OOOPS! B4 You call Fisher and send it back...............

[Steve from Ohio]

I did an OOPS today.

I was testing my F-70 in my coin garden and I could not pick up anything. I mean not even a penny at 4 inches. What the heck I'm thinking to myself. When I first got my F-70, it was great. Ran really great and I was finding stuff pretty deep. But today it was different.

The F-70 was falsing all over the place and was not acting very smooth. I tried putting a quarter on top of the ground and the F-70 was not even hitting that very well and not reading it correctly. The F70 was saying dime, foil and iron almost at the same time. I was perplexed and wondering if my new F-70 was broken. I tried everything changing settings all over the place. Seemed the more I did, the worse it got. I started to hate the F-70. I knew it couldn't be possibly me.

I for the life of me could not figure out what I was doing or what the F-70 was doing. So I called Fisher and customer Technical service.

Dennis at Fisher was helping me out and gave me some things to try. I did a restart and that did not help. I tried new batteries and that did not help. I even went to a park to try and get it working right. That did not help.

So I called Fisher again and Dennis said to send it in for Fisher to have a look.

I sat outside with the F-70 and stared at the screen trying to figure what was wrong. I even started to read the instruction manual. (yeah I should have read it even before putting it together.) Then it hit me...it was in the manual all the time........DUHHHHH.......Do a Ground grab and then do a dirt pump. (pump the machine up and down without hitting any buttons at all)

TA DA!!!!!! I was getting great depth and hitting coins in the well hit park. Even in Discrimination mode. Depth was superb in both Discrimination and Autotune. The F-70 was running smooth again like it did when I first used it. I even hit a nickle that read 11 inches on the screen in the discrimination mode. I dug it up and measured.
10 and a half inches. Close enough for me!!!!!

I noticed that if I get into areas that changed from good old soil to clay or iron particles, I did a ground grab and then a dirt pump. The F-70 was then again stable and able to find stuff I never was able to find with my old White Eagle Spectrum. Several clad dimes at 9 inches and a few quarters at 7. I went to a volleyball pit with two feet of sand. The F-70 started acting up again so I did a ground grab and a dirt pump and it smoothed right out. I scanned the volleyball pit in Autotune and hit on a quarter. Did a pinpoint and it read 14 inches. I thought to myself.....no way. Well Waaayyyyyyyy..............darned if it was down really deep. Like about 14 inches.

So if you are still not getting the most from your F-70, read the manual, do a ground grab and then a dirt pump. If it acts up as you are moving about, do another ground grab and another dirt pump. Do that as often as needed and you will be amazed how well the F-70 works.

Man I really am beginning to really like the F70.

 

[tony (Orlando FL)]

n/t

 

[Steve from Ohio]

It depends. I was getting 64 in my yard and 72 in the park where they used a lot of iron loaded back fill. I also learned that if it is less than 40, you need to ground grab in Autotune. I guess I'll have to remember that when I'm on the beaches of Sarasota this winter.

 

[John(Tx)]

If you ground grab balance, what does the dirt pump have to do with the performance? Am I missing something? Thanks for the help. John

 

[D&P-OR]

I thought the dirt bar graph was just to measure the magnetic mineralization (magnetic susceptibility) in the ground.--G.B. can have a BIG effect on depth.--Could it be that your ground conditions were changeing so often that you needed to fast grab VERY often?--In any case it worked for you & hey---that's all that mattered.---Thanks for shareing that info with us--I'm going to remember it if I get in that situation.-------Del

 

[Streak!]

unless there is some sort of secret process going on....I thought the Dirt meter was only for telling you the amount of mineralization. Pump it and it displays bars. Never heard of it actually making any sort of adjustment like groundbalance or anything.

 

[Steve from Ohio]

John and Streak, I should have been more explicit about the dirt pump. Didn't mean to confuse anyone.........I really did not pay attention to the dirt indicator and I found out that it gives a good indication of how mineralized the ground is. I found that if the F70 started to act up, I did a dirt pump to find out if the ground changed. You probably already know this but I found out from reading the darned instructions that I did not read until just the other day, that it gives information if you have to re-ground balance to compensate for the mineralization. Something I did not do previously and it seems that the last time I was out at an old school, I must have made some changes that were saved and were useless in my coin garden and the park. I found that in highly mineralized areas, it is best for depth to use autotune. Something I just found out about in the manual. And I read that if you use Autotune, then you should ground balance. I now ground balance more often where as before I did it only once when I first started in an area to hunt. And for some strange reason, I did not ground balance at all today and that was my mistake that made me wonder if I was going crazy.

It's hell getting old! And you would think by now I would have learned that I should read the instructions.

And I found out that the dirt pump will give me an idea on how good the performance as far as depth goes will be. I was getting frustrated at some of the older schools in Ohio because when I would detect the school grounds with the F 70, there were areas that I just could not detect no how no way. I found out that when they put sewers in back in the 1930-1970's, they used slag from the steel mills in Cleveland as back fill. A local school which was built in 1917 has several areas that are filled with this stuff and the dirt pump made me realize that I was only going to be able to get down about 3 inches no matter what. In those situations, I guess that I will have to switch to my Explorer SE in those areas because it has an iron mask. No matter how I adjusted the F70 in those areas, it would just not adjust well enough for any depth. And it still was a little bit unstable. I thought I was going crazy because the F 70 was just not working in my garden and in the school ground.........they both have a lot of iron in them.

So far though I am happy with the F70. Lots faster than the Explorer.....I think I will keep both.

 

[John(Tx)]

Thanks for the explanation Steve, now I understand what you meant. I always GB the F70 and the only place I've ever had a problem was in a rodeo arena, couldn't get the F70 to get of 99 GB, it wasn't till I got home and started playing with the machine that I found out it works better in HZ F7 than F4, it actually GB's better. Must be the salt from the horse urine. Don't know about the HZ though.....Good hunting. John

 

[BeachBadger]

Yep.....You got it! I had the same situation with my F5 when I was moving from dry sand to the wet/ocean tide line. You have to keep an eye (and ear) out for changing conditions. Ground Balancing every so often does wonders for increased accuracy. Especially when the unit starts acting freaky and the LCD identifications and tones jump around.