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F75 LTD relic hunt test.

Greg (E.Tn)

Greg (E.Tn)

Well-known member
Last week, I performed a test w/ the new F75 LTD with discouraging results.

But maybe explainable results.

I have a friend who has a "Civil War" Test Garden. He has a Read Artillery Shell buried at three feet, and a US Belt Plate buried flat at about 18 inches. The F75 LTD would not hit satisfactorily on either of these items.

Settings initially used on both were Cache Mode, 0 discrminate, 1 notch, sensitivity as high as it could be cranked.

After negative results, I tried different settings in DE, JE and BP modes, with Disc set anywhere from 0 to 40.

Again, negative results.

Two factors were possibly at play--extreme ground mineralization, and EMI issues.

My friend's test garden is located about fifty feet or so from a municipal airport runway, which I am sure puts out its fair share of EMI and other eleictrical interference. Secondly, the machine would hit good on the plate during an air test , but when it was placed in the hole, at depth, the machine would not hit on it at all.

However, I noticed that when I dropped the sensitivity way down below 50, I got a chirp from the buried belt plate, but nothing near the signal I was getting on the air test.

I understand that a lot of this could be chalked up to "operator error." However, at the same time, it is not encouraging to think that I might be missing belt plates at depths that SHOULD be detectable by this machine.
 
Good test.

Are there other machines that successfully detect these deep targets?

I have also seen improved "performance" with low sensitivities on the LTD. I wonder if the software algorithms shift to different logic schemes when sensitivities are set low, such that the numerical sensitivity reading versus performance is really not linear (nor even increasing/decreasing).
 
How long have these objects been buried? It sounds like the plate was freshly buried so I am not surprised you didn't get a hit. My Omega wouldn't hit a freshly buried $.50 coin at 8" till it had been rained on and naturally compacted for a couple of months. Now it gives a clear signal. All my other coins at 6" would not hit for a couple of months either. The soil was bone dry when buried.


blacktoe
 
As mainly a coin hunter, I really can't relate to the depths you mention, but I have dug 2 quarters and 1 half at a measured 11 and 12" here in W Tn. with the regular F 75. These coins, of course, had been in the ground a long time and I was in the de mode when each coin was recovered. Tone and vdi wasn't great, but good enough to dig if one is curious. I think, though, you also may have some tougher ground on your end of the state then we have here. How long had the plate been in the ground? I have a slightly slanted 9" dime that I burried shortly after getting my F 75 and it took almost four months before I was able to get my first tic off that dime. Now, it hits it good under most conditions. HH jim tn
 
The high beams in the fog analogy comes to mind, as I've noticed like go-rebels that lowering the sensitivity when conditions warrant improves results.

The 75 gets great depth even with sensitivity settings in the 40s and 50s.
 
The plate HAD been in the ground for a long time, but was recently dug up, then reburied, before I tried it.

The Read artillery shell is still in the ground because no one has relocated it yet. The owner knows the approximate location, but so far hasn't had a machine yet to give a positive hit on it.

But, to answer another question, the Nautilus and the T2 also failed to find the objects.

Thanks again for the feedback--
 
Greg I live in middle Tennessee and I have a 3 year old coin garden in an area where the ground is crappy. GB's a 52 and FE0 .1 on the F75 and LTD. Only on certain days can I get a solid hit on a 6" silver dime and rarely anything on a 7" or 8" dime. This is in AM and DISC. with testing every mode and 0 Disc. and motion AM, high and low sens. I find Quarters hit very similar depth wise. Now I have found plenty of 7" and 8" silver dimes in my area on other sites with the F75 and LTD. I have tested all 25 machines I own and the F75, LTD and Etrac fair about the same depth wise in this coin garden. What I am getting at is I don't think your machine is the problem. There are some areas in Tennessee you may be able to hit your buckle at 18" and others you'll do good getting it at 10".
 
Hope you're right. :|

I still think the F75 is one of the (if not THE) most versatile machines out there, and I'm looking forward to the learning experience with this machine.

Next time I'm up at my buddy's house I'm going to give this another go and experiment with some more settings.

I'll report back if I have any pertinent news.

Thanks again.
 
I live in Southeast TN and hunted with the original F-75 for a few years. Then got the LTD and hunted with it in some of the same spots I'd previously hunted with the original F-75, and including one trip to Culpeper, VA for the DIV.

Initially I done a YouTube vid testing the LTD in my test garden and on one actual hunt where I was digging minie balls. At first, I liked the LTD...and it did initially go deeper in the boost mode. BUT it was so doggone erratic in actual hunts that I couldn't handle it. It was like being around constant EMI, when there wasn't any around! Now up in Culpeper, it was all but useless in that hot dirt. I done very well with the original F-75 in the same dirt and I couldn't understand why the LTD had such a hard time in it. It seemed like I had to ground balance every two feet to get the detector to act normal. I spoke with others up there that had the LTDs and they were running into the same thing, and having to back their sensitivity way down to around 30 to have the machine huntable.

I don't know what they done with it, but I sure didn't like it and the original F-75 was my favorite detector of all time. I traded my LTD for a TDI but I am thinking of picking up a good used older F-75.
 
Dan, I have a couple fields I hunt around here that are apparently quite similar to what you have down your way. Close to most Culpeper DIV ground by all the measureable variables but still not quite as extreme as what we had at some of the fields at the site of the last DIV. You mentioned some folks having to drop back to 30 sens. to get the LTD settled down. I did the same thing on the worst ground because that is where it ran with a stable threshold pure and simple. BUT, I didn't have any concern in doing so because when I did my initial field testing with the LTD locally at the sites I mentioned, I saw graphically and repeatedly that a 30 in BP significantly outperformed DE or any of the other original modes in 60 to 75 and I'm talking all metal of course. My finds at this DIV were a bit off from what I bagged at the previous hunt on that site (when I too used my original 75 and had real good success with it) but there is no doubt in my mind that it wasn't a fault of the LTD, but due simply because the site had been hit by hundreds of good hunters several times and the number of obtainable targets using a VLF were getting sorta slim from what there was the first two times around. I'm not complaining either, as I enjoyed the challenge. Now, I'm not exactly the spring chicken I used to be and frankly, I didn't get over a lot of the area but definitely walked more than any other time I've been there. Whenever I did hear a target that I wanted to dig, (using BP 30 to 40) I re-checked it in DE at 65 and without exception, the BP @ 30ish was superior in depth and ID capability. You mentioned that you have more faith in the "old" 75 because of your experiences using the LTD. It's been proven that the LTD's original modes are exactly the same as the ones on the original 75, so why wouldn't you just "downshift" to one of the original modes if you thought the LTD in BP was causing some problems? The LTD's add the option of two boost modes for if and when they are advantageous for the operator and that MAY not be 100% of the time in all conditions of all sites. However, like I said, I've yet to find THAT situation and I'm always testing for just those sorts of things. Now, if you're convinced that you prefer an original 75, I'll be glad to hook you up with one for a fair price (mine). Shoot me a PM if that's what you want.
 
Daniel I have noticed that EMI does not affect my LTD near as bad as my original F75. The LTD runs much quieter than the original in every situation I've had it in. Sounds like you may have had a problem with yours.
One weird thing that I have noticed with the LTD. I have a field that I hunt frequently that has some deep mini-balls and I have always hunted this field in all metal with the original F75 and dug the targets that bounced up out of iron or were too weak to read on the meter.
I hunted this same field in all metal with the LTD in all metal set up just like I'd run the original F75 and it felt pretty much the same. I ran onto a hot spot that was giving up deep mini-balls and I started checking the same signals in BP,all metal and BP, Disc 0, 2F and the Discriminate side was hitting hard on signals I was barely getting a sound on in AM. thinking this was strange, I checked this on about 10 different mini-balls that ranged from 10" -12" and I can honestly say there was several that I would not have dug in all metal.
 
My wife and I were hunting with a TDI and LTD. Here's the deal. The excuse for the site having previous hunts is out of the window. We were digging on the side of the farm where a previous DIV was held, and there were probably over 300 buttons dug out of there and who knows how many bullets and other items. So the stuff was there to find. We spent all 3 days hunting that spot and came out of there with right at 50 dropped bullets, 16 buttons, two finials, 3 belt adjusters, and several knapsack brass hooks and triangles. Now granted, that was just an average take for the hunt from what I saw. My wife and I hunted side by side the whole time. Out of all that stuff, do you know what the LTD accounted for finding? 3 bullets and one iron harness buckle. That was it. I'd get signals with my TDI that should have been EASY to get with an F75 (4-6 inch bullets) and that LTD was NOT registering on them at all with the sens cut back as far as we had to cut it. Occasionally it would give a boing sound like it does on a hot rock with nothing on the meter, but if you dug all those signals you would be digging a lot of empty holes.

I too, thought that the original modes would be better suited for the hunt site, since the findings were that it was the same as the original F-75. In my testing in my hot dirt here at home, I discovered that the boost modes were too hot for the ground, or vice versa. I knew that, and when I taught the F-75 class before the meeting, I even told everybody that!! So that's what I set the unit up in from the get go. And from my findings with it up there, I came to the conclusion that they were NOT created equal. It was just plain different. My wife got very frustrated with it, and quit hunting. I let her use my TDI in "button mode" and she stayed in the area she'd been hunting in for nearly an hour, and in 30 minutes, had dug 2 buttons, a sword hanger, several grommets, and a brass wedding band. While she was playing with the TDI, I grabbed hold of the LTD and played with it some. And like I said, even at 30 sensitivity, I was having to GB every 2-3 feet to keep it from falsing and acting erratic. I never found anything with it. Soon as we got back from the trip I had mine listed on the forum and it was gone. I ran into folks that attended my class throughout the hunt and asked how they were doing with their units. All the guys with the LTDs didn't have much of anything to show for the hunt and seemed down about it. So if I had a lemon unit, they evidently did too.
 
If you read my reply again, you might notice I said the remaining targets "detectable with a VLF" were getting slim. The pulses (with an experienced user) have an advantage at most of that site particularly more and more as time goes on. Why would we be talking PI only hunts now? Just stop and think what ALL besides the dirt is different at the recent DIV than a hunt in similar dirt but it's only you and maybe a buddy. Several things come into play here IMO and you may have been dealing with one of them yourself. More and more folks are getting the pulse units (the numbers are going up practically exponentially just in a years time) which means more and more (amount and kinds of) interference that the VLF's have to contend with. Don't forget a lot of the guys have well over a year plus of experience with the PI's now also. They are hearing things and making recoveries partially based on that experience that wasn't there when the pulses first started showing up. I learned real quick that I didn't want to hunt ANYwhere near a TDI and to a slightly lesser degree, the Infiniums or ML pulses. It was one thing to quickly do a frequency shift in order to get rid of or minimize the obvious and audible interference, but the inaudible interference and it's effect I thought was obvious also. I virtually never found much of anything in an area anywhere near where the pulses were prevalent. Coincidence? I really don't think so. How many of the LTD users stayed in "the hot spots" and tried to contend with the PI's? If you hunted next to your wife and one had the TDI and the other had the LTD, I'm not surprised you didn't get much with the LTD and I'd bet a fair amount that you would have gotten even less with your old 75. I think anyone that was disappointed was, (A.) expecting what they'd either seen themselves from a just a few times out in the field (and videos such as yours) and if and when that didn't happen, (B)they didn't think about what all was different about this particular hunt besides their new detector and try another approach.
 
Pi's will shut you down Quick.... even another PI and you may not even know it....

Happy Trails
jimpugh
 
I'm not trying to toot my own horn but I have been introduced by others as having more "red dirt" experience on the F-75 than anybody on the planet. That's why they got me to teach the class at the last two hunts :eek:) And that's why out of over 4,000 views on my YouTube video that I've gotten so many thankyous and positive feedbacks from others that said that my videos and tips helped them. So I must have hit on something right.

At the March DIV, I hunted with the F-75. Same dirt as Brandy Rock (basically the same dirt I have back here at home). TDIs and Infiniums were all around me at any point and time during that hunt. And I CLEANED HOUSE there in finds. I had nearly 100 dropped bullets, several buttons, a US Bit Boss, and breastplate and numerous other items. Occasionally I had to shift my frequency when I got near a TDI, but that was it, and I don't think I done that shabby in the find dept there. Running in all metal, you can hear the interference chatter on an F-75.

When I said that my wife and I hunted side by side, I don't mean like literally in one anothers laps. We stayed within sight of one another but not right on top of one another. When I had her in F-75 training back home before we went on the trip, she was doing fine with me hunting the same distance or so from her. It wasn't until we got the LTD that the trouble started. I don't think I jumped the gun at all by selling it, and judging from the classifieds, I'm not the only one that thinks so about them.
 
I said a lot to Bill in my reply to him, addressing the same things you mentioned in your post here. I'll just say this again. At the hunt in March, I had the original F-75. I was around TDIs and Infiniums all 3 days there, and I cleaned up at that hunt with finds. Only one real variable changed...that being f-75 vs LTD f-75. Atleast in my book anyway.

You mentioned in one of your posts that you had an original f-75 you might sell. I am interested in getting another one. I am currently testing a Spectra V3 that a friend of mine is letting me borrow to see how I like I can't decide whether I want the F-75 or the V3. One is proven to me, but the other seems to have a lot of potential.
 
Hi Daniel

Well for one thing, I based my opinion on my experience in electrical circuits, and metal detectors. Being that I was not there with you when this happened. If I was, perhaps I may have had a different opinion. :shrug: Your post was from you being there, experiencing it as it happened. I'm sure you told it as you saw it. :thumbup:

Have a nice day. :)
 
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