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F75 LTD and Me, in My Dirt

G

go-rebels

New member
Bill Ladd said:
....
Some folks who disliked the old F75 because it was "too noisy" or picked up interference should like this LTD alot better. (Again, it has not become silent search by any means, but the chatter difference I noticed right away). ..
Click to expand...

I now believe that the LTD can be run with a near silent threshold, with moderate to heavy discrimination in BP mode, and still get the same depth as the Explorers (my hertofore depth leader), in my red clay dirt. I can't say the same for your dirt, but it works that well for me.

Yesterday I tried a cherrypicking mode using my LTD with DISC=40 in my test bed. I ran the sensitivity into the 50's until I began to hear just the hint of chatter, then I backed it down until it was near silent. In my yard there is no way I can run BP, CL or JE >60... ever. Using the big coil I could not detect my dime buried within nails nor my nickel, but my LTD rang out hard on my 6" dime and 7" dime. It gave a strong but non-repeatable signal on my 8" dime that was barely detectable using the EX-II running at Autosens 26 with Iron Mask=6 (9 of 10 times I would have missed it with the EX-II).

It's interesting, with DISC=0 and the same stable background, the 8" buried dime yielded the same non-repeatable signal, a few high pitches mixed in with low iron grunts. Bumping up the SENS yielded more background chatter and a better audio signal (less iron), better than I could get with my Explorer running under any condition. I could only get a very weak signal on the 8" dime in DE or JE when running with moderate background chatter (high gain).

Checking the 8" dime with CL mode (DISC=0) yielded mainly iron grunts and a wildly fluctuating VDI. A moderately fast sweep misses it alltogether. I would not have dug that target.

There has been little discussion about the VDI of the LTD, but I can certainly say the the VDI degrades using BP, and degrades considerably using CL. I don't see ever using the VDI when in CL mode due to it's erratic behaviour. CL is also very erratic on shallow, easy to detect coins, targets that have a rock solid VDI using DE or JE. However, the audio in CL remains good.

This is a bit of a rambling and I'll post more testing done in my garden during the next week.

Please do not copy and post this thread into another site. Please alllow ME to post elsewhere should I desire.
 
What do you think on the Ole Miss - Arkansas game this Saturday?
 
I've noticed right the opposite with the VDIs in BP mode. On my machine it is "upping" the VDIs in that mode. When I have checked the targets in regular AM mode, it has gave a more consistent iron style reading on non iron objects (I have red iron dirt here)...where as the BP mode would lock onto stuff better into the better VDI range.

For me though, the BP mode is way more erratic than the standard modes.
 
I only had 1/2 an hour today so I spent the time in my test bed again with the big stock coil. My soil GBs at 58 +/-2 @ 0.03 on the Fe meter... solid red clay below 2".

I was checking three silver dimes I have buried in santitized ground, one at 6", 7" and 8". Tody, my Explorer II picks up the 6" and 7" nicely but the 8" is very iffy and I'd probably not catch that one. My Ace 250 hits the 6" hard but cannot see the other two.

All testing was done at DISC=0 and 4H tones:

1) First test was done in JE mode @ SENS=50 with moderate backgrond chatter. Like the EXII I could detect the 6" and 7" easily but the 8" was a very faint signal. 50% of the time I'd walk right by.

2) Second test was done in DE mode @ SENS=70 giving about the same background chatter as above. I could detect the 6" and 7" dimes but the 8" gave no signal 4 out of 5 sweeps.

3) Third test was done in BP mode @ SENS=50 with moderate background chatter. The 6" and 7" dimes gave a strong, consistent high pitch with good VID. The 8" dime gave a consistent, strong high pitch in one direction but the return sween would usually give an iron grunt. Rotating around the 8" dime gave similar results, that is, a one way good (repeatable) strong tone.

4) Fourth test was done in AM motion moving from BP, SENS=90 with a nice background hum. All dimes were detectable but the 8" was not a strong signal and I had no VDI. Personally, I don't like this mode on the LTD, but maybe I never set it up quiter right (like my original F75).

5) Fifth test was done in CL mode @ SENS=50 yielding an approximately equal background chatter as above. Results were similar to 3) above.

6) This is the shocker: As I decreased the sensitivity, from 50 to 30 in BP and 50 to 25 in CL, the background went totally quiet and the LTD rang out on all three dimes, including the elusive 8". The VDI bounced around with an occasional 70+ reading but the audio was clear in both modes. In addition, in CL @ SENS=25, I minimized the false iron tones on the repeat swing. Now 3 of 4 passes over the 8" time produced a nice strong high tone! I could also swing in CL at a respectable rate without missing he signal on any of my targets.

7) I repeated test #6 with DISC=25 and saw absolutely no difference in output. Now, on the 8" dime I'd occasionally get no signal on the return sweep after first passing over the target, and getting a strong high tone, but that is to be expected given my disc setting. It was surprising to see no loss in depth with the high disc setting and the output was equal again when increasing the DISC all the way to 40. With DISC=40 and SENS=25 in CL I wandered about my yard getting nothing, as though the unit were turned off, then BAM, my 4" buried zinc penny... nothing as I pass over a known 4" deep nickel (as expected), wandering about more I find a new signal reading 65-80, about 6" deep but didn't dig, then nothing for a few minutes until I pass over my 8" dime. BAM again! And during this run the F75 was TOTALLY silent until I hit a target. In comparison it made the background hum of my Explorer II downright annoying!

This is quite a different unit, quite unlike the old F75!

Next: Testing of the 5" DD coil
 
Oh, I see. Then you probably don't care much one way or another! LOL ...... Are you in education?
 
That is consistant with what the manual says. You can often expect higher sensitivity when you run a higher disc. I air tested my LTD a "0" disc, then again at "6" disc and got a drop in depth. I went to "21" disc and was back to nearly the same as "0" disc. Great for coin hunting. You wont see that much of a drop from "0" disc. as you did with the original f\F 75. Way to go, Fisher.:clapping:

keep on diggin'

jimmyk in Missouri
 
Your #6 observation is exactly why I've been harping for a long time around how "sometimes less is a lot more". You've done exactly THE right thing in your testing to graphically see that for yourself and articulate it to others. Running hot is fine and has its place but there are a lot of times (especially with targets that remain after a lot of previous hunting at a given site) that lower stable settings will yield targets that you probably will miss running in the noise all the time and I'm not just talking shallower semi-masked targets, but some deeper semi-masked targets too. The statement "If you can't hear it, you can't dig it" is rather obvious but there are ways to make that happen with lower settings that a lot of folks just assume wouldn't work unless they use real in ground targets for testing different settings to see what works best on THAT (each) particular type target scenario. Thanks for taking the time to do the testing and reporting on it!
 
n/t
 
The LTD is so different from the original F75 that if I didn't have a test bed, I'd feel lost going out into the field using the new modes. I hate hearing the arguments against planted test beds but I don't know how a user can get up to speed using some of the new detectors with all their myriad of possible settings. And I'm not talking only about the F75; I include the higher end units from Minelab and White's too.

I've got a few more hours practice in my bed using the various coils and with rain around the corner, that will require me to duplicate some of the tests I've already performed using the big DD coil.
 
I know what you are saying, because i lowered my sensitivity to50 and it ran much better and still hit all deep targets. I do not think you need to run max to get real deep, really like the ltd it has way to much power and that is a good thing because every ones dirt is different. Also noticed if you max out the bp or cl mode and swing to fast you get high chirps at the end of the swing with lower sensitivity it stops.
 
High senstiviities in BP or CL (that which will result in continuous chatter) creates some very bad behavior of the LTD in my soil. The VDI is all over the place, even on shallow targets where the Garrett Ace 250 would accurately ID 100% of the time. Remember, the F75 LTD manual states, "Under some conditions, the default process may identify targets more accurately." In addition, my deep silver sounds off like deep iron... very strange and unlike the typical iron falsing that is so common. In fact, it's silver falsing to iron! Now that's bad.
 
It sounds like FTP has finally figured out how to effectively cancel or balance out higher levels of mineralization. Finally. Your testing sounds like a text book example of what one would expect to happen in high mineralization when the ground signal is decreased with lower sens settings and increased with higher sens settings. Those two new modes appear to have the audio threshold range cranked along with some new, refined, ground signal filtration.

Keep up the testing and posting!

HH

Mike
 
go-rebels,
Excellent post on running lower sensitivity. Had been reading so much about running sensitivity in the 90's. My initial couple of short hunts found me at a sensitivity in the 60's. That gave me all the extraneous noise I could handle and still discern targets through the noise. Was kind of starting to think the issue with hearing around the noise was me (still could be). Found motion all metal quieter at higher sensitivity settings.

I will now start making the LTD easier to listen to with lower sensitivity settings and see where it takes me from there.

I picked up a 10 inch elliptical and 6.5 inch elliptical coil. 10 minute quick tests on each to see that they survived shipping were at sensitivity of 50, disc 1, BP mode in the iron patch in my front yard. 10 inch coil gave me a 5 inch deep old tab. Seemed a bit quieter than stock coil. 6.5 inch pulled a little sliver of siding out from about 4 inches.

Got a little trip to the beach coming up. Plan to take the LTD to continue learning it, however most time will probably be spent with the PI detector or the CZ20.
tvr
 
Bad news for me: my LTD is dying! When I turn it on I get the backlight lit but no other displays and no other functions are available. If I let the machine sit for 5 minutes, then it comes back on (usually). I just can't turn it off and turn it back on again. This has occurred after a reset, a coil switch and a new set of batteries. Looks like a phone call to First Texas Monday morning... Ugh!
 
A few Etracs "konked out" early on to.----Fisher will fix it for ya!----It's a pain in the b--- to ever have it happen in the first place though.--------Del
 
More testing: the unit always comes on just fine after a 5 minute wait. Then in comes up 75% of the time if I immediately turn it OFF, then ON; and 25% of the time if I repeat it. After the 4th on-off-on cycle the display fails to turn on (except for the LED backlight).

Someone else try this please. I'm running this silly test in my house with lots of EDI around.
 
Just tried your test on mine and it comes on fine with all the functions performing as they should.---I repeatedly turned it on-off 5 or 6 times & no problem.---Check your batterys with a tester or put yet another set in and try it again.---Batterys can do goofy things to a detector and just because they are out of a new package doesn't ALWAYS mean that there might not be a "dud" in the bunch.----Del
 
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