whynot
Senior Member
thank you Digger, going to go through all this
Digger27's F70 log....Stardate 91517.72 (11-30-13)
- Thread starter DIGGER27
- Start date
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
Take your time.
I have been collecting and reading this stuff for 7 months and I still don't have all of it in my head, but I have enough that I am way further ahead than if I was just figuring it all out by trial and error by myself without all these tips and insights to help push me in the right direction.
A million or so ways to set up the F70 is possible, I have tried about 2,438 so far.
Starting to settle down and use a few that I like more than others in common situations, finally, but still reading and learning and doing some experimenting because that is so much fun for me to do.
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
Oh yea...one more thing.
Pay attention to the tones on this thing no matter what the screen says.
This is especially important on the very deep ones.
On the deepies you might not get any info on the screen at all, it will actually just go blank so just pretend you are hunting with a Tesoro if this happens and you still hear a solid repeatable tone.
Also get excited.
The deepest target I have found so far with the standard elliptical coil was a beaver tail tab at 10" with no info on the screen but a very solid repeating tone from every direction in disc, not AT.
I was not using maxed out power settings on this one, either.
Using the 11" DD coil and still in disc mode I actually did have some info on the screen and even though it was a bit jumpy it did have some usable info and the pinpointing depth was right on at the 14-15" mark.
This one was that thumb ringer off an old bicycle bell, but the numbers and tones that showed, the ones that were more prevalent than all the others I saw and heard were correct.
Also, that deep beaver tail was a high tone and not correct at all, but Nasa Tom says that is normal for those really deep low tone targets.
He also advises that even in disc using 3-3H-4 or 4H tones if it is deep and seems to repeat dig anything in the top 2 tones always because even high tone old silver coins can and will come in lower than they should at major depth and near the limit of the scanning field.
Pay attention to the tones on this thing no matter what the screen says.
This is especially important on the very deep ones.
On the deepies you might not get any info on the screen at all, it will actually just go blank so just pretend you are hunting with a Tesoro if this happens and you still hear a solid repeatable tone.
Also get excited.
The deepest target I have found so far with the standard elliptical coil was a beaver tail tab at 10" with no info on the screen but a very solid repeating tone from every direction in disc, not AT.
I was not using maxed out power settings on this one, either.
Using the 11" DD coil and still in disc mode I actually did have some info on the screen and even though it was a bit jumpy it did have some usable info and the pinpointing depth was right on at the 14-15" mark.
This one was that thumb ringer off an old bicycle bell, but the numbers and tones that showed, the ones that were more prevalent than all the others I saw and heard were correct.
Also, that deep beaver tail was a high tone and not correct at all, but Nasa Tom says that is normal for those really deep low tone targets.
He also advises that even in disc using 3-3H-4 or 4H tones if it is deep and seems to repeat dig anything in the top 2 tones always because even high tone old silver coins can and will come in lower than they should at major depth and near the limit of the scanning field.
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
I'm back!
It has been awhile since I added to this diary, I have been spending my time doing life stuff, hunting when I can and experiencing the wonder and awe of the amazing F70.
I never thought this was going to be a great year for me, treasure wise, I knew I would find a few great things or hoped to, anyway, but this was going to be a learning year for me and the F70.
With all the time messing around with different settings, examining almost every target several different ways, digging trash just to check it out, and staying closer to home and hunting very few new sites because I didn't have as much time to hunt as in previous seasons I wasn't really expecting to have another stellar year and that was going to be ok.
Taking time to learn your craft well is never a waste, all the time spent just experiencing what the F70 can do with different settings would go a long way to help me out in 2015 and that was gonna be the year me and the F70 became one.
Ya know what?
I was wronger than wrong about that, and I am here to tell you that not only did I learn so much more since my last post, as I learned and experimented and tweaked all these settings I still found great targets along the way.
Somewhere around June I finally started to settle down some with some favorite settings, slowed way down on time spent experimenting and examining every signal every which way but Sunday and just went back to hunting like I used to...swinging, digging mostly just the more solid signals and leaving most, but not all, jumpy signals in the ground.
At that point I was way down in my normal clad count for the year, the silver jewelry amount was negligible except for the few targets you can see in the pics above, and no gold in my treasure pouch or even on the horizon.
My good coin count, the older and silver coins I hoped to start finding this year was also very low, except for the Indian Head spill I found early in the year I didn't have much more to show for all my effort but again, I was fine with that...this was a learning year.
After I just got down to business and went hunting the great finds started to pop out of the ground for me at a pretty good clip, and over the last several months I continued to change up my settings a few more times and found even more in some very pounded, trashy difficult sites...and found these targets pretty easily.
A fantastic thing that happened to me this year, one of the things I am most proudest of, is the experience I had learning to hunt the most difficult site I ever swung a coil over in my life and the eventual success I had.
This is an old farmhouse site that is now part of a public park close to me and an area I have hit many times in the past few years with little to show for it because of the ridiculous amount of iron absolutely masking everything else here.
It was like they knocked down the house and took all the wood away but somehow left every piece of metal from this house on site and just covered it all over with about 6-8" of dirt.
Maybe about a million nails are here, square nails and some a little more modern, roofing nails, bolts and screws in all sizes and all kinds of other odd and end iron bits and pieces like wire from tiny to large.
Flanges, plates used to hold joists together too, and some pretty large pieces of the house like parts of window frames and who knows what else.
Then there was the medium to large pieces of iron buried here because this was a working farm for several decades.
I rarely opened any hole at this site without digging 3-4 or even 5 or more pieces of iron or junk...even holes that had good targets in there with them.
Add it all up and you had one huge mess of a site that "challenging and frustrating" were not close to the words that should be used to describe this place.
I know many hunted here before, for sure three MD club members told me they came out here and even with their many decades of experience and some top level detectors, two Whites and a Minelab...the best anyone managed to find in this place was one lonely silver dime.
I knew there was more, we all suspected there was much more but as far as I can tell everyone that came out here to hunt did it one time only and then all decided to move on to easier pastures.
Me, I am stubborn and I kept returning and trying new settings and it wasn't long till one day I finally hit on a very crazy way to hunt here, you actually might think I was insane to even try it this way when I tell you how I did it, but after a few hours practice one of those "AHA" moments hit me and I discovered that there were some great targets hiding at this site, all over this site as a matter of fact, and I figured out a way recognize and find them.
After pulling out some surprising things the good finds started to slow down and then I switched to some other settings that I read about in Nasa Tom's posts relating to hunting in heavy iron sites and then I found even more because they also worked and worked well.
I had read that the F series was good around iron but until I spent time at this place I had no idea how good.
Now I know 2 completely different ways to hunt for great targets totally hidden in dense iron fields and they both work better than I ever could have hoped.
These are skills I now own and will use forever more, and using these same two settings with just a little tweaking I discovered that they also work fantastically in my regular park sites that have problems with not so much iron but the regular tab, can slaw foil and pop top garbage we have to deal with in so many public sites.
Lately, using these settings I have been pulling out some great silver jewelry on almost every hunt in some garbage pit park sites I have hunted over and over in the past.
Oh yea...the gold started to show up as I got better at doing this, also.
I have so much to share about what I discovered but it is going to take awhile because I tried so many different settings and methods this year, but I will slowly write about the ones that worked and share the settings and techniques I used and post them here starting from way back in April where I left off.
I have posted here and there on other forums my findings and setting insights along the way and a few hunters tried some of them and said they worked for them too and found them some might great targets so be patient...all will be explained as I get into posting on this log again now that it is colder and I have more time.
My hope is someone reading this log may try them, or a version of them, and maybe find something great too.
For now, here is a few pics of what I found this year AFTER my last post back in April.
My clad count is now at a respectable $200, the silver and gold jewelry I thought would come to me in 2015, well, the F70 didn't want to wait that long to taste the good life so that total as it stands today still amazes me after such a slow start this year.
Coins, yea, I found a few oldies too, many of them in that iron mine farmhouse site including a 1917 Merc, the nicest IH I have ever dug and a bucket list Walker...the only one I have ever found.
Did I mention it was a half?
Yea, a freakin' silver half Walking Liberty...I still am in shock about that one, and considering how and where I found it makes it all that much sweeter.
Here are a few finds from that iron site.
The large license plate insurance tag is old and from a company so far gone I can't even find any info about it an the entire web.
The brass valve is from one of those old high-box pull chain toilets.
Not worth much, but it cleaned up so well after tumbling I proudly display it.
The 5 knives all came from that same site and there is a sixth one I found not pictured.
Love finding knives of any kind in any condition.
The soap token is in surprisingly good shape considering it is close to 90 years old and probably has been buried about that long.
Thank you great Kansas mild soil.
The small slip wheel lighter which is brass but needs to be cleaned up is a mini version of the larger one of the same kind that I found at a different park this year.
Add these to that nice 40's Ronson model I found in the woods and this was a great year for finding old lighters for me.
Coins.
Many of these came from that "iron mine" as I have come to call it...I found a few others at different parks in my travels.
There are a few more wheaties not pictured that also came out of that iron site.
A few from the 40's, a few more going all the way back to the teens and early 20's.
That Walker and the beautiful green IH are my favorites.
The 1954 Farthing was found at a different park and it was all wrapped up in a silver bezel with two plastic discs protecting that coin.
An old foreign coin and silver jewelry find in one.
Also of note and strange as it may seem, I have never found either one of these till this year.
Then again, I have never really concentrated much on coins much before this year.
My first Buff and war nickel, and the buff has a date, too.
Silver jewelry...still can't believe I found this much this year.
And even more...
Let us not forget about my favorite target...GOLD!
All found in heavy trash at different parks, my 5th gold class ring was found in a grass area between a basketball and volleyball court.
Not a bad year, huh?
Turned out to be a learning year AND a finding year.
Considering I had no high expectations at all I am thrilled.
Stay tuned...I will go through my learning process from where I left off and put down the settings and methods I used to find all this stuff.
It was a great, surprising, eye opening year for me...and it ain't over quite yet, either!
It has been awhile since I added to this diary, I have been spending my time doing life stuff, hunting when I can and experiencing the wonder and awe of the amazing F70.
I never thought this was going to be a great year for me, treasure wise, I knew I would find a few great things or hoped to, anyway, but this was going to be a learning year for me and the F70.
With all the time messing around with different settings, examining almost every target several different ways, digging trash just to check it out, and staying closer to home and hunting very few new sites because I didn't have as much time to hunt as in previous seasons I wasn't really expecting to have another stellar year and that was going to be ok.
Taking time to learn your craft well is never a waste, all the time spent just experiencing what the F70 can do with different settings would go a long way to help me out in 2015 and that was gonna be the year me and the F70 became one.
Ya know what?
I was wronger than wrong about that, and I am here to tell you that not only did I learn so much more since my last post, as I learned and experimented and tweaked all these settings I still found great targets along the way.
Somewhere around June I finally started to settle down some with some favorite settings, slowed way down on time spent experimenting and examining every signal every which way but Sunday and just went back to hunting like I used to...swinging, digging mostly just the more solid signals and leaving most, but not all, jumpy signals in the ground.
At that point I was way down in my normal clad count for the year, the silver jewelry amount was negligible except for the few targets you can see in the pics above, and no gold in my treasure pouch or even on the horizon.
My good coin count, the older and silver coins I hoped to start finding this year was also very low, except for the Indian Head spill I found early in the year I didn't have much more to show for all my effort but again, I was fine with that...this was a learning year.
After I just got down to business and went hunting the great finds started to pop out of the ground for me at a pretty good clip, and over the last several months I continued to change up my settings a few more times and found even more in some very pounded, trashy difficult sites...and found these targets pretty easily.
A fantastic thing that happened to me this year, one of the things I am most proudest of, is the experience I had learning to hunt the most difficult site I ever swung a coil over in my life and the eventual success I had.
This is an old farmhouse site that is now part of a public park close to me and an area I have hit many times in the past few years with little to show for it because of the ridiculous amount of iron absolutely masking everything else here.
It was like they knocked down the house and took all the wood away but somehow left every piece of metal from this house on site and just covered it all over with about 6-8" of dirt.
Maybe about a million nails are here, square nails and some a little more modern, roofing nails, bolts and screws in all sizes and all kinds of other odd and end iron bits and pieces like wire from tiny to large.
Flanges, plates used to hold joists together too, and some pretty large pieces of the house like parts of window frames and who knows what else.
Then there was the medium to large pieces of iron buried here because this was a working farm for several decades.
I rarely opened any hole at this site without digging 3-4 or even 5 or more pieces of iron or junk...even holes that had good targets in there with them.
Add it all up and you had one huge mess of a site that "challenging and frustrating" were not close to the words that should be used to describe this place.
I know many hunted here before, for sure three MD club members told me they came out here and even with their many decades of experience and some top level detectors, two Whites and a Minelab...the best anyone managed to find in this place was one lonely silver dime.
I knew there was more, we all suspected there was much more but as far as I can tell everyone that came out here to hunt did it one time only and then all decided to move on to easier pastures.
Me, I am stubborn and I kept returning and trying new settings and it wasn't long till one day I finally hit on a very crazy way to hunt here, you actually might think I was insane to even try it this way when I tell you how I did it, but after a few hours practice one of those "AHA" moments hit me and I discovered that there were some great targets hiding at this site, all over this site as a matter of fact, and I figured out a way recognize and find them.
After pulling out some surprising things the good finds started to slow down and then I switched to some other settings that I read about in Nasa Tom's posts relating to hunting in heavy iron sites and then I found even more because they also worked and worked well.
I had read that the F series was good around iron but until I spent time at this place I had no idea how good.
Now I know 2 completely different ways to hunt for great targets totally hidden in dense iron fields and they both work better than I ever could have hoped.
These are skills I now own and will use forever more, and using these same two settings with just a little tweaking I discovered that they also work fantastically in my regular park sites that have problems with not so much iron but the regular tab, can slaw foil and pop top garbage we have to deal with in so many public sites.
Lately, using these settings I have been pulling out some great silver jewelry on almost every hunt in some garbage pit park sites I have hunted over and over in the past.
Oh yea...the gold started to show up as I got better at doing this, also.
I have so much to share about what I discovered but it is going to take awhile because I tried so many different settings and methods this year, but I will slowly write about the ones that worked and share the settings and techniques I used and post them here starting from way back in April where I left off.
I have posted here and there on other forums my findings and setting insights along the way and a few hunters tried some of them and said they worked for them too and found them some might great targets so be patient...all will be explained as I get into posting on this log again now that it is colder and I have more time.
My hope is someone reading this log may try them, or a version of them, and maybe find something great too.
For now, here is a few pics of what I found this year AFTER my last post back in April.
My clad count is now at a respectable $200, the silver and gold jewelry I thought would come to me in 2015, well, the F70 didn't want to wait that long to taste the good life so that total as it stands today still amazes me after such a slow start this year.
Coins, yea, I found a few oldies too, many of them in that iron mine farmhouse site including a 1917 Merc, the nicest IH I have ever dug and a bucket list Walker...the only one I have ever found.
Did I mention it was a half?
Yea, a freakin' silver half Walking Liberty...I still am in shock about that one, and considering how and where I found it makes it all that much sweeter.
Here are a few finds from that iron site.
The large license plate insurance tag is old and from a company so far gone I can't even find any info about it an the entire web.
The brass valve is from one of those old high-box pull chain toilets.
Not worth much, but it cleaned up so well after tumbling I proudly display it.
The 5 knives all came from that same site and there is a sixth one I found not pictured.
Love finding knives of any kind in any condition.
The soap token is in surprisingly good shape considering it is close to 90 years old and probably has been buried about that long.
Thank you great Kansas mild soil.
The small slip wheel lighter which is brass but needs to be cleaned up is a mini version of the larger one of the same kind that I found at a different park this year.
Add these to that nice 40's Ronson model I found in the woods and this was a great year for finding old lighters for me.
Coins.
Many of these came from that "iron mine" as I have come to call it...I found a few others at different parks in my travels.
There are a few more wheaties not pictured that also came out of that iron site.
A few from the 40's, a few more going all the way back to the teens and early 20's.
That Walker and the beautiful green IH are my favorites.
The 1954 Farthing was found at a different park and it was all wrapped up in a silver bezel with two plastic discs protecting that coin.
An old foreign coin and silver jewelry find in one.
Also of note and strange as it may seem, I have never found either one of these till this year.
Then again, I have never really concentrated much on coins much before this year.
My first Buff and war nickel, and the buff has a date, too.
Silver jewelry...still can't believe I found this much this year.
And even more...
Let us not forget about my favorite target...GOLD!
All found in heavy trash at different parks, my 5th gold class ring was found in a grass area between a basketball and volleyball court.
Not a bad year, huh?
Turned out to be a learning year AND a finding year.
Considering I had no high expectations at all I am thrilled.
Stay tuned...I will go through my learning process from where I left off and put down the settings and methods I used to find all this stuff.
It was a great, surprising, eye opening year for me...and it ain't over quite yet, either!
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
Ok, one by one I will go through each step on my journey that led me to the point I am now.
I learned great things....found great things all along the way, but I am going to skip ahead on this one and update you on settings I am currently using because they seem to be working so well.
1 tone.
The quietest, most stable tone mode I have used so far, and the information I receive on the screen and in the tones seems to be, well...amazing.
I started using this tone mode a few weeks ago and I have slowly refined my settings using this mono tone and have been successful pulling out some great targets in fields of trash, but I originally used it because I wanted to see if it would work at a heavy iron infested site, which it did.
I knew about mono tone hunting in iron, I read about in in Nasa Tom's postings awhile ago but I still went on to find another way to hunt in heavy iron and when the finds slowed down to nothing I switched over to using this and found more.
Then I wondered if this would work in heavy trash in parks that I hunt and it did.
I don't mind all that much noise, but I have been experimenting and trying to find the quietest settings possible that also get the deepest, and some of theses settings seem to get the F70 quiet, unusually quiet compared to others I have tried, even at some problem sites with really heavy EMI.
I found that in mono tone I am able to get the sense in most of my areas to at least 85, I have had it at 90 and above, also.
Thresh I usually set to between -2 and 0, but at a few sites I have been able to raise it up to 6 and even with the higher sense setting I still get a few false signals, mostly just little squeaks, but nothing on the order I had with other tone modes including 2F which is usually quieter than all those above that setting.
I have been easily reaching targets at 6-7" which is the average area most of the good stuff dwells around here, but I have gone past that mark too but nothing but trash was dug at those levels so far.
At first I was keeping the disc down at my usual level of 4 or below, on the last couple of hunts I raised it up to 23 at some very trashy sites because I just didn't want to deal with all the trash below that level, and even though the F70 is supposed to be quietest between 5 and 20, it seemed pretty darn stable at settings below and above that area, also.
Plus, there were many less signals I had to deal with and process because of that higher disc setting so ultimately I had much more relaxing hunts with less mental fatigue and still plucked out some great targets out of total trash pits.
Again, I can deal with a ton of noise and still learned to recognize the good signals and dig them, but if I can find quieter settings and do the same thing why not use them?
Using mono tone the target separation seems extra good.
At real trashy sites I have been turning the sense down to between 30 and 40 to sharpen that scanning field and pick through the trash better.
Using the sniper coil this is not really necessary, but I found with the big coil in really heavy and dense trash it seems to help.
In mono tone turning the sense down doesn't seem all that important.
In SL speed I can isolate each target pretty well, in DE speed it seems even better.
Don't know why this is, there are usually at least a couple different targets under the coil at trashy sites...but it works.
Here are some of the targets I dug using over 80 sense, DE speed, 4 or less on disc, -2 or so on the thresh and 1 tone.
The wheat cent was found in really heavy iron, then I thought will this work in regular park trash so all the rest I found in pretty trashy sites like next to basketball courts and near picnic pavilions.
All were dug using my standard rule of not digging really bouncy trash signals but usually only the more stable signals that I could get to no more than a 3 number jump.
Some of these jumped only 2 numbers or stayed on 1 despite the trash in the vicinity sometimes within an inch.
After the switch to 1 tone it seemed like every hunt after that I found something great.
Then about a week ago I went into the woods where there is a bunch of foil I did not want to dig and on that day I didn't even want to be bothered with seeing them pop up on the screen or tone in my headphones.
The disc went up to 23 and I believe the F70 got even quieter even though my disc was near or at 90 and the thresh went into positive numbers.
I found a silver ID bracelet that day, and that worked so well I used these same settings again at the same woods and picked up the musket ball.
A few days later at another park in an area near the street with more EMI problems than any other site I ever hunted, and I hunt here a lot and this problem is always present, I had my same setting of 85 sense, -2 thresh, disc on 23, SL this time and still in mono tone...and I was floored with how quiet this thing stayed.
Still a bit of falsing here and there, just a few squeaks but nothing major at all.
I hunted this area in 4H, DP, All Metal, and 2H, sometimes at lower sense too, and never was it close to this quiet.
This was at the entrance to a 100 year old park and I can't begin to describe how much trash was in this area.
Still managed to find this thing easily at 6-7" in depth using my same rules for digging.
Yesterday at another park still hunting in trash and still with the same high settings and disc at 23 I found a bunch of coins next to a picnic pavilion I had hunted many times before and thought I cleaned out but didn't, and next to a soccer field I found this.
I will continue to hunt using mono tone, maybe with the disc down, maybe up in really trashy areas and see what else I can find...if it warms up around here enough to go out again.
Right now, this mono tone setting is turning out to be my most favorite of all time.
More to come...
I learned great things....found great things all along the way, but I am going to skip ahead on this one and update you on settings I am currently using because they seem to be working so well.
1 tone.
The quietest, most stable tone mode I have used so far, and the information I receive on the screen and in the tones seems to be, well...amazing.
I started using this tone mode a few weeks ago and I have slowly refined my settings using this mono tone and have been successful pulling out some great targets in fields of trash, but I originally used it because I wanted to see if it would work at a heavy iron infested site, which it did.
I knew about mono tone hunting in iron, I read about in in Nasa Tom's postings awhile ago but I still went on to find another way to hunt in heavy iron and when the finds slowed down to nothing I switched over to using this and found more.
Then I wondered if this would work in heavy trash in parks that I hunt and it did.
I don't mind all that much noise, but I have been experimenting and trying to find the quietest settings possible that also get the deepest, and some of theses settings seem to get the F70 quiet, unusually quiet compared to others I have tried, even at some problem sites with really heavy EMI.
I found that in mono tone I am able to get the sense in most of my areas to at least 85, I have had it at 90 and above, also.
Thresh I usually set to between -2 and 0, but at a few sites I have been able to raise it up to 6 and even with the higher sense setting I still get a few false signals, mostly just little squeaks, but nothing on the order I had with other tone modes including 2F which is usually quieter than all those above that setting.
I have been easily reaching targets at 6-7" which is the average area most of the good stuff dwells around here, but I have gone past that mark too but nothing but trash was dug at those levels so far.
At first I was keeping the disc down at my usual level of 4 or below, on the last couple of hunts I raised it up to 23 at some very trashy sites because I just didn't want to deal with all the trash below that level, and even though the F70 is supposed to be quietest between 5 and 20, it seemed pretty darn stable at settings below and above that area, also.
Plus, there were many less signals I had to deal with and process because of that higher disc setting so ultimately I had much more relaxing hunts with less mental fatigue and still plucked out some great targets out of total trash pits.
Again, I can deal with a ton of noise and still learned to recognize the good signals and dig them, but if I can find quieter settings and do the same thing why not use them?
Using mono tone the target separation seems extra good.
At real trashy sites I have been turning the sense down to between 30 and 40 to sharpen that scanning field and pick through the trash better.
Using the sniper coil this is not really necessary, but I found with the big coil in really heavy and dense trash it seems to help.
In mono tone turning the sense down doesn't seem all that important.
In SL speed I can isolate each target pretty well, in DE speed it seems even better.
Don't know why this is, there are usually at least a couple different targets under the coil at trashy sites...but it works.
Here are some of the targets I dug using over 80 sense, DE speed, 4 or less on disc, -2 or so on the thresh and 1 tone.
The wheat cent was found in really heavy iron, then I thought will this work in regular park trash so all the rest I found in pretty trashy sites like next to basketball courts and near picnic pavilions.
All were dug using my standard rule of not digging really bouncy trash signals but usually only the more stable signals that I could get to no more than a 3 number jump.
Some of these jumped only 2 numbers or stayed on 1 despite the trash in the vicinity sometimes within an inch.
After the switch to 1 tone it seemed like every hunt after that I found something great.
Then about a week ago I went into the woods where there is a bunch of foil I did not want to dig and on that day I didn't even want to be bothered with seeing them pop up on the screen or tone in my headphones.
The disc went up to 23 and I believe the F70 got even quieter even though my disc was near or at 90 and the thresh went into positive numbers.
I found a silver ID bracelet that day, and that worked so well I used these same settings again at the same woods and picked up the musket ball.
A few days later at another park in an area near the street with more EMI problems than any other site I ever hunted, and I hunt here a lot and this problem is always present, I had my same setting of 85 sense, -2 thresh, disc on 23, SL this time and still in mono tone...and I was floored with how quiet this thing stayed.
Still a bit of falsing here and there, just a few squeaks but nothing major at all.
I hunted this area in 4H, DP, All Metal, and 2H, sometimes at lower sense too, and never was it close to this quiet.
This was at the entrance to a 100 year old park and I can't begin to describe how much trash was in this area.
Still managed to find this thing easily at 6-7" in depth using my same rules for digging.
Yesterday at another park still hunting in trash and still with the same high settings and disc at 23 I found a bunch of coins next to a picnic pavilion I had hunted many times before and thought I cleaned out but didn't, and next to a soccer field I found this.
I will continue to hunt using mono tone, maybe with the disc down, maybe up in really trashy areas and see what else I can find...if it warms up around here enough to go out again.
Right now, this mono tone setting is turning out to be my most favorite of all time.
More to come...
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
I'm back!
Ok, now the middle of April 2016 and much has transpired since I last logged on to this thread.
I kept hunting with the great F70 and all my coils, kept learning and experimenting and in 2015 the finds kept coming.
Early in 2015 I found 3 gold rings within a 10 day period...one was marked 916 which is 22k!
I kept changing some settings and used 4H a lot when hunting parks for shallow coins and jewelry, 1F and 2F when in a lot of trash or when looking to go deeper.
I still kept using all metal and those blast though maxed out settings all the while either as my main hunting mode or as a check of targets I found in disc.
I still kept hunting parks, there were so many around me in Kansas and I continue sued to find clad, some silver jewelry here and there and even an odd silver coin here and there.
At one park I had a few surprises.
It had a house still standing in the middle that was the owner's home when this used to be farmland, I assumed that this area had been hunted to death but which a few favorite settings and k knowledge gained I was able to pull out 2 silver quarters and a silver dime or two using my all metal blast through settings because of the large amount if iron pieces on the front and back yards.
These settings worked just as well as they did in that other site I called the iron mine so this was no fluke and these all metal blast through settings have become one of the most important arrows in my quiver of favorite settings.
Still is.
Another thing I found in this same park but an area not near this home was something special...a Dragoon cuff button!
Next post...soccer sidelines....
Ok, now the middle of April 2016 and much has transpired since I last logged on to this thread.
I kept hunting with the great F70 and all my coils, kept learning and experimenting and in 2015 the finds kept coming.
Early in 2015 I found 3 gold rings within a 10 day period...one was marked 916 which is 22k!
I kept changing some settings and used 4H a lot when hunting parks for shallow coins and jewelry, 1F and 2F when in a lot of trash or when looking to go deeper.
I still kept using all metal and those blast though maxed out settings all the while either as my main hunting mode or as a check of targets I found in disc.
I still kept hunting parks, there were so many around me in Kansas and I continue sued to find clad, some silver jewelry here and there and even an odd silver coin here and there.
At one park I had a few surprises.
It had a house still standing in the middle that was the owner's home when this used to be farmland, I assumed that this area had been hunted to death but which a few favorite settings and k knowledge gained I was able to pull out 2 silver quarters and a silver dime or two using my all metal blast through settings because of the large amount if iron pieces on the front and back yards.
These settings worked just as well as they did in that other site I called the iron mine so this was no fluke and these all metal blast through settings have become one of the most important arrows in my quiver of favorite settings.
Still is.
Another thing I found in this same park but an area not near this home was something special...a Dragoon cuff button!
Next post...soccer sidelines....
Attachments
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
So soccer fields.
I used a 3 of my coils, mostly hunted in 4H or 1F and knocked out iron.
For the first time in along time I avoided zincoln signals because there were too many other better ones.
Still dug lower zinc where big gold can come in ut mostly the solid signals only from foil on up for gold and all high tones.
After the winter and things started to thaw out more I decided to hunt some soccer sidelines in two parks I had been to before.
I had scanned these with the F2 and a few others before, found a few things but now I was back with the F70.
Time to hunt these things right.
These two parks didn't have just a couple of fields, these were complexes with many.
The first one I hunted for a couple of weeks had way more than I ever thought.
Clad galore, a very cool saloon token that is not real, not a fantasy token either but a token that was manufactured just to rip people off.
This is where the great silver jewelry streak began and then continued into the next soccer field site where I started to also gather up more clad in one site than I ever had before.
I guess nobody hunted here, well at the second site I know one guy tried but the workers there kicked him out because he was making bad holes all over some fields.
I showed them I could cut nice holes, I would stay mostly on the sidelines so they gave me the ok.
I am surprised I didn't find gold here or at either field but the coins and silver jewelry kept me busy.
Also found a real nice tri-metal bracelet.
Here is just some of my take from these two soccer sites.
Next up....Moving back to Bama, the horror!
I used a 3 of my coils, mostly hunted in 4H or 1F and knocked out iron.
For the first time in along time I avoided zincoln signals because there were too many other better ones.
Still dug lower zinc where big gold can come in ut mostly the solid signals only from foil on up for gold and all high tones.
After the winter and things started to thaw out more I decided to hunt some soccer sidelines in two parks I had been to before.
I had scanned these with the F2 and a few others before, found a few things but now I was back with the F70.
Time to hunt these things right.
These two parks didn't have just a couple of fields, these were complexes with many.
The first one I hunted for a couple of weeks had way more than I ever thought.
Clad galore, a very cool saloon token that is not real, not a fantasy token either but a token that was manufactured just to rip people off.
This is where the great silver jewelry streak began and then continued into the next soccer field site where I started to also gather up more clad in one site than I ever had before.
I guess nobody hunted here, well at the second site I know one guy tried but the workers there kicked him out because he was making bad holes all over some fields.
I showed them I could cut nice holes, I would stay mostly on the sidelines so they gave me the ok.
I am surprised I didn't find gold here or at either field but the coins and silver jewelry kept me busy.
Also found a real nice tri-metal bracelet.
Here is just some of my take from these two soccer sites.
Next up....Moving back to Bama, the horror!
Attachments
robren
Forum Supporter
F70
Just found this thread while searching for info on a new F70 I picked up from a forum member. HUGH amount of information - I am now hunting with a notebook. I have only had this detector a week and things are still kinda confusing, but this info will speed along the process. Thanks for your diligence in updating this thread that started in 2013!!
Just found this thread while searching for info on a new F70 I picked up from a forum member. HUGH amount of information - I am now hunting with a notebook. I have only had this detector a week and things are still kinda confusing, but this info will speed along the process. Thanks for your diligence in updating this thread that started in 2013!!
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
I had an F2 log that grew to a huge size as I added all my insights and others did too.
I don't add to this one as much but I am a huge tweaker...and the F70 has so many setti vs to tweak.
Right now I am hunting in Birmingham Ala. with very difficult mineralized and iron infested soil.
It took months but I finally found settings and noticed some odd but repeating behavior that is enabling me to get deeper in the really bad stuff than most and find some bucket list items without needing to dig every signal.
I will write my findings up soon and I have a few that work pretty well but lately I am using monotone, disc on 1 or 0, Thresh down to-4 or-5 and sense from 60-90.
On 1 disc SL speed, on 0 disc DE speed.
Seems to be working pretty well but so do many others.
Enjoy the amazing F70...it is jaw dropping incredible in every site and condition I have tried it in so far.
I have put down all my theories and settings in here, try some of them and if you do I hope they work for you as well as they do for me.
MrDirtyHands
New Member
Hey DIGGER27
Oh Lord NOOO... You just moved to Bham (a few years ago) with dirt similar to my evil Ga. red clay and this thread stopped??!! I read every word & watched every Vid from your Kansas adventures. Now Al. & poof!
Does your F70 info/research in Al. continue elsewhere? If so, AWESOME & where? If not... THANK YOU for all the effort you put in on this!! I know it was a labor of love but your love of this hobby and that great F70 has sure helped a lotta folks including this future Patriot owner! We are in your debt!
Dan
Oh Lord NOOO... You just moved to Bham (a few years ago) with dirt similar to my evil Ga. red clay and this thread stopped??!! I read every word & watched every Vid from your Kansas adventures. Now Al. & poof!
Does your F70 info/research in Al. continue elsewhere? If so, AWESOME & where? If not... THANK YOU for all the effort you put in on this!! I know it was a labor of love but your love of this hobby and that great F70 has sure helped a lotta folks including this future Patriot owner! We are in your debt!
Dan
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
Thanks for resurrecting this thread, it might be useful to any newbies with new Patriots that may notice it.
I learned a ton more about hunting here in the South and our challenging, mineralized trash and iron infested devil dirt after I returned.
A lot more.
I just got to lazy to post them in this log after doing some pretty long write ups on this and other forums.
Found some great things after doing some experimenting for a few months with all the settings and learning a bunch of weird target behavior.
Like these things and a ton more.
All were from one single public park down the block from where I live that is considered "hunted out" by most around here.
Actually everyone around here except 2 friends I know and sometimes hunt with.
The Peace dollar was very large and found in August during a drought.
It was a solid 98 every way possible and sounded wonderful and I had never seen a solid number like that before...ever.
A regular silver dollar is about 91 or so, this thing was 98 because all Fishers up average around iron...more on that another time.
I pretty much made up my mind it was some big can or something else junky but that solid and super stable high number and sweet tone got me real curious.
It was laying completely flat probably 5" deep in dirt that was trying it's best to imitate concrete.
It took me a good 10-15 minutes to chop down to that level and for the life of me I can't figure out how I got that deep chopping all the way in a 4" wide hole and didn't hit it with my Lesche...pure luck
I had no plans to do any deep digging that day, especially in those conditions.
I had already hunted in the morning and I was tired but the wife insisted on watching some weird movie I had no interest in so I walked over to this park just to scope out a few areas to look for decent signals that I would come back and dig in the fall when the rains came and I could dig easier.
Glad I decided to dig this one despite the effort expended.
The gold religious pendant is 8.9 grams of 14k found in an area with a million old beaver tail tabs that all came in at around the same numbers...41-42.
Not deep at all, it was just surrounded by tons of trash.
The tabs all jumped around a bit more but this thing stayed a solid 41-42 which is why it got dug and the tabs didnt.
The wife shocked me when I tried to give it to her and she said no thanks, it was just say too big and gaudy for her to wear...too much bling which I didn't know was possible.
The sterling Masonic Shekel was found in an area that had some rare black dirt with the 10" concentric.
It sang out so super sweet on that concentric and the F70 called it at 7" which is where I found it.
Accurate depth readings were always right on in the great Kansas and Missouri soil, here not so much but it nailed this one perfectly.
They still make these things for Masonic members but now they use nickel, copper or bronze, they haven't made them in silver since the late 30's to early 40's so it had been sitting down there since the 40's to early 50's, I figure.
This area of the park had been scoured since detectors were invented because it is near a main entrance to this big park.
Everyone missed it for decades but for the F70 noticing it was easy as breathing air.
I have used regular settings, max disc with a few areas notched back in, high thresh, low thresh, and spent hours using all the tone selections and so much more.
You name it and I have probably tried it.
Funny thing is most everything worked and worked well although for some situations I found a few settings worked way better, and those settings were usually far from normal.
Most of my discoveries and settings are posted on Findmall in the F Series section under the name REVIER.
If you want to pick my brain about anything if you do get the Patriot just ask me and I can refer you to a thread I already wrote about my experience or I can just tell you about it again...I like to write so no big deal.
Always glad to help out another hunter.
If you request that I friend you you can look at my albums for all my detectors.
The F70 album is 4 pages long, page 3 and 4 are a lot of the great things I found out west but all of page 1 and most of page 2 are all Alabama finds.
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MrDirtyHands
New Member
All thanks go to you sir! Have you ever considered writing a book?? "The F70/Patriot users guide!" Or "The F70/Patriot Bible!" (Now THAT has a ring to it!)
Honestly, your F70 info (as awesome as it is!) is spread around a bit and a little hard to retain all the info going from site to site. Many readings will be needed obviously! I have several open tabs on my pooter that I go back & forth & I'm afraid I'll loose the info/where I'm at if I close them.
I was actually serious about the book! It could be spiral bound or done at the local copy shop & I'd think any and ALL F70/Patriot users would clammer to send you $20 for a copy. You bet, I'd be on the forums & Youtube leaving comments about it to EVERY swinger I could find using those machines. (How many F70/Pat users are out there? X $20 = Nice chunk of change!
Wow! I'm getting excited just thinking about it! LOL ~
OK, 'nuff of that...
I can't IMAGING running a machine as hot as you sometimes run that F70! Seems that would be counter productive in our "devil dirt?" You making that work for you is just another testament to your skill with that machine & detecting in general! I don't think I'm there yet! LOL
So... Balls in your court! Write that book! Give me credit for the idea (LOL) and I got $20 waiting for you!!
Dan
Honestly, your F70 info (as awesome as it is!) is spread around a bit and a little hard to retain all the info going from site to site. Many readings will be needed obviously! I have several open tabs on my pooter that I go back & forth & I'm afraid I'll loose the info/where I'm at if I close them.
I was actually serious about the book! It could be spiral bound or done at the local copy shop & I'd think any and ALL F70/Patriot users would clammer to send you $20 for a copy. You bet, I'd be on the forums & Youtube leaving comments about it to EVERY swinger I could find using those machines. (How many F70/Pat users are out there? X $20 = Nice chunk of change!
Wow! I'm getting excited just thinking about it! LOL ~
OK, 'nuff of that...
I can't IMAGING running a machine as hot as you sometimes run that F70! Seems that would be counter productive in our "devil dirt?" You making that work for you is just another testament to your skill with that machine & detecting in general! I don't think I'm there yet! LOL
So... Balls in your court! Write that book! Give me credit for the idea (LOL) and I got $20 waiting for you!!
Dan
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
Ha!
I don't always run it super hot, this thing is extremely powerful and overpowered which is why many sold them soon after they got them.
They bumped up the gain high because they thought this is how to get the most depth, they figured other units/brands had to be turned up high for major depth so this one does also.
They were so noisy and unstable at high gain they thought the thing was junk.
I have said many times we Fisher guys love this, we buy these horrible things at fire sale prices and adjust them to hunt correctly.
I sometimes run super hot because of iron.
Forever many have had the opinion that too much sense, (gain), in iron infested sites will skew all the incoming data, the high beam headlights in the fog, theory.
On this one high gain will get you better resolution in heavy iron, not worse.
Here in the land of iron I just think it might help.
I learned to run hot, it took me a long time and many hours practice to learn to do it.
Actually, out of the box factory settings should find most targets in most sites and conditions...I just like to tinker just to see what happens.
Just another arrow in my quiver in case I need it.
Writing a book, too lazy for that.
If you need to know something, just ask.
I don't always run it super hot, this thing is extremely powerful and overpowered which is why many sold them soon after they got them.
They bumped up the gain high because they thought this is how to get the most depth, they figured other units/brands had to be turned up high for major depth so this one does also.
They were so noisy and unstable at high gain they thought the thing was junk.
I have said many times we Fisher guys love this, we buy these horrible things at fire sale prices and adjust them to hunt correctly.
I sometimes run super hot because of iron.
Forever many have had the opinion that too much sense, (gain), in iron infested sites will skew all the incoming data, the high beam headlights in the fog, theory.
On this one high gain will get you better resolution in heavy iron, not worse.
Here in the land of iron I just think it might help.
I learned to run hot, it took me a long time and many hours practice to learn to do it.
Actually, out of the box factory settings should find most targets in most sites and conditions...I just like to tinker just to see what happens.
Just another arrow in my quiver in case I need it.
Writing a book, too lazy for that.
If you need to know something, just ask.
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MrDirtyHands
New Member
Proven by the amount of targets you dig, jewelry etc... you find and profeciency with a pen. (Keyboard) You... Are not lazy! You said to ask so... Are all the F70/75 Accessories compatible with the Patriot? ie... Rain covers, coils & whatever else? I believe so but?? (See my signature? Pardon the stupid questions!)
By the way. I've been busy this afternoon on social media. I've already taken 400 pre-orders of the "F70/Patriot Bible!" Guess I jumped the gun huh? LOL!!
Dan
By the way. I've been busy this afternoon on social media. I've already taken 400 pre-orders of the "F70/Patriot Bible!" Guess I jumped the gun huh? LOL!!
Dan
DIGGER27
In Memory Of
The F75 has a different shaped handle and that trigger, neither of which feels all that comfortable to me.
All coils are totally compatible as should most other accessories.
The F75 and the F70 are built on the same core platform.
Same frequencies, power ranges, connections...most everything.
The difference is programming and that's about it.
