Audible Silence
Senior Member
Ah, that's exactly what I was looking for... thanks for the link! Then I got all sidetracked and couldn't stop reading.
Digger27's F70 log....Stardate 91517.72 (11-30-13)
- Thread starter DIGGER27
- Start date
Ah, that's exactly what I was looking for... thanks for the link! Then I got all sidetracked and couldn't stop reading.
upstatedigger
Forum Supporter
I keep coming back to this thread because if nothing else, it makes me realize that after a little over a year with the F75, I have barely scratched the surface with understanding what this thing can do. And to think I have been pretty happy with my progress!
One of the things that has impressed me the most was the idea of setting disc at 6 and hunting in monotone ( 1, on F75 tone setting). I usually in the past have hunted in 4H and, DP or All metal. But the idea of what it can do in this setting in terms of unmasking has really caught me attention. Today I was finally able to go out and give it a whirl. The weather was miserable, so I was only out for an hour, and my only real goal was to check out these settings and try to zero in on a long gone homesite in the middle of a field. Well I found the homesite, but didn't really recover an keepers. I could hear all the clicks where it was picking up and disregarding nails, and dug many cans. The home was along where an old road used to diagonal through the field, and thus probably the reason for all the cans. Now looking back I think I realize what was going on... I dug the cans because the machine sounded off a good solid monotone, and the numbers looked interesting. And I wasn't getting many other of what I considered to be good target hits. What I realize now is that I should have dug more of the good SOUNDING targets, and relied far less on VDI numbers as they were likely to be influenced by all the nails. And I also realize this has probably happened to me often hunting in 4h tones as well. This is going to be a huge challenge getting a handle on this, but I am looking forward to it as this is the type of hunting I do 99 % of the time, so I better figure it out.
At any rate, I was just happy to get out swinging today, even in miserable weather, and to locate another homesite to search.
Thanks for all the info Digger, your efforts and knowledge are a huge help, and remind me I know far less than I think I do!
One of the things that has impressed me the most was the idea of setting disc at 6 and hunting in monotone ( 1, on F75 tone setting). I usually in the past have hunted in 4H and, DP or All metal. But the idea of what it can do in this setting in terms of unmasking has really caught me attention. Today I was finally able to go out and give it a whirl. The weather was miserable, so I was only out for an hour, and my only real goal was to check out these settings and try to zero in on a long gone homesite in the middle of a field. Well I found the homesite, but didn't really recover an keepers. I could hear all the clicks where it was picking up and disregarding nails, and dug many cans. The home was along where an old road used to diagonal through the field, and thus probably the reason for all the cans. Now looking back I think I realize what was going on... I dug the cans because the machine sounded off a good solid monotone, and the numbers looked interesting. And I wasn't getting many other of what I considered to be good target hits. What I realize now is that I should have dug more of the good SOUNDING targets, and relied far less on VDI numbers as they were likely to be influenced by all the nails. And I also realize this has probably happened to me often hunting in 4h tones as well. This is going to be a huge challenge getting a handle on this, but I am looking forward to it as this is the type of hunting I do 99 % of the time, so I better figure it out.
At any rate, I was just happy to get out swinging today, even in miserable weather, and to locate another homesite to search.
Thanks for all the info Digger, your efforts and knowledge are a huge help, and remind me I know far less than I think I do!
Last edited:
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
According to Nasa Tom, that disc 6 setting to make nails click and hunting in 1, monotone, will make the F70/F75's two of the best iron field hunters on the planet...and the T2 also with its own comparable settings.
I believe when hunting in 3-4H settings he says ya gotta dig all the solid high AND the mid tones no matter what.
Up-averaging, (or I guess in this case down averaging because of the iron), will cause even silver to come in a bit lower in nail infested sites.
I love the screen info, but the tones mean everything to me, always have, and that is what triggers my digging instincts more than anything I see on a screen.
I guess I have my hundreds of hours hunting with Tesoro's to thank for that.
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
A few more hunts with the 11" DD coil and still learning.
Hunt one was at a park site where I started next to a small fishing lake I have hunted in the past.
Disc still down at 4, I believe I was in DE, sense was at 30 and 4H tones, thresh was at -1, what is becoming my standard coin/jewelry hunting settings, and boy that thing was just plucking out coins in the very trashy area next to the lake left and right.
Because of that experience I had hearing a 5" dime on 19 sense, SL and -1 thresh but it was gone completely at -2 thresh, I don't think I will ever go below -1 on the thresh ever again no matter what my other settings are unless I absolutely have to due to noise.
At these settings it was effortless and easy.
Bottle caps usually dropped to iron when I rimmed them with the coil so I avoided a ton of those, and the only thing that really bothered me here was those smaller, modern sta-tabs that at this park came in from the 32-34 area most of the time...just like nickels and gold.
On the F2 tons of these that are not laying perpendicular to the coil jumped more than 2 numbers every time no matter how I maneuvered that coil around them so I knew they were trash, the same thing seems to be happening with the F70 and this big coil but I seemed to be able to dig a little too many of these here.
Either the F70 is a little better about these and can lock on more efficiently than the F2 no matter how they lay in the ground, or the coil is better at this or I am just really learning how to dial in and get a more solid only 2 number jump, which is what an always dig me signal is to me.
Not sure, but I hope that the ones I did dig were just the flat shallow kind that come in solid on both units because I like trash to jump more than 2 numbers so I won't waste my time digging those when I am in the zone looking for nickel/gold signals.
I managed to find several coins I missed in the past and also a very nice, real Victorinox key chain knife that I am now using.
I lost too many of these in my travels through airports and I refuse to buy another one...but finding a free one is better anyway.
I moved over to another area in this park next to a picnic pavilion with many more of these sta-tabs and I did something that I rarely do, I used the notch.
The sense I turned up to 40 and eventually 50, also SL speed and the laser like quality of the scanning field still seemed to be able to move through the trash extremely well, but those sta-tabs were really bugging me so with my disc still on 4 I moved the notch up to 34 and 80-90% of the noise and signals went away.
It actually got so quiet it was scary.
I believe the notch setting knocked out all the 25-34 numbers set like this.
I hate knocking out such a big range in a prime gold signal area, but I will return here and hunt for those signals another day.
At times like this the F75's ability to only notch out part of the nickel range numbers and not the entire range that the F70 can only do would have come in handy.
The only numbers I really needed to get rid of were 32-34...I have dug plenty of gold at low nickel numbers in the high 20's in the past so that would have been better at a site like this but it is what it is and I can deal with it.
Now once again the F70 was moving through the trash and all the good solid signal shone through and I was able to pick up many more coins and a lot of them were within an inch or closer of trash like those sta-tabs.
No great jewelry but I did find that locket that still had 2 pictures in it and that was an unusual find for me.
Set the F70 correctly and even with that Big DD coil moving around extreme trash sites seemed like a breeze...I really wonder what the 5" DD coil would be like at these low settings.
I could probably read the mint mark off most coins with that small coil if the large DD coil is this precise.
I have the sniper and I will mount that one when I get tired of playing around with the 11".
Hunt two was back in the woods and even though this site has some pretty good EMI going on because it is within line of site of all towers in most areas, I still was able to hunt using my program 2 which is AT, SL, 99 on the sense and 9 on the thresh.
I also set program one at 2F, ( hunting in 3-4H tones had way too many high falsing signals that bothers me and tires me out), 80 on the sense, 24 on the disc to knock out the million pieces of foil here, and thresh was moved between 5 and 9, and SL, but even when turning back to DE speed I really believe that hunting in all metal even with the jacked up sense and thresh was actually a stabler way to hunt and I seemed to be able to see all the good numbers and avoid the falsing better.
At the very least it was less mentally fatiguing than hunting in disc for me.
Maybe I am just getting used to using this thing on these ultra hot all metal settings and I am doing more and more of that at most sites where depth is important but even when it isn't and I am growing very comfortable hunting in all metal and using the disc program as a check instead of the other way around.
I found a few things at this site where good targets are few and far between and spread out over a large area...my first skeleton key was the best find of the day so I was thrilled.
Hunt three was back at a neighborhood Jr. college site literally walking distance from my home.
I come here a lot, and I mean a lot when I just want to hunt and don't want to travel far.
I found a ton of clad at other areas of this campus, lots of it in some grassy island dividers in a big parking lot plus a gold ring in one of those islands and another near a basketball court, but where I spend most of my time is at an area where there is an old football filed and 2 full size soccer field back to back to back.
Both this college and a catholic school right next door used these field in the past but both have much better facilities built on their campuses now so these areas are used more as practice fields and for neighborhood pick up Frisbee and soccer games nowadays.
I have never found all that much in the fields themselves, but the sidelines are a different matter.
A gold class ring, a silver religious medal and a ton of clad has come out of these sidelines, and I have scoured these areas over and over with my F2 and sniper coil, my Vaq and the big DD and even my Compadre looking for more jewelry that I suspect is here somewhere.
Along one side of these 3 fields is a path that is a river of trash, sta-tabs, beaver tail tabs, mostly, thankfully very few pop tops, and I know this is where the students sat and watched these games.
There was a set of bleachers near the football field at one time, but many students also stood just behind the sideline area, too, and I don't think there were any bleachers on either soccer field but both of those fields sit in a little wallow with a slight incline going up from one side and because of the trash I have found up this thing and just behind it I know this is where the students sat and watched the games.
I concentrate most along this path, the red line in the pic below, and I have found a mess of clad and some junk jewelry in these area but nothing silver or gold so far.
One soccer field has been turned into a small farm with plowed fields and on the sideline of this field I did grid that incline trash area and covered this thing as well as I could with the F2 and the sniper coil and I tried to be careful and it took me hours.
I also hit this same area with my Compadre at least once and my Vaq with the big DD coil.
Each time I took out a bunch of clad and cleaned up a lot of the solid hitting trash signals and I was pretty sure there was not much left but I decided to hit it again with the F70.
Once again I had a jaw dropping experience at this same area I covered so well in the past.
Settings were SL but eventually changed to DE when it got noisy, 40-60 on the sense depending on the wifi I encountered as I moved past different houses that were near these sidelines, -1 on the thresh and 4H tones.
Not only did I recover a huge amount of coins I totally missed going over this place from several directions with different coils and detectors, most everything you see in that clad pic except for the 2 zincolns at the bottom were high tone coins...plus all those nickels which were also high tones because I was hunting in 4H.
These coins were dug up from only 1/2 of the area along the sideline of this field, too.
None were deep so everything I own should have been able to find all of these easily.
Sure, that F2 sniper coil was small so hitting every inch was just not possible, but I can't stress how many times I have been over this small area over and over and I am just dumfounded and amazed that I managed to get so much clad out of here before and yet miss all of these high tone signals.
I believe I will nickname my F70 Hoover...if there is any target near the coil it will find it no matter what, who or how many have hunted any areas in the past...even me.
The best thing was I finally found some great jewelry, a real nice silver chain and pendant, and that also was a clear and solid high tone not masked by any trash anywhere near it.
If there is a reason I go back to sites over and over this would be it.
I actually called this one.
At the beginning of the vid I said my main goal was a chain...and I found one.
I am still amazed at what this thing can actually do on any and all settings.
I hope that continues as the season progresses.
Hunt one was at a park site where I started next to a small fishing lake I have hunted in the past.
Disc still down at 4, I believe I was in DE, sense was at 30 and 4H tones, thresh was at -1, what is becoming my standard coin/jewelry hunting settings, and boy that thing was just plucking out coins in the very trashy area next to the lake left and right.
Because of that experience I had hearing a 5" dime on 19 sense, SL and -1 thresh but it was gone completely at -2 thresh, I don't think I will ever go below -1 on the thresh ever again no matter what my other settings are unless I absolutely have to due to noise.
At these settings it was effortless and easy.
Bottle caps usually dropped to iron when I rimmed them with the coil so I avoided a ton of those, and the only thing that really bothered me here was those smaller, modern sta-tabs that at this park came in from the 32-34 area most of the time...just like nickels and gold.
On the F2 tons of these that are not laying perpendicular to the coil jumped more than 2 numbers every time no matter how I maneuvered that coil around them so I knew they were trash, the same thing seems to be happening with the F70 and this big coil but I seemed to be able to dig a little too many of these here.
Either the F70 is a little better about these and can lock on more efficiently than the F2 no matter how they lay in the ground, or the coil is better at this or I am just really learning how to dial in and get a more solid only 2 number jump, which is what an always dig me signal is to me.
Not sure, but I hope that the ones I did dig were just the flat shallow kind that come in solid on both units because I like trash to jump more than 2 numbers so I won't waste my time digging those when I am in the zone looking for nickel/gold signals.
I managed to find several coins I missed in the past and also a very nice, real Victorinox key chain knife that I am now using.
I lost too many of these in my travels through airports and I refuse to buy another one...but finding a free one is better anyway.
I moved over to another area in this park next to a picnic pavilion with many more of these sta-tabs and I did something that I rarely do, I used the notch.
The sense I turned up to 40 and eventually 50, also SL speed and the laser like quality of the scanning field still seemed to be able to move through the trash extremely well, but those sta-tabs were really bugging me so with my disc still on 4 I moved the notch up to 34 and 80-90% of the noise and signals went away.
It actually got so quiet it was scary.
I believe the notch setting knocked out all the 25-34 numbers set like this.
I hate knocking out such a big range in a prime gold signal area, but I will return here and hunt for those signals another day.
At times like this the F75's ability to only notch out part of the nickel range numbers and not the entire range that the F70 can only do would have come in handy.
The only numbers I really needed to get rid of were 32-34...I have dug plenty of gold at low nickel numbers in the high 20's in the past so that would have been better at a site like this but it is what it is and I can deal with it.
Now once again the F70 was moving through the trash and all the good solid signal shone through and I was able to pick up many more coins and a lot of them were within an inch or closer of trash like those sta-tabs.
No great jewelry but I did find that locket that still had 2 pictures in it and that was an unusual find for me.
Set the F70 correctly and even with that Big DD coil moving around extreme trash sites seemed like a breeze...I really wonder what the 5" DD coil would be like at these low settings.
I could probably read the mint mark off most coins with that small coil if the large DD coil is this precise.
I have the sniper and I will mount that one when I get tired of playing around with the 11".
Hunt two was back in the woods and even though this site has some pretty good EMI going on because it is within line of site of all towers in most areas, I still was able to hunt using my program 2 which is AT, SL, 99 on the sense and 9 on the thresh.
I also set program one at 2F, ( hunting in 3-4H tones had way too many high falsing signals that bothers me and tires me out), 80 on the sense, 24 on the disc to knock out the million pieces of foil here, and thresh was moved between 5 and 9, and SL, but even when turning back to DE speed I really believe that hunting in all metal even with the jacked up sense and thresh was actually a stabler way to hunt and I seemed to be able to see all the good numbers and avoid the falsing better.
At the very least it was less mentally fatiguing than hunting in disc for me.
Maybe I am just getting used to using this thing on these ultra hot all metal settings and I am doing more and more of that at most sites where depth is important but even when it isn't and I am growing very comfortable hunting in all metal and using the disc program as a check instead of the other way around.
I found a few things at this site where good targets are few and far between and spread out over a large area...my first skeleton key was the best find of the day so I was thrilled.
Hunt three was back at a neighborhood Jr. college site literally walking distance from my home.
I come here a lot, and I mean a lot when I just want to hunt and don't want to travel far.
I found a ton of clad at other areas of this campus, lots of it in some grassy island dividers in a big parking lot plus a gold ring in one of those islands and another near a basketball court, but where I spend most of my time is at an area where there is an old football filed and 2 full size soccer field back to back to back.
Both this college and a catholic school right next door used these field in the past but both have much better facilities built on their campuses now so these areas are used more as practice fields and for neighborhood pick up Frisbee and soccer games nowadays.
I have never found all that much in the fields themselves, but the sidelines are a different matter.
A gold class ring, a silver religious medal and a ton of clad has come out of these sidelines, and I have scoured these areas over and over with my F2 and sniper coil, my Vaq and the big DD and even my Compadre looking for more jewelry that I suspect is here somewhere.
Along one side of these 3 fields is a path that is a river of trash, sta-tabs, beaver tail tabs, mostly, thankfully very few pop tops, and I know this is where the students sat and watched these games.
There was a set of bleachers near the football field at one time, but many students also stood just behind the sideline area, too, and I don't think there were any bleachers on either soccer field but both of those fields sit in a little wallow with a slight incline going up from one side and because of the trash I have found up this thing and just behind it I know this is where the students sat and watched the games.
I concentrate most along this path, the red line in the pic below, and I have found a mess of clad and some junk jewelry in these area but nothing silver or gold so far.
One soccer field has been turned into a small farm with plowed fields and on the sideline of this field I did grid that incline trash area and covered this thing as well as I could with the F2 and the sniper coil and I tried to be careful and it took me hours.
I also hit this same area with my Compadre at least once and my Vaq with the big DD coil.
Each time I took out a bunch of clad and cleaned up a lot of the solid hitting trash signals and I was pretty sure there was not much left but I decided to hit it again with the F70.
Once again I had a jaw dropping experience at this same area I covered so well in the past.
Settings were SL but eventually changed to DE when it got noisy, 40-60 on the sense depending on the wifi I encountered as I moved past different houses that were near these sidelines, -1 on the thresh and 4H tones.
Not only did I recover a huge amount of coins I totally missed going over this place from several directions with different coils and detectors, most everything you see in that clad pic except for the 2 zincolns at the bottom were high tone coins...plus all those nickels which were also high tones because I was hunting in 4H.
These coins were dug up from only 1/2 of the area along the sideline of this field, too.
None were deep so everything I own should have been able to find all of these easily.
Sure, that F2 sniper coil was small so hitting every inch was just not possible, but I can't stress how many times I have been over this small area over and over and I am just dumfounded and amazed that I managed to get so much clad out of here before and yet miss all of these high tone signals.
I believe I will nickname my F70 Hoover...if there is any target near the coil it will find it no matter what, who or how many have hunted any areas in the past...even me.
The best thing was I finally found some great jewelry, a real nice silver chain and pendant, and that also was a clear and solid high tone not masked by any trash anywhere near it.
If there is a reason I go back to sites over and over this would be it.
I actually called this one.
At the beginning of the vid I said my main goal was a chain...and I found one.
I am still amazed at what this thing can actually do on any and all settings.
I hope that continues as the season progresses.
LittleJohn
Elite Member
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
This was not my hunt, but I sure wish it was!
Ed Steinhoff over on Findmall had a hunt for the ages with his F70.
Because he was reading about what mudpuppy and I were doing with the sense turned low he gave it a try and the results in a couple of tot lots were nothing short of amazing!
Over $25 in clad, a huge amount of great targets including silver and 3 gold rings all 14k!
.
His settings were: speed DE, disc 5, sens 40, tones DP, thresh -2, GB 78.
He was using the 11" DD coil.
He says he dug a couple of dimes at 8-9" and 2 quarters over 10" deep even with these lower settings.
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?91,2047285,2047606#msg-2047606
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,2047290
Ed Steinhoff over on Findmall had a hunt for the ages with his F70.
Because he was reading about what mudpuppy and I were doing with the sense turned low he gave it a try and the results in a couple of tot lots were nothing short of amazing!
Over $25 in clad, a huge amount of great targets including silver and 3 gold rings all 14k!
.
His settings were: speed DE, disc 5, sens 40, tones DP, thresh -2, GB 78.
He was using the 11" DD coil.
He says he dug a couple of dimes at 8-9" and 2 quarters over 10" deep even with these lower settings.
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?91,2047285,2047606#msg-2047606
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,2047290
Audible Silence
Senior Member
^ Wow. 
Great post and epic hunt!
After reading that I thought I'd give his settings a try in an air test. I didn't get the 8-9" depth (closer to 5") on a dime or the 10" (about 7") depth on a quarter, but I was inside where the EMI was nearly making my teeth chatter and I'm sure that had something to do with it. One thing I did notice, though, was that through that EMI chatter it seemed that I was able to hear the hits with DP tones much better than all the other ones (which I tried), so it got me to thinking...
I eventually ended up with Disc 4 (with Disc 0 the EMI was ridiculous), Sens 90, SL speed, Thresh 0, and DP tones and got some pretty interesting results. Was getting a good signal consistently with the quarter at just under 14". I tried all the other tones with these settings and EMI chatter was so bad I couldn't tell much at the same distance. Switched over to AT mode and couldn't tell a whole lot either at the same distance with the heavy EMI chatter.
Anyway, all this to say that at I am really impressed with DP tones and am anxious to focus on them more, especially when hunting in higher EMI situations. I don't think they add more actual depth, but at least my brain seems able to process them better through lots of chatter.
Great post and epic hunt!After reading that I thought I'd give his settings a try in an air test. I didn't get the 8-9" depth (closer to 5") on a dime or the 10" (about 7") depth on a quarter, but I was inside where the EMI was nearly making my teeth chatter and I'm sure that had something to do with it. One thing I did notice, though, was that through that EMI chatter it seemed that I was able to hear the hits with DP tones much better than all the other ones (which I tried), so it got me to thinking...
I eventually ended up with Disc 4 (with Disc 0 the EMI was ridiculous), Sens 90, SL speed, Thresh 0, and DP tones and got some pretty interesting results. Was getting a good signal consistently with the quarter at just under 14". I tried all the other tones with these settings and EMI chatter was so bad I couldn't tell much at the same distance. Switched over to AT mode and couldn't tell a whole lot either at the same distance with the heavy EMI chatter.
Anyway, all this to say that at I am really impressed with DP tones and am anxious to focus on them more, especially when hunting in higher EMI situations. I don't think they add more actual depth, but at least my brain seems able to process them better through lots of chatter.
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
mudpuppy uses DP most of the time, says he can tell the date on the coins in the ground by the sound.
He also had a great hunt recently, ended up with about $20 in a 4 hour hunt.
I will use this a bit more on future hunts.
Once you learn what the sounds correlate with I guess you can get pretty good at judging target types.
In some heavy EMI areas it might just work better so we will see.
He also had a great hunt recently, ended up with about $20 in a 4 hour hunt.
I will use this a bit more on future hunts.
Once you learn what the sounds correlate with I guess you can get pretty good at judging target types.
In some heavy EMI areas it might just work better so we will see.
detectingMO
Forum Supporter
DIGGER27 said:
a quarter every 3 min? I'm skeptical of this ratio.
Sent from my LG-D801 using Tapatalk
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
Oh, I don't know...he is pretty fast at popping.
He found a site just loaded with clad and concentrated on quarters and dimes, avoided most nickels and only dug a few zincolns.
Here is his thread and a pic of the loot.
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,2046782
Attachments
LittleJohn
Elite Member
detectingMO
Forum Supporter
I see, wasn't 4 hours straight. So possible just not quite as back braking as I thought and popping. Still very impressive. Have to be super efficient with recovery. 140 targets in 240 minutes!
Audible Silence
Senior Member
Mudpuppy is pretty darn impressive... at his age he is still very spry and extremely sharp. He not only whips his stick in wide arcs like a weed whacker (with an extended shaft I believe for extra sweep length) but he also uses a probe and concentrates on the shallow stuff (instead of digging plugs). He also uses a method where he bobs the coil vertically up and down to pinpoint (I don't think this works on 3 & 4 tones) rather than using the pinpoint button on his F70 which accounts for some time saved. He would embarrass me in a speed hunt and he's much older than I am. 
Not saying he doesn't get his facts wrong occasionally like we all do, but he's legit.
Not saying he doesn't get his facts wrong occasionally like we all do, but he's legit.
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
This park was not marked in green on google or Bing maps so I missed it in the past.
This is my first scouting trip here so I just wandered around this time and I still found clad and a fake gold junk ring so there is probably more.
This is a vid using the F70 and the 10" elliptical on low power settings and rapid recovery and target separation worked very well, but when I return the sniper coil will be mounted.
I found this ring at the end, but if you watch you can see how I hunt for jewelry around these things.
Eventually I will return and grid this thing and try to hit every inch and dig all solid signals and even some not so solid ones because masking is a big problem around these trashy sites, and this one is actually not as trashy as some others I have hunted in the past.
This is my first scouting trip here so I just wandered around this time and I still found clad and a fake gold junk ring so there is probably more.
This is a vid using the F70 and the 10" elliptical on low power settings and rapid recovery and target separation worked very well, but when I return the sniper coil will be mounted.
I found this ring at the end, but if you watch you can see how I hunt for jewelry around these things.
Eventually I will return and grid this thing and try to hit every inch and dig all solid signals and even some not so solid ones because masking is a big problem around these trashy sites, and this one is actually not as trashy as some others I have hunted in the past.
sllingshot47
Elite Member
You hit the right site at the right time, 3 a minute's easy. Back when the AH Pro discriminator first came out, I hit $25 in quarters on one side of a football field. Haven't done that in a long time..
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
So I was moving along, hunting with the F70 in an area I have been over before with other detectors and coils and I get this signal.
Settings were sense at 45, DE, 4H tones, notch on 1 and disc at 1.
I keep the disc low because this was near a picnic pavilion and the area had trash galore including a bunch of sta-tabs and way too many high tone pop tops.
When I scan pop tops with my DD coil they come in high but run the rim over them and they usually drop.
Sometimes only to the 30's or 40's, but most of the time they go to around 11 and I hear that iron grunt and I can avoid them.
This signal was almost classic.
I hear a nice high tone and see a 99 on the screen, a little high for most pop tops but I have seen a few before...and when I pulled the coil back a bit I also hear an iron grunt.
I usually would just move on at that point but something about this signal was different.
The high tone sounded a little too good, too loud, too something.
I can't quite explain it but it wasn't quite like all the other pop tops I have heard.
Also, when I made some sort passes over the area that tone repeated in the exact same place every time...also different than your average pop top which are close to exact but sometimes a little bit off.
Still heard that iron grunt in there every time, though.
Something just told me to dig this one, I dig tones no matter what the screen says so I opened a small hole about 4" wide.
As I dug down I didn't see anything so I stuck the Propointer in and zeroed in on a Sacajawea dollar and pulled it out.
Stuck the PP in again and found a quarter.
Then another.
Then that little piece of iron came out, then another quarter and eventually a dime and that cent.
Well now, I heard this F70 is good around iron, maybe the rumors are true.
Most of the coins were stacked on top of each other as near as I can tell, and that iron was closer than close, but I still heard that good solid tone and that 99 stayed on the screen if I swung the coil in the right direction even though it still slipped down lower with that iron grunt a few times.
I think I am getting better at listening to and telling some of the differences in those tones...or at least I am honing my instincts more and more, anyway.
Man, I love swinging this thing!
Settings were sense at 45, DE, 4H tones, notch on 1 and disc at 1.
I keep the disc low because this was near a picnic pavilion and the area had trash galore including a bunch of sta-tabs and way too many high tone pop tops.
When I scan pop tops with my DD coil they come in high but run the rim over them and they usually drop.
Sometimes only to the 30's or 40's, but most of the time they go to around 11 and I hear that iron grunt and I can avoid them.
This signal was almost classic.
I hear a nice high tone and see a 99 on the screen, a little high for most pop tops but I have seen a few before...and when I pulled the coil back a bit I also hear an iron grunt.
I usually would just move on at that point but something about this signal was different.
The high tone sounded a little too good, too loud, too something.
I can't quite explain it but it wasn't quite like all the other pop tops I have heard.
Also, when I made some sort passes over the area that tone repeated in the exact same place every time...also different than your average pop top which are close to exact but sometimes a little bit off.
Still heard that iron grunt in there every time, though.
Something just told me to dig this one, I dig tones no matter what the screen says so I opened a small hole about 4" wide.
As I dug down I didn't see anything so I stuck the Propointer in and zeroed in on a Sacajawea dollar and pulled it out.
Stuck the PP in again and found a quarter.
Then another.
Then that little piece of iron came out, then another quarter and eventually a dime and that cent.
Well now, I heard this F70 is good around iron, maybe the rumors are true.
Most of the coins were stacked on top of each other as near as I can tell, and that iron was closer than close, but I still heard that good solid tone and that 99 stayed on the screen if I swung the coil in the right direction even though it still slipped down lower with that iron grunt a few times.
I think I am getting better at listening to and telling some of the differences in those tones...or at least I am honing my instincts more and more, anyway.
Man, I love swinging this thing!
Attachments
Skwerly
Elite Member
Good on you! Excellent post and it's nice to hear you are listening to your machine--that's THE key.
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
Two more hunts in the last 2 days.
The first was back at that old 100 year old park.
I started in an area near the edge across the street from homes and power lines so EMI was pretty high, but turning the F70 down to about 60 on the sense, -1 on the thresh and DE quieted it down some.
The area I parked next to was a very trashy site near some tennis courts.
I picked up a copper penny, but it was still a pretty jumpy signal due to still too much EMI and all that trash sitting in the ground left there for about 100 years.
I turned the sense down again to 40 and all went quiet and I was able to pick up each signal clearly in that densely packed area even though I was still using the big DD coil.
The second signal that was a good one that I decided to dig was a 73 and about 3-4" deep this beauty of a silver ring popped up.
Love finding great stuff on my hunts right off the bat.
The rest of the time I just wandered around this big park and found all this.
I was using AT and maxed out settings in the middle of this park because I am getting pretty good with them and can notice the good tones and numbers as they pop up even with that wall of signals I get at these settings, and I set program one on 80 Sense, -1 thresh, DE, 4H and 1 on the disc as a check.
I also switched back and forth hunted using that program when I got tired of listening to the threshold tone in AT.
I found that those maxed out AT settings actually give me a more precise and stabler signal than disc does at lots of sites but I switch back and forth a lot still to check lots of signals to make sure I can pick up on the good ones both shallow and deep both ways.
I know there is a ton of many more great targets laying around here, just gotta get the coil over them and I will one day.
Hunt 2 was at a park with woods that climb up to about 800 feet on one side of the road and higher on the other.
I started at the highest one and last time here with the F2 the EMI was so bad the F2 was all but unusable except at lowest power settings and even then it was super noisy.
AT the top of this small mountain you are in line of site of every kind of tower for miles around and no obstructions.
If the F2 was so jumpy here I wondered what the F70 with it's much greater power range would be like but I was surprised that it handled this problem area like a champ and was no noisier than any other site I have been to so far with a decent amout of EMI.
I could easily hunt in AT maxed out, even at 90 on the sense in disc I had very little problem.
I had a little too much noise in SL in disc so I kept it in DE most of the time with disc at 1 and thresh at -1 and 4h tones for a bit but then switched to 2F.
I like 2F because it does seem to be a bit quieter than 4H, the high tone falsing isn't a big problem and it seems similar to AT which I am growing very fond of.
Not a whole lot in the area I was searching but I did come across several head stamps...some pretty old back to about 1910, some bullets and casings a few really tiny but they signaled loud and clear, and even that small round buckshot pellet which I believe is a #4 size.
Picking up targets of all sizes from large to very small does not appear to be any problem for the F70.
On the way down the mountain I came across the exact type of area I was hunting for...a small pass/path through a tall rock ledge up to the higher levels, a natural place people would walk.
I got a signal that was in the high 60's and dug that and found a wheatie at about 4" so I stopped there and looked all over that small area the best I could looking for silver.
None found on this trip but I did manage to find 3 more wheaties which is the most I ever found on one hunt in the past so I was happy.
The dates run from 1939 to 1955...the 1955 is just normal and not a shadowed or double die.
I will return to this area and look for more pathways like this through this rock ridge that runs the entire length of these small mountains and hope to find silver someday.
The first was back at that old 100 year old park.
I started in an area near the edge across the street from homes and power lines so EMI was pretty high, but turning the F70 down to about 60 on the sense, -1 on the thresh and DE quieted it down some.
The area I parked next to was a very trashy site near some tennis courts.
I picked up a copper penny, but it was still a pretty jumpy signal due to still too much EMI and all that trash sitting in the ground left there for about 100 years.
I turned the sense down again to 40 and all went quiet and I was able to pick up each signal clearly in that densely packed area even though I was still using the big DD coil.
The second signal that was a good one that I decided to dig was a 73 and about 3-4" deep this beauty of a silver ring popped up.
Love finding great stuff on my hunts right off the bat.
The rest of the time I just wandered around this big park and found all this.
I was using AT and maxed out settings in the middle of this park because I am getting pretty good with them and can notice the good tones and numbers as they pop up even with that wall of signals I get at these settings, and I set program one on 80 Sense, -1 thresh, DE, 4H and 1 on the disc as a check.
I also switched back and forth hunted using that program when I got tired of listening to the threshold tone in AT.
I found that those maxed out AT settings actually give me a more precise and stabler signal than disc does at lots of sites but I switch back and forth a lot still to check lots of signals to make sure I can pick up on the good ones both shallow and deep both ways.
I know there is a ton of many more great targets laying around here, just gotta get the coil over them and I will one day.
Hunt 2 was at a park with woods that climb up to about 800 feet on one side of the road and higher on the other.
I started at the highest one and last time here with the F2 the EMI was so bad the F2 was all but unusable except at lowest power settings and even then it was super noisy.
AT the top of this small mountain you are in line of site of every kind of tower for miles around and no obstructions.
If the F2 was so jumpy here I wondered what the F70 with it's much greater power range would be like but I was surprised that it handled this problem area like a champ and was no noisier than any other site I have been to so far with a decent amout of EMI.
I could easily hunt in AT maxed out, even at 90 on the sense in disc I had very little problem.
I had a little too much noise in SL in disc so I kept it in DE most of the time with disc at 1 and thresh at -1 and 4h tones for a bit but then switched to 2F.
I like 2F because it does seem to be a bit quieter than 4H, the high tone falsing isn't a big problem and it seems similar to AT which I am growing very fond of.
Not a whole lot in the area I was searching but I did come across several head stamps...some pretty old back to about 1910, some bullets and casings a few really tiny but they signaled loud and clear, and even that small round buckshot pellet which I believe is a #4 size.
Picking up targets of all sizes from large to very small does not appear to be any problem for the F70.
On the way down the mountain I came across the exact type of area I was hunting for...a small pass/path through a tall rock ledge up to the higher levels, a natural place people would walk.
I got a signal that was in the high 60's and dug that and found a wheatie at about 4" so I stopped there and looked all over that small area the best I could looking for silver.
None found on this trip but I did manage to find 3 more wheaties which is the most I ever found on one hunt in the past so I was happy.
The dates run from 1939 to 1955...the 1955 is just normal and not a shadowed or double die.
I will return to this area and look for more pathways like this through this rock ridge that runs the entire length of these small mountains and hope to find silver someday.
whynot
Senior Member
Hey digger27 thanks for all ur hard work and effort you are doing and for this blog. Well you are part of the reason I have a f70 being delivered tomorrow along with a AT Pro so I can have a friend come with me. I have been going through this blog but I dont think my brain is holding onto alot of it lol. so any advice on starting out with this would be great thanks
mike
mike
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
Hard work and effort?
More like a ton of fun and a labor of love.
Learning new things is always fun for me...learning new tools and useful things to make me better at this hobby and help me find more and better things is even more fun.
Advice to give to get you going...you betcha.
If it is too noisy for you at higher sense and thresh settings, or even at power up settings of sense on 60 just turn it down lower as you learn it.
Depending on the site it could be quiet at 60 or higher, but some sites it might not be.
At first I was leery about how deep this thing will go on lower settings but not anymore.
After that solid, repeatable dime signal I picked up at 5" on sense 19 and thresh at -1 I am pretty sure 30-40 and 50 will still go really deep, or deep enough in my great soil, anyway.
In trashy sites turn the sense low and you can pluck out good stuff even in a dense, trash packed environment.
I regularly turn it down to 30 when I come across these, even when hunting with the 11" DD coil it seems to shrink the scanning field to a precision and laser like smaller coil.
Post # 134 in this thread shows me doing this with the standard coil.
Watch that and see how I am able to hear signals even when they are close to each other with that coil, but it works with all coils.
Read the stuff posted here from Nasa Tom as you advance.
Mostly it is about high power hunting but it all seems to work.
Here are some of his links and some others I have bookmarked that you should read.
Most comments about the F75 will translate over to the F70 and the T2 because they are all built on the same basic architecture.
http://www.dankowskidetectors.com/discussions/read.php?2,2251
http://www.dankowskidetectors.com/discussions/read.php?2,2377,45294
http://www.dankowskidetectors.com/discussions/read.php?2,27927
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,1971578,page=1
Read the F Series sub forum over on Findmall and join in.
Me, mudpuppy, dbax, IBdiggen knarfi, Ayeti65 and many others discuss this thing all the time and share settings and behavior in the field using them.
I am Revier over there, got kicked off when I was using my Digger27 nom de plume.
Long story, but many of us have been banned from there at one time or another and we just look at that as a badge of honor.
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,1971578,page=1
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,1710979
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,1435316
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,1395360,page=1
As far as dealing with noise well, I usually hunt with very high settings when going deep in older sites, not only in disc but I am getting very comfortable in AT, SL, 99 Sense and 9 Thresh, settings where every piece of metal in the soil on the planet will show up and then add in falsing from any EMI.
Kind of crazy confusing using these settings at first, I only used them to check deep targets when I found them in disc, but over time I found that I could start to actually hear the good signals come through that wall of noise, also notice good and more solid numbers on the screen as fleeting as they seemed, and these settings were actually a little more stabler than hunting in disc at lower power.
In either mode and with any settings no matter what kind of jumping is going on in the tones and on the screen due to EMI or all the tiny bits of iron that is actually infused into most soils, when your coil goes over a good, solid target that we would want to dig it will usually calm down and tell you in the tone and more solid and repeating numbers on the screen.
There is a language to the F series detectors and sometimes lots of extra noise is part of that language, especially if you hunt on high power like I do, but if you want to do this just start out low and slowly build up to it.
It takes time to get used to noticing and picking out the good solid signals but it can be done with practice but don't be in a hurry...like I said the thing still goes deep and seems to be very accurate on much lower and quieter settings too.
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