Deep detectors not always deep

[wildherre]

I saw a post on another forum from a dude thinking of buying a F75...I'm posting this in hopes it may help someone ...
I use a CTX & also have a F75 LTD, black & a T2 Ltd, black.. I have the F75 for use in tall grass and such where I cant scrub the ground like the Minelabs like or just want something different..... EMI can be a problem with the T2 & F75... I also discriminate by depth a lot and seldom dig anything less than 6 inches The CTX is much better at this than the T2 & F75.....About a month ago I was hunting a park on the edge of a small town with my CTX &17" coil.. This is a beautiful area and I hear that it has been the site for many club hunts in the past .. The CTX was running smoothly in auto sens mode at around 24 or so...I found a couple things and decided to concentrate on a area with more trash than what was comfortable with the 17 so I thought Id just grab the F75 outta the car since it already had the 11" coil on it... As soon as I turned it on I knew I was in trouble... I did the whole frequency shift rooty toots but still noisy.. I would have had to run the sensitivity in the high 30s to low 40s to get it quiet enough to use even in non boost mode.... I know from many back to back tests that to get close to the performance of the CTX it needs to be in boost & at a pretty high sensitivity level, say 70 or so....Back to the car I went and put the 11" coil on the CTX. As I was walking back to the spot I was thinking that others has had probably had emi problems here before and I can probably pick out a few deepies... Ive been over this area myself in the past with FBS machines with moderate success ....
With the 11" coil, after a noise cancel I was able to hunt at 30 manual (highest setting) but was getting some nulling so bumped it down to 28 for the rest of the evening... I normally don't dig much trash and with the ground being dry and hard I was even less aggressive.... Here is a pic of the results of two hours of hunting....This is everything, including junk that I dug in that 2 hours..... There are places where I can run the sensitivity higher on the T2 & F75 and get acceptable results but would hate to have to depend on them..... I have had good luck with the T2 but miss the 4 tones in boost that the F75 has & the T2 don't....In open fields and areas with sparse targets the T2 and F75 in all metal mode get really good depth.. Ive used Minelabs for years for coins in parks type hunting and for a unit that you can count on the Explorer/ Etracs are hard to beat with good depth and accurate Id & depth indications....The CTX just takes the old FBS technology to a higher level... wildherre

 

[hershey1]

I agree. I thought the E-Trac was the top hog at the trough using 2 tone ferrous in trashy places until along came the CTX 3030. There is just nothing even close. I also have the F-75 LTD that I use mostly for CW relic hunting and like you said there are places that EMI over takes the machine. It would be nice if a person could lease a machine for a month or so before laying down the big bucks on a machine that they were unhappy with. HH

 

[sweepdog]

i think that reading a lot of posts on forums can give a very good idea what detectors can do. we have to look for honest posts like yours that are not brand biased. there are machines that excel over others in certain ways. there is nothing that replaces actual time hunting and learning a machine well. just to give an example of when trying to decide on a salt water machine. seeing what the majority of hunters are using says it all. the excallibur is what almost everybody is using.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Good post. You are right: I've seen some fellows fall for the hype on depth of certain machines. And sure, in some conditions/places, perhaps they're deep. But they fail in other areas. A fellow with an F75 in my area, read that it got the same depth as the power-house explorer, AND got better target separation (lightening fast "beeps") than the explorer. So in his mind's eyes, it should be an explorer-killer, right? But in actual practice, the explorer spanked him, because all the beeps sounded the same to him, so he was forced to dig a lot more clutter. While I could be selective and chase *just* the signals I wanted.

He blamed it on EMI, and I think he ceased, from then on, to try to use the F75 in turf-hunting (where, a little selectiveness is often in order).

 

[Steve O]

In my test garden the ML SE and the f-75 get the same depth, wide open. Neither will hit the 10" quarter and barley hit the 9" dime. My cz will hit them all, w/ equal coil sizes of course. Not an easy soil around here and it varies from place to place.

Would be nice if every machine had noise cancel like the Minelabs....love that feature. On the 75, you can change frequency's but only in fractions, and doesn't help a heck of allot in most places where EMI exists.

Around old home sites where iron is abundant, the 75 is the tool that has proven to me to work best at separation. I even prefer the 11" bi-axel dd over the 5".

I would choose the SE second and the cz way last, in iron.

Farm fields where separation isn't necessary, the cz will be working, as I need the depth for the old coins. There are some places that are loaded with coke and hot rocks that the 75 won't tolerate, out comes the SE and it will surprise you what it can do in that crap.

From what I've been reading, the only "all around unit" so far would be the ML CTX 3030. That's if you only had a choice to have one machine for all styles and types of detecting.

 

[Sven]

I have tried a number of those so called deep machines that folks rave about, only to be disappointed when they don't work better than some of the less expensive machines.
Biggest problem is trashy enviroments compounded with ever present EMI that robs a detector of so claimed performance. In the areas I hunt EMI is a killer. Funny thing I found is that some of the older machines are not effected by EMI or as much and then get superior depth than those new depth demons. Funny thing Tesoros handle EMI pretty well........

Wild One, thanks for the post, long ago I was inspired by your posts and group that resulted in buying my first Sov. An honest machine that lived up to it's claims.

 

[GoVidGo]

DEPTH a combination of 3 things:

• the detector/coil
• the ground/conditions
• the set-up of the detector

I have a V3i and got a GREAT program for it a few months ago. The V3i is one of the most programable detectors out there, way more programmable than my Etrac with the Xchange. I agree that the FBS is great. The V3i sends out 3 frequencies and processes 3 frequencies. The Minelab FBS sends out 28 frequencies, on a wider spectrum, and processes the best 3 frequencies. These multi-signal technologies help so much, just like in the CTX3030.
With that, I set my V3i up for my swing speed, ground conditions, etc here in western PA with that program I found. My AT Pro, T2, or Etrac....as well as my friend's CTX3030 nor my other friend's DEUS will NOT hit on some 12"+ targets the V3i will with the combination of those. We tried it on targets out in the field on some fun days when someone hit a silver coin, some brass object, etc. Some didn't register and others we decided we probably would not have dug, as they were iffy that deep, but turned out to be good targets!

IF you can meet all three of the criteria.... the right detector/coil....with the proper programming/set-up.... for your hunting conditions/environment... you will get depth, especially with these top of the line machines.