Fisher F75 finds

[Goldpick]

Hi folks, the F75 arrived this morning direct from First Texas in the US, had to wait till after work to unpack and set up the detector which is always good fun on a new machine. The detector was ordered through a dealer, though they did indicate that some stock will come direct from the states. Not a real issue as it arrived under two weeks, which is pretty good for foreign shipping.

Once assembled, as expected the F75 has good balance and a comfortable grip position, the screen layout is excellent and very easy to read/navigate through. The backlighting is especially good, nice soft glow for night detecting without compromising my night vision too much.

A couple of advantages this detector has over its close cousin, the Teknetics T2, is that it will save your settings each time the detector is powered off/on, and the iron range is more compressed vs the expanded iron range on the T2 (similar to the differences between the Red Racer and Racer 2). The T2 is touted to be more ideal for relic hunting when searching for iron artefacts (more typical of the European detecting scene), whereas the F75 is more suited to coin/jewellery detecting. Other differences include the F75 being the more sensitive of the two, and also being able to run concentric coils. Coils are not compatible between the two detectors.

Overall very easy to assemble, comes with a skid plate, shaft camlocks and two coil cable velcro ties to keep things in place. Similarities to the Racer 2 include the toggle switch under the control box for pinpointing and ground grab, as well as the rotary switch on the rear for on/off and volume. The F75 weighs 200grams more than the Racer, though it is better balanced than the slightly nose heavy Racer. Good to see that the rear speaker is placed well off the ground, so shouldn't be any issues with soil/moisture ingress.

Having only two controls to use for navigating the on screen menus (push button & rotary dial), it should make for easy changes on the fly, especially at night where it can be a pain fumbling over multiple press pad controls.

I have a set of protective camo covers to fit out the F75 with which were sourced from the UK (pics to follow), plus a smaller NEL Sharpshooter coil was also ordered to offer greater separation in the trashier areas over the stock 11" coil (the more expensive packages usually include the 5" round DD).

I haven't had the chance to run though the settings and processes at this stage, will hopefully head out tomorrow to suss out what tone setting best suit my ears, and have a play with the settings.

 

[Chewy]

Very nice GP. Congrats on the latest addition.

 

[silver]

This'll be interesting Gp
Looking forward to the action ! 8)

 

[Goldpick]

I've always wondered why this detector isn't more popular here in Oz, guess there is only one way to find out by putting coil to the ground.

 

[Danny13]

looks the goods , will be following your thread mate

 

[Heatho]

Awesome!!! Really keen to see how you go with it GP, best of luck.

 

[Goldpick]

Thanks guys, I didn't end up going out today for a detect, figured I should sit at home first to get a handle on this new detector first.

Things are not as straight forward as it seems with this machine, including up scaling of ID numbers when working around iron, lower coin ID's than I am typically used to (similar to the lower Racer ID's), two distinct sensitivity levels, with decent depth still achievable even on a sensitivity setting of "0", and a plethora of tone & process settings to try and get my head around to name a few. Another thing I noticed is that you do not lose a hell of a lot of depth between discrimination and all-metal modes.

Things I do particularly like are VCO in the single and 2 tone settings, and the Delta Pitch tone setting which is kind of reminiscent of full tones on the Deus, with a different tone allocated to each ID number (full spectrum of tones). What I can say, on paper you get a pretty feature packed detector for not a huge outlay, looks like a pretty impressive and powerful machine so far.

The price of this detector ($850) is probably due to new Fisher products coming out in the not too distant future, plus also to compete against the likes of Nokta/Makro who have eaten into their market to a degree.

First job today was to cut out and fit a laminated protector for the screen to prevent any scratching from foreign material that might get under control box cover. A good piece of insurance to ensure the detector retains some sort of resale value.

Second job was to fit the four piece camo neoprene protective cover kit, sourced from "Pro-tectors" in the UK. I ended up leaving off the grip cover off due to preferring the stock grip thickness.

Last up was to mount the Deteknix wireless dongle to the shaft for cord free detecting.

 

[Heatho]

Looks great GP, ready to rocknroll.

 

[Danny13]

Great price , will be good to see how it goes goldpick

 

[B5MECH]

Nice GP looks cool and ready for combat

 

[Goldpick]

Had a real brief run last night with the F75, definitely not a turn on and go detector with regards to sensitivity settings and tone options than say the more simple G2/Goldbug Pro, or even the Deus.

It sounds off on so many small non-ferrous targets in the ground using the larger 11" coil on default sensitivity settings, this thing is extremely sensitive. So much so that it will pick up on my pinpointer if held at waist height (turned off), or if stored in my finds pouch, so might have to look at carrying it on the back of my belt. I really need to drop the sensitivity a fair bit more to see how it goes on deeper targets whilst at the same time not sounding off on the shallower small junk targets. On the upside my first decent target to open my account with the F75 was a $1 coin down about 5", and that sounded off like it was nearly on surface. I still haven't found a tone preference that will allow me to detect via audio only as yet, that will take some practice across the range of tones on offer.

The stability of the target ID's can fluctuate a fair bit, in comparison the G2 gives off rock solid ID's that barely waver by a digit either way. I feel that this detector will benefit from a smaller coil over the stock 11" coil, simply to cut down the amount of targets under the coil at any one time. Hopefully this will tighten up the ID's of good targets without being influenced so much by other nearby targets. It appears that many owners in the US do run with either the 5" or 9x10" coil for general coin shooting over the stock coil.

One thing to note is that the screen backlighting is on all the time, with no option to turn it off, the brightness is just about perfect for night detecting, and has negligible draw on the batteries.

I ran mostly on the default and jewellery processes, varying between 3 & 4 tones, plus delta pitch, and with discrim on 15. Sensitivity was set till it was stable with no background chatter, even then I think it was still a little on the high side.

Next trip will be to some older sites where the single and 2 tone modes will be used, and where I usually dig all non-ferrous targets.

Forgot to add that this detector will pick up a $2 coin at 5-6" on an air test with sensitivity set to "0", so you don't need to go crazy on the settings if cherry picking goldies.

 

[Heatho]

Great write up GP, sounds like it will be a great detector once you find a happy medium with the settings and get a proper feel for it.

 

[Goldpick]

Suppose I can't expect to master it in two days, not that I expected to.

From what I've seen so far, not really a detector I'd recommend for a beginner, some will most likely find it frustrating to setup straight out of the box.

 

[Goldtarget]

I'm only commenting as I have a bit of time on one GP, and of course it will come down to preference and conditions but I rum am, 2 tone, sens around 80, slight negative gb and start with reliable id, working my back to scratchy tones. If you don't want to drop to the smaller coil you can turn the 11 more toward horizontal with the grip (right handed so I curl my wrist left) to get coil edge between 2 targets. In high emi there's not a huge difference in sens from say 40 to mid 80, but as I'm used to the tones and id flicker between 2 targets I rarely turn it down unless the emi is flicking the id around. You can notch out any range and add ranges if your looking for particular id scales, it will just null out unwanted tones then back into am to PP when you find a target. Probably the true genius in its programming.
PP sens is set at max 60 so sometimes you have to hunt with the handheld on deeper tones.
If stuck between targets, faster swings is better than slow, counter intuitive but the id averages become clearer instead of averaging. Example half penny with a steel object masking over the top will show wavering id around 38- 55, but if you swing a little quicker where the signal can hit more of the hp it will flash more of the correct Id for the hp and show a more 15 (iron) and 60-64 (hp) as two different signals.
I'm following with interest to see where you rate it among your experience against other machines.

 

[Goldpick]

Thanks for that GT, I did read about the need to keep the swing speed up, just another characteristic of this detector to get used to. The park I had a quick run in is reasonably devoid of good targets, so there was't much to really test the f75 out on other than the odd jumpy junk target. Will see how I go on an older site using 2 tone in the next day or two, am still waiting for the small coil to arrive, so haven't had the chance to compare as yet.

 

[joao garimpeiro]

Nice Great machine GP
I wish good luck

 

[Goldpick]

Thanks mate, good to see you back on the forum again.

 

[Goldpick]

Today I had a run over a pummelled Victorian era site that is laden with iron to see what the F75 could find. Unfortunately not much in the way of finds today other than a few buttons, though the gold gilded broach inlaid with some black gems was a little unexpected.

I tried a few of the tone settings on the F75, and found none of the multi-tone options were of much use over the more iron laden areas, preferring single tone VCO with ferrous knocked out and 2 tone with low iron volume (relic modes). I ran with the "Fast process" closer to the areas laden with iron, and reverted to "default process" for added penetration in the cleaner areas. On discrimination setting of 15, you still get a fair bit of feedback from the larger rusted iron objects, so much so that I found it difficult going in 3, 4 or delta pitch tone modes, hence preferring to revert back to single or two tones.

In that respect I much prefer the audio feedback amongst iron on the Deus using full tones, delta pitch (full range of tones) doesn't flow as smoothly on the F75, nor have the finesse of the Deus fulltones. I did dig a few iron items that gave off a positive repeatable tone, most were quite deep, and might have been easier to ID if sitting shallower.

Despite the constant one way tones of iron trying to break through the discrimination in single tone, good targets were still reasonably easy to pick out being repeatable from most directions and with reasonably stable numbers.

Still have to get used to the two stage sensitivity settings, I may have been running the detector a bit "hot" for the conditions, so really need to find a compromise setting that will still give good penetration, whilst also not highlighting the iron too much.

I also noticed some touch sensitivity on the 11" coil after using fast grab to ground balance, even though the soil in the area only reads about 58-60 on the ground phase, if you bumped the coil on the ground or on tree roots, it would give off a quick chirp at times. Might have to play around with the manual GB adjustment, as it seems to be running slightly positive, though nothing I couldn't live with (yes I did GB on clean ground).

Things that I did like on the F75 was the sensitivity to small items, with low conductor buttons ringing out loud and clear as if they were a lot closer to the surface than they actually were. Also the depth capability was pretty impressive, with the pair of iron chain links clearly sounding off from around 12". I also did a quick test and buried a $1 coin at 10 inches whilst out in the field, and it had no issues picking it up using the default process setting, though the coin signal wasn't repeatable using the faster recovery "fast mode". (as one might expect).

One thing I really have to get used to is the swing speed, as GT mentioned, it does ID both visually and tonally with more confindence at speed vs lingering around the target.

The detector weight wasn't an issue after 3 hours of detecting, although trying to keep the sweep speed up in relatively confined areas can be a bit of a challenge with the 11" coil.

The 11" coil actually wasn't really suited to this area, really needs the use of a smaller coil to isolate targets better from the iron, will see how the NEL Sharpshooter compares when it arrives.

The Deteknix wireless system that was fitted to the F75 worked a charm, so no issues there. As with the Racer 2, the speaker placement under the battery compartment really does let it down when working noisy areas, even worse with covers fitted, hence headphones are a must.

As for ease of use, if you want to simple to set up and operate detector with fast recovery speed from the First Texas stable, I reckon the Teknetics G2/G2+ or Fisher Goldbug Pro/F19 would be more the go, being a little less involved than the F75. You can generally run those detectors fully cranked on the sensitivity and yet they will remain very stable and still achieve solid ID's on sites like this. The only real downside to those mentioned detectors is depth capability on high conductors, yet on iron laden areas like this, you will probably struggle to get any "see through" ability to hit on the deeper targets.

There's no doubting that there are distinct similarities between the F75 and the Makro Racer, the exception being that the Racer is probably a little more user friendly, and I may actually prefer the tones on the Racer. Still early days, a long way to go yet before feeling comfortable/confident with the F75.

Enough babbling, here's my meagre finds for the day.

 

[B5MECH]

Looking like a good one Do you run iron audio in a site like that?

 

[Goldpick]

Yes and no, for detecting new areas I'll have it running at low volume in the background for picking out areas of previous habitation, for known areas I usually have iron knocked out to retain some sanity. One of those personal preference things, some are happy to hear constant iron grunting all day.