[size=small]Quote: Ea333525:
"Does anyone have an opinion on the best coil for the f44? I mainly hunt for coins but obviously like to find anything of value. Thanks! "[/size]
I have an F44 in my Regular-Use Detector Outfit [size=small](actually I have two of them)[/size] that I acquired to have on-hand as a 'loaner unit' and also as a casual-use detector with visual and audio Target ID for urban Coin & Jewelry Hunting uses. I have three detectors that are assigned to my get-serious Relic Hunting Team, and three different models I have in my urban Coin & Jewelry Hunting Team. The F44 is in that latter group.
I've been at this for well over half-a-century and know that the majority of the lost coins to be found ... have been! The hey-day was terrific and I wish we had them back, but there are still a lot of left-over coins that were missed, and while we don't see the amount of outdoor site use we once enjoyed, or wear the same types of clothes for easy coin loss, there is still enough modern change to keep us occupied if we want to be. We have a lot more modern trash discarded than we dealt with in those earlier times, from about '65 through the mid-'90s, and much of it is non-ferrous junk such as foil of all sizes, ring-pull tabs, pry-tabs, screw caps, condiment packets, foil lids from plastic beverage containers and on, and on ...
It can be frustrating, and then there are the magnetic-based ferrous trash items we also encounter like the crimp-style bottle caps.
Fortunately, most of the discarded trash it relatively shallow and that makes it a little easier to classify using the visual VDI read-out and audio Tone ID responses. But there is a lot of it and that means it will cause more good-target masking and since it makes most commonly-hunted sites trashier, smaller-than-standard search coils can work to our advantage. I am not, and never have been, a fan of a standard to larger-size search coil such as the 8", 9", 10", 11" and 12" round coils that have 'standard' on most detectors ... and getting bigger every few years. Nor do I care for most mid-size to larger elliptical coils like a 5X9, 6X10, 7X112, 8X12 etc., etc., and definitely not the odd-looking 'egg-shape' or 'tear-drop' shaped coils on the F22 and F44. Not for typically trashy urban Coin Hunting.
I prefer smaller-than stock coils and one F44 I ordered came with the 7X11 DD, but it stays in the box. On that unit I mounted a 5" DD to be ready-to-grab for trashier sites. My other F44 I ordered new w/o the funny-looking tear-drop Concentric coil, and instead got it with the round 7" Concentric coil. Back in early 2010 I bought a new Omega 8000 that came with the 5½X9¾ Concentric, 7X11 DD and 5" DD. I liked the 5" DD, and used the Concentric for a short while, but changed to the 8" Concentric off of a Delta. It worked much better and I got rid of the other coils, keeping only the 5" DD and 8" Concentric.
Summer to fall of last year I bought a clean used Omega 8000 but got the 7" Concentric coil for it, and I really liked the performance with that coil. So I got another 7" coil for an F44 I also bought, and later bought a 2nd F44 with the 7" Concentric standard on it. I keep the extra new coil in my Accessory Coil Tote just to have on-hand. In my Outfit I consider a 7" Concentric coil up to a 5X9½ coil to be "Mid-Sized" and all my other units keep a smaller-size coil mounted. I hunt in dense trash.
I have a 7" Concentric mounted on my Makro Racer 2 full-time and 7" Concentric on my main-use F44 full-time. The round Concentric coils are much easier to Pinpoint with, accurately, compared with most mid-size and larger DD coils or other coils, of any type, that are not a round-shape. With the F44 I get very ample depth-of-detection for most commonly lost coins and jewelry in all the typical urban hunting sites, and the 7" does an OK job in common urban trash, too.
So, in my efforts to find "anything of value" using an F44, my search coil suggestions are those two: 7" Concentric and 5' DD.
Monte
"Does anyone have an opinion on the best coil for the f44? I mainly hunt for coins but obviously like to find anything of value. Thanks! "[/size]
I have an F44 in my Regular-Use Detector Outfit [size=small](actually I have two of them)[/size] that I acquired to have on-hand as a 'loaner unit' and also as a casual-use detector with visual and audio Target ID for urban Coin & Jewelry Hunting uses. I have three detectors that are assigned to my get-serious Relic Hunting Team, and three different models I have in my urban Coin & Jewelry Hunting Team. The F44 is in that latter group.
I've been at this for well over half-a-century and know that the majority of the lost coins to be found ... have been! The hey-day was terrific and I wish we had them back, but there are still a lot of left-over coins that were missed, and while we don't see the amount of outdoor site use we once enjoyed, or wear the same types of clothes for easy coin loss, there is still enough modern change to keep us occupied if we want to be. We have a lot more modern trash discarded than we dealt with in those earlier times, from about '65 through the mid-'90s, and much of it is non-ferrous junk such as foil of all sizes, ring-pull tabs, pry-tabs, screw caps, condiment packets, foil lids from plastic beverage containers and on, and on ...
It can be frustrating, and then there are the magnetic-based ferrous trash items we also encounter like the crimp-style bottle caps.Fortunately, most of the discarded trash it relatively shallow and that makes it a little easier to classify using the visual VDI read-out and audio Tone ID responses. But there is a lot of it and that means it will cause more good-target masking and since it makes most commonly-hunted sites trashier, smaller-than-standard search coils can work to our advantage. I am not, and never have been, a fan of a standard to larger-size search coil such as the 8", 9", 10", 11" and 12" round coils that have 'standard' on most detectors ... and getting bigger every few years. Nor do I care for most mid-size to larger elliptical coils like a 5X9, 6X10, 7X112, 8X12 etc., etc., and definitely not the odd-looking 'egg-shape' or 'tear-drop' shaped coils on the F22 and F44. Not for typically trashy urban Coin Hunting.
I prefer smaller-than stock coils and one F44 I ordered came with the 7X11 DD, but it stays in the box. On that unit I mounted a 5" DD to be ready-to-grab for trashier sites. My other F44 I ordered new w/o the funny-looking tear-drop Concentric coil, and instead got it with the round 7" Concentric coil. Back in early 2010 I bought a new Omega 8000 that came with the 5½X9¾ Concentric, 7X11 DD and 5" DD. I liked the 5" DD, and used the Concentric for a short while, but changed to the 8" Concentric off of a Delta. It worked much better and I got rid of the other coils, keeping only the 5" DD and 8" Concentric.
Summer to fall of last year I bought a clean used Omega 8000 but got the 7" Concentric coil for it, and I really liked the performance with that coil. So I got another 7" coil for an F44 I also bought, and later bought a 2nd F44 with the 7" Concentric standard on it. I keep the extra new coil in my Accessory Coil Tote just to have on-hand. In my Outfit I consider a 7" Concentric coil up to a 5X9½ coil to be "Mid-Sized" and all my other units keep a smaller-size coil mounted. I hunt in dense trash.
I have a 7" Concentric mounted on my Makro Racer 2 full-time and 7" Concentric on my main-use F44 full-time. The round Concentric coils are much easier to Pinpoint with, accurately, compared with most mid-size and larger DD coils or other coils, of any type, that are not a round-shape. With the F44 I get very ample depth-of-detection for most commonly lost coins and jewelry in all the typical urban hunting sites, and the 7" does an OK job in common urban trash, too.
So, in my efforts to find "anything of value" using an F44, my search coil suggestions are those two: 7" Concentric and 5' DD.
Monte
Not only are they ugly-looking, at least to me, but bigger-size open-frame coils tend to hang-up too often in dense, stiff weeds, harvested fields, and in woodsy areas. Also elliptical Concentric designs do not pinpoint as well as round-shaped Concentrics. So I didn't even order one of my F44's with that standard coil. I much prefer the round [size=small]