wyndysweep said:
Revier - I understand you use to live in Alabama. I live in Northern Alabama just south of the Tennessee state line. Would the F2 be a good beginners detector & with which coils. Or do I need to step up to the F4 - I am trying to keep the cost down since I will be new to this hobby. I will also use it when we go out in the RV and also a couple of times a year at Gulf Shores. Any suggestions will be appreciated - thanks.
Honest opinion, any coils will work well on the F2 and you should find much.
I happen to know that the soil is a little better in the north part of the state, you can probably get a couple more inches than I could in Birmingham.
At my old home we had that heavy, red dirt mineralization that most of the SE has but on top of that we had a huge amount of naturally occurring veins of iron and so much of the soil was also saturated with tiny nodules of iron pellets that you could pick them up with a magnet if you ran one through the soil in a large part of that area.
You don't have that problem.
In my area even a DD coil on my Vaquero could not make much headway into the ground, but that never stopped me from finding all sorts of great targets, coins jewelry and relics with my F2, my Vaquero and my Compadre.
Great depth isn't the be all 100% of the time in this hobby.
Some say the DD coil version will go a bit deeper than the 8" concentric, especially in mineralized soil, and it is a favorite for many hunters.
I never used one on the F2 but I do have experience using them on others and I do like them for covering large areas because of the long scanning field, but I prefer to use concentrics if I had a choice of only one kind available because of the pop top thing.
DD coils have that longer, deeper scanning field but they also are a little less sharp on the discrimination so some of those high end pop tops might fool you and mimic dimes and quarters.
This is not much of a problem at all using the concentrics, in my experience, and that experience includes hunting in some extremely trashy sites just loaded with these things.
The 10" coil in decent ground should go at least as deep as the DD coil, actually a bit deeper in good soil, but again, the scanning field is not as wide so heavy overlapping is called for to use one efficiently.
No matter what coil you use I also recommend having the 4" sniper coil close at hand.
It costs hardly anything in the multiple package set ups, and even aftermarket they are only in the $30-$40 range new.
That is the coil I use the most and it has found me close to $2000 worth of clad and jewelry in the last 18 months I have been using it.
Here are your choices if you are considering the F series lower end detector packages as I see it.
$275 or so, (call all dealers and get a real world price), gets you an F2 and the DD coil.
That same amount will get you a 3 coil package with the 4-8 and 10" coil set plus a cheap but usable handheld pinpointer if you don't already have one.
Not a great pinpointer but it does work...kinda.
About $215 will get you a 2 coil F2 package, (4" and 8"), plus the F Point handheld pinpointer...probably the most popular package sold and one of the best values.
This is the one I started with and I eventually purchased a 10" coil aftermarket which actually cost me about the same as if I would have spent if I started with the 3 coil package.
That 10" coil definitely goes a bit deeper than the 8" version and when I got it I all but retired my 8" coil.
$200 will get you the F2 and only the 8" coil, but it will cost you more than that extra $15 to get that sniper coil in the future...and you do want that sniper coil no matter what other coils you end up with.
$399 new, or so, will get you an F4 and that DD coil.
This is, in my opinion, way too much for actually what you get and more importantly what you will actually use.
There is a chance that the combination of that DD coil and the manual GB on that unit could get you a little deeper in that soil than the F2 and a DD coil or one of the 2 larger concentric coils, however...
The manual GB
only works on the all metal side and does not switch over to the disc side which is preset from the factory just like the F2.
I am a fan of using units with some sort of adjustable ground balance because that feature can't hurt and can only help even in areas with good soil.
That being said I have experience hunting in some of the worst soil in the country and now some of the best here in Kansas and I could tell you that I rarely ever hunted in all metal and a large amount of hunters never do.
There is just so much iron out there plus so much other garbage unless I am just relic hunting, hunting in all metal is just a very fatiguing way to hunt for me.
That extra $185 I would have spent on an F4 instead of my F2 would have been a waste for me.
It would have given me no advantage in Birmingham at all, and here in Kansas as much as the GB "might" be helpful I still seem to go super deep here without it and using the concentric coils.
Again, that F4 set up could be a good choice for some in certain situations over all the other configurations, but I usually recommend that if people are willing to spend the $400 for an F4 they might as well save up a few more bucks and aim for an F5 instead...a definite upgrade over the F2 and well worth the money and very value oriented for all the features you get.
I happened to come across a $400 deal on a brand new F70 and that is the one I am currently using and very happy to swing, but this kind of a deal is usually very rare.
Who knows other than a technical engineer? I think the key words here are "interactions between control settings and signals" I guess our job is to only wonder why--------- and to find stuff 
I loved this forum, it gets me all juiced up and ready to hunt. I gather up all the info you guys provide, tune my machine, head out into the early morning get to the park at sunrise, coffee in hand and away I go -------------- stop, backup, by the time I reach the third stop light and turn into the park I can't remember a thing 
I have to admit, this has, somehow, translated into more finds for me this year. Peace, Dan