Steve from Ohio
New member
I received my F-70 this afternoon. Good old UPS. The box looked like it went through a war. But the F-70 was undamaged.
With the F-70 you get batteries, a carry bag and a Fisher pin pointer. The bag is nice, but it should have an outside pocket with Velcro to carry extra batteries and headphones. Looks like I will have to modify it. Eventually I will get a hard case.
The Fisher pin pointer I am sorry to say is not a very good one. I tested it out and only got 3/4 of an inch in air and the same in the ground. I will stick with my Vibraprobe 570. If anyone has any thoughts on the Sunray probe for the F-75/ F70, please let me know how you like it and the performance it offers. Hey Fisher...instead of a pin pointer...how about giving us instead of the 10 inch coil, have the 11 inch DD from the F-75 as the standard coil for the F-70? Not that the 10 concentric is bad, but I feel that the 11" DD coil is the hot set up. Going to have to get one soon.
I was in my coin garden for about 2 and a half hours playing with the settings and I found the F-70 to be dead on when ID'ing targets. I found that the sounds the F-70 makes are very close to the sounds of the old White Spectrum so it was easy to adapt to what the F-70 was telling me. The numbers are very close to the same also.
I have a silver Mercury dime at 10 inches right next to a bottle cap at 5 inches.. they are two inches apart......my idea of an ultimate test for a detector. My Spectrum with a Hotshot coil is just barley able to see the coin, as the bottle cap just about kills the ability to see the coin. With the F-70, I was able to hear the coin and hear the bottle cap. It was a Dit Boom sound...the coin really stood out from the cap. My silver quarter at 12 inches was not a problem for the F-70. Zinc pennies ...easy to know if they are zinc or copper. Trash...no problem. My soil does have some iron and a little bit of trash when the house was built. It makes for a good typical hunt scenario.
I am very impressed with the ergonomics of the machine. Very light, easy to swing, very comfortable. The screen is easy to read but sun glare on the screen cover can be an issue. The programming is very easy and it will soon become second nature to anyone. The machine weighs 2 lbs 15 oz and feels like an extension of my arm. I did find the battery case hitting my side every once in a while. Not a real problem. I did notice that you really have to torque the locking collars in order to keep the lower stem from moving and making a slight click as you swing back and forth. Nothing you can hear, but you sure can feel it.
Out in the field, I was at a Yuppie park......one that has soccer fields and baseball diamonds.....no one plays baseball anymore it seems. The ball diamonds were built in the 70's and the soccer fields are newer.
So I knew there would not be too much old stuff there, but a lot of junk in the ground and a lot of clads.
In a little over an hour and a half, I found $3.25 in clad quarters, $1.50 in dimes 20 cents in nickles and 14 cents in pennies. The F-70 had no problem telling me if it was a zinc penny or a copper penny. The difference between sounds of dimes and pennies is slight but it is noticeable. I was able after just a short time to predict a penny or a dime.
The F-70 is really good at ID'ing nickles it seems. I was using 4H setting for tones. One of the nickles was a Buffalo with no date visible. The area was an old farm at one time. I found that at 9 inches down. I also found a gold men's wedding band and a silver half a heart ring. They were at about 6 inches each. This F-70 is already paying for itself!
I did find that if the numbers jump around as you move around the target, you can bet that the F-70 is telling you that it is almost always aluminum or trash in the ground.
I found that coins will always give out readings that are consistent almost every time. Rings are a little different. I found that they do change a little as you move around swinging over the target, but they do not jump around as badly as when hitting trash. When hitting a large chunk of metal that overloads the F-70, it groans. I thought at first it was going nuts, but it does pay to read the manual.
After an hour, the F-70 felt like an old friend. You know, when you and the machine work together. I have that relationship with my Spectrum and I think the Spectrum will have to take a back seat so I can get more time with the F-70. It will take a little time for me to know the menu by heart, but I think it will be easy and that will help me get the best performance this machine has to offer.
The F-70 in my opinion, is a great machine for areas with a lot of trash. I learned to go by sound to know what the detector is telling me, and use the screen only to verify my thought. I found that the F-70 was able to squelch the trash and let the coins sound off with no problem. I dug only one tab...on purpose to make sure that the F-70 was not lying to me.
In the field, coins really sing out and when little trash is around, pretty deep. One quarter from 1965 was down around 10 inches and the F-70 had no problem finding it.
It looks as if I will have to get myself a Lesche digger. The way the F-70 seems to be able to hit the deep coins, my serrated trowel just is not able to dig fast and deep.
Overall, so far, I would say the F-70 is a winner.
With the F-70 you get batteries, a carry bag and a Fisher pin pointer. The bag is nice, but it should have an outside pocket with Velcro to carry extra batteries and headphones. Looks like I will have to modify it. Eventually I will get a hard case.
The Fisher pin pointer I am sorry to say is not a very good one. I tested it out and only got 3/4 of an inch in air and the same in the ground. I will stick with my Vibraprobe 570. If anyone has any thoughts on the Sunray probe for the F-75/ F70, please let me know how you like it and the performance it offers. Hey Fisher...instead of a pin pointer...how about giving us instead of the 10 inch coil, have the 11 inch DD from the F-75 as the standard coil for the F-70? Not that the 10 concentric is bad, but I feel that the 11" DD coil is the hot set up. Going to have to get one soon.
I was in my coin garden for about 2 and a half hours playing with the settings and I found the F-70 to be dead on when ID'ing targets. I found that the sounds the F-70 makes are very close to the sounds of the old White Spectrum so it was easy to adapt to what the F-70 was telling me. The numbers are very close to the same also.
I have a silver Mercury dime at 10 inches right next to a bottle cap at 5 inches.. they are two inches apart......my idea of an ultimate test for a detector. My Spectrum with a Hotshot coil is just barley able to see the coin, as the bottle cap just about kills the ability to see the coin. With the F-70, I was able to hear the coin and hear the bottle cap. It was a Dit Boom sound...the coin really stood out from the cap. My silver quarter at 12 inches was not a problem for the F-70. Zinc pennies ...easy to know if they are zinc or copper. Trash...no problem. My soil does have some iron and a little bit of trash when the house was built. It makes for a good typical hunt scenario.
I am very impressed with the ergonomics of the machine. Very light, easy to swing, very comfortable. The screen is easy to read but sun glare on the screen cover can be an issue. The programming is very easy and it will soon become second nature to anyone. The machine weighs 2 lbs 15 oz and feels like an extension of my arm. I did find the battery case hitting my side every once in a while. Not a real problem. I did notice that you really have to torque the locking collars in order to keep the lower stem from moving and making a slight click as you swing back and forth. Nothing you can hear, but you sure can feel it.
Out in the field, I was at a Yuppie park......one that has soccer fields and baseball diamonds.....no one plays baseball anymore it seems. The ball diamonds were built in the 70's and the soccer fields are newer.
So I knew there would not be too much old stuff there, but a lot of junk in the ground and a lot of clads.
In a little over an hour and a half, I found $3.25 in clad quarters, $1.50 in dimes 20 cents in nickles and 14 cents in pennies. The F-70 had no problem telling me if it was a zinc penny or a copper penny. The difference between sounds of dimes and pennies is slight but it is noticeable. I was able after just a short time to predict a penny or a dime.
The F-70 is really good at ID'ing nickles it seems. I was using 4H setting for tones. One of the nickles was a Buffalo with no date visible. The area was an old farm at one time. I found that at 9 inches down. I also found a gold men's wedding band and a silver half a heart ring. They were at about 6 inches each. This F-70 is already paying for itself!
I did find that if the numbers jump around as you move around the target, you can bet that the F-70 is telling you that it is almost always aluminum or trash in the ground.
I found that coins will always give out readings that are consistent almost every time. Rings are a little different. I found that they do change a little as you move around swinging over the target, but they do not jump around as badly as when hitting trash. When hitting a large chunk of metal that overloads the F-70, it groans. I thought at first it was going nuts, but it does pay to read the manual.
After an hour, the F-70 felt like an old friend. You know, when you and the machine work together. I have that relationship with my Spectrum and I think the Spectrum will have to take a back seat so I can get more time with the F-70. It will take a little time for me to know the menu by heart, but I think it will be easy and that will help me get the best performance this machine has to offer.
The F-70 in my opinion, is a great machine for areas with a lot of trash. I learned to go by sound to know what the detector is telling me, and use the screen only to verify my thought. I found that the F-70 was able to squelch the trash and let the coins sound off with no problem. I dug only one tab...on purpose to make sure that the F-70 was not lying to me.
In the field, coins really sing out and when little trash is around, pretty deep. One quarter from 1965 was down around 10 inches and the F-70 had no problem finding it.
It looks as if I will have to get myself a Lesche digger. The way the F-70 seems to be able to hit the deep coins, my serrated trowel just is not able to dig fast and deep.
Overall, so far, I would say the F-70 is a winner.
