I've had my F75 LTD for a week now, and have put over 30 hours on it hunting, testing and re-testing various settings, so I wanted to share my findings. This is my testing, for my style of hunting, in my Northern California mineralized dirt and intercity EMI.
Having put in a serious amount of time on my F70, it really shortened the learning curve of the F75 LTD. Although it's similar to the F70, it's still different enough, with many more options to suit just about any type of hunting style. I mainly tested the new boost mode, as myriads of field reports and internet forum reports of the F75 legacy detector exist, and they remain the same on the LTD. The new modes are boost (bP) and cache (CL).
A lot of folks, myself included, wondered if the new LTD is more of a relic hunter then a coin shooter. I can honestly say that in my humble opinion, it will excel at either. While 80% or better of my hunting is looking for old coins (mainly due to few places to relic hunt around here), I did get into some relic hunting environments and made some interesting finds, even in iron.
In boost mode it has plenty of horsepower in the depth department. I compared deep signals with an Explorer SE and I was easily able to hear 10" deep coins the Explorer could hear, and they were nice, distinct tones, nothing iffy, no whispers. As well as it hit on the deep coins the Explorer hit, there was definitely plenty more depth to be had, unfortunately there just wasn't deeper coins to be found at this site.
TID's are still jumpy at times, but what I'm finding is that coins are typically less jumpy and sound better, a lot of trash is typically jumpy and usually doesn't sound as good as a coin target (YMMV). The rings from pull tabs sound OK at times, but tend to be pretty jumpy. In my humble opinion the in boost mode the audio conveys much more information to help make that dig/no dig decision. Several targets had a washed out/quite'ish sound when checking in DE mode and I doubt that I'd dug them in DE mode. I like how the LTD allows you to hit the menu button to check your target in DE mode while in another mode, a well thought out touch.
At one hunt spot I worked an ultra trashy spot parallel to a sidewalk. I found the 11" DD to be surgical if I swung slooowly, it's separation was supurb. Crawl along in a trashy area and when you got a glimpse of a good hit, you could do the LTD wiggle over it to bring it up. I was able to pick out a silver rosie dime amongst a barrage of pull-tabs and other trash. I also recovered a beautiful sterling silver bracelet that weights over an ounce
Iron was not a problem, I dug maybe two old nails, and they had very jumpy TID's, but I was curious to see what they were. I noticed that when you get a small bit of iron that jumps to a high coin tone (which was rare), when you try to pinpoint it, it's gone, not moved around like iron does on some machines, it simply doesn't respond with a tone or depth indication. I X'd a few targets and dug them to verify this behavior. Also with iron bounces, the audio tends to sound washed out. I don't know if this is by design, or a fluke, but I like it, it saves valuable digging time for finding more targets.
I did run into a couple of small EMI issues, but honestly I doubt any machine would've been EMI proof at these spots. That said, at San Francisco and Alameda intercity parks where EMI can be a real challenge with some machines, the LTD shined. I was able to run boost mode, disc 7, with a sensitivity of 75 and it was stable as could be. This has become my preferred setting. Disc settings of 5-20 are reduced depth settings, but with better and more stable operation. If one needs ultra depth, set the disc lower than 4 or higher than 20. A disc of 2 will give excellent iron separation with more depth, but of course it's going to be noisier. I could've run the sensitivity even higher and worked into the "noise" but you reach a point of diminishing returns (nothing was deep enough to warrant changes as at this site hotter settings would only cause instability and unneeded noise). I wouldn't call the EMI handling bulletproof, but it was far better then previous FT F-series machines I've used.
I'd really like to be able to disable or dim the backlight. Old Fishers like the CZ70 and Coinstrike could be enabled/disabled, why did Fisher take a step backwards here? I night hunted a place that was pitch black and the display was blinding, you felt like you were in the spot light the entire time, and could not see your surroundings very well. When night hunting at say a city park where there's ambient light, the display brightness is OK, but go into the woods or other remote area where there's no ambient light, and you'll feel like your being hit with an interrogation light. I've noticed that the display, mainly when night hunting, isn't pitched quite right and I'm always moving the machine around to see the display. It's fine during the day, but not so much at night and it would be great if we had some kind of angle adjustment.
The 6.5" elliptical concentric coil did not work well in boost mode. Not sure what the deal was, but the tones were scratchy and washed out, and the TID was off. I switched to the little 5" DD and it worked fine in boost mode. Actually the little 5" DD is killer in boost mode, you can easily get 6"-7" depth, which for a small coil that actually is a 4.75" coil, that's tremendous. I found a 6" deep Victorian era lead seal in heavy iron with the little 5" DD.
The LTD has a propensity to up average targets, which is better then machines that do the opposite and iffy good targets end up undug due to reporting as iron or foil. At one site (and oddly everything seemed to ring in higher then normal at this particular location) I got a nickel showing a TID of 60, clad quarters were coming in at 90. At a couple of different sites I did get pull tabs reading as high coins. Particularly square tabs (on a couple of occasions), and round tabs when the beaver tail was bent over into the center of the ring would ring in like a quarter or dime.
It's a shame that Fisher/FT can't afford to engineer a proper stand, the LTD still flops over like all my other FT Fishers
I tried the cache mode at several locations, and compared signals between boost and cache modes, and honestly I'm not seeing a great application yet for the cache hunting mode, but then again it wasn't designed for coin shooting, unless it's a cache of coins! The audio was much better in boost mode then cache, BUT I was able to raise the coil higher with cache mode then boost on a given target.
Is the LTD the best thing since sliced bread? Honestly I can't say yet. I haven't made that pinnacle find like a 12" deep barber dime, a seated half dime in thick iron, or similarly challenging find that would make me go "WOW!!". Finds wise it did not make every site I took it to seem "virgin" again, but I did make some nice finds in hard hunted sites and I'm sure it will open up future sites. It also had no problem keeping up with the Explorer. It's a marked improvement over previous F-series machines, with far better audio, better stability, the ability to handle EMI far better, and it has plenty of depth horsepower on tap. I have no doubt that in the right area it will hit a silver dime at 12"+, but I'm still looking for it.
OK, on to the finds
Relics (anyone know the date of the three ringers and army button?):
1800's lead seal found in heavy iron. Anyone have any idea what it's from ? :
Pierce Arrow motorbike badge. You can see a 1911 Pierce Arrow motorbike with the same badge in the front:
Jewelery (14K tri-color gold mens ring, sterling .925 ring and 34 gram sterling silver bracelet) :
Orphan Annie 1930's ID bracelet:
1800's Immaculate Heart of Mary medallion:
Toys:
And of course coins, including two 1937 buffalo nickles (unfortunately not the 3-legged variety), a 1943-S silver war nickle, two mercs, two rosies, and a 1909 wheatie in beautiful shape, but no matter how hard I squint it wouldn't turn into a 1909-S VDB
):
If you made it this far, thanks for reading my review and looking at the finds.
Brian
Having put in a serious amount of time on my F70, it really shortened the learning curve of the F75 LTD. Although it's similar to the F70, it's still different enough, with many more options to suit just about any type of hunting style. I mainly tested the new boost mode, as myriads of field reports and internet forum reports of the F75 legacy detector exist, and they remain the same on the LTD. The new modes are boost (bP) and cache (CL).
A lot of folks, myself included, wondered if the new LTD is more of a relic hunter then a coin shooter. I can honestly say that in my humble opinion, it will excel at either. While 80% or better of my hunting is looking for old coins (mainly due to few places to relic hunt around here), I did get into some relic hunting environments and made some interesting finds, even in iron.
In boost mode it has plenty of horsepower in the depth department. I compared deep signals with an Explorer SE and I was easily able to hear 10" deep coins the Explorer could hear, and they were nice, distinct tones, nothing iffy, no whispers. As well as it hit on the deep coins the Explorer hit, there was definitely plenty more depth to be had, unfortunately there just wasn't deeper coins to be found at this site.
TID's are still jumpy at times, but what I'm finding is that coins are typically less jumpy and sound better, a lot of trash is typically jumpy and usually doesn't sound as good as a coin target (YMMV). The rings from pull tabs sound OK at times, but tend to be pretty jumpy. In my humble opinion the in boost mode the audio conveys much more information to help make that dig/no dig decision. Several targets had a washed out/quite'ish sound when checking in DE mode and I doubt that I'd dug them in DE mode. I like how the LTD allows you to hit the menu button to check your target in DE mode while in another mode, a well thought out touch.
At one hunt spot I worked an ultra trashy spot parallel to a sidewalk. I found the 11" DD to be surgical if I swung slooowly, it's separation was supurb. Crawl along in a trashy area and when you got a glimpse of a good hit, you could do the LTD wiggle over it to bring it up. I was able to pick out a silver rosie dime amongst a barrage of pull-tabs and other trash. I also recovered a beautiful sterling silver bracelet that weights over an ounce
Iron was not a problem, I dug maybe two old nails, and they had very jumpy TID's, but I was curious to see what they were. I noticed that when you get a small bit of iron that jumps to a high coin tone (which was rare), when you try to pinpoint it, it's gone, not moved around like iron does on some machines, it simply doesn't respond with a tone or depth indication. I X'd a few targets and dug them to verify this behavior. Also with iron bounces, the audio tends to sound washed out. I don't know if this is by design, or a fluke, but I like it, it saves valuable digging time for finding more targets.
I did run into a couple of small EMI issues, but honestly I doubt any machine would've been EMI proof at these spots. That said, at San Francisco and Alameda intercity parks where EMI can be a real challenge with some machines, the LTD shined. I was able to run boost mode, disc 7, with a sensitivity of 75 and it was stable as could be. This has become my preferred setting. Disc settings of 5-20 are reduced depth settings, but with better and more stable operation. If one needs ultra depth, set the disc lower than 4 or higher than 20. A disc of 2 will give excellent iron separation with more depth, but of course it's going to be noisier. I could've run the sensitivity even higher and worked into the "noise" but you reach a point of diminishing returns (nothing was deep enough to warrant changes as at this site hotter settings would only cause instability and unneeded noise). I wouldn't call the EMI handling bulletproof, but it was far better then previous FT F-series machines I've used.
I'd really like to be able to disable or dim the backlight. Old Fishers like the CZ70 and Coinstrike could be enabled/disabled, why did Fisher take a step backwards here? I night hunted a place that was pitch black and the display was blinding, you felt like you were in the spot light the entire time, and could not see your surroundings very well. When night hunting at say a city park where there's ambient light, the display brightness is OK, but go into the woods or other remote area where there's no ambient light, and you'll feel like your being hit with an interrogation light. I've noticed that the display, mainly when night hunting, isn't pitched quite right and I'm always moving the machine around to see the display. It's fine during the day, but not so much at night and it would be great if we had some kind of angle adjustment.
The 6.5" elliptical concentric coil did not work well in boost mode. Not sure what the deal was, but the tones were scratchy and washed out, and the TID was off. I switched to the little 5" DD and it worked fine in boost mode. Actually the little 5" DD is killer in boost mode, you can easily get 6"-7" depth, which for a small coil that actually is a 4.75" coil, that's tremendous. I found a 6" deep Victorian era lead seal in heavy iron with the little 5" DD.
The LTD has a propensity to up average targets, which is better then machines that do the opposite and iffy good targets end up undug due to reporting as iron or foil. At one site (and oddly everything seemed to ring in higher then normal at this particular location) I got a nickel showing a TID of 60, clad quarters were coming in at 90. At a couple of different sites I did get pull tabs reading as high coins. Particularly square tabs (on a couple of occasions), and round tabs when the beaver tail was bent over into the center of the ring would ring in like a quarter or dime.
It's a shame that Fisher/FT can't afford to engineer a proper stand, the LTD still flops over like all my other FT Fishers
I tried the cache mode at several locations, and compared signals between boost and cache modes, and honestly I'm not seeing a great application yet for the cache hunting mode, but then again it wasn't designed for coin shooting, unless it's a cache of coins! The audio was much better in boost mode then cache, BUT I was able to raise the coil higher with cache mode then boost on a given target.
Is the LTD the best thing since sliced bread? Honestly I can't say yet. I haven't made that pinnacle find like a 12" deep barber dime, a seated half dime in thick iron, or similarly challenging find that would make me go "WOW!!". Finds wise it did not make every site I took it to seem "virgin" again, but I did make some nice finds in hard hunted sites and I'm sure it will open up future sites. It also had no problem keeping up with the Explorer. It's a marked improvement over previous F-series machines, with far better audio, better stability, the ability to handle EMI far better, and it has plenty of depth horsepower on tap. I have no doubt that in the right area it will hit a silver dime at 12"+, but I'm still looking for it.
OK, on to the finds
Relics (anyone know the date of the three ringers and army button?):
1800's lead seal found in heavy iron. Anyone have any idea what it's from ? :
Pierce Arrow motorbike badge. You can see a 1911 Pierce Arrow motorbike with the same badge in the front:
Jewelery (14K tri-color gold mens ring, sterling .925 ring and 34 gram sterling silver bracelet) :
Orphan Annie 1930's ID bracelet:
1800's Immaculate Heart of Mary medallion:
Toys:
And of course coins, including two 1937 buffalo nickles (unfortunately not the 3-legged variety), a 1943-S silver war nickle, two mercs, two rosies, and a 1909 wheatie in beautiful shape, but no matter how hard I squint it wouldn't turn into a 1909-S VDB
):
If you made it this far, thanks for reading my review and looking at the finds.
Brian
