Help on the F70

[Fish_in_1]

Will start off with a little back ground as I'm new to this forum.
Have been using the F2 for the last few years and in my opinion is perfect for the person who doesn't want to invest a lot but can still go out and find more then enough to pay for its self and the next upgrade in machine.Have found lots of silver with the best back in February a 1908D Barber Half in MS66 state, thus paying for my next machine.

So i decide to step up a little and for some reason bought a mine lab explorer 2 in good condition with different coils and made a few adjustments, more like setting up a space ship...went in the yard that had been done 50 times with the F2 and found 3 wheat's laying under 2 nails

I'm now thinking this machine rocks...so off i go into the real world with little to no luck at all at finding anything and the few clads i did find in the 5-6" marks i was unable to pin point correctly coming off the F2(concentric coil), the SEF coil i was using seems to take a little more focus of pin pointing, in the fact that i thought with rocking the coil side to side and pulling back when the signal was lost then it would be located at the front tip, no matter what i tried the coin was always on the side of the plug.

So this is where the F70 and the stock coil comes in.... Sold the mine lab and went back to the old faithful fisher,but up graded to the F70, as for me the extra options of the 75 may not be as useful,back light, pin point trigger, grab/balance ect......but yet not to loose depth between the 70 and 75, I only hunt coins and mainly 68 and higher....thus have and will never find rings or nickels I'm fine with that...

So now Ive got the Fisher F70, Read up prior to purchase, and found this forum thru a video. have read every post 10 pages deep which could be some of my problems as i have been reading and not out doing........Hats of to Mud,Revier,ED,WV62,TAB ect...... as you have put out a lot of good info.....

The 1st time out found my self saying i really don't like this machine, lots of noise, but looked back and realized that i had found 15 coins in a short 30min...not as bad as i thought even though a little noisy did manage to find little over $3.00 in change, came back did a few more days of reading as i only hut on the weekends, compiled a list of different settings and took them out this evening and put them to work..

So lets set the scene.... new hunting place is early 1800's, rural area, was the 12Th house built in this county, pull up still standing and was lived in until 1961...you just get the felling you have hit pay dirt.....

Started off with the following settings, disc @1, sen @90, SL,thresh@0, tone 4h, Yeah i know i was running hot.15min and nothing, drop backed a little to disc@1, sen @40-60,SL,thresh@0 tone 4H still nothing,
again change bigger to Disc 65, Sen 90, thresh -2, tone 2f, which i would like to state as i haven't seen many people mention but if I'm not mistaken with disc at 65 if you use the F2 tones it will assign the American Nickel a 70 count instead of notching them out with the disc set at 65, just a thought,
still nothing

So I'm now 2 hrs into a hunt on and 1/2 acre lot with Nothing..... so i take a clad Quarter out drop on ground picks up fine as it should a steady 82 count...... I then cut a plug 2"deep and no matter what i do it will never come up higher then 45??????like its not even their???

So i take it a step further i adj the setting to ready this 2" deep Quarter and its as follows....Disc 65, Sen 95, SL, thresh -9, tone where ever cant remember and come up fine,,,,

Would like to mention balance was 60 with the dirt indicator full, would like to know what that means as most places i have been it 45-55 GB and 1-2 bars of dirt...

Back to the hunt 1 hour left before dark finally get a good clean signal 68 ends up being copper,,,

Looking back on today, i have came to this conclusion(plenty of grunting), that their is a 4" level of iron in this yard that cant be seen thru, every time i had the pin pointer out today it would go off on flakes of dirt.....id like some in put on how to go about seeing thru this with out taking a dozer and taking 6" of top soil off as we have thought of this already but really isn't a good idea, or is this just one of those places that's better left alone.....

 

[mudpuppy]

Welcome Fish! Great detailed post...regarding iron...

My experience that might be similar to yours is hunting a park built with foundry slag...its like hunting inside a dumpster...unless a fellow sets up light.
disc4, thresh-3, sens30-40, DEmode, you might want to notch out iron, but try it either way...like you mentioned, dig a hole and drop a Q in it and try different settings to find one that will work...dont worry about losing depth with these light settings,... Most of my areas around here GroundBalance at 78 or so...and these settings work just fine for that, I'm not sure what the GB is on that slag park, (theres no clean area to GB in) sometimes I'll just run the sens up into the 50's or 60's, and high fly the coil...but seldom any higher than 60....for me, the low sens sees through iron a lot better than a higher one....fast mode with fast swing too...sometimes will pull those coin signals through the processor which is being overwhelmed by iron all the time...your place sounds like almost a black sand type of thing, so you gotta run mid/low sens to see through it...All this said, I am the least qualified to give you a good answer, i just happen to be up early!

I know REVIER hunted Birmingham Al with an F2 and learned how to work iron dirt, and WV has some hot ground in his area as well, TAB, well, nothing gets past him!.....me and Ed are clad shooters/jewelry hunters...

.I only want to hear targets and no chatter or falsing..you should be able to hear a Q at 5 or 6" maybe more depending upon the moisture..if for some reason theres a heavy layer of iron at the 4" level in that yard, you are probably right, walk away...unless you can figure out a setting that works it...

The rest of the fellows will be along shortly I'm sure...Good Luck!
Mud

 

[IBdiggin]

Welcome Fish. First off congrats on the F70. No two ways about it , your either going to love it or hate it. Do not underestimate this mid priced beast.


You kinda need to think of the sensitivity setting as a head light with adjustable brightness. The trash, EMI and iron is much like fog. The worse the conditions are, the lower you need to run sensitivity. Threshold seems to have a direct relationship to limiting particle size. With so much iron in the soil, one can't help but think there has to be a major amount of rust in that ground. This will account for the false high tones that come along with iron. A threshold setting of -2 or -3 will go a long ways toward eliminating many of these high tones caused by small rusty particles. This setting is still capable of hitting a silver dime at 5".
Careful when notching and discriminating both. If you select a notch in an area you have discrimination already dialed in, it will actually notch that area back in. I almost became a F70 hater because of not knowing this until I joined a few forums and researched this great detector. So I believe you have come to the right place to learn the F70 and my bet is you will be happy you did.

Mud speaks the truth about reduced sensitivity and still getting depth. We have compared our finding of this practice many times and have come to the conclusion that reducing sensitivity to 35 or so will actually seem to make the coil patterns seem smaller much like a sniper coil . This practice seem to work with the DD and elliptical coils alike. Default speed works best with these conditions. Slow only works for me if conditions are fairly stable and quiet. Hope this helps you to detect this site. The difficult ones will usually hold the greatest treasures. HH----------------IB

 

[WV62]

First of all welcome to the forum.

By reading some of the older post you may know I am not a F70 owner or user, but in a lot of ways it is enough like the F75's that I have been able to help a little.

I only have a few minutes before heading to church, so to save time I cut and pasted from a download manual.

I would suggest anytime you are making a lot of setting changes that you do a factory reset, just to make sure you are back to square one.

For starters the one thing that jumped out at me was the 2f tones and nickels. I didn't take the time to read the manual from cover to cover, but I looked up the section under tones and I don't think you are correct that if running 2f it will assign a 70 to nickels. So the way I see it the only way you will be able to pick-up nickels at disc 65 is to notch them in or set your disc below nickels.

From what I see under tones it doesn't start talking about nickels until you get to 3H and 4H, and then it only changes the tone of items that fall in the nickel range to read high like other coins.

Got to go now, maybe I can get back later tonight take a little more time.

If you have any trouble with setting notches either in or out let me know, I may have something already typed up that I could shoot out.

Ron in WV



RESET function
The F70

 

[REVIER]

Will start off with a little back ground as I'm new to this forum.
Have been using the F2 for the last few years and in my opinion is perfect for the person who doesn't want to invest a lot but can still go out and find more then enough to pay for its self and the next upgrade in machine.Have found lots of silver with the best back in February a 1908D Barber Half in MS66 state, thus paying for my next machine.

I also went from about 1000 hours with the F2 to the F70 and love it and never looked back.
As IBdiggen said, you either hate it or learn how it works and have a much better chance to love it...there doesn't seem to be much middle ground with this one.

the SEF coil i was using seems to take a little more focus of pin pointing, in the fact that i thought with rocking the coil side to side and pulling back when the signal was lost then it would be located at the front tip, no matter what i tried the coin was always on the side of the plug.

If you get into using the F75 11"DD coil, something I totally recommend due to more depth over the standard elliptical and better ID's at depth, you will find that unlike some DD coils like my Vaq and the large 12" DD which the target will be in the front of the rim when the target drops out when pulling back, on the Fishers the target will be BEHIND the front rim instead.

So this is where the F70 and the stock coil comes in.... Sold the mine lab and went back to the old faithful fisher,but up graded to the F70, as for me the extra options of the 75 may not be as useful,back light, pin point trigger, grab/balance ect......but yet not to loose depth between the 70 and 75, I only hunt coins and mainly 68 and higher....thus have and will never find rings or nickels I'm fine with that...

It has been stated that the top end F series loose very little if any depth at High disc.

So now Ive got the Fisher F70, Read up prior to purchase, and found this forum thru a video. have read every post 10 pages deep which could be some of my problems as i have been reading and not out doing........Hats of to Mud,Revier,ED,WV62,TAB ect...... as you have put out a lot of good info.....

Reading...good, but experimenting in your particular soil and at your particular sites is way better although it might take time to find those optimum settings.

The 1st time out found my self saying i really don't like this machine, lots of noise, but looked back and realized that i had found 15 coins in a short 30min...not as bad as i thought even though a little noisy did manage to find little over $3.00 in change, came back did a few more days of reading as i only hut on the weekends, compiled a list of different settings and took them out this evening and put them to work..

So lets set the scene.... new hunting place is early 1800's, rural area, was the 12Th house built in this county, pull up still standing and was lived in until 1961...you just get the felling you have hit pay dirt.....

Started off with the following settings, disc @1, sen @90, SL,thresh@0, tone 4h, Yeah i know i was running hot.15min and nothing, drop backed a little to disc@1, sen @40-60,SL,thresh@0 tone 4H still nothing,
again change bigger to Disc 65, Sen 90, thresh -2, tone 2f, which i would like to state as i haven't seen many people mention but if I'm not mistaken with disc at 65 if you use the F2 tones it will assign the American Nickel a 70 count instead of notching them out with the disc set at 65, just a thought,
still nothing

All I can say about all this is it took me quite a few hours to understand what my detector was telling me when I hunted on high settings.
Over mtime, and with much practice, I have finally got to the point that I can hunt in SL, AT, Sense at 99 and thresh at 9 and still make sense out of what I am seeing and hearing in all sites even with unbelievable amounts of EMI and still pick out the good coin and other signals...but like I said it took time because at first it was all an unintelligible mess.
After many hours of trying thank goodness something actually clicked and now I hunt this way more often than not.
I also use 2F on high settings when I am not in AT often, it seems to be affected less by EMI and I like the modulation on targets plus the iron grunts I can hear because I usually hunt at disc settings of 4 and below to figure out pop tops and other trash at my sites.
As you hunt more and do some experimenting you will eventually make sense of what you are experiencing...this seems to be very normal and part of the learning curve using this one and we all seem to go through it till we hit that "AHA" moment when it all clicks.

When you set your disc high at that 65 you should never get nickels unless you notch nickels back in no matter what tones you use.
3H and 4H will assign them a high tone sound, but they will still come in at the low 30's no matter what as they will using any tone settings.

I might also recommend using DE mostly and for awhile till you get a little more time under your belt as the extra noise this will cause as it gathers in info from everything under your coil and even small amounts of EMI will cause you some grief.

So I'm now 2 hrs into a hunt on and 1/2 acre lot with Nothing..... so i take a clad Quarter out drop on ground picks up fine as it should a steady 82 count...... I then cut a plug 2"deep and no matter what i do it will never come up higher then 45??????like its not even their???

So i take it a step further i adj the setting to ready this 2" deep Quarter and its as follows....Disc 65, Sen 95, SL, thresh -9, tone where ever cant remember and come up fine,,,,

Some strange things can happen out there depending on what is happening at sites in the air and in the ground.
Just keep experimenting because there are so many different combinations that can and will have an effect on how your detector works.
What works for me in my soil and at my sites might be totally wrong for you at yours...even if we are hunting the same targets.
As always, practice and experimentation makes perfect...or close to perfect as humanly possible, anyway.
I have calmed down a bunch and settled on some specific settings for many sites, but I still get the itch to change things up and see what can happen and that will probably never end for me.

Would like to mention balance was 60 with the dirt indicator full, would like to know what that means as most places i have been it 45-55 GB and 1-2 bars of dirt..

From the manual...

DIRT

The DIRT bar graph on the LCD display indicates the amount of magnetic mineralization.
The two-digit GROUND PHASE number displayed on the LCD indicates the type of ground mineralization.

Some typical ground mineralization types are:
0

 

[Ed Steinhoff]

Hello Fish! You have a great machine in your hands but like IBdiggin said at first you will love it or hate it. When I first got mine I came close to selling it several times but there is a point in the learning curve when the light comes on and suddenly you have a precision tool that can be set up to excel as several different and specific machines to fit whatever conditions you want to hunt,
The biggest mistake I made in the beginning was trying to run to hot. That just produces frustration and confusion. The only time SL speed will do much good is in fairly clean ground, low trash conditions.
Like Mud said a faster swing will pull coins out better and give surprisingly good depth. Although coin/jewelry shooting is what I usually hunt, I do go relic and gold prospecting when time allows. I live in a highly mineralized area of colo. in the gold belt so the ground is hot, GB 85 and higher most of the time. Around the old gold mine and spoil piles the trash level coupled with the high ground balance makes for really chatty ground, similar to your old house site. Lower settings on sens, disc, and thres, coupled with tones in 4, 4h or dp, coupled with a faster swing speed will quiet everything down and still pull up the good stuff at excellent depths. When you get comfortable with the lower settings 4 tones and fast swing, start learning the DP tone setting, it opens up a whole new world of info. on what is being seen in the ground. With practise you will very seldom need to look at the id and depth meters to make the dig/don"t dig decision. It all boils down to practise and experiment but go lower not higher on most of your settings and you will become a lover not a hater of your 70.
HH Ed in co.

 

[mudpuppy]

Its an insane rig alright!

All of us seem to eventually find a program that works for our style, ground, and situation and stay with it, REVIER, likes to experiment, and if theres anybody who understands what all the settings do, he would be the guy....there was another guy, Scott, (Ash07)? who did some youtube vids as did REVIER that you may find very helpful...

I went and hunted a bunch of pea gravel, hotrock infested totlots today, set up light like normal, and flat wiped out any and all good targets right up close to the iron poles and whatnot this morning...I'd advise exactly what Ed said, especially since this is a new rig for you, set up light, and learn the DP's...when you do happen to find some clean loam where deep coins might be, you at least know what you are dealing with and can set up appropriately....it does like a FAST coil swing, like really fast, like so fast you will find dead bugs plastered to the sides of the control box! "Quick brooming" any little chirp of a target on the edge of the coil bears another sweep, but never Minelab slow..and with the Hz function, you should be able to hunt anywhere most others will dare to tread!
Thank you for allowing us to go on and on about the 70...we sure love it, its a money maker.
Mud

 

[Fish_in_1]

Thanks to all.... for lots of info that ill more then likely have to read a few times before it sinks in, went out this mourning little late 8 or so..mud had probably filled his pockets by then covering 3 tot lots, 2 schools, 4 side walks, fair grounds, and a foot ball stadium, I'm thinking you should try red bull mixed with Starbucks.Went to a small tot lot had never been to but is on the edge of town..thinking not hit as hard as i have only seen 2-3 people out detecting in a months time,set up as follows, Disc 1, sen@ 40, DE, 4h i think, rounded up
4 Q's, 3 D's, 10 P's and yes even a nickel, not that bad being it was 1/4 acre and only did 1 quick lap of 30min., nothing old mainly 70's but was all in the 3-4" range which makes me think their could be more their and hasn't been hit that many times... went to different are this evening of old hotel site that we have all but cleaned up over the last few months and went out a little further and found some old hand made bricks and square nails, never found anything, did have a few signals in the 9" mark broken up 77-83 but would vanish after digging, come to find out that my pin pointer(hand held) liked those chunks of brick????not sure what was in them to make it read this way on the detector, but in this area its really clean as it should have been a old field at 1 time as their are stacks of rocks here and their.never the less you may go 5 min or longer between signals so you dig what you got.well Ive had dinner, still have about and hour of light here in VA and I'm thinking ill go in the yard and try some of the really deep detecting to see what the F2 and Mine lab left behind....TTL and thanks again..

 

[IBdiggin]

Thanks to all.... for lots of info that ill more then likely have to read a few times before it sinks in, went out this mourning little late 8 or so..mud had probably filled his pockets by then covering 3 tot lots, 2 schools, 4 side walks, fair grounds, and a foot ball stadium, I'm thinking you should try red bull mixed with Starbucks.Went to a small tot lot had never been to but is on the edge of town..thinking not hit as hard as i have only seen 2-3 people out detecting in a months time,set up as follows, Disc 1, sen@ 40, DE, 4h i think, rounded up
4 Q's, 3 D's, 10 P's and yes even a nickel, not that bad being it was 1/4 acre and only did 1 quick lap of 30min., nothing old mainly 70's but was all in the 3-4" range which makes me think their could be more their and hasn't been hit that many times... went to different are this evening of old hotel site that we have all but cleaned up over the last few months and went out a little further and found some old hand made bricks and square nails, never found anything, did have a few signals in the 9" mark broken up 77-83 but would vanish after digging, come to find out that my pin pointer(hand held) liked those chunks of brick????not sure what was in them to make it read this way on the detector, but in this area its really clean as it should have been a old field at 1 time as their are stacks of rocks here and their.never the less you may go 5 min or longer between signals so you dig what you got.well Ive had dinner, still have about and hour of light here in VA and I'm thinking ill go in the yard and try some of the really deep detecting to see what the F2 and Mine lab left behind....TTL and thanks again..

High again Fish in 1


Hitting 77-83's broken up at 9" could very well be smaller rust particles or remnants of old iron. I have found this scenario at old farm locations around old equipment and rusted sheet metal. Since F series, and many other detectors, are calibrated for coin sized objects it could be mistaking small shallow clusters of rust for deeper coin sized objects. These may appear to be ghost like when trying to dig them as the rusty dirt pockets break up. After the dirt pockets get small enough the signal seem to jump around the hole while trying to find them until the iron saturated dirt gets so scattered the signal is gone. I'm not exactly sure but I get the feeling that an unexplained jumpiness on the dirt meter at times might have something to do with these dying rust pockets that are on the path of becoming mineralized soil. Many people interpret these signals as falsing high tones created from iron when actually I feel it is the rust that comes from the iron causing a high tone.


Since bricks are fired in a kiln, they may give off the same characteristics an old campfire or hot rock gives off, don't know. May be this signal falls in the discriminated portion of your setting as to why your pointer see's it and the detector doesn't.

It's nice when you find those quiet areas so you can bump up the sensitivity. That's the time to give your slow speed option a try. When deep seeking though, I stay away from the negative numbers in threshold settings or maybe even go a little positive. I once read in the article "Tricks and Tips of the F5", that threshold could be looked at like a door which is wide open when threshold is set to zero. When using negative numbers, -1, -2, -3, etc. the door closes respectively. The larger the minus number you select, the larger sized object you will eliminate. Positive numbers, on the other hand, will add amplification to the signal respectively as the numbers increase. By closing the door so to speak, on a deep coin sized object, we may be telling the detector that coin or stud or ring is a small object that can be overlooked. Just a thought.--------HH with your new toy--------IB

 

[Fish_in_1]

The extremely enhanced adjacent target separation characteristics afforded by a elliptical Double D coil presents just exactly such. A coin and a pull-tab... both at a 6" depth....... and adjacently separated by 6", poses a severe problem to a 10.5" concentric coil,,,,, but does not even approach "problem" status to a 11" elliptical DD coil...............



Whats your thoughts on this, could this be why with my CONCENTRIC ELLIPTICAL stock coil is unable to separate the differences in a 3" coating of iron????, @ the 1800's house, and now that i look back on it we dug up plenty of black rock with clear crystal in it, and we also thinking their may have been some type of coal slag over the area as well???

Would the 11"DD coil be that much better,
in an environment that has 5 blocking objects of iron/tab/slag ect... to 1 part silver/copper( in the same hole) , i know it will see deeper but can it process better and faster of what it sees?

 

[Fish_in_1]

Thanks IBDIGGIN,

Yes at the old quiet sight i did bump up to settings of Disc 1,Sen 99,SL,thresh 0 and 4h tone, just not much their as i think it was and old field that now is trees over 100 yrs old and forest like, i did go out last night with the settings a little different in my heavy hunted out yard, this section is maybe 50 x 50 and has produced the most , did find 1 penny and then found a small desk top staple that was down 6-7" i could hardly believe it being so small and all but was a clear sound but faint of course , same settings as above but did cut back the sens to 80 to be a little better on my ears...

 

[REVIER]

The extremely enhanced adjacent target separation characteristics afforded by a elliptical Double D coil presents just exactly such. A coin and a pull-tab... both at a 6" depth....... and adjacently separated by 6", poses a severe problem to a 10.5" concentric coil,,,,, but does not even approach "problem" status to a 11" elliptical DD coil...............



Whats your thoughts on this, could this be why with my CONCENTRIC ELLIPTICAL stock coil is unable to separate the differences in a 3" coating of iron????, @ the 1800's house, and now that i look back on it we dug up plenty of black rock with clear crystal in it, and we also thinking their may have been some type of coal slag over the area as well???

Would the 11"DD coil be that much better,
in an environment that has 5 blocking objects of iron/tab/slag ect... to 1 part silver/copper( in the same hole) , i know it will see deeper but can it process better and faster of what it sees?

I was never a huge fan of big DD coils till I got some hours in with one with the F70.
Target separation is superb, depth is almost unbelievable as is the accuracy of target ID's at depth.
On mine in my great soil this coil is definitely deeper by several inches over the standard elliptical.

The standard coil is no slouch in target separation in sites with normal but even heavy trash, just a few hours after getting mine it found me this gold or maybe gold and platinum ring right next to and surrounded by regular park garbage.
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?91,1993276,1993793#msg-1993793

When it comes to heavy iron sites I don't have much experience using the standard coil in sites like that so in this case I would tend to believe rocket Tom and this statement because he has.

 

[IBdiggin]

Yes it is remarkable Fish, how small of an object these units can see. This is where a unit with adjustable threshold really shine.

I once caught hell referring to the 10" elliptical as a concentric coil so I will just call it the 10" elliptical

Sounds like that slag field would be a good scenario for the 11" DD coil more so than the elliptical 10". They both have their plusses and minuses. DD's love bottle caps and ID some things differently than the 10" coil but can achieve greater depth in problematic areas. Elliptical 10" have bigger problems with EMI and mineralization. If you have spent enough time with either to be able to deal with all situations you face, then that is the coil for you. I've learned to tell pre 84 pennies from zincolns, tabs from nickels, even the broken off beavertails will eventually give off that fart in the middle after examining it enough. First tell is the jump in the numbers. With the 10" a nickel will go from a 28 to 32 depending on the depth and angle but not to a 34 like the tail will and a coin will never false to low tone(fart) unless it is influenced by masking.


I myself still use the 10" elliptical coil since it is all I have. Guess I'm too tight to plop down the money for the DD till I cash in my career long clad pile but I so like watching it grow. Many would prefer the 10" non DD coil depending on soil types and interference conditions. I've read posts where company reps even recommended them. It all depends on the individual and the conditions.
The coin and the pull tab you speak of would give me no problems at 6" only because I have learned to tell the difference between the objects fore mentioned. First of all I believe, especially with the elliptical 10" it is important to get as directly over top center of the target as possible. Also I do the X pattern thingy on nearly every target I dig, probably out of habit I contracted starting out with the Ace 250 as a pinpoint aid. That will definitely help to gather additional information on the scenario you are dealing with. The longer I examine a given trash item, the more apt is to change it's story so to speak. It's like playing poker with a good liar. You need to heel and toe, do the X pattern, hop the coil, or what ever it takes to find that disgusting low tone fart stuck in the middle of all that sweetness. No matter how well you examine a coin 99% of the time you will not be able to get it to change it's tone or VDI value. If it is nearly out of your depth range it will become a one way signal and VDI will flicker somewhat. The other 1% of the time there is probably some masking or multi targeting going on. Running very high sensitivity will make separating these close targets with the elliptical 10" more difficult that running more relaxed settings. I once found a .925 silver charm 2" deep less than 1 1/2" long and 3/16" tall about 2' away from a park shelter trash can. You could actually see foil and pull taps lying on the top of the ground. Settings were sensitivity 35 and threshold was -3 and discrimination was about 20. There was no mistaking that silver signal even mixed with all that trash. Came through like a blow horn in the fog. This find was possible only due to a conversation Mudpuppy and I had the day before about reduced power hunting and our belief in it's effects on coil foot print size. Forgetting to return to my normal setting of 50 and zero, a short time later I hit a one way sweet high tone on a silver mercury dime 5" deep. I bumped up to a 50 and -3 and hit the dime in both directions. 20 minutes later I found another merc in an area I missed countless times before at higher settings. That is 3 silvers in 1 day all with a -3 threshold.
Sorry to have gotten so long winded here but sometime the stories we tell seem to somehow stick in our mind and offer more clues of new things to try on the next hunt. These are things I know about the 10" elliptical but you should use extreme caution since I am no expert ----------------------IB

 

[IBdiggin]

OOOOOOOPs I was too slow at composing my post. Reviers post actually came up before mine. Just wanted to let you know that my post was in no way meant to contradict Reviers postbecause of it's respective content. How is that for a disclaimer?

 

[Fish_in_1]

no worries on long explanations of what has worked from each of you, as the way i have been doing it at this iron pit is not working , so seeing different opinions and thoughts can only be as some type of help, at least here i can get different views of what to try and will soon be able to solve this mysterious iron field..Having a 12hr day every weekend all to myself here will be a good learning experience and when i do break the code then no where else in this state will poss even the slightest challenge., will see Will be their over the weekend and try some new things..will report late Sunday...

 

[IBdiggin]

Sounds like a real nasty location to deal with Fish. The good side to all this is an F70 is a big help in these noisy type scenarios as long as the user doesn't become overwhelmed before learning how to deal with it but most F70 haters will disagree with this totally. These units hit so hard on coins you are able to either hear them over lots of noisy conditions or set up quiet (lower sensitivity and into the minus threshold) and still get pretty good depth. That idea of the DD coil would probably be of some benefit in your situation. Let us know how it turns out for you.-------IB

 

[Fish_in_1]

Ordered a 5" x 10" Elliptical DD coil today as a little insurance for the weekend, will test and compare and return results sun night, on another note tonight i was playing in yard that's been gone over and over and was digging all signals that were strong and not iron and came up with a tinny zinc or maybe aluminum? coin/token?, will fit inside of a penny with the penny being 1/8" boarder around this, it has a 10 raised in middle with 4 stars, 1 at each corner of the 10, on back has larger star in center???older game token / state tax token??? no writing that i could tell as it was pretty smooth, was sitting down at 5" kinda shocked to pic it up, was set up at
disc1, senc 30, SL,thresh 0, 4H,..(nice and quiet)..................................

On another note if i get a good signal swinging to the left but then coming back to the right it farts,falses,grunts, what ever we want to call it (iron like)but does this every time....say going left reads constant 80 but then going back across to right it grunts,(only swinging 2-4") is this the telling of bad target or telling of good target with a bad target(iron) near it...??? didn't dig was in yard can always go back and find out though?? and sorry in advance as im sure we have went over this before but may have not been stated this way???Thanks!!

 

[IBdiggin]

Wow, already your seeing through these obstacles with lowered power.

We tend to only want to dig repeatable signals normally. But there is nothing normal about the site you describe. The key is audio no doubt. A nice coin will never fart or belch or whatever analogy we want to use, or turn into one upon examination. However, they hang out with many objects that will false. This is exactly why I pinpoint each target area and then use the 90 degree rescan approach when the tricky targets come up. Once you determine you are in the center of the area, try swinging left and right over the target starting with the heel or toe of the coil working toward the cent of your coil. Your experience with the F2 will benefit you here, you are relying on your audio experience. Try to determine if that one way hit seems to soften or get chirpy as you heel and toe, or if there is in fact two separate targets. Pushing pinpoint or swinging in all metal(autotune) may reveal a second target at times. If the original signal soften at the edges when heel and toeing, it is probably rust accompanying iron. If you feel the original one way does indeed hold up, you have no choice but to dig. Masking can play some very strange tricks and the longer you deal with it helps somewhat but there will always be surprises and that is what keeps us addicted to this hobby. Hope this helps------------------IB

 

[REVIER]

On that one way target...I would dig it especially if it is deep.
A few times I have got solid 1 way hits on very deep targets near the end of the scanning field of several different coil types.
Each time the VDI was off on the target type, high tone on a beaver tail tab for instance with the standard coil at 10" deep, but there was a target down there at depth each time.
Shallow targets more probably junk, but you never know.

Very deep targets might give a tone but no info on the screen at all.
This would be a very diggable target for me.
One way solid hit no matter what tone low medium or high, no info on the screen, depth reading near, at the end or even past the normal depth range of the mounted coil.

I have learned that no matter what is or is not on the screen, the audio is more important and gets even more so as targets gets deeper.
Also solid repeatable from all directions are most desired, but targets that are only one way hits can be good if conditions are right.

Something I read that a veteran an very successful long time hunter had as his mantra and that made quite an impression on me and I think of on every iffy or strange sounding signal I get...

"I didn't come out here to swing...I came out here to dig!"


More info about good signals disguised as iron...
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,865530

Very scientific experimentation and surprising results and must reading for everyone...except mudpupy, of course.
mud...you can just go wash your car or something instead.

 

[IBdiggin]

Gotta remember he working in a slag field. Probable not going be able to recognize anything deep enough to be unidentifiable. Just a thought