How much do you trust VDI?

[BottlecapFinder]

How deep do you trust the VDI on the F75 LTD? I've been finding that after 6 inches its not reliable at all. I can see the deep coins but often they will come back with too many iron signals. In my test garden a 7 inch silver quarter often gives iron back with the occasional high tone. Usually its confident that its the low iron as well.

Carl

 

[TerraDigger]

Luke..........feel the Tones!!!!...lol...a bit of Star Wars humor. Tones are more reliable......and go deeper than the VDI. The VDI is good for shallow targets. Let's say 1-6" on a quarter. Soil/trash have to be factored in. Read in your manual about the different tone options and what signal processes are used with each tone. Some tone settings work better than others for tone depth. The tones and the VDI work on seperate channels, which is a good thing. And it is a known fact that the F75/T2 will read coins at the outer limits of detection as iron. As you noticed, you catch that 'blip' of a good tone on the deepies. Use the pinpoint to get a depth estimate and also to size the target (this takes a bit of practice to become proficent). Good Luck.

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

The VDI can and will lie to you!!! lol

 

[Elton]

I rely on sounds more than VID.. As Digger always says " to be sure you gotta dig it".

 

[mudpuppy]

Well, I've got the F70, but I'll give this a go...the more I learn, (read digging) the more I do not trust either VDI or Depth gauge. Accuracy seems to depend on the soil conditions, moisture content etc.
Delta pitch sound I like, I'm at the point of distinguishing dimes from copper pennies just from this alone, even though they VDI very close to the same, there is a subtle sound difference. The canadian copper pennies have their own distinct sound too. I just noticed all of this this past weekend...although I've been running delta pitch since the start of the year, it took that long to make the mental association...and over 120 bucks of clad. Like Terradigger said, it takes LOTS of practice!

 

[mikewaz]

I agree with all of the posts above. Tone is what I pay the most attention to but still peek at the VDI for reference to check against the target.
I went by the VDI the first season I hunted with the F75 and dug a lot of junk. Now the keepers are up and the trash is down.

Have Fun!
Mike

 

[Southwind]

While I understand the idea of saying "tone is more accurate" is it really that or just that tone is more readily noticeable?

OK now that I have everyone confused, let me try and clarify.

I'm pretty sure that most of todays detector get the tone and visual ID(VID) from the same source. So, the truth is the tone is not any more accurate than the VID, it's just you can hear the different tones but need to look to see the different VID's changing. Basically, it's easier to hear the changing signal tones than the changing signal VID, but you can get the same accurate information off of the VID.

This weekend we had a friend bring his F75 down to hunt our city park. What we noticed was the extremely deep coins jumped all over the VDI scale and the tone as well so they were practically useless below 6-7". Well I shouldn't say useless because you could listen for the occasional high peep and that could be a coin.

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

On the F75 the tones and VDI are independent of each other. They are not tied to each other.

 

[Bill Ladd]

I especially like to utilize 2 tones in the trash, & I try to isolate targets & get them to repeat enough to decide to dig. In hunting iron which I do alot, I always try to scrape away an inch or 2 of soil to get "closer" to the object (can't do that in a lawn but I'm usually in woods). Often that gives me a better ID number, & or better tone. Also remember it's a motion unit & that a faster sweep can sometimes generate a better ID too. A buddy trying my T2 for the first time was coming from a non-motion unit & it was very hard for him to swing faster at first....
I don't rely on the ID # too much in a trashy spot because nails, etc. also under the coil can often cause the unit to "average", or give a combined number. This happens alot with the stock coils cause they are so big you may have 3 nails, a .22 casing & one indian head all under it at once. You hear a high chirp of the coin, but you won't see a typical "coin" ID number. Just yesterday with the T2 I had a jumpy signal in the 50's. But when I gut the dirt out & spread it apart I see a 79 & hear a high chirp.....it was an indian head in the same hole as a nail & tiny shard of aluminum....
HH,
Bill