Mike Bearden
Member
This is going to be a long post ... so bear with me on this 
First off, for those that attended this hunt and know Don Echols and Earl Keys, know that these 2 guys really know Culpeper and the ground pretty darn well, they live there.
They hunt exclusively with MXT's and so it seems that MOST of the locals do as well.
This was my 2nd. DIV hunt in Culpeper and I used the F75 both times and have 200 or so hunting hours with it before this hunt ... so I felt pretty confident that I would get good results.
My traveling buddy to the DIV hunts is Don Dodson, he's a dealer and site sponsor for Findmall and the DIV forum.
I consider myself a hard hunter and right at home with with these guys.
We arrived late Wednesday night and Don E had a practice site lined up for us to hunt Thursday morning with some pretty nasty ground.
When we hit this field and I turned on my F75 .... I immediately noticed excessive noise that would come and go and the ground balance seemed way off no matter what I did.
I kept my distance from everyone thinking it was cross talk from one of the other guys machine, Earl told me that he could hear my machine but it didn't seem to affect Don Echols MXT or Don Dodson's X70 so I tried everything in the book to make it hunt.
I lowered the sens, tired different disc programs, took the battery out of my pin pointer, replaced the batteries in the F75, and finally decided to try manual ground balancing .... that cleared it up INSTANTLY !!!
Only problem with that scenario is how darn fast this ground changes in Culpeper ... simply put, if you don't have a machine with tracking or on the fly GB ... well it will run you CRAZY as hell in a matter of minutes.
Now to Day 1 of DIV .... same problems, over and over again I tried to GB on the fly but all I would get was the message ( Cant Ground Balance ) and it gave me fits.
I knew from what little experience I've had hunting bad ground like Brandy that you will pretty much have to dig EVERYTHING if you want any finds in your pouch and that's a FACT !
Anyway ... I was pretty much forced into manual ground balancing or forget about it. Otherwise I could just listen to the WORST interference sounding garbled mess you can imagine.
When we got back that night I checked and re-checked everything on the F75 and found nothing obvious and I was sweating day 2.
Day 2 .... same damn thing with the exception that I did get into an area where the ground stayed consistent inside a 40' circle and dug a handful of iron buckles and 3 bullet frags
Day 3 ... last day of the hunt .... same thing, so I just hunkered down in small spots and dug some more iron for the most part until lunch time hit.
During lunch I ran into SC Digger and Bill Ladd, explained to them what was going on and they both ... said as I already knew (That ain't right ) and suggested to send it into First Texas for repair.
Had already talked to Streak earlier in the day and he suspected something broken too.
After lunch I walked back to the truck and had made my mind up that I was DONE and would just sit it out the rest of the day.
Well ... I ran across Bill Ladd again who was parked near by and we tested a spare coil ... nope that didn't help either ... but you can't ask for a nicer guy than Bill to be around and I really appreciate his trying to help me out.
After Bill walked off I decided to open up the control housing, the GB/pinpoint switch comes thru the case and a wiring harness plug slips onto the switch internally,
After gazing into the darkness where the switch lies I found what looked like a wire just DANGLING on top of the switch instead of being pushed in flush like the others.
I took a small screwdriver and gently pushed the wire down into the harness and put everything back together again .... turned it ON and it immediately sounded right ... and OH YES the GB on the fly freaking WORKED like it should.
While scanning the ground and setting up the F75 ... RIGHT BEHIND THE TRUCK ... I found a Gardner bullet at 8" and the ID was right on even in that badazz dirt.
Now here I am with like 5 hours to hunt what's left of the DIV at Brandy and I catch a 2nd. wind and dig several more bullets, a medium size canister shot, a beat up CS button, quite a few small pieces of brass yet to be identified , 2 coins, and YES it had me smiling finally.... especially since the site had been seriously pounded by the end of day 2.
So the moral of my story is to NEVER give up and do the best with what you've got ....
Good Hunting
Mike
First off, for those that attended this hunt and know Don Echols and Earl Keys, know that these 2 guys really know Culpeper and the ground pretty darn well, they live there.
They hunt exclusively with MXT's and so it seems that MOST of the locals do as well.
This was my 2nd. DIV hunt in Culpeper and I used the F75 both times and have 200 or so hunting hours with it before this hunt ... so I felt pretty confident that I would get good results.
My traveling buddy to the DIV hunts is Don Dodson, he's a dealer and site sponsor for Findmall and the DIV forum.
I consider myself a hard hunter and right at home with with these guys.
We arrived late Wednesday night and Don E had a practice site lined up for us to hunt Thursday morning with some pretty nasty ground.
When we hit this field and I turned on my F75 .... I immediately noticed excessive noise that would come and go and the ground balance seemed way off no matter what I did.
I kept my distance from everyone thinking it was cross talk from one of the other guys machine, Earl told me that he could hear my machine but it didn't seem to affect Don Echols MXT or Don Dodson's X70 so I tried everything in the book to make it hunt.
I lowered the sens, tired different disc programs, took the battery out of my pin pointer, replaced the batteries in the F75, and finally decided to try manual ground balancing .... that cleared it up INSTANTLY !!!
Only problem with that scenario is how darn fast this ground changes in Culpeper ... simply put, if you don't have a machine with tracking or on the fly GB ... well it will run you CRAZY as hell in a matter of minutes.
Now to Day 1 of DIV .... same problems, over and over again I tried to GB on the fly but all I would get was the message ( Cant Ground Balance ) and it gave me fits.
I knew from what little experience I've had hunting bad ground like Brandy that you will pretty much have to dig EVERYTHING if you want any finds in your pouch and that's a FACT !
Anyway ... I was pretty much forced into manual ground balancing or forget about it. Otherwise I could just listen to the WORST interference sounding garbled mess you can imagine.
When we got back that night I checked and re-checked everything on the F75 and found nothing obvious and I was sweating day 2.
Day 2 .... same damn thing with the exception that I did get into an area where the ground stayed consistent inside a 40' circle and dug a handful of iron buckles and 3 bullet frags
Day 3 ... last day of the hunt .... same thing, so I just hunkered down in small spots and dug some more iron for the most part until lunch time hit.
During lunch I ran into SC Digger and Bill Ladd, explained to them what was going on and they both ... said as I already knew (That ain't right
) and suggested to send it into First Texas for repair.Had already talked to Streak earlier in the day and he suspected something broken too.
After lunch I walked back to the truck and had made my mind up that I was DONE and would just sit it out the rest of the day.
Well ... I ran across Bill Ladd again who was parked near by and we tested a spare coil ... nope that didn't help either ... but you can't ask for a nicer guy than Bill to be around and I really appreciate his trying to help me out.
After Bill walked off I decided to open up the control housing, the GB/pinpoint switch comes thru the case and a wiring harness plug slips onto the switch internally,
After gazing into the darkness where the switch lies I found what looked like a wire just DANGLING on top of the switch instead of being pushed in flush like the others.
I took a small screwdriver and gently pushed the wire down into the harness and put everything back together again .... turned it ON and it immediately sounded right ... and OH YES the GB on the fly freaking WORKED like it should.
While scanning the ground and setting up the F75 ... RIGHT BEHIND THE TRUCK ... I found a Gardner bullet at 8" and the ID was right on even in that badazz dirt.
Now here I am with like 5 hours to hunt what's left of the DIV at Brandy and I catch a 2nd. wind and dig several more bullets, a medium size canister shot, a beat up CS button, quite a few small pieces of brass yet to be identified , 2 coins, and YES it had me smiling finally.... especially since the site had been seriously pounded by the end of day 2.
So the moral of my story is to NEVER give up and do the best with what you've got ....
Good Hunting
Mike
