Couldnt stand it any longer...so I got an F70 with 2 coils 8-)

[CZconnoisseur]

Couldn't stand it any longer...so I got an F70 with 2 coils

After hunting my yard with a Silver Sabre 2 the other night, the bug just wouldn't go away....

So I sold a few things and came up with some funds for a detector. Researched this decision for a while...wanted something fast and deep, coming from an 11" Deus. This detector comes with the 5" hockey puck and of course the stock 11" DD coil, so hopefully I'll get the depth and separation I want for some of these local sites...

This detector looks simple enough to operate, and I have a few places where max depth is needed, not to mention a couple homesites that have seen a bulldozer or two. Separation is key for the latter, and I've pulled plenty of masked targets less than 5" deep with the Deus in these places.

I will be using the Silver Sabre II on Sunday for a few hours...I expect to hit targets no deeper than 6" however this little analog beauty has nice recovery speed and is only ~3 lbs. Where I will be hunting there have been Wheats pulled from 2-3" so I'm hoping for some silver....

Look forward to "learning the language" with this Fisher F70...it looks like a very capable machine and I'm literally salivating at the opportunity to pull up some old coins very soon!

 

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[tabman]

It sounds like you made a wise choice. A lot of people swear by them. I expect to see a lot of detecting videos and finds from you in the near future. Good Luck!

tabman

 

[Loco-Digger]

I am a Fisher guy, used the F4 in 2014 (fell in love with the stock DD coil) and then found a great deal on an F75 LTD SE. DO you have one locally you are buying used or are you buying new? You can find slightly used F75s with DST & Boost for the price of a new F70. The FA process on the F75 is great in target infested areas, the boost process get's you a little deeper and I mainly use it to get a better ID on iffy signals. You also have JE (jewelry), DE (default), CA (cache), & PF (plowed field) modes. I normally hunt in PF mode since it reduces falsing that occurs when detecting unlevel soil.

I see a guy in Dayton Ohio selling the new F75 w/dst for $550. Great deal at almost 50% of the MSRP. It comes with the stock 9" x 11" DD coil (my favorite) and the 5" DD coil for trashy sites.

I have 3 coils in my arsenal. I added a 12" x 15" S.E.F. coil for hunting areas such as fields and other less target dense areas. You can cover more ground in a shorter amount of time due to the coils size.

Just thought I'd offer you my 2 cents.

The only way I'd have bought an F70 is if I could have found a used one for $400 or less. Soon after I pulled the trigger on the F75 LTD SE a local guy had his F70 up on craigslist for that price.

Good Luck with your new detector purchase.

 

[Opie]

CZ, You will find the F70 can hold its own with any of the detectors out there. I have had and used the F75 but the F70 just performed better for me. Its probably more a personal issue that anything else. But I can say that a lot was learned while creating the F70 and some of the up-dates for the T2 and the F75 came as a result of that. The F70 can go real deep when used in the "Slow" mode. This is the deepest setting type for it. As far as coils, the 5" will go deeper than you think it will and will give you more than 5" of depth. (Depending on Ground, Ground balance, Batteries, The color purple, the square root of 36, Einstein's 2nd 3rd and 4th laws of relativity and what your latest horoscope says) Lmao Just kidding!! it will go deeper than people think, but a lot depends on it. Learn to hear what the machine says and "Welcome to the F70 club!!" Opie

 

[CZconnoisseur]

5" coil

I've seen people get ridiculous depth with the 5" coil - The Dirtfishing channel has an airtest video that compares the 11" DD with the 5" coil, and there's ONLY 1-2" difference in range between both coils. A little disproportionate if you ask me...check it out:



The title suggests he's using the 6.5" elliptical but it is indeed the 5" round...looks like a monster. I have multiple places to try out both coils

Learned this machine has "Delta Pitch" tones which I'm guessing is like Full Tones on the Deus. I wonder if the extra audio information found in Deus' Full Tones compares with this Delta Pitch mode, especially on targets that give audio info only without VDI vs a shallower target with a reading.

Default speed "DE" seems to be fairly fast and deep right out of the box from what I've watched so far. I'm hoping the 11" DD coil coupled with "SL" speed can ID some 10" plus coins vs iron, as opposed to the ferrous/non-ferrous information only I got at that depth with the Deus.

Another thing is the F70 VDIs almost exactly correlate with 4kHz programs on the Deus - from nickel all the way to silver dollar! There is a a nice VDI spread from top to bottom, which should compliment the Delta Pitch settings. Really looks like an outstanding machine so far, and I don't even have it yet!

 

[digger27]

I use an F70 which works similarly and has several of the basic processes as the F75/T2 platform as all are built on the same core platform.
I have the DE and SL process, that SL is very similar to boost on the F75...7 tones, thresh, sense and disc settings all exactly the same as yours.
I have the standard 10" elliptical concentric coil and an F75 5" and 12" DD coils as my very potent weapons.
I have used all the coils in two completely different types of soils, the very excellent almost perfect Kansas dirt and the extremely bad Birmingham Ala. type with pretty high mineralization but also a crazy amount of iron mixed in.
I have a lot of posts here and on other forums about all the different setting combinations I have tried in both states and in several trash infested and iron infested old home sites.
I am like a mad scientist...I keep tweaking and changing most settings looking for the most optimum set up I can find for every site condition I come across.
I will never find the one perfect setting for every site, they don't exist, but I have a whole bunch of different combinations in my head that seem to work well enough to surprise me on almost every hunt under every site condition I have come across so far.
I took almost my first 10 months with this thing doing a lot more experimenting and examining almost every signal from many different angles and using different settings than digging...that is how I learn best.
My finds totals were way lower than normal because if this but when I finally settled down with a few favorite settings and just went a hunting those totals rebounded to levels I would have never thought possible.
I can tell you these facts from my little over 2 years hunting experience with this thing.


In good soil all the coils go deep, the standard elliptical reached the 10" areas easily with actual screen data available that for the most part was usually accurate.
Deep beaver tail tabs drove me a bit crazy because at the 9-10" area they always report as high tone coins for some reason but I did not come across a ton of those.
The 5" DD coil reached that 10" mark easily and surpassed it so that information in that video you mentioned is indeed correct when it came close to the big DD coil depth in my experience.
The 12" coil does go a bit further and you can usually get decent ID's on the screen up to about the 12" area but my deepest target I ever dug was at a full 15" in disc and also with pretty good screen data.


The audio is way more important on the deep ones than the screen because it will surpass the screen input by a good margin even in disc.
On really deep stuff the screen will actually go blank but you will still get audio...those you might want to consider investigating when it happens depending on the age and target types at your sites.


In my devil dirt here in the south not all areas have that highly mineralized red clay but all the dirt has an unusual amount if tiny iron infused into it because it is naturally occurring here in the soil matrix.
Many areas also have another problem because they were either built on old landfills or have a huge amount of iron slag mixed into most soil from the large iron and steel companies and that soil was distributed all over the city as it was being built from the 1800's in most of the dirt used at both commercial and residential sites...plus most of the parks I usually hunt.
I needed to learn a whole new language to get to the deeper areas and to combat the huge masking problems we all have but using all three coils some new unusual settings I have made great progress and I am still trying to get even better because that will never end.
I have found that the depth is curtailed here compared to the much better soil out west because of that iron but there us still a large amount of great targets to be found if I can make sense of the signals I get at the 5-8" depth level...an area that confounds most detectors in this difficult soil.
That concentric coil works well here, the big DD coil does get a bit deeper but surprisingly the small DD coil seems to match that depth and might even work a bit better because the smaller field can isolate masked targets a bit better...and all targets at the 5" and deeper level are masked in the really bad stuff.
I can get to the 6-8" area with all the coils, most older targets seem to hover around the 6" range but I have found a few deeper.
On one hunt with a friend that uses an E Trac and a small SEF DD coil I dropped his jaw when he held a target in his hand that I found with the small coil and looked at the depth of the hole it came from.
This was an extremely worn and super thin V Nickel with a partial date of 188?.
It was found every bit of the 7.5-8" depth level and on that one even I was shocked again but that is a common occurrence once you learn what these Fisher units are capable of.
Pics below of how thin this coin is compared to a modern nickel plus a very masked IH I found in the same area on this hunt.

I paid for my unit in the clad, silver and gold it found before I reached the end of my first year and my bucket list is getting smaller and smaller every year because of what it can do and find.


Not all hunters get along with all units, some try this brand or that brand and never do click but with me and my Fishers I definitely have.
Hopefully you will click with yours and if you do I hope a whole new world opens up as it has for me.

 

[CZconnoisseur]

I use an F70 which works similarly and has several of the basic processes as the F75/T2 platform as all are built on the same core platform.
I have the DE and SL process, that SL is very similar to boost on the F75...7 tones, thresh, sense and disc settings all exactly the same as yours.
I have the standard 10" elliptical concentric coil and an F75 5" and 12" DD coils as my very potent weapons.
I have used all the coils in two completely different types of soils, the very excellent almost perfect Kansas dirt and the extremely bad Birmingham Ala. type with pretty high mineralization but also a crazy amount of iron mixed in.
I have a lot of posts here and on other forums about all the different setting combinations I have tried in both states and in several trash infested and iron infested old home sites.
I am like a mad scientist...I keep tweaking and changing most settings looking for the most optimum set up I can find for every site condition I come across.
I will never find the one perfect setting for every site, they don't exist, but I have a whole bunch of different combinations in my head that seem to work well enough to surprise me on almost every hunt under every site condition I have come across so far.
I took almost my first 10 months with this thing doing a lot more experimenting and examining almost every signal from many different angles and using different settings than digging...that is how I learn best.
My finds totals were way lower than normal because if this but when I finally settled down with a few favorite settings and just went a hunting those totals rebounded to levels I would have never thought possible.
I can tell you these facts from my little over 2 years hunting experience with this thing.


In good soil all the coils go deep, the standard elliptical reached the 10" areas easily with actual screen data available that for the most part was usually accurate.
Deep beaver tail tabs drove me a bit crazy because at the 9-10" area they always report as high tone coins for some reason but I did not come across a ton of those.
The 5" DD coil reached that 10" mark easily and surpassed it so that information in that video you mentioned is indeed correct when it came close to the big DD coil depth in my experience.
The 12" coil does go a bit further and you can usually get decent ID's on the screen up to about the 12" area but my deepest target I ever dug was at a full 15" in disc and also with pretty good screen data.


The audio is way more important on the deep ones than the screen because it will surpass the screen input by a good margin even in disc.
On really deep stuff the screen will actually go blank but you will still get audio...those you might want to consider investigating when it happens depending on the age and target types at your sites.


In my devil dirt here in the south not all areas have that highly mineralized red clay but all the dirt has an unusual amount if tiny iron infused into it because it is naturally occurring here in the soil matrix.
Many areas also have another problem because they were either built on old landfills or have a huge amount of iron slag mixed into most soil from the large iron and steel companies and that soil was distributed all over the city as it was being built from the 1800's in most of the dirt used at both commercial and residential sites...plus most of the parks I usually hunt.
I needed to learn a whole new language to get to the deeper areas and to combat the huge masking problems we all have but using all three coils some new unusual settings I have made great progress and I am still trying to get even better because that will never end.
I have found that the depth is curtailed here compared to the much better soil out west because of that iron but there us still a large amount of great targets to be found if I can make sense of the signals I get at the 5-8" depth level...an area that confounds most detectors in this difficult soil.
That concentric coil works well here, the big DD coil does get a bit deeper but surprisingly the small DD coil seems to match that depth and might even work a bit better because the smaller field can isolate masked targets a bit better...and all targets at the 5" and deeper level are masked in the really bad stuff.
I can get to the 6-8" area with all the coils, most older targets seem to hover around the 6" range but I have found a few deeper.
On one hunt with a friend that uses an E Trac and a small SEF DD coil I dropped his jaw when he held a target in his hand that I found with the small coil and looked at the depth of the hole it came from.
This was an extremely worn and super thin V Nickel with a partial date of 188?.
It was found every bit of the 7.5-8" depth level and on that one even I was shocked again but that is a common occurrence once you learn what these Fisher units are capable of.
Pics below of how thin this coin is compared to a modern nickel plus a very masked IH I found in the same area on this hunt.

I paid for my unit in the clad, silver and gold it found before I reached the end of my first year and my bucket list is getting smaller and smaller every year because of what it can do and find.


Not all hunters get along with all units, some try this brand or that brand and never do click but with me and my Fishers I definitely have.
Hopefully you will click with yours and if you do I hope a whole new world opens up as it has for me.

Do you use the Delta Pitch for tones? I'm curious how those non-VDI targets sound without any screen info if you are using Delta....The depth on the small 5" coil is very attractive!

 

[Captain Caveman]

Congratz on your new F70! I run the F75 as my main machine and absolutely LOVE it! Enjoy!

 

[digger27]

Do you use the Delta Pitch for tones? I'm curious how those non-VDI targets sound without any screen info if you are using Delta....The depth on the small 5" coil is very attractive!

I rarely use DP, 4H was my choice when I am cruising parks for clad or jewelry, deep coins too, but lately I have been into using 1F because the lowest 3 tone choices seem to be affected by EMI and seems a bit more stable in my crazy soil.
I also use all metal a lot.
Some use DP all the time and got good at it...real good.
Even though I don't use it much DP seems lucky for me.
I was cruising along with the concentric coil one day in my local park not looking to dig deep because the ground was dry and rock solid but I did get a repeatable high tone and dug that one even though I suspected it was a full can.
It wasn't...it was a bucket list Peace dollar.

 

[Irishgoldhound]

That's some impressive depth.

 

[digger27]

7I

That's some impressive depth.

Air tests are good, the better test is outdoors in the soil which is where you really find out the truth and each area can be totally different.
The soil in NE. Kansas is unusually great.
40'-low 50's GB numbers, one bar on the dirt meter...if that.
Here in Birmingham, especially in the city it is not close to the same...or normal.
60's-80's numbers, maxed out bars on the dirt meter and anything good dug past the 4-5" level here is a gift.
There are good targets here at the 5-8" level but most detectors can't figure out the crazy jumpy signals this soil puts out on anything that isn't shallow.
That has been my job for the last several months, crack that code and learn to ID those deeper, better older coins and other targets by some repeatable behavior and I believe I have done that pretty well but still learning.
Never could before using many other detectors but the shear amount of setting combinations available make this job much easier.

 

[CZconnoisseur]

7I
Air tests are good, the better test is outdoors in the soil which is where you really find out the truth and each area can be totally different.
The soil in NE. Kansas is unusually great.
40'-low 50's GB numbers, one bar on the dirt meter...if that.
Here in Birmingham, especially in the city it is not close to the same...or normal.
60's-80's numbers, maxed out bars on the dirt meter and anything good dug past the 4-5" level here is a gift.
There are good targets here at the 5-8" level but most detectors can't figure out the crazy jumpy signals this soil puts out on anything that isn't shallow.
That has been my job for the last several months, crack that code and learn to ID those deeper, better older coins and other targets by some repeatable behavior and I believe I have done that pretty well but still learning.
Never could before using many other detectors but the shear amount of setting combinations available make this job much easier.

I took the F70 out into the yard last night to get familiar with it and noticed right away the EMI was horrendous! Switched frequencies every so often which seemed to work well - but noticed I wasn't getting much depth. Played with the sensitivity between 40 and 60, sometimes 60 was too chatty. Finally figured out how to notch and unnotch areas, and played with the tones...found a few zinc and copper cents and maybe a dime or two. I did however pull some iffy targets that had crappy audio - these turned out to be rivetheads at 2-3" deep.

My soil using the groundgrab feature reads 77-80...is this good/moderate/bad soil? The "Dirt" bar was between 1-2 and never hit 3...

After a while as I got further out in the yard the EMI seemed to settle, and I got a more smooth signal which indicated some depth. It was a Vienna sausage lid at around 7". Pulled that out and dug another inch and set a copper penny at the bottom, at a depth of 8". I could not get the coin no matter what (I thought at the time), and being close the house EMI was an issue. I did everything EXCEPT hunt in Autotune....so that will be the next step. I remember my old CZ5 and 6 also had Autotune, and I remember it being much more sensitive on deeper and smaller targets...

You're not able to notch (as far as I know) anything while in Autotune, but the Disc can be adjusted. I was hoping to have Dp tones available for the Autotune mode, but don't think that's possible (am I missing something?)

 

[digger27]

o88O

I took the F70 out into the yard last night to get familiar with it and noticed right away the EMI was horrendous! Switched frequencies every so often which seemed to work well - but noticed I wasn't getting much depth. Played with the sensitivity between 40 and 60, sometimes 60 was too chatty. Finally figured out how to notch and unnotch areas, and played with the tones...found a few zinc and copper cents and maybe a dime or two. I did however pull some iffy targets that had crappy audio - these turned out to be rivetheads at 2-3" deep.

My soil using the groundgrab feature reads 77-80...is this good/moderate/bad soil? The "Dirt" bar was between 1-2 and never hit 3...

After a while as I got further out in the yard the EMI seemed to settle, and I got a more smooth signal which indicated some depth. It was a Vienna sausage lid at around 7". Pulled that out and dug another inch and set a copper penny at the bottom, at a depth of 8". I could not get the coin no matter what (I thought at the time), and being close the house EMI was an issue. I did everything EXCEPT hunt in Autotune....so that will be the next step. I remember my old CZ5 and 6 also had Autotune, and I remember it being much more sensitive on deeper and smaller targets...

You're not able to notch (as far as I know) anything while in Autotune, but the Disc can be adjusted. I was hoping to have Dp tones available for the Autotune mode, but don't think that's possible (am I missing something?)

EMI near some homes can be bad, keep in mind the sense is not like the volume on a stereo.
60 is not 1/3, 50 is not half power, 33 in not 1/3rd.
All are much higher than you think and turning that sense down does affect the depth but also not as much as you think.
I have hunted at 30 and still hit targets 5-6" deep, 40 and went past that a few inches.
I actually could have picked up deeper stuff but that is where these targets just happened to be laying.
Turning down the thresh does affect the chatter too.
Most times when I hunt in disc I kept it at about -2, lately I have been experimenting with -4 and -5 and I am still picking up tiny targets fairly deep.
Really tiny, and as you go into the larger negative numbers supposedly that cuts out smaller and smaller targets but I have not seen evidence if that so far.
The sense and the thresh are separate controls but work as a team regarding both depth and noise issues so you need to get out to another site away from that house to see how it acts and adjust accordingly.
I sometimes hunt on higher settings and get some chatter and just ignore it, the F70 will stop and get down to business when it rolls over good targets, but if you want to hunt quietly just set it that way and don't worry.
Fishers usually come out if the factory way over-powered.

77-80 is pretty mineralized but normal for many places in the country, 1-2 bars on the dirt meter is pretty good...I peg mine out most if the time.

Picking up that 8" cent in freshly dug soil should not be an issue, the matrix is not the same as conditions on that same coin in undug soil, but your mineralization could affect your depth, also.
That doesn't mean you can't hit those deeper target in disc but the signal and behavior could be different than normal and what you think it should be.
Your soil, your conditions, you just gotta get out there to experiment and see what's what.

Notching will not always revert back to none when you go back to 1, the best thing to do when setting notches is to do a factory reset every time when you are done to make sure you are hunting with settings that are exactly what you think they are after.
Also doing a reset could help with that EMI around your house.
I assume you know notching works a bit different on these Fishers than some other units.
Disc set low setting notches above will notch out entire sections, set the disc high and entire sections are brought back in.
On the F75 you can notch out 1/2 sections, on the F70 no matter where you set the notch in a specific section the entire section is still affected.



You cannot notch in autotune, (all metal), I don't think but I never tried because I rarely use notch at any time, but you can adjust the sense, thresh, and speed.
AT will just have the one tone that varies by target depth, zip zip sound on shallow stuff, the 7 tone options including DP are only available in disc.