Dumbing down the F75

[tnkayaker]

Hi everybody,

I've moved my way up through the Fisher line, starting with the F2, F5 and now the F75 LTD. Let me preface this by saying I love the F5. It found me a lot of great targets. One of my favorite things about it is the unique "nickel" tone when running in 4 tone mode. This tone always stops me in my tracks alerting me to possible gold goodness in the ground. Most of my hunting is parks, schools, yards, and sometimes an old farm house type site.

I am very proficient with the F5, and was only really looking for a bit more depth to reach some older dirt strata. The F5 is great, good solid tones on targets, and a TID that locks on within 1 or 2 numbers.

The F75 is wearing me out. I have read this same complaint from many other users. I have read all, I mean all of the F75 posts on FM, Nasa Tom's site, and FMDF. My unit is a new unit, purchased in Jan of 2015, serial number starts with 11-14. I have tried every setting members have recommended. My problem is both the tone and the TID. This thing will almost never lock on a tone or a TID. Instead of a nice solid beep, I'll get a beee-loop, tick-loo-beeep, etc as I swing over targets. TID on a buried nickel can be 30, 40, 78, 18, switching around. It just takes me so much longer to stop and investigate each target. I find myself digging every semi-solid signal. A thousand dollars is a lot for a beep and dig machine. I know it can do better.

Any advice to help make this thing behave more like my F5? I've tried both 11 and 5 inch DD coils, sense all the way down to 1. Disc at various levels. I would just like to hear some solid tones, less falsing, better TID. And I would really like to be able to get this performance while using 3, 3H, 4, or 4H tones.

Thank you, happy hunting everybody!

 

[mudpuppy]

Where are you at in TN? You seem like a very independent kind of person and dont like to ask for help until you are at your last straw....?

..I have no doubt you could be a real asset here on the Forum to the rest....F2, F5, and now the 75 boys...

If I may, sort of a 'sticking point' to me regarding your request..that jumped out and bit me....

You may be so independent, self taught, that you take the 'good stuff hard earned' by the other brothers here and run off without contributing? I understand the thought process....but damn!...lots of us hunt your TN ground...so to toss out pearls, a fellow has wants to feel a kinship with a brother and not to some guy who wants to jump line....real tight group here who will help you, or let you stumble around in the dark....the choice is yours...

Do a real good write up, about yourself and time afield, upfront and honest...you certainly have the skills, and all these F75 guys here will help, just toss us a bit about yourself to make them want to help....
Mud..

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

I understand where you are coming from, but you want a detector with a target alarm instead of an audio processor. I hate those because it all sounds the same. To each his own.

What will help is run in Default process, low sensitivity (30-40), as few tones as possible (I am getting fond of the 1n). Stay out of FA, Bottlecap and Jewelry processes. Sweep should cover four foot of arc in a second or less. Also try the seven different frequencies to see if any one gives better silence.

If you just hold the unit motionless 1" over the soil is it dead silent? If not, keep lowering the sensitivity.

 

[EtracTom-AdirondacksNY]

Does it read good tones and ID's if you lay coins on the ground and sweep over them?? If not then I will stick my neck out here and from what I read there was some issues with those detectors made or upgraded in November/December 2014 which as you stated yours says it's a 11-14 made machine. Maybe contact the dealer you got it from to see what could be done to possibly check it out or exchange it for one made in Jan or Feb or March of 2015. Apparently there was a non compatibility of software and hardware that was finally figured out and caught because some of the upgraded machines that were being done with older hardware that wouldn't work with the new software upgrade. Your machine may have been one NEW one with an original circuit board that isn't compatible with the NEW software. Hope I don't get my head chopped off for suggesting this to be checked out. Just trying to help you out. I waited until early FEB to send my LTD in to get the upgrade done hoping that the problems had been ironed out by then.

 

[HighPlainsHunter]

I understand where you are coming from, but you want a detector with a target alarm instead of an audio processor. I hate those because it all sounds the same. To each his own.

What will help is run in Default process, low sensitivity (30-40), as few tones as possible (I am getting fond of the 1n). Stay out of FA, Bottlecap and Jewelry processes. [size=medium]Sweep should cover four foot of arc in a second or less[/size]. Also try the seven different frequencies to see if any one gives better silence.

If you just hold the unit motionless 1" over the soil is it dead silent? If not, keep lowering the sensitivity.

Is that really the sweep speed required for the F75? Four feet in a second, or less? That seems awful fast...

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

Faster is deeper. Sweep fast but crawl ahead slowly and really scour an area.

 

[tnkayaker]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Mud, you hit the nail on the head. I am independent, and love to read. Reading everything I could get my hands on has led to proficiency with my F2 and 5. I can run these units mild, hot, anywhere in between and understand what they are telling me. I can usually call targets before I dig and am most often correct.

I have only been detecting for about a year. I live in East TN near Chattanooga. But before you equate that with inexperience, you need to know some about me. Middle age, technically minded and schooled. Single, no kids. Tons of time on my hands and very few demands on that time. I hunt nearly every evening after work for at least an hour, and every weekend venture further out of town and hit some other spots for 4, 6 or 8 hours each day. Tot lots, sports fields, school grounds, freshwater beaches, private homes, farm homes dating to the late 1800's. My primary interests are old coins, and jewelry, but I will "quick broom" up the clad Mud style! Mud I have learned a lot from your posts, and Reviers, and of course Mike Hillis. Not only are the posts informative, but they are written in a fun to read, engaging style. I am not one to post a lot on forums, especially among all of you who are so much more learned about detecting than I am. I often feel I have no additional data to pass on. I would rather stay silent than to give a struggling person poor information. Much of this has to do with just being a quiet person, both in person and online. I have been a bit more active on FMDF than on this forum, but posted this issue here due to the special f-series forum.

Charlie P, thank you for the advice. I have done those things, except for the single tone. I really feel at this price point that the tone options should all viable. I don't like to have to watch the meter until I hear a good solid tone. I know this unit shares much in common with the F70, and Revier seems to get good tones in 4 tone mode and TID variances within one to three numbers. Perhaps not having an independent threshold control on the F75 is contributing to my issue. Perhaps it's the gray matter between my ears that is my problem! LOL Maybe I purchased I Ferrari and want it to perform like a Ford Taurus and it just won't do it. It is very powerful, even at ultra low settings. I could set my F5 in the tot lots to only read the first few inches of woodchips. My 75 with a sense of 1, yes 1, goes so deep it reaches targets beyond the fabric liner laid down under the chips.

E trac Tom, I have to apologize. I made a mistake in my original post about the date of my unit. It is a 12-14. I know about the 11-14 units and made sure when I bought it, it was a later date. I even made a post on FMDF to the vendors as to who had the later models in stock. I have no ma-ma pin point bug, and run my sense low enough for silent search. I will sacrifice depth for lack of chatter. My F75 will give good tones and ID on coins and rings during an airtest. Part of the problem may be the DD coil. I have noticed targets need to be centered VERY well to get good tone and ID. Maybe the loopie tones are due to many of the targets passing under the heel or toe as I first encounter them. But this still requires you to stop and center up each target, and often rotate around it to get good information. I'd like to move a bit faster and cover some ground. Now on an old site, I will slow down and take the time needed, but for fresh drops in the first two or three or less inches I would like to "quick broom" Mudpuppy style!

Thanks again, I have edited my first post to correct the date issue of my F75 LTD

Mark

Oops, won't let me edit the original post again to change that date. Here will have to suffice.

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

I never look at the display until I get a good tone.

I don't rely on pitch so much as what I call the vowels and consonants. Dig "a, e, i, o" but the short, chittery and gutteral "k, j, p, t" tones will be trash (or jewelry). Coins give you a round tones coming and going (deep, on edge may read in only one direction). They sweep as you slowly lift the coil and see if the fade or drop abruptly. The F-75 shares a LOT of information: confidence, Fe3O4, depth (estimate), conductivity. You can tell a lot by observing them all.

If your detector is bubbly and percolates just sitting it will be worse in motion. Drop the sensitivity until it runs quiet. It is a silent search detector in Discrimination (no threshold tone). If you want that - go all metal. You can set the tone and pitch.

I agree you should be able to use all the tone choices. No one said you couldn't. You wanted quiet. That's like asking how to make a racehorse safe at the pony ride ring. Sedate it. I was just offering suggestions. But if you want to go fast you have to accept the occasional bug in the teeth.

I use 3H a lot because I like nickels, but I want to know I'm maximizing my depth for conditions so I accept some falsing. THAT is the "threshold" of the F-75. Running at the point of acceptable clutter noise. We all have different acceptance levels, and may change with caffeine or fatigue. ;-)

 

[Elton]

Hi everybody,

I've moved my way up through the Fisher line, starting with the F2, F5 and now the F75 LTD. Let me preface this by saying I love the F5. It found me a lot of great targets. One of my favorite things about it is the unique "nickel" tone when running in 4 tone mode. This tone always stops me in my tracks alerting me to possible gold goodness in the ground. Most of my hunting is parks, schools, yards, and sometimes an old farm house type site.

I am very proficient with the F5, and was only really looking for a bit more depth to reach some older dirt strata. The F5 is great, good solid tones on targets, and a TID that locks on within 1 or 2 numbers.

The F75 is wearing me out. I have read this same complaint from many other users. I have read all, I mean all of the F75 posts on FM, Nasa Tom's site, and FMDF. My unit is a new unit, purchased in Jan of 2015, serial number starts with 11-14. I have tried every setting members have recommended. My problem is both the tone and the TID. This thing will almost never lock on a tone or a TID. Instead of a nice solid beep, I'll get a beee-loop, tick-loo-beeep, etc as I swing over targets. TID on a buried nickel can be 30, 40, 78, 18, switching around. It just takes me so much longer to stop and investigate each target. I find myself digging every semi-solid signal. A thousand dollars is a lot for a beep and dig machine. I know it can do better.

Any advice to help make this thing behave more like my F5? I've tried both 11 and 5 inch DD coils, sense all the way down to 1. Disc at various levels. I would just like to hear some solid tones, less falsing, better TID. And I would really like to be able to get this performance while using 3, 3H, 4, or 4H tones.

Thank you, happy hunting [size=x-large]everybody!

Doesn't the 11/14 model have a recall of sorts ??? Call Fisher[/size] !!

 

[Coin Rescue Inc]

Try this

To me it sounds like you are not ground balanced properly.
Some times on the upgraded unit it won't do it right if there is EMI. The EMI acts like iron under the coil when you ground balance. So I manually set it at 60 in the all metal mode.
When I get too many wild tones I re-ground balance.
Also once you do ground balance in Discrimination mode you can run quieter by going to manual ground balance in all metal mode and raise the number 1 or 2 points.
Every time you do a factory reset you have to fix the ground balance setting again or you run too high at 80.

 

[tnkayaker]

Sorry Elton, I had the date wrong in my first post. Mine is a 12-14. I corrected it in my second post.

Charlie, excellent way to explain the tones to me, vowels and consonants! I do run in disc mode, low sense with no chatter with coil in the air. I don't work "into the noise" as Fisher says in the manual. I think when it comes to the ticks and such while sweeping, that is just the F75 seeing the very small targets in the ground. Bits of foil, rust flakes, etc that the F2 and F5 ignore. I can understand and handle those sounds. It's just that when I roll over say, a dime, I get a high tone, dropping to a zinc tone, back to high, maybe a short iron grunt, all together. The F5 or F2 would be a high tone, solid and repeat on each sweep. Doesn't seem to be masking as after I dig the dime, the ground gives no more signals in that area. Could be mineralization I suppose. I have one or two bars on the fe meter, and GB at about 60 to 65, so that doesn't seem too bad to me. I'm not sure, still learning =)

Coin rescue-- thank you. I have tried manually raising the GB a number or two, but I don't do this everytime. I will try it everytime I go out and see if it will help. Also, this has come to mind. It has been a wet winter. The ground has been pretty soggy most of the time I have been out hunting. F5 seems ok in the soggy ground, maybe the ultra sensitive F75 will do better when it dries out a bit.

What a great community here,
Thank you!

Mark

 

[mudpuppy]

Thanks for your backstory! I like it!

I believe Elton may be right...better call Fisher, something doesnt sound like it should with your rig...especially what you are getting on that nickel being all over the spectrum....if you were a complete noob, sure maybe we could write this off to set up or operator error,

I believe you got the basics down and tried everything else to rule out anything simple..so what the heck..call them, they are on central time...then tomorrow early, fire up your 5 or 2 and go ransack! Then report back here...you have a gift for writing and we would love to see some of your finds!!
Mud..

 

[tnkayaker]

Thanks for your kind words Mud! Hope it's okay to post links here I didn't see anything against it.

Here's a link to my year end totals:

http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=205318

I intend to get out in the morning if the rain is not too heavy, and Sunday is supposed to be 70 degrees and sunny. Got a few totters in a town North of here to check out, and maybe a trip back to an old farm house close by I have permission for. I'll let ya know how it goes this weekend. Just a disclaimer, I did start dating a new woman a while ago. I hope she doesn't cut into my detecting time too much! Last weekend we took her little girl (5 years old) out to a local park and I picked out targets and let her dig them (with close supervision) She dug a few coins, an earring, and an old mood ring. She was tickled to death! Gotta get them started young

 

[squirrel1]

Tnkayaker,
The soil in your area is not the greatest. It may/will cause TID reading variations on sweeps; especially on deeper targets. Have air tested your unit??? And have you taken your unit to a remote/more isolated site. My F75 LTD2 model, I have been able to run full bore in 9.0, 99 sens, 0 disc, bp mode and no noise at all. You can't even tell the unit is on. Granted this is not in town. To me after reading your post, something doesn't sound right.

 

[digsgti]

F75 is more of a dig and see machine. Solid ID and tone aren't really strong points for it. More of a relic hunters machine than a coin hunters. It works best when you want to recover all nonferrous targets.

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

Mine's pretty consistant with coin TID numbers. I logged all of my early (2007/ finds and still check against my original notes. Usually with a range of two or three numbers for any given coin type.

I have considered it more of a coin machine than a relic machine (like my Minelab Musketeer Advantage - doesn't know a coin from a bottlecap from a foil bottle seal).

 

[ddmk6]

The F75 is wearing me out. I have read this same complaint from many other users. I have read all, I mean all of the F75 posts on FM, Nasa Tom's site, and FMDF. My unit is a new unit, purchased in Jan of 2015, serial number starts with 11-14. I have tried every setting members have recommended. My problem is both the tone and the TID. This thing will almost never lock on a tone or a TID. Instead of a nice solid beep, I'll get a beee-loop, tick-loo-beeep, etc as I swing over targets. TID on a buried nickel can be 30, 40, 78, 18, switching around. It just takes me so much longer to stop and investigate each target. I find myself digging every semi-solid signal. A thousand dollars is a lot for a beep and dig machine. I know it can do better.

Any advice to help make this thing behave more like my F5? I've tried both 11 and 5 inch DD coils, sense all the way down to 1. Disc at various levels. I would just like to hear some solid tones, less falsing, better TID. And I would really like to be able to get this performance while using 3, 3H, 4, or 4H tones.

Thank you, happy hunting everybody!

Man...do I feel your pain...I have a 1-15 unit but I have exactly the same symptoms. I have tried it with the 11" coil, 5" coil and the Nel sharpshooter coil. Hiigh sens, low sens and everywhere in between. I never know what is going to come out of the ground. I normally hunt by sound then look at the ID to verify. This LDT2 might as well not have a screen. ID's bounce all over the place and are rarely correct. Tones are all over the place as well, rarely get one solid tone. I have been doing the same thing as you...get a solid tone....dig...I have a pile of trash that would make the junk man happy.

Got a solid high tone this evening that just screamed DIME...ID said it was DIME 6" deep. I dig it up......Freakin ZINC at 3". I was in DE mode, 14 disc, Sens at 50, 4H tones. Doesn't seem to matter what mode, what sens, or what disc. Results are pretty much the same.

I thought it was just me....Been beating myself up trying to learn this machine. Thinking it can't be that difficult. Maybe it's not....Maybe it is just me LOL.

Please post up if you get this beast tamed down. I'm going to call Fisher Monday and see if I can get some help. Been hitting it hard for almost 2 weeks with this new machine, so far I can't figure out what makes it happy. Oh...small disclaimer...I have a Whites GMT, GPX 5000, AT Gold as well as this LTD2. Been detecting for about 8 years or so.

Kenny

 

[Nailed-it]

I just got my f75 about 2 weeks ago am I also trying to learn it. I too find that the vdi numbers are all over the place. Even on shallow targets. at first I put on the 11" coil but took it off and have since been hunting with the 5". I have been hunting with an etrac for about the last 3 years and decided to try a different one. With this f75 I have noticed several things , one of them being unstable vdi. Also I noticed that almost most targets show a 16-13" depth when pinpointing . Another one is that foil often high tones. I'm trying to stick with it, but I don't mnow. Maybe something is wrong. Also my units control housing moves from the simple force of connecting a new coil and when pushing the button. Is this normal? Any one else have any of these issues? Thanks

 

[basstrackerman]

Try doing a factory reset.. Air test some coins before and after reset.. My F70 would sometimes act this way,i do factory reset and back to perfect..

 

[mudpuppy]

Thats good advice Basstrackerman...that really is the last hope I would think after reading these posts...thats not right at all...they should be able to fly over an area and lock on tight to a good target with none of this going on...especially dialed down and all...should hit a target like a train and be dead on...

I sort of know that dirt in tnKayakers area when I zip through there with the F70...clay/cert type of deal, sort of hot, but not unhuntable..I use the same settings I use up here in MI and everywhere else..

heck?...well, at least this post pulled out a lot of guys who have been suffering all alone in frustration. Sometimes I guess 'Group Therapy' does work!
Mud