Those familiar with the Fisher F70 will see the similarities right away.  It has the same easy to read LCD and button layout, and is based off of the same tried and proven 13khz platform as it’s older brother/sister F75 and T2.   The 4X AA batteries placed directly under the arm cuff will give you roughly 40 hours of run time and provide an excellent counter-balance to the already lightweight 11 inch Bi-Axial (DD) search coil at the front.   With balance like that - and then only weighing in at 2.9lbs - swinging this Patriot all day is about as enjoyable as it gets in this hobby.  No silly harness needed here like some other heavy professional grade detectors - and let us be clear - this is one serious detector. 

 This Patriot I tested had no problems air testing a US silver quarter at 14 inches in the Auto-Tune (all-metal) mode with sensitivity at 90 (adjustable from 1-99)...and threshold at +1 (adjustable from -9  to +9).  I felt that was the “sweet” spot with this Patriot with a nice audible hum.

Setting the discrimination at 15 which is the end of the iron range and where many would hunt in real world situations - it hit the silver quarter repeatedly at 12 inches.   That is again with sensitivity at 90 (adjustable from 1-99)...and threshold at +1 (adjustable from -9  to +9).   But it did not stop there…

The “threshold” setting in disc mode does NOT produce an audible hum like in the all-metal (AT) mode.  It is used as target size filter of sorts.  So I could actually raise it further and use it to boost the sensitivity of the machine to deeper and smaller objects.   Pushing the threshold higher to +4 started to produce a bit of chatter but pushed the dime to 13 inches.  Nearly as far as the all-metal (AT) tests.  

Air-testing is obviously not for everybody.   How about a 1936 Wheat Penny at 8 inches in a VERY mineralized Colorado soil?  The Pin Point push button feature showed 8 inches on the LCD display and it was true to it’s word.  I actually had to sit back and give a laugh at some of the deep 8-9-10 inch coins it was producing in some very bad soil.  The same nasty Colorado soil that sent other detectors into fits and limited their depth to the 4-5 inch range.   The Patriot sliced through this soil like butter.  The depth indicator bars and Pin Point button information being spot on each time for coin sized targets which they are calibrated for.

That was in the “dE” speed setting...which stands for default.   It is the normal and quite fast “speed” setting for both (AT) and discrimination settings.  It is what you will want to use 90% of the time.  There is also the “SL” or “slow” speed setting that will give an extra bit of depth.   The trade off being stability to EMI and bad soil.  I found it to be quite deep and providing a superior ID on deeper targets as long as the swing speed was kept “slow” as the name implies.   

Speaking of ground balancing, it has a button called (GG) which stands for “Ground Grab”.  It allows a quick ground phase adjustment to your soil by pressing the button and pumping the coil from 1-6 inches off the ground.  It is fast, extremely accurate, and can quick grab to salt for you beach hunters out there.

For coin hunters out there it has an easy to read LCD display showing a 1-99 target ID and 8 target categories (Iron, Foil,5c,Tab,,Zinc,Dime,25c,50c).  A variety of tones from 1 to 4 with an “H” setting for each that will provide high tone breaks points.  A “DP” setting which stands for “Delta Pitch” will provide 99 different tones according to each ID.   Many veterans swear by it.  A confidence meter will provide 4 bars of well…”confidence”...according to how well the machine thinks it matches the ID.    

For the relic hunter in all of us, there is a “Dirt” meter than will provide 4 bars showing mineralization in your current soil.  A very handy feature. 

Sticking to the relic topic - I decided to place 3 nails in a triangular pattern about 4 inches from each other.  Setting the disc at 15 eliminated their presence completely.   I placed a 1950 wheat penny directly in the middle of the nails and it immediately high toned in the Tone 3 setting from every angle.  Then  placing a nail directly on top of the penny again produced a clear high tone.  How this Patriot gets this 11DD to separate and unmask so well is a mystery.  With the optional 5in DD sniper coil there is nothing it won’t be able to handle.   Even gold prospecting, as it will sound off at 2-3 inches on a sub gram picker.  Larger nuggets will sing like a bird.

For the city hunters who need to deal with EMI is has the option to shift through 7 side frequencies in the 13khz range.  F1-F7.  A great feature that can really save the day where WIFI and cellular signals are prevalent.  I did not have any issues with EMI from any of the 7 settings.  Often being able to max out at 99 sens and +1 threshold with no chatter.

For the MSRP of $449.00 it becomes very obvious that Teknetics was spot on with their statement that The Patriot restructures the price to performance landscape.  Nothing else comes close at this price for land based metal detecting.  Nothing.   The performance and features found on this detector - for this price - will put other manufacturers on notice immediately.    

The Ameritek Patriot from Teknetics.   A detector that will make many owners proud to use it - at a price they can be proud of as well.