Fisher F70 Good Buy???

[nwayrue]

I have been detecting for 2 years. Also I cant wait for winter to be over to start my third season. I want to upgrade and have been looking hard at the fisher f70. The f70 is in my price range the f75 is not. I have been reading as many reviews as i can find on the f70 which is not a lot. Reading a lot of forum posts about fisher f series, people either love them or hate them. It is really confusing. Pro Fseries people claim Con Fseries people don't know how to use them. and the Con Fseries people claim they have quality issues, are very noisy,only good for relics, and you don't get what you pay for. I need help deciding. I do not need someone to tell me to get an etrac or explorer or some other 1000+ dollar detector as i am not rich. Thanks

 

[ElginTim]

The F70 may be the best buy for the money across all classes of detectors, but I've almost always used Fisher rigs so I'm biased. I do mourn the loss of the CZ line, such as it was and do not have experience with the rest of the F series so cannot comment on that. The one guy I know who had a F5 did not like it. He went to the F75 and really improved his finds. I have yet to spend a day comparing targets wih him but have confidence my F70 is good enough for me to use as my primary good target unit in conventional sites.

 

[Cache Man]

I have the f70 had it about a year, if you leave the f70 set on the factory settings and your going to use it for tot lotting then it will not be noisy you should find coins on the surface down to 5" very well BUT if your going to be looking for coins from 5" to 10" or so then you will have to turn the sensitivity UP sometimes ALL the way. one of the most important controls on the f70 for Depth is the Threshold setting This is the GAIN setting you will have to turn this up for the detector read a dime sized target in the ground at depth I run my Gain on +5 to +9 all the time and the sensitivity 80-99 with the disc level 0 and 3h to 4h on the tones in my dirt and yes it is noisy set this way BUT I find coins 8-10 inches deep all the time. The main thing is NOT give up on the f70 it takes awhile to learn all about it, I am still learning what all it will do. all the people who sold their f70 didn't learn the things that I just explained HH

 

[go-rebels]

I would also look for a nice used ML Sovereign or Explorer XS. Both are very nice machines with great audio differentiation. Now I'm an F75-LTD user, but at the <$500 range, I like those two machines.

 

[martinfabio]

hello nwayrue im from england and had a fiser f70 for 3 months i love it to bits and wouldnt change it for the world. Its light great depth and good vdi numbers and cheap to run 4 aa batteries i ca only compare it to older fisher,older garretts and old viking machines and to friends other various machines. T he only reason people had said it is noisey is because they aint set it up properly the f70 picks up everything all the tiny specks of metal so u wont miss a small coin all you do is turn the treshold up and that stops the chattering. theres 2 videos part1 and part 2 on youtube about the f70 watch them if in any doubt if you want to know more just let me know

 

[cometguy]

I gave up my F70 to get my LTD. I have always thought that if I find a deal on a used one I will pick up another one. It is simple to use, light weight, and runs seemingly forever on 4 AA batteries.
I went to the F75 to get a backlight for night hunting. I never varied too much from factory starting points and always found a lot of stuff. The F70 is a great pinpointing machine too. I never found the F760 to
be too noisy in set up, but did it one issue with EMI. Keep your eye open for a deal that includes one of the small coils. I loved the F70 with the elliptical coil. I had to force myself to put the stock coil back on the machine.
Good luck with your choices. I don't think you will regret giving the F70 a try.

HH, Don

 

[Cache Man]

If you want a quiet machine check out the omega pro comes with 2 coils $699.00 The DD coil comes with it and that's what gives it its Depth. HH

 

[nwayrue]

Thanks for the posts. After much deliberation i am now the owner of a Fisher F70. Or will be as soon as it arrives by mail. I also was able to get my friend his first detector with kellyco's BOGO sale.
And have my original to try to get others into the hobby. This is great since i am always by myself when i go detecting. BY THE WAY DOES ANYBODY KNOW HOW LONG IT TAKES TO GET A DETECTOR BY MAIL FROM KELLYCO??? I LIVE IN MISSOURI.

 

[osgood]

The fisher f70 is a good machine with which I have had great luck. There isnt any feature on it I didnt use.- it can be made to flex a lot depending on the conditions. Ive found a number of things and coins deeper than 6 ". I am moving up to an LTD but am keeping my F70 as a backup and for friends to use who might join me. I have ordered several detectors through the mail, and it seems even if you dont pay for extra fast delivery, things arrive in under a week. Good Luck, (send some good weather to the North East please).

 

[mascard1]

Thanks for the posts. After much deliberation i am now the owner of a Fisher F70. Or will be as soon as it arrives by mail. I also was able to get my friend his first detector with kellyco's BOGO sale.
And have my original to try to get others into the hobby. This is great since i am always by myself when i go detecting. BY THE WAY DOES ANYBODY KNOW HOW LONG IT TAKES TO GET A DETECTOR BY MAIL FROM KELLYCO??? I LIVE IN MISSOURI.

Takes like a week...to get........Man you are going to love the F70...one fast and deep detector...once you get used to it...found a token here in Sacramento..had to be 8 inches down!!!!!...size of a dime....I bet you are shaking to get out....Have fun!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Low-Boy/LCPM]

LTD IS A LOT MORE TAME YOU CAN CRANK IT UP MORE THEN THE F75 THE BOOST MODE HAS HELPED ME FIND TARGETS I WOULD HAVE MISSED WITH THE F75

 

[dahut]

It was mentioned before, but it bears repeating: there are TWO gain controls on the F70

One is called DEPTH the other THRESHOLD.

DEPTH controls the gain of the signal during stage amplification and processing, once it comes from the coil.
THRESHOLD controls the signal strength of the signal as it comes from the coil, before it gets to processing.

These are vastly different controls, and together give you almost unlimited potential. Im still at a loss htough to explain why they called them by these names. It would have been much clearer to most folks if they had called them Gain and Pre-amp.

You really must visit Andreas "Andy" Meyers' pages about the new Fisher detectors. He has a lot to say about the F70 that is helpful. Here is the link:

http://www.fisherf75.com/index.html

 

[dbax]

you find coins at those depths with those settings and you not gone crazy yet? With those exact setting my F70 is so noisy, beeping and blips and chirps, like it is reading every tab, foil bits and pieces there or not, making it impossible to find anything. I have set my SENS way down and it gets quiet enough to hear a real target but my depth is terrible. Bottle caps, however sound off like quarters. I am really getting sick of this expensive machine -- Cheaper than the F75 but expensive -- I have an F2 but the search coil is not as good as the DD but it does not chatter and the DISC mode can be set to dimes and quarters only and the machine is silent until it hits a target and the depth, so far, is as good as the F70 I spent over $600 on. I have a cheap Bounty Treasure hunter with LCD screen an it to has a better DISC mode and tones for bottle caps is the same as for a nail, never mistaken for a quarter. Now, like the "newayrue" it is all confusing. It seems some of these machines may work as they are supposed to while others are lemons -- quality control? Using the consumer as a beta tester? I love the way the machine handles and you could swing it all day and the battery life is fantastic, but for $600 I expected to be better than my cheaper F2. I should have put a DD coil on my F2 then I think it might ? Well, water under the bridge. I have been communicting with Fisther and sent the machine in a because it became unbearable and they replaced the DD coil and it does seem to be a little better but the DISC and NOTCH modes appear on the screen correctly but does not seem to work. I can set the I notch out everything but nickles, dimes and quarters and it still reads foil and tabs and while in the beginning I was finding nickles I am no longer finding any nickles. I will check back with a report on how things turn out with Fisher, I love my F2 and thought I was upgrading. I am really hoping it is a lemon machine and can get it fixed, we'll see. Whew, now i feel better. Some seem to accept the idea that if you set the machine to default and leave it there things will be better? Well, then why have a high end machine, you might as well use your pinpointer and cheaper too.

 

[minnixb]

I've had my F70 for about 5 months and so far, I like it. You get incredible battery life and the weight is light. I was using a Whites MXT before. Good machine but it was wearing my shoulder out. I think the F70 has done much better on coins than the MXT. I think you'll be pleased.

 

[mudpuppy]

Real old post, but I can say I love the F70 after swinging it for 3 yrs. It pays for itself with clad, silver and gold about every 4 mos or so...Over 800 bucks just in clad in 2012 alone. Before that I never kept count, I dont think I could live without this fine machine for what I use it for, summer, winter, a little water within reason, beaches, totlots, everything. 11"dd.
Mud

 

[dbax]

Thanks to mudpuppy and azsh07 I am learning to use my F70 -- so many settings and combinations, but with the encouragement from and the patient, detailed messages from the guys on this forum I have been able to get this beauty to settle down. I am experimenting with the tones right now. What I discovered is that this machine has two sides and so, you will get two opposite views on settings depending on which side of this machine the operator is using. Yes, it appears this machine is that sensitive or adaptable, however you want to look at it. I am still not getting the incredible depths some have reported but I will get there. My main concern was all of the noise, chatter, blipping, whatever, and that is now solved but on the flip side some like the chatter as they see this as a more sensitive setting so they do not miss anything. Not talking about EMI interference, that is something different. What I found was by lowering the DISC setting the machine settled down. I liked using the tone setting of 3H because it was similar to what I was used to with my F2, but when the fellas got me to try other settings, like the 2F on tone that nearly eliminated the chatter all together, and the tone de is useful too, but seems a little getting used to. So, like mudpuppy originally said, it is the operator. Still, it seems to me the DISC is not working but then I'm not using it am I? Later, got to go clean my machine, Dan

 

[dbax]

Concerning the subject of this posting -- F70 a Good Buy? I have spent this whole week with my F70 in the field, testing settings. I spent 7 hours on the first day, no breaks, and did I feel it, my legs were dragging --- guess what, my swing arm was not tired. I actually lost track of time. The next three outings were 4 hours each. I did not get quite so tired but learn a lot about my F70. Still, no tennis elbow or shoulder pain or weariness -- fantastic. I have a buddy that complains how his White DFX wears him out and so he will not hunt longer than 2 hours at a time, which is probably more sensible. If all things could be considered equal among higher end machine -- of course -- each with its pluses and minuses, but for the purpose of argument let's say all is equal, then I would have to vote in favor of the F70 -- maybe the F75 but i have not use it -- the F70 is so well designed by weight to balance that it is an incredible machine. To top this feather weighted, truly balanced machine off is the most incredible battery life - unbelievable -- four AA batteries and by comparison to my F2 which uses two 9 volt the duration is truly amazing. I use the pinpoint all the time, and this is another great feature on the F70, it will put you right on top of your target within an inch, left or right. I am using the 11" DD coil, and I would think it would be more demanding when it comes to batteries but man, I got nervous when my batteries finally fell from the full 4 bars to three bars but 3 hours later and still 3 bars. The manual says when you get down to one bar you have about 30 minutes to find new ones. Have not gotten there yet. Of course, I always carry a fresh pack just in case. You have to work with this machine and discover which Tone settings you like the best, and where your machine operates the best in your area and ground conditions, but this is true of all of the machines. Now, listen to me, a couple of weeks ago I was crying like a new born baby, whining like a teen teenager denied the keys to the family car, now like a High school graduate, I know it all.

 

[dbax]

go to this link, to a part of this forum for a video that will be a help to anyone with an F70 or F75. azsh07 has posted a video that will demonstrate the F70 and what it sounds like. You will find that this machine seems to always have a little noise going on but when it hit as signal, target, it is solid in its sound and identity of the target. I am especially empressed by the depth accuracy reading. Except for deep cans, but if the target is 3", or 5" then it is. Also, azsh07 demon illustrates the characteristics of this machine, I have been able to get mine to run even quieter and if you choose to experiment with the various Tones this machine offers you will be surprised at how much the chattering, or noise, can be eliminated or inhance. Oh, almost forgot --here is azsh07 link - http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,1710979,page=2