Fisher F75se Frustrated

[ramer]

Well, I think I've reached the end of my limits with this machine. It is a chatter box. I've tried many different settings. To this detector, everything has a high silver tone to it, old rusty nails, chunks of iron, etc. I even tried to max out the disc settings, still thinks everything in the ground is silver. Oh sure, it also gives low tones on the iron and then at the end of the swing it says silver, usually at the end of the swing to the right. I can't possibly run it with just one or two tones because the numbers are always all over the place.
I only have about 50 hours on this machine. But seems I am not getting better at it. Maybe it is time to go back to my trusty Minelab Extera 50.
But before I wrap this thing around a tree, anyone have any hints or suggestions? I am in frustration city...help!!

Thanks

 

[ramer]

I usually run with disc settings between 4 and 12. 3 tones. Sensitiviy anywhere from 70 to 90. de and bP modes depending on the amount of trash in the area. I rarely run in All Metal modes but I have a few hours in this mode as well. Notch 1. Ground grabs around 75 to 85. Also tried manual ground balancing it too.
I also have to use the F4 frequency shift. Any other F number gives either a lot of noise or a loud steady tone. F4 seems to be the most quiet one but why it is always the F4 that is usable regardless of where I hunt is a mystery to me. Always seems that the F4 number is the only usuable one.

I'm beginning to think that something is wrong with the electroncis. Especially because of the high tones it makes at the ends of my swings. This occurs with both the 5 inch coil and the larger stock coil. As I stop and reverse the swing I often get a high tone. Upon scanning that area the tone will eventually go to a low tone or no tone. Waste of my time being stopped in my tracks like that.

I should also add that it DOES hit coins just fine. I mean when there is a coin in the ground or a coin like object, it will lock onto it and the numbers will be pretty steady so there are times when I know for sure that I should dig it to see what it is. Ofen it is a coin or of course a flattened beer can or bottle cap which is normal. Lots of things look like coins. That is not a problem, we are all used to that. I know this is a sensitive detector with an extremely fast recovery rate, so perhaps I am just not good enough yet at distinguishing the treasure laying close to the trash. Maybe one day when I really feel energized I am going to dig every single high tone it gives me and then go home and take a long nap after a long soak in the tub.

One final observation: upon pin pointing the high toned targets, and using the trigger button to zero in on the target closer and closer, if the target is ferrous, upon scanning right after the pin pointing, it will almost always come up as a ferrous target with low tones.

 

[Elton]

Did you send it in for check up ?? It could be a faulty machine. It could be heavy EMI in your area causing the issues..
It could be a coil.. or honestly, it could be operator error.

 

[mudpuppy]

Dude...try this...1 disc, 55sens, -3 thresh, DE mode, 3 tones, ...i'm no expert with the 75, just with the 70, and have experienced what you are relating here.

I'm curious if this will help you..it did me. Please let us know if lowering the sens and the thresh helps you. You can gently raise the thresh or sens if the area and situation dictates, this program seems to be great on any coin target in the 7" depth, and is quiet and stable and comfortable to run.
Mud

 

[EtracTom-AdirondacksNY]

Lower your sensitivity till it goes away and sweeps smooth with virtually no chatter or falsing only the occasional pop. It still will go deep especially in the BP boost mode and it ID's better in that mode too. I leave it there. Try F1 through F7 first to see if one is quiter than the others if not set it on F4 factory and try Discrimination zero and if still not happy you can go up to discrimination level 6 BUT lower the sensitivity till it's smooth running not falsing like it is doing. Mine is on 25-30 sensitivity in BP boost mode and still is quiet and deep with no discrimination.

Check your coil connection at the control head and at the coil too. Your Ground Grab settings are like mine here and that soil is mineralized and has hot rocks too so it's like driving in a fog with the high beams on and it's just bouncing all that sensitivity back at you causing falsing and lots of ground chatter while sweeping. Lower your sensitivity.

Here is a related story, I used to own an Minelab Explorer 2 and factory semi auto sensitivity is 16 out of a possiable 32 and I couldn't stand to use it as it was a chatter box and I couldn't tell if I was getting a target signal or ground noise so one day I saw a video from someone from Minelab and he showed how to find the correct sensitivity for it he said go to max sensitivity and while sweeping back and forth in front of you and you can stand still lower the sensitivity till the all the falsing and poping and chatter stopped and you had a good smooth running machine and I ended up at 10 to 11 for sensitivity in my soil. Now I could run quietly with very occasional pops and snaps and I knew when I had hit on a target now it was a very great difference.

I think we all try to run with sensitivity a bit too high and don't really need it way up and the machine if ground ballanced properly will ignore most of the soil and hot rocks and still goes deep. If you want more sensitivity after learning it well (the machine) then slowly increase it till it's a bit noisy but till then try lowering it and see what happens before you go giving up on it.

My Etrac only is in the middle teens on Auto sensitivity out a possiable 30 and that is at the +3 level in Auto which is as high as you can make it run in Auto sensitivity as it sets it to your ground and soil conditions as you use the machine. Some places the ground is tougher than you think.

 

[tvr]

ramer,
There are few places I've hunted where I could run the sensitivity above 60. In all metal mode there are some beaches I can run at 90. There have been a couple of farm fields that are away from highways and comercial buildings where I could run sensitivity to 95 in either all metal or discrimination mode. Many of the school yards and residential yards I hunt I have to drop sensitivity down to somewhere in the 40's to have a quiet hunt. The detector does well at those sensitivity settings. There was one wood chipped area near a utility building power distribution box that I had to turn sensitivity down to 15 to hunt quietly; and at that setting, it found plenty. As soon as I got some distance from that power panel I could turn up the sensitivity. Make sure the coil connector is tight. Drop the sensitivity down to where you don't get a lot of chatter and the display number stabilizes some as you sweep over targets.

If turning the sensitivity down does not help stabilize it, call the factory and see what they recommend trying. If their hints don't help or they hear discriptions of what it is doing that are not in line with what the detector is supposed to be doing, they will probably have you send it in for a check up.
tvr

 

[osgood]

Ive used mine several years now and am feeling comfortable with it. If you have that much instability all the time would wonder if there is something amiss internally. I mean if you go 50 miles out and experience the same thing I would wonder. This machine can be used with a lot of chatting or should be able to be used with near none. It depends on the settings. Someone mention above the connection where the cable meets
the housing- that should be tightened and inspected as well the whole cable- once i thought my machine was shot and thats what it was-the cable was loose. I feel it took me a while to learn when it was hitting on a coin, but now i really feel like i know when to dig and when to walk. There are quite a bit of times now i run the sense at 90 or higher. It can be noisy but i know what im listening for. i use three tones. I recently re scanned some areas i thought i was done with. I hit those at like 80 sens, then went back and did them at 94, (just when that hum starts), and I was surprised at what i missed at the lower sens. It wasnt that i was finding everything deeper, although i did find some deeper stuff, but was finding stuff not so deep that i missed at the lower sense. Unless there is a major technological change in the whole md industry, im sticking with this machine a long time-its great. The guys here can really offer a lot of advice. good hunts, CO

 

[WV62]

Well, I think I've reached the end of my limits with this machine. It is a chatter box. I've tried many different settings. To this detector, everything has a high silver tone to it, old rusty nails, chunks of iron, etc. I even tried to max out the disc settings, still thinks everything in the ground is silver. Oh sure, it also gives low tones on the iron and then at the end of the swing it says silver, usually at the end of the swing to the right. I can't possibly run it with just one or two tones because the numbers are always all over the place.
I only have about 50 hours on this machine. But seems I am not getting better at it. Maybe it is time to go back to my trusty Minelab Extera 50.
But before I wrap this thing around a tree, anyone have any hints or suggestions? I am in frustration city...help!!

Thanks

ramer,

I think you know what I am going say. The problem you described above is exactly the same problem I had for the past 2 years. You may try some or all the fixes offered and they may work for you.

But you would just try 1 or 1f tone, you could run that machine and I am pretty sure your meter will settle down as well. Just dig repeatable signals and once you get a repeatable you can check the meter. This worked for me all day on my last hunt last week.

I was set for jewelry and running Je processor, disc 15, sensitivity 99, GB @ 54 and 1F tones. No problems with the machine all day long.

I know nobody wants to give up those tones, but for me the only other option was to get rid of the machine.

Good luck,

Ron in WV

 

[ramer]

Thanks everyone for all the help and tips. I'll be out again tomorrow and try some of the settings suggested. I'll let you know how that works. There is another person on a different forum who is going through the same learning process and frustration as me. Same amount of hours on his as I have on mine. I'll be sure to pass on this info to him.

 

[shooter]

Got to agree with WV62, 1 tones on the money, multi tone and high SEN make her run noisy.

 

[Diggin Metal]

the machine is very powerful and picks up very tiny objects and gives a response if you run the sens hi you can pick up your digging tool or even your belt at a couple feet away
try disc at 1 to 5 no more 3 tones sens at a point you can stand the pops and clicks and only listen for repeatable hi tones completely try to ignore the low and mid tones and this will help train your brain to all the objects in the ground.
this would be considered just coin shooting.

another good easy way to hunt is 2f tones and only dig repeatable hi tones.

whatever mode works for you.

 

[WV62]

First I would like to say thanks to Dave J for an almost instant response to my PM about the issue I was having with way to much chatter to run in multi- tones.

Dave J said he checked some of the post, I assume from this thread and he thought my problem may be trying to run it a little to hot. So with that thought I had to try again and today I did just that. I spent about my first hour in a spot I know I have been having the chatter problem, and my first setup told me that nothing had changed. I was running bp processor, disc 65 (max), GB 61, 3 tones and sensitivity max for starters and of course lots of chatter. I starter turning down the sensitivity in steps of 5 to 10 until it got real quiet, which was 25, I was just running over the same 10 or 15 feet of ground. Then I started back up with the sensitivity until I only got a few clicks and at that point I was back up to 60.

I ran that way all morning and didn't have any problems at all, also got my fist silver quarter with the F75Ltd.

Thanks again Dave J, I think I am on the road to lots of good recoveries.

Ron in WV

 

[shooter]

Posted that the other day, and it worked for me 1700? King George II halfpenny 9"s. BP, 4H. SEN 45 DISC 50 Smooth sailing.

 

[Coilfisher]

No, this is a good machine. When I first used it I was not sure of it either. I wondered what I bought.
You more than likely have the sensitivity cranked high. That is the most common mistake with this detector.
You also aren't going to get a different pitch for silver with it, so forget that.
I have found some nice coins and relics with it within the first 12 hours of use.
For a single frequency detector it performs fantastically.
And, the backlight and VDI display are gorgeous.
Remember, it's only a tool. You have to become proficient with your tool.

-CF

 

[ramer]

I've tried various settings the last two times out. I find that backing the sensitivity back to 30 or 40 than slowly increasing it until it gets noisy and backing off a bit works pretty good. I tried the one tone but have a hard time with that. Just not used to using a monotone. I was more in my comfort zone using at least two tones. Disc around 7 to 10, sometimes at zero with the sensitivity backed off. Over all, I got the machine more quiet than it was. Not running it too hot seems to be the key even in Bp mode. I did some air tests with sensitivity from 30 to 90 and didn't notice a whole lot of loss in depth which makes me feel better about running it with a lower sensitivity.
I was out with a friend today. He put his 14K gold wedding ring on the ground. My F75 detected it with consistant VDI readings and tone to about 10 inches. His Tesero got to about 6 or so inches. But he still out "coins" me....so far. His Tesero is a monster on coins no doubt about it.

 

[TerraDigger]

Once you get a handle on the F75, he might be saying...its a monster

 

[Coilfisher]

Then trade it in on a Tesoro.
Some metal detectors just don't fit the operator. That is why they make so many--choice.
Don't kill yourself if you aren't comfortable with it. I don't think there is one BEST metal detector.
You have to use what works for you, and 50 hours is a good break in period. You really should
be comfortable with it by now.
Did you try changing channels on the unit?

--I happen to like using an F-75. At first it was a "learning curve" as they say.

 

[Bunzee]

I think the major problem with the detector is there is no real distinctive sounds for wanted targets. There is so much background chatter of various sounds it is hard to relax. With other detectors I've used, I could simply walk and swing... very relaxing. With the F75, I need to constantly focus on the sounds and VDI reads. I thought since the F75 was so fast that I would be able cover a lot of ground faster. However, at this point in the learning curve, it has slowed me down to a crawl.

 

[mudpuppy]

If it does, it is very handy to get comfortable with...It assigns a different tone to all the integers, and will help you hear that "pip" swinging fast in the open, or in the trash. You can even tell how deep things are by the strength of it, size of objects, very good target feedback with the DP on the F70, been running that tone exclusively for at least a year. Suns, coming up, gotta go!
Mud

 

[ramer]

Of course you are going to get a different pitch for silver than for zinc/iron/copper, etc. Sometimes a penny will come up with a high pitch thinking it is silver, but the VDI will tell you differently. Dimes and quarters don't hide too well from this detector as their hiding place is given away with that wonderful high pitch.
I like relying on the various tones. This way I don't have to keep my eyes glued to the display, especially in the woods where not paying attention to where your feet are could net you a good fall.