F-70 observations............

[amberjack]

if your happy and you know it hows the rest of that go?

like I tell my friend if your happy nothing else matters

AJ

 

[shadowulf]

Air tests don't do the F70 justice. I've stopped trying them on mine because even the numbers seem off.
But if its in the ground, this machine sniffs it out.

Looking forward to more of your observations/confimations on the F70.
I'm thinking of pulling together all the tips, tricks & settings into a post as a reference. This machine gets very little love except from those that own it.
And it might be , as you seemed to have discovered, a better machine for general use than most think.
YMMV

 

[tabman]

Elton, I got this off the net:

WHY AM I CALLING THIS AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE TEKNETICS T2? MANY DEALERS RECIEVED THE FOLLOWING EMAIL FROM A FISHER DISTRIBUTOR. I AM SHARING IT HERE.

For those receiving inquiries regarding availability on the T2’s and F-75’s…Don’t let the customer hang up or walk out…Let them know there is a great substitute that IS available right now

The F-70 operates on the same frequency as both the T2 and F-75 which makes for very good sensitivity to gold nuggets. (13 kHz) Altho the F-70 comes standard with a 10” concentric coil (unlike the T2 & F-75 which come with the 11” DD) it also can use the same coils as the F-75. There are a few different ways the F-70 is packaged, 2 coils or 3 coil packs available.

Some other very desirable features that make this a high end performing unit:

On screen confidence meter

Frequency shift to quiet possible interference

Constant on screen display of ground mineralization

Runs on 4 AA batteries for around 40 hrs of life

This is a very user friendly machine that is capable of very deep detection. Some people think that because of it’s lower pricing, it must be less of a performer, not true. For the people using it, they know it is a high performing unit at a bargain price hundreds less than the F-75 and T2!

These could very well be the next detector everybody will be searching for, so get the word out now and get you some sales while you still can!

END OF EMAIL

 

[mudpuppy]

Good post there Tab!

The local dealer I bought mine from told me to go with the DD..said its like dropping a Hemi in it....after all these years of daily and hard duty, he was correct as far as I know... Then again, besides it and the AtPro and a short run with a CZ 20, I have nothing to base my opinion on...the dang 70 hits it all hard fast and continuously is all I really know about it.

If a guy asked me for advice, I'd say get a 'tall mans' lower rod, so a fellow can sling a 12' swath, (quickbrooming modern sportsfields) lose the camlocks, saw the fins off the 11"dd coil, and learn Delta Pitch tones if you really want to run with such a fast light comfortable rig.......

Put up a post of your observations there Shadowulf....its amazing to me that out of the few of us that own them and post here, we all Love the 70 and for the most part run entirely different settings!.
Mud

 

[shadowulf]

Put up a post of your observations there Shadowulf....its amazing to me that out of the few of us that own them and post here, we all Love the 70 and for the most part run entirely different settings!.
Mud

Which is why I got a little excited hearing Elton picked one up. He and Monty can put any machine through its paces.
And seeing how well he's done just tells me I haven't found a good area. I get lots of tabs, wire pieces, and the occasional piece of buckshot. Just no old coins or jewelry as of yet. Also, we all have our own conditions to deal with. If I sweep the ground with a strong magnet, I can dirty it up with iron filings pretty quick.
I'm not saying "boo-hoo, my ground sucks!", just has its own challenges.

So to date, my observations are...

Target averaging- I've had q's come in at the high 50s, and nickels scrape in under 20.
One of the places I hunt is an old campground, with buried electrical lines and ALL KINDS of trash. But I have pulled old hot wheels cars, spoons , stitching needles and some clad from all the site spaces. But I can have as many as 30 hits in one site. and 29 of them will be trash. But the conditions make it that way.
Tweaking the Sense usually helps, and the tones on tabs and slaw are getting easier to read. But I have to be sure, so I dig.
I may try raising the Thresh some to see if that will help on the tones.

Overloading on wet ground - This is more an environmental issue than a detector issue. I've asked some others about this, and many in this area say that they have similar issues. Seems along with the iron, the soil in some areas is pretty alkiline. So seeing 3 to 4 bars on the mineralization meter is not unusual.
Other than "numbing" the Sens to extreamly low levels, I pretty much don't hunt after wet days or in recently watered parks.
Again, I might try working the Thresh some in these conditions to see if it helps. Any advice here would be greatly appreciated

I'm thinking of getting a more sensitive set of 'phones. I'm using some Calrads now, and I'm wondering if some other 'phones with higher impedance might help.

Hoping to sweep a few local parks on my days off, after setting up my sluice boxes and finishing up some honeydo's.

 

[REVIER]

I know I keep touting this detector...but darn it works so well in so many different ground conditions one has to respect, and appreciate what Fisher built.. So if your tired of hearing it just tell me to " Knock it off "...

Nope...not me.

To quote those late night commercials...

"Wait...there's more!"

You haven't mentioned hunting in really heavy iron yet.
I have, with surprisingly crazy settings that actually worked.
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,2142111,2142111#msg-2142111

I had to practice awhile to understand what I was actually seeing and hearing, but eventually it all started to make sense.
This site scared away several hunters as being to ridiculously difficult to find anything good in this iron field with thousands of targets from tiny bits of wire to huge, plus about a million nails.
Nothing was found by anyone else as far as I know except one lonely silver dime, and that hunter never came back again, either.

At first I started to dig up the bigger pieces, then I learned to recognize the smaller stuff and eventually I was able to start finding and digging up the good stuff...the great non ferrous targets I suspect were there.

"Works well in many different ground conditions"...I have yet to find conditions it won't work in if you find the right settings.

 

[shadowulf]

Next time I hunt the campground, I'll try that. I have a lot less hours than most of you, but I'm trying to catch up. As you said Rev, you just have to have the right settings for the conditions you are in.

 

[REVIER]

Next time I hunt the campground, I'll try that. I have a lot less hours than most of you, but I'm trying to catch up. As you said Rev, you just have to have the right settings for the conditions you are in.

There is mentioned that second way I learned to hunt in iron mines and it seems to work in the type of heavy trash you find in old parks, too.
Not to mention the woods where I have also had some success.

A lot less jumping on the screen and if I didn't already know about and practiced that blast- through method I would use this even more when I come across difficult sites.
I have used and practiced it and it works and works well.
The programming and complexity of the F70 runs deeper than many might believe or understand but I am trying to absorb and learn everything I can and use it all when needed.
Like arrows in a quiver, each different setting, method and technique is another weapon in the war of us against garbage, trash and difficult conditions at so many different sites.
This will take forever to learn everything possible but I don't care, I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve that I learned in just the 15 months I have swung this thing so far that work and one by one I try to learn new ones which is also great fun and very satisfying when I do.

You must use 1 tone with this method and I have found DE and the faster processing that speed uses also helps.
1F might work but I always use mono tone.
1 and 1F, seem to handle EMI way better than any of the multi tone settings it seems to me and I can get the thresh and sense up higher when using them.
Greater depth might be the result but I am not looking for that so much because most of my targets aren't all that deep.
The higher the settings the more I can get a sense of good targets hiding among many bad ones, or it seems that way.
Remember that just about anything you read about techniques using the T2/F70/F75 platforms pretty much transfers over to the others because they all have the same basic core engine but are programmed differently.
The flagships have several more processes on board but the F70 has more than enough that will drop your jaw when you understand how to use them and see what they can do.

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,865530

 

[shadowulf]

I think that's where the big difference between the F70 and the F75 lies.
The F75's programs, or more accurately presets, are tuned by the factory for a given performance.
The F70 has the ingredients, so to speak, to do the same. Just we as the operator, have to know how to get those settings and make the machine perform as we wish.
It's one of the reasons I consider the F70 a workhorse. It can do the job. It just needs the operator to know how to do the job best.

I pretty much got my F70 as a fluke. The other machines I was considering are comparatively priced. I just happened to stumble across the F70 being sold as a demo unit, so the price was right. Boy, what a learning experience it has been since.

 

[Elton]

R.........I will try those settings in old spot I have .. it's full of iron..

 

[Elton]

Quote............ " I pretty much got my F70 as a fluke. The other machines I was considering are comparatively priced. I just happened to stumble across the F70 "

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Same here.....A forum sponsor had it new stock. I didn't like a machine I had just purchased. A little conversation prompted me to make the deal on the F-70. The rest has been nothing but a surprise for me..
and a machine that I have found to be "AWESOME"........ Like you say..You set it like you want it.

I had heard a FEW say how well their F-70 worked. To be honest. I thought they were just trying to justify in their mind why they bought an F-70 and NOT a F-75... "Oh Man".Was I wrong LOL...

 

[REVIER]

R.........I will try those settings in old spot I have .. it's full of iron..

As with most things practice makes perfect.
I would try the disc 6, mono tone method first...easier to get a handle on and I read several other relic and coin hunters use this method with great success in heavy iron.
That blast though method works well for me too, but it took me several hours of hunt time before I started to make sense of what I was experiencing.

 

[mudpuppy]

Heres an interesting way to use the 70 you might enjoy....When a guy gets a stinky heap of pennys, and wants to separate the copper ones from the clad, just pop your rig apart at the first knuckle, lay it on the counter, unplug the phones, set it up with a mild sens and definitely go with the DP tones...then just swing each penny anywhere near the coil top or bottom, it doesnt matter...you can immediately tell audibly if its copper or zinc!...

I guess a guy wouldnt have to pop it apart, but if you like looking at TIDS, this is sort of fun! Kept the Wife busy sorting copper from zinc pennies one afternoon! She's Polish, so she likes playing with pennies anyway!
Maybe gave her an appreciation for my 70 rig as well!... So easy, even a kid could do it, and watch TV at the same time!!
Mud

 

[Elton]

n/t

 

[shadowulf]

Freakin Mud

And this is the reason I search out your post when I come here.

 

[shadowulf]

I thought much the same. Then I noticed how comments on the F75 adjustments worked for the F70.
And the more I read, the higher the F70 went up the "buy" list.
My 3 top contenders, in order, we're the xterra 705, Goldbug Pro/G2, and the MXT. Then came this lightweight upstart that seemed to be a classic underdog at a killer price. SOLD
Do regret it, no way!

Another observation,
There are those that don't like the F70. Some that really tout the "negitves" of the F70. It's like the machine personally insulted them.
If it didn't suit you, then move on.
I like the learning process of the F70.
You learn it, it rewards you. You try and force it to do it your way, not good.

'wulf

 

[Elton]

All does flow on the F-70..Thanks for your insight on this machine and posting Sir..

 

[REVIER]

Check out Dirt Fishing's experience with the F70.

Thanks Debbie Downer...in this positive thread you choose to post one that shows it at its worst...with his settings, anyway.
Guess what, with my different settings I could have easily found that merc with a much more positive ID.
How do I know?
Because I have done it in sites with way more iron trash in the way than that.
Not just a merc but a Walker half too, and other coins.
Maybe you would like to hear about an IH cent spill I dug in an area with park trash, iron and more EMI than you might believe at about 8" deep?
The only reason I dug down that deep is because I got a solid positive signal that said something good was down there.

If you want to believe this is really how the F70 works than go right ahead, and please don'took at the posts in this thread that talk about actually learning the right settings for the sites we hunt...if you ever noticed them in the first place.

If he wants to go back to this site to look for more coins using settings that actually work better I would be glad to share mine.
I am sure the resulting vid would be much different than this one if he did
DirtFishing is a pro and I enjoy his vids very much and he definitely knows what he is doing most of the time from what I can tell watching him hunt with the many detectors he uses in his vids, but if he is hunting in sites with iron with the F70 using multi tones he has made a mistake.
Not to mention I would be interested in seeing where his disc, sense and thresh are set at because those could have had an effect on this lousy signal he got.
I learned how not to make that mistake and have been rewarded with much better signals than he got here and great coins at the ends of those signals.
Just my opinion, of course, but then again I have spent a few hundred hours with this thing in an effort to avoid experiencing hunts with these kind of results.

(Edited to remove youtube vid Fisher F70 Fail)

 

[Elton]

My friend, different views, different results, in different dir,t can always be expected. Not a problem. It works well for me
maybe not so well in his heavy mineralized soil... It maybe isn't a fair comparison between a Etrac and a F-70..
To say their a little different would be an understatement ........... That said your views, and your posts are welcome. The video with ads was the only problem..

 

[The Dark]

Debbie Downer? By simply posting something to the contrary? It wasnt like I posted some story...it qas a video, by a very knowledgeable detectorist. He knows machines and his opinion is pretty respected in the forum community. He basically flat out said it was junk. I was very surprised at the poor performace on a silver coin which the Etrac called a coin first. Just thought folks should see both sides....not just glowing remarks all the time. As far as ads...I wasnt aware there was any ads...I qatched the video numerous times and havent seen any ads for anything. My apologies tho.