Tajue17 said:
I'm ready to move onto a display (vdi?) machine after using tesoros for 3 yrs and a few times with the wifes F2,,,, but after discovering her F2 discrims out gold rings when you notch out iron I'm more interested in a machine I can do more fine tune the notching, hopefully notchign a pull tab but still getting the nickles and some sort of soundon gold. people are recommending the AT pro, minelab safari, any CZ fisher but me I'm feeling drawn to the F70 after watching some videos I think it might be the machine for me,,,, would love to be able to use it over wet salt sand but so far no vids of one doing that yet.
reason for the F70 over the F75 is I'm still a newbie and not sure if I want to go right into a technical hard to learn machine I hear the F70 is much more user friendly than a F75 which can be hard to control.
I'd love opinions but also recomendations,,,, of course used is cheaper than new and is it a good idea to buy a used F70, is the stock coil decent do you all run your stock or is there any mods recommended?
should I buy new and upgrade then?
I have found 35 gold targets with several detectors and more with the F2 than any other because I used it the most.
I knocked out iron 99.9% of the time using the F2 and the only thing you might miss at those settings might be really tiny studs or maybe extremely thin small gold chains.
I don't believe there is a gold ring out there the F2 would miss if you knock out iron...even the smallest ones should come somewhere in foil so I am a bit confused about what you are referring to in your post.
Regarding the F70 I graduated to that and on my 3rd hunt found a stunning gold ring and 8 more in the next year or so after that one.
Most were found in pretty trashy sites.
I found them all using 3 different coils including the standard elliptical which is a favorite of mine in many different site types.
The large F75 DD coil can be used almost anywhere and of course the smaller snipers make working trash sites a breeze.
All coils can reach some breathtaking depths in the right soil, use the big DD a lot and look into taking a class to learn Chinese because you might want to understand the sounds coming out of the bottom of your deeper dug holes.
As far as discing and notching with the F70 you can use those features if you want but I rarely set my disc above 6 and never use notch.
The notch feature will knock out complete sections of the area you set it in.
Set it anywhere in tabs and all tabs will be knocked out which I hate to do.
The F75 is actually better at this because you can knock out half of the ranges if you want so more control in this area.
I never worry about this because I have found, for me, the best way to deal with all targets is to open the thing up and watch the screen behavior and listen to the tones to figure out all targets and then decide what I want to dig that way.
I have found tons of jewelry, some relics and lots of old coins effortlessly doing it this way because I learned that language well.
Didn't take all that long and I had great fun doing it too, by the way.
In some really trashy areas when I am tired I might bump the disc up to the low 20's to knock out most problem iron and foil trash but leave the rest of the gold range intact.
This also works well and I have plucked other great targets like silver coins in trash filled 100 year old parks doing it this way but over time I got used to low disc and that is my normal way of hunting nowadays.
The F70 has a rich language that if learned can tell you much about targets you are swinging over both trash and treasure and in all kinds of site conditions.
I can't convey the jaw dropping performance this thing has once you get a handle on tweaking the settings to your liking.
Don't be afraid, the standard factory settings work well so if you are not a big tweaker like me learning curves can be dealt with easily.
Experiment a little with those settings to find a few favorites, however, and that is where the shock and awe experiences will come in especially if you wander into some extra challenging sites like I have done.
You have 7 different tone and audio settings to choose from and we all find our favorites over time.
I actually use several, and you will be glad to know that the screen info is important but the audio on this thing is even more important ant can tell you much.
The reason I usually keep my disc set low is because iron is easily dealt with using this unit.
Leave iron in or any part of the iron spectrum and what you will hear is actually pleasant and not mentally fatigueing in the least when you hit those heavy iron sites if you set it that way.
At first I used 4H tones a lot, very similar to what I had on my F2 and I was comfortable with that.
Nowadays I usually use all metal or one of the single tone options in disc and I have been very successful with those settings.
I still use 4H when doing some pure coin shooting in parks, and since that setting changes nickel signals to high tones I have not only found a couple of nickel area gold rings that I couldn't have missed if I wanted to because they stood out so well but more nickels than ever before in my career using any other detector.
I have never had any trouble finding nickels but using this thing brings nickel hunting success to a whole different level.
Perfect for a gold hunter like me.
Again I must stress the factory knew what they were doing when they set up the standard start up settings on this thing, but play around with those settings a bit and the sky is the limit.
Does it sound like I impressed with this thing?
You betchya...and as big a tweaker as I am and despite all the enjoyable hours spent trying out so many different settings I believe I have come nowhere close to realizing the full potential of what it is capable of actually doing and finding.
I learn new things on almost every hunt and I love that about this thing.
I have been wildly successful in my 1.5 years swinging it, it has done much more than I ever expected or asked it to do and I look forward to many more seasons of quality time with it.
When the word "sleeper" is mentioned this is a prime example of what that that word really means.
I bought mine used at a fire sale price but it had never been outside once so good deals are out there.
Many buy these things but never really learn to understand them so we Fisher guys love that because we have.
lots of opportunities to pick up barely used machines at great prices...but even if I spent brand new money on mine I actually found enough clad and jewelry to pay for it way before it was even a year old.
If you get one lots if help around here, we F70 people are a bit crazy and use all kinds of different settings and coils but we all seem to be pretty successful and love to share so just ask.
Good luck with your decision, if you get one if these I don't think you will be sorry.
I wasn't and never will be.
------------IB