enlightning for me it is crazy...and I thank you for that.

NASA-Tom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Your 'technical' learning intent is
> exacting/proper.....diggwr27. Even if you switch
> over to different detectors/brands....... your
> knowledge & 'dirt feel' will transition. Really no
> need to switch detectors; yet, some year... you
> may. F70 in SL mode..... with 11" DD coil .... is
> nearly a standard F75.
> Very good documentation/thread.
You are exactly right Tom, "nearly a standard F75", but where the EMI affects the F75 more the F70 might prevail.

Look at what this guy says about the F70



[www.fisherlab.com]

Welcome diggwr27
I enjoyed reading up on you f70 threads on another forum.iI used the f75 for 4.5 years,super machine along with the f70.
Corey