Old guy trying to convert from analog to digital detectors

[chuckinnc]

 I grew up with old analog detectors in 70s and early 80s, then quit till now (retired) back then detectors were no motion, analog meter and sound increased or decreased with target and dept.  Now I have tried new digital detector and just can't figure it out what I am hearing and seeing on the screen.  Surely some older detector people have had to made the conversion and may have a few tips. 

 

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[cudamark]

What type of detecting are you planning to do? What machines do you own and have tried? I've gone from BFO's to the latest and greatest. I didn't find any problem with the transition except for the amount of options and adjustments you can now make. Generally, today's digital machines assign a number to a target instead of a needle moving a given amount. Figure it like there is a number where the needle is pointing. The tones on some machines change with the number on the display. Many machines will let you change the tones to suit your desires. Multitones will give you a lot of information and may take a bit to get used to. On many machines you can also limit the number of different tones or even use only 1 or 2 if you want. No matter which machine you get, it will take over a 100 hours before you're talking the same language and start to feel comfortable with each other.

 

[chuckinnc]

Yea, I need to give it more time. I bought a cheap F2 because every youtube video or forum I went to said it was the easiest to learn. I had planned on taking the grand kids to some local parks to find shallow easy clad coins just for fun, not profit, but I get weird sounds and unable to pinpoint targets very well.

 

[digger27]

Yea, I need to give it more time. I bought a cheap F2 because every youtube video or forum I went to said it was the easiest to learn. I had planned on taking the grand kids to some local parks to find shallow easy clad coins just for fun, not profit, but I get weird sounds and unable to pinpoint targets very well.

I used an F2 for three seasons and over 1000 hours my $200 investment netted me over $2000 worth of clad, silver, gold plus relics....and a whole lot of fun.
I must have written about 1000 posts about how it works, how i used it and everything I discovered as I learned it plus hundreds of quality finds.
Sounds are not weird, or not supposed to be, there should be 4 distinct tones and pinpointing is right on if you are doing it correctly.
Start 8-12" inches away from your target then hit the button...slide your coil toward the target area and when you get the loudest tone and lowest numbers the target should be under the center of your coil.
As far as the tones most times they are crisp, clean, solid and clear if you get the center of your coil over them.
There is even a slight difference in the tones, after several hours I could tell a quarter from a dime or copper cent without looking at the screen even though they all had supposedly the same high tone.
Before I put it away I was starting to do that on dimes vs copper cents too even though they were very close to each other.

Did you buy this new or used, what kind of coil do you have mounted and do you have more than one?
If used there is the possibility that you have an electronic or coil issue.
For all the owners that used this one, and there are many, I don't remember anyone complaining about strange noises or pinpointing issues.
They will squeak and false high with numbers into the 90's over big iron but over normal targets they are usually pretty stable and precise...especially on good targets like coins and rings.
For most of us this is a coin assassin...I won several awards at my club meetings while using mine including best jewelry so much they said I couldn't enter anymore and most coins found in a year for three consecutive years running.

Try this...
FTP swears there is no factory reset on this thing and there has never been anything written down about doing this in any manual or paperwork but I and uncountable others have done this when these units start acting wonky and 99% of the time we swear it brings them back into line.

When you hit the power button keep your finger pressed on it for about 10 seconds after it starts up.
There will be no indication whatsoever on the screen or in the tones to say anything has happened or changed but after doing this most of us have seen good results.
Try it and report back with exactly what you are seeing and hearing if it still acts weird.
I will try to help as much as I can because I know this one much more than well.

 

[Loco-Digger]

The F2 is a great detector to learn digital machines with. I must admit that I am a huge fan of the DD coils over the concentric ones. So much so that I bought a nel sharpshooter coil for my F2 even though I have it just to train noobs and to let a property owner use so we can hunt their property. I find I get a better tone and target ID using a DD in lieu of the stock concentric coil. This was even evident when I took my F70 to a local park. It came with the 10" concentric and I hit a bunch of iffy signals where I had just swept the area using my F75 with the stock DD. The DD told me all the signals were trash yet the concentric coil gave me iffy tones which means some rang in as possible good targets.

Good Luck & Happy Hunting.

 

[chuckinnc]

Thanks, I did buy it used, a deal I couldn't pass up, looked new and has 8" stock coil, screw in type conn. Last time I used a detector was in early 80s and just
have not taken the time to learn a digital motion machine, I think I have seem every F2 video on youtube and plan on buying a 4" coil, I think this may help
the learning process, just hard to accept the idea you have to swing the detector to get a target.

 

[Loco-Digger]

I recommend you take a variety of coins and trash (foil, pull tab, and bottle cap) and toss them on the ground. Go over each and take note of the tone and the target ID number. When I started I discriminated almost everything and cherry picked high tones for a while. After a few months time I notched nickels and zinc back in. A short while later I reduced what I discriminated to just foil and iron. 3 years later and now I only disc out the lower end of the iron range on my F75.