DeLeon or F75?

[Spaz]

Howdy all,
New to the forum and only have one season under my belt detecting. Hit the parks pretty heavy this summer with my Tejon but was beginning to wonder about all the nickels I've been missing. The parks I've been hitting are absolutely filthy with tabs and I just haven't got the patience to do all that digging. Another reason is, being a rookie, my plugs are pretty good but I'm just not comfortable risking leaving anything at all noticeable behind me. The fed, state and even the counties I've checked with in my area don't allow detecting on what they consider "their" land and since the cities have all been cool I don't want to risk getting them torked. Maybe I'm just wimping out but I got a nice deal on a new Fisher F75 about a month ago. Wanted that TID to help me isolate the nickels. Only got to use it a couple times (noisy *******) but having that ID seemed to help. Fisher also has an upgrade ($$$) available for the F75 but to be honest I'm just sold on Tesoro. Smooth pleasant tone, solid build and their staff has almost been like family talking me through my newbie issues. Called Fisher for a simple question and it was like talking to the DMV. Soooo, I imagine I'm talking to a pretty biased crowd here but does anyone have some solid Deleon experience vs. the F75?

 

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[luvsdux]

Never used or even been around the F75, but have detected quite a bit with the Deleon. It identifies nickles quite well and I've dug many, but I don't think you'll get totally away from the problem with tabs regardless of the detector unless you set the disc high enough to miss gold jewelry. If your ground is mineralized the preset ground balance of the D may be a more or less serious concern as well. All this said, as far as coin popping goes if it weren't for the issue concerning gold I've often wondered why bother with nickles even though I like V nickles and Buffalo nickles for their historic value.
luvsdux

 

[rainyday101]

Your post should be asking what is the best nickel finder. As much as I like Tesoro, I don't think that is a fair comparison. As stated above the Deleon doesn't have ground balance.

 

[Spaz]

Thanks for the input. Ground in my part of the state is pretty easy and I can run my Tejon wide open so I don't think the auto balance should be much of an issue. To be honest mines a mostly working class area so I don't have any false illusions about much lost gold in my area. In the time it'd take me to dig 300 pull tabs to MAYBE get a gold ring I'd rather just keep moving and covering more ground to go after the coins. Coin collector at heart so I'd like to make sure I snag the nickels for sure. From what I've been hearing tabs and gold rings sound and TID the same but a decent detector should be able to separate out the nickels. If there's a particular sound with the Tejon to better identify the nickels I haven't found it yet but maybe I just need to be more patient. Still like the idea of the TID to assist me, though. So yes, rainyday, I suppose I'm looking for the best nickel finder with a TID that isn't a $1000+ Minelab. Was hoping that F75 would be the answer, and maybe it is, but in the limited time I used it it was just a plain chore. Tones are bizarre and chatter nonstop. ID is extremely jumpy even with sensitivity and discrimination down and switching to a small coil. EMI issues that I never had with my Tesoro's. BUT, if I could suffer through all that it seemed to find the coins. Switched to all metal no motion and it eliminated the chatter in exchange for the steady tone but ID still nearly unusable. Went back to my Tejon and all of the sudden detecting was fun again. I was just wondering if I spring for a Deleon am I going to have the same frustrations as the F75 is giving me.

 

[luvsdux]

As I mentioned above, the D works well for me and it and other Tesoros I have used sing out loudly on nickels when the disc is set below nickels. My D usually gives a pretty solid indication for nickels and runs fairly smoothly unless in heavy trashy areas. Generally performs best if set a bit under max sensitivity. The tid does help and I like the extra info when detecting nice grassy areas.
luvsdux

 

[rainyday101]

Okay, I haven't used the Deleon but would love to have one. For a uMax series detector, it is supposedly much deeper than the existing uMax detectors. One day I stopped by a Whites dealer and looked at a M6. Air testing that thing could tell the difference between a nickel and a tab every time. I tried several different tab types and could tell a nickel from all the tabs every single time. Very impressive detector. Now bear in mind this was not in ground just air testing. The dealer used a M6 just for that reason. She said it was a nickel magnet. Might be worth checking out. Sounds like it would suit your needs really well.

 

[Spaz]

Thanks guys. Have a Deleon on the way. Should be here Tuesday but unless we get a thaw I imagine it's going to sit with me drooling all over it until spring. Sniffing around for that M6, also. I see they usually go for a reasonable price on EBay, too, so looks like come April or May I'm going to have quite a playoff going on out here in the sticks. Really appreciate your feedback. Almost too much info on the internet to know what to believe. Once I get my hands in the dirt again I'll do a follow up.

 

[Rawhide]

The F75 has a variety of coils and is a coin finder for sure. While nickles run a solid 32 on my VDI, you also get a lot of pull tabs in that range also. Your Deleon may be better suited for hunting nickles. I like to hunt by sound, but there is several things on the VDI that helps ID targets. The new upgrade looks to be great for F75 owners. I hope to get mine upgraded soon. Hope this helps.

 

[digger27]

Nickels are the weirdest and can be the iffiest of all coins, they can come in nice and at known numbers on detectors with screens, you can also find them at areas slightly off those numbers.
On Tesoros I have found them at that nickel range but also above and below.
Stay tabs do come in at similar areas and numbers...just another way the universe messes with us.

It doesn't matter what machine you use, from the bottom up to the extreme top end, because nickels and some tabs are so close in conductivity ranges I don't believe there is any unit invented so far that can tell you the difference between these things 100% of the time successfully.
Wish there was such a beast, but in my opinion there isn't.

I use both brands, a Vaquero and Compadre and also an F70 which is based on the same platform as your F75.
I am not biased, I love hunting with both styles, love switching between the two types which keeps me from being bored, and I am pretty successful using both at finding all kinds of targets including all coins and nickels, plus jewelry and that includes gold.
I can do this most of the time and avoid digging 80-85% of the trash out there with both brands including tabs, but I have made a sincere effort to learn techniques to do this and the language of both brands as well as possible...and I am always learning because that never ends.

In the case of your chatty F75, a common complaint on some that don't understand the settings and capabilities of this thing, you can set it to be absolutely quiet, get solid numbers and tones on good targets, still go deeper than you can imagine and still avoid digging a ton of trash while doing it...but evidently you just don't have a handle on exactly how to do all of this...yet.
You have a feature and an advantage with that thing that I don't have on my F70 that will make hunting nickels even easier...you can actually notch out half of any of the standard notch width areas.
On the nickels you can cut out the top half and keep the bottom in and that would be very helpful to me if I had it available because I hunt some of the trashiest, tab infested sites you would ever come across.
My nickels are usually in the 31-32 range and sta-tabs are more into the 33-35 area.
If I could get rid of that sta-tab range but keep in real nickels I could avoid even more trash than I do now and dig even more nickels even easier....and let me tell you that it has never been easier to find nickels for me since I started using the F70 because I seem to find a ton...and I always was able to find a lot of nickels using several different detectors.
On the F70 I can notch out the entire nickel range but not just a part so the advantage goes to the F75 in this area.

One more thing, that comment about finding gold...
I have found more of that in lower income areas than higher for several reasons so don't think finding it in your areas is out of the question...but to do it successfully and consistently you do need to wrap your head around digging more trash in all areas from foil on up than a coin hunter like you might want to.
Still, you might be surprised one day.

Have fun with your Deleon, I love getting out and listening to the pure sounds on my Tesoros, getting good at hunting with sound is the best way to get better at this hobby even if you switch it up and also use detectors with screens like I do.
But I wouldn't give up on that F75 just yet, either.
Many have because they never had access to good information to help them learn to understand it which is actually great for us Fisher guys because we end up buying those chatty, horrible units with very low hours off of them at fire sale prices....and laugh the whole time as we do it.
PM me and I can get you to some great information on how to set that thing up correctly and quietly, and how we users have discovered what it can do and how easily it can do all that it can especially with the right settings for any given site or conditions.
Trust me, you have no idea how amazing this thing can be even without that new DST upgrade.

Keep the Deleon too, and learn that thing well.
I couldn't wrap my head around not having both brands available to me in the arsenal to use at any given time when I feel like switching around.
Hunting with just one detector 100% of the time, even if it was the best machine on the planet, would just bore me to death without that option.